Myanmar has one of the most challenging environments for the practice of journalism in Asia.  With its history of military rule and weak civic institutions, the effort to build a strong, independent, and socially responsible press has to contend with draconian laws, rabid intolerance, repression and persecution.  It is an environment that calls for journalists of uncommon will, professional independence, and a strong sense of justice.

Such a journalist is forty-one-year-old KO SWE WIN.  Born to a poor family in Yangon, he grew up in politically turbulent times and fell victim to state repression early on.  In 1998, he was a university student when he was arrested with sixty-seven others for participating in a student demonstration and distributing propaganda materials against the ruling military junta.  Sentenced to twenty-one years in jail, he was tortured and starved but would turn prison into a learning experience.  He studied English, deepened his Buddhist faith, and did a lot of meditation.  Released after seven years in prison, he studied journalism, doing an online undergraduate program and with a scholarship, finished a master’s degree in journalism at Hong Kong University in 2009.   He worked for a magazine in Thailand, and then, intent on being “where the action was,” returned to Yangon in 2012.

In Yangon, he started as a stringer for Al Jazeera and New York Times and even set up a short-lived, self-financed internet news service. The first important opportunity came when Myanmar Now was launched in 2015, with seed financing from the Thomson Reuters Foundation. Myanmar Now is an independent online news service focused on long-form investigative reports in both Burmese and English, available for syndication.  With SWE WIN as editor-in-chief since 2016, the news service has built a strong reputation for well-researched, in-depth articles on critically selected, underreported human rights and social justice issues.

SWE WIN has continued to face daunting challenges. In 2017, he criticized a powerful, ultranationalist Buddhist monk, Ashin Wirathu, for purveying “hate speech” and publicly commending the killer of a Muslim human rights activist.  Wirathu, SWE WIN wrote, had desecrated Buddhism and should be punished for endorsing assassination and fomenting hate.  SWE WIN was sued for defamation, physically assaulted by Wirathu’s supporters, and briefly jailed on the trumped-up charge that he tried to leave the country while on bail.  Illustrating how the law can be bent by the powerful, the trial was held in a location that required SWE WIN to take a 780-mile road trip to and from the trial, which was purposely dragged out such that SWE WIN had to do a total of seventy-one trips at great personal inconvenience and cost.  A case of blatant harassment, the judge finally dropped the case on July 2, 2019 for the plaintiff’s protracted non-appearance at court hearings.

SWE WIN and Myanmar Now draw strength from the fact that they are making a difference.  With a current readership of 350,000, the news service is highly regarded for the quality, balance, and depth of its reporting on high-impact issues, including land grabbing, child labor, and abuse of domestic workers.  It exposed anomalies in the Myanmar Human Rights Commission; in a political indoctrination program ran by the army for civil servants; in the secret operation of some fifty prison labor camps where prisoners are made to work in quarries and mines; and in the activities of the Association for the Protection of Race and Religion, a movement of xenophobic, anti-Muslim extremists.  SWE WIN is encouraged that public awareness has been raised and government has responded positively in a number of cases, punishing officials or changing policies.

A growing problem in Myanmar and the world, SWE WIN says, is “intolerance and hostility towards different races and nationalities being exploited as a political weapon.”  “Only the promotion of human rights,” he says, “can help us contain this deplorable trend.”

In electing KO SWE WIN to receive the 2019 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Emergent Leadership, the board of trustees recognizes his undaunted commitment to practice independent, ethical, and socially engaged journalism in Myanmar; his incorruptible sense of justice and unflinching pursuit of the truth in crucial but underreported issues; and his resolute insistence that it is in the quality and force of media’s truth-telling that we can convincingly protect human rights in the world.

First, I would like to thank Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation for giving me this prestigious award in Asia.

But I feel deeply humbled by the fact that there are so many out there in our country and various parts of the world ”more selfless and more honest than I am but who have been never recognized for the services they render to their respective societies.

I am the seventh person from Myanmar ”and the second journalist ”to receive this award. The first Myanmar journalist and one of the earliest recipients of this award is Mr. Edward Michael Law-Yone, who founded the Nation newspaper in 1948. That was one of the most influential newspapers in Southeast Asia.

After the first military coup in 1962, Michael Law-Yone was jailed for five years and later forced to leave the country. Professional journalism had been lost in our country since then. The state of oppression, which forced Mr. Law-Yone to leave his beloved country, has relaxed to some extent following some democratic changes initiated since 2011.

According to the current constitution, however, the military remains the most dominant force, which controls key ministries and holds one quarter of seats in the legislature.

The predominance of the military’s role, combined with the continued armed clashes in a number of ethnic minorities and the rise of nationalism, is the major challenge facing the independent media in Myanmar.  This situation constantly instills a sense of threat into civil life and the news media circle.

But having passed through various political and social turbulences over the past decades, we have developed a great resilience and a tremendous amount of patience for the problems in our country. None of the people I know in Myanmar expect change to happen overnight, but we have a firm belief that we are not on the right path towards democracy and liberty as long as the supremacy of civilian rule has not come into fruition.

In this context, journalism plays a crucial role ”the kind of journalism that seeks the truth, that protects the fundamental rights of human beings, that is not colored by political and religious dogmas and, above all, that is driven not by animosities against anyone or any entity but by a great compassion for the most unfortunate communities and individuals in a society.

Even though an independent press or press freedom is mostly a by-product of a democratic political system, we are confident that the press can play a vibrant causal role for the growth of democracy and liberty in Myanmar and many other countries in Asia.

In Myanmar, a process of democratization is underway after decades of isolation, economic stagnation, and social instability due to war and state repression. In a transition that is complex and uncertain, the building of social cohesion and a strong civil society is crucial to the country’s pursuit of peace and prosperity. Fifty-five-year-old KYAW THU is an exceptional figure in this story. KYAW THU is a hugely popular, award-winning actor in Myanmar who has acted and directed in over two hundred films; scion of a wealthy family in the movie business, he is professionally successful and socially privileged. Yet, he lives simply and is a devout Buddhist.

In 2001, with a colleague in the movies, he founded Free Funeral Services Society (FFSS) in Yangon, to help relieve the emotional and financial burden of the poor in properly burying their dead. Such a public service is both essential and unique in a predominantly Buddhist society where the proper funerary rites are crucially important but often beyond reach because of high costs, the lack of state welfare assistance, and the taboos surrounding the handling of the dead. Starting with just a single hearse, FFSS has grown to become not only a provider of free funeral services but also of a whole complex of social services. FFSS operates almost entirely through private donations and hundreds of volunteers. Its free funeral services cover everything from caskets, a fleet of hearses, mortuary facilities, burial and cremation, and funeral coordinators. To date, FFSS has undertaken over 150,000 free funeral services.

Caring not just for the dead but also for the living, FFSS opened a charity clinic manned by fifty volunteer doctors and a full staff. With five ambulances and 24-hour medical emergency response service, it offers services from maternal and dental care to blood transfusions and eye surgeries. It has provided health care to over 143,000 patients since it opened in 2007. An FFSS school offers free vocational training courses, classes for children, review classes for academic qualification examinations, and a library. FFSS also mobilizes and provides humanitarian assistance to refugees, and to victims of war and natural disasters. The society’s services are freely available to all in need, irrespective of ethnicity or religion.

KYAW THU leads all these efforts. He has used his personal funds, and his popularity as an actor has generated donations and support from all sectors. In a country where people handling the dead, like coffin makers and gravediggers, are viewed as lowly social outcasts, KYAW THU has himself carried coffins and driven the funeral hearse. He gives talks all over the country to spread the virtues of kindness and volunteerism. His example has inspired others in Myanmar to form free funeral service and other self-help groups.

His work goes beyond simple philanthropy. He has lent his prominence to other causes: distributing food and water to protesting monks during the 2007 “Saffron Revolution”; sending ambulances to aid student demonstrators recently protesting restrictive government policies; and publicly expressing his opinions on social issues. He and his wife have been detained; he was barred from filming or acting from 2007 to 2012; and FFSS has been harassed by authorities uneasy about KYAW THU’s influence. All these have not deterred him; they have only further enhanced his moral authority.

KYAW THU has no political ambitions and aspires neither for power nor greater glory. Driven by unbounded altruism, he says: “As an actor, I used to crave publicity, and chased after money and fame; now I want nothing else but to help those in need.”

In electing KYAW THU to receive the 2015 Ramon Magsaysay Award, the board of trustees recognizes his generous compassion in addressing the fundamental needs of both the living and the dead in Myanmar—regardless of their class or religion—and his channeling personal fame and privilege to mobilize many others toward serving the greater social good.

Mingalar Par; an auspicious day to you all!

First of all, I am truly honored and grateful to receive this recognition from the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation and its Board of Trustees for my public service.

Today also marks our 34th wedding anniversary. My wife, Myint Myint Khin Pe (Shwe Zee Kwet) has tirelessly walked hand in hand with me in providing philanthropic services. This prestigious award, which I receive today, fulfills a sense of completeness towards our meaningful wedding anniversary.

As I accept this award, I would like to honor and dedicate this to the late U Thukha, my mentor and co-founder of the Free Funeral Service Society (Yangon). While we are witnessing the political transition in my country, Myanmar, this award is a true inspiration for me, for our society and for all those associations in our country which actively engage in charitable work and public service.

I have always believed that in movies, we actors or artists represent the true lives of our people—their feeling is my personal feeling. With this in mind, I have entered the world of noble work.

Although our organization was established in 2001 with the singular aim of offering free funeral services, we have since extended our services to various areas. Our interventions now include free health care services, free education, natural disaster response, humanitarian assistance to war victims, etc. Through development work and humanitarian assistance, we promote public participation and enhance public knowledge in the development of civil society in our country.

Public services in Myanmar have been deteriorating. We are trying our best to address issues where we can, and we are pleased with what we have done so far. However, in the long-run, the government should establish institutionalized policies, regulations and legal frameworks; and they should implement these systematically.

Although the process of democratic reforms is underway, I still see no difference in the people’s lives, especially the disadvantaged. I have witnessed this during my visits to various regions across the country, where I deliver philanthropic talks, attend ceremonies to open free healthcare clinics, and participate in dialogues, community events or meetings among social workers.

Despite the fact that we have increasing numbers of civil society organizations, we still have a lot to do to influence change in government policies to improve our economic and social environment. In Myanmar, there is a decline in moral standards and a worrisome trend towards materialism. The road towards our democratization, in my opinion, entails strong civil society organizations that can truly represent the voice of our people and hold the government responsible and accountable to the people.

Today, I accept this award on behalf of the women and men of Myanmar who join hands with me in building a better nation. For in the depths of my heart, this award is much more than an honor. It is a source of strength and inspiration for me and my people.

To conclude, I would like to express my sincere gratitude:

To the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation;

To my father U Sein Tin and my mother Daw Mya Than, who are here with me today;

To my wife, who has given me strength, encouragement and inspiration to live an ethical life and a life worth sharing;

To my daughter Myint-Mo Oo and her family, and my son Phyi Thein Kyaw—my beloved children towards whom I was not able to give my full fatherly love and care, but who willingly accepted and understood my time, commitment and contributions to public service.

I would also like to thank the staff, social workers and volunteers of the Free Funeral Service Society (Yangon), other organizations from all over Myanmar, and generous donors from Myanmar and abroad, all those who help in our work.

Last, but not least, I would like to thank Myanmar’s military regime, which in a way pushed me to have philanthropic motives, motives that triggered me to enter the world of service to the larger social good.

Myanmar is a country caught between its past and the future. The past is one of decades of ethnic strife in the world’s longest- running civil war, exacerbated by fifty years of a brutal military dictatorship that plunged the country into isolation, turning it into one of the least developed in the world. With the general elections in 2010, Myanmar has taken its first uncertain steps towards a more open and democratic future, by ending its isolation and instituting a civilian government. The past, however, is not quite past, and in creating its future Myanmar is faced with complex and difficult challenges.

A sixty-four-year-old widow and member of the Kachin ethnic minority, LAHPAI SENG RAW is at the forefront in facing these challenges. The daughter of a state-level public official and a teacher, she studied psychology at Yangon University. As a student, she personally experienced the military’s abusive rule when she was detained on the suspicion that she had communications with her brother who was in the Kachin insurgency. In 1987 she began to involve herself in relief work for internally displaced peoples in the Myanmar-China border. Moving to Bangkok in 1990, she then worked as development officer-in-charge in ROKA, the Kachin Independence Organization’s humanitarian wing. In 1997, with the help of faith-based groups and non-government organizations (NGOs), SENG RAW took the bold step of establishing, in military-ruled Burma, the NGO called Metta Development Foundation. Metta addressed the problems of population displacement and emergency relief in the country’s conflict zones, starting in northern Myanmar, where fighting between Kachin rebels and government forces had already displaced over seventy thousand people.

SENG RAW’s primary concern has always been that Metta build trust among all stakeholders through joint efforts in comprehensive, participative, long-term interventions. In agriculture, it has established more than six hundred farmer field schools (FFS), capacitating over fifty thousand farmers in improved farm and forest management. Metta also established schools and training centers in early childhood education. It introduced community-managed water, health and sanitation systems, and other health care projects. Metta provided funding and technical support for a wide range of livelihood projects. In 2008 when tropical cyclone Nargis devastated Myanmar—the worst natural disaster in the country’s recorded history—Metta‘s leadership, reach, and effectiveness was confirmed as it took the lead in a massive rehabilitation, reconstruction, and development effort that covered large sections of the country and benefited hundreds of thousands of cyclone victims. Under SENG RAW’s leadership, Metta has grown to be the largest NGO in Myanmar, with a staff of six hundred branches outside Yangon, and three research and training centers. Its various programs have reached over six hundred thousand people in 2,352 communities.

Working in a war-torn and socially fractured country, SENG RAW has shown both amazing courage and a unique ability to work with both government and rebels. She fully appreciates that in addressing conflict and instability, it is essential to build a foundation of stable, self-reliant communities. With this conviction, she has advocated an inclusive peace and reconciliation process in Myanmar. She has herself been an example of inclusiveness, and an embodiment of what metta means, “loving kindness.” A Kachin Christian—hence, twice a member of the minority—she has demonstrated tact and openness as a leader, working harmoniously with various groups across ethnic, religious, and political divides. After serving as Metta’s executive director for thirteen years, she has deliberately relinquished the position to empower a new generation of leaders. But she remains active in Myanmar’s NGO community, and in peace and development efforts.

In electing LAHPAI SENG RAW to receive the 2013 Ramon Magsaysay Award, the board of trustees recognizes her quietly inspiring and inclusive leadership—in the midst of deep ethnic divides and prolonged armed conflict—to regenerate and empower damaged communities and to strengthen local NGOs in promoting a non-violent culture of participation and dialogue as the foundation for Myanmar’s peaceful future.

Mingalar bah!

First of all, I wish to offer my heartfelt thanks to the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation and the Board of Trustees for acknowledging my work and including me in this year’s illustrious list of awardees. In a way, my work has come full circle with this award. Soon after founding the Metta Development Foundation, in 1999 I came to the Philippines to study the Farmer Field School programme, and it became a major cornerstone for our community-based programmes. So I think it is very fitting that I am being honoured for work that had its beginnings in the Philippines over a decade ago.

I am deeply honoured by this award, but also humbled in the knowledge that I owe it all to the host of wonderful friends, family, colleagues and partners at home and abroad, who have sustained me in my work with their wise counsel, help and encouragement. So I accept this award not as a personal honour, but as a celebration of our collective achievement.

I would like to offer my sincere thanks to the government of Myanmar, all ethnic leaders and communities for opening the door for me to initiate, openly and freely, programmes that would assist conflict- or natural disaster-affected communities across the country. I first embarked on the ‘development’ journey quite inadvertently, when in 1987 the late Maran Brang Seng, Chairman of the Kachin Independence Organisation, persuaded me to become involved in improving the situation of destitute people. Today, I thank him and the KIO leadership for directing me on this path.

Sadly, as is well known, the ceasefire with Kachin was not sustained. After seventeen years, fighting resumed in June 2011 with the result that villagers fleeing the conflict now make up a population of nearly one hundred thousand displaced persons. There are now over half a million refugees and internally displaced people around Myanmar and, as with all displaced and vulnerable people, the health and humanitarian needs are great.

Without lasting peace, there can be no real development. But the political will and the current dialogue among ethnic, national and government leaders provide hope for peaceful co-existence and harmony among peoples of different backgrounds. Thus I will continue to be involved, wherever possible, in coordinating efforts to ensure that the voices of the common people are heard in the ongoing peaceful transformation process.

My Magsaysay award, coming at this crucial period in our nation’s history, will—I trust—help draw national and international attention to the efforts to find lasting solutions for genuine peace that will include all peoples and faiths. The cause of democratic transition is greatly encouraged by your compassionate concern.

Thank you.

Cheju kaba sai.

In Burma, large-scale human rights abuses are being committed and natural resources despoiled by the ruling military regime. The voices of the victims have largely been silenced. One young man has decided that these voices should be heard in the outside world, and their legitimate concerns addressed. 

KA HSAW WA ceased to be a teenager abruptly and prematurely. As a seventeen year-old student activist in the anti-dictatorship demonstrations of 1988, he was arrested and tortured for three days by the military. Subsequently, in the aftermath of the student uprising of August 1988 when an estimated ten thousand people were killed, he fled to the jungle (as did many others) to seek refuge. His wanderings exposed him to scenes and stories of the horrible atrocities committed against ordinary villagers. He decided then, instead of taking up arms as an insurgent as he had planned, he would take up the pen, record the abuses, and find a way to get these stories out into the world. 

For five years, he talked to more than a thousand victims and witnesses of human rights and environmental abuses. Most of these abuses were connected to the building of the Yadana Gas Pipeline. Financed by the US-based Unocal and the French corporation Total, Yadana was then the largest foreign investment in Burma. In enforcing the project, the ruling junta, the project’s principal beneficiary, had militarized the area along the pipeline, dislocated communities, imposed forced labor, and damaged a rich, biodiverse environment. 

KA HSAW WA was later joined in his documentation work by a visiting law student, Katie Redford, who had entered Burma to investigate the human rights situation. In 1995, they founded EarthRights International; they were married the following year. EarthRights is a nonprofit organization with offices in the US and Thailand. It focuses on what it calls “earth rights,” the intersection of human rights and the environment, and combines “the power of law and the power of people” in defense of these rights. 

In 1996, EarthRights filed a case in the United States against Unocal with the help of private and public-interest lawyers. The suit alleged that Unocal was complicit in the human rights and environmental abuses committed by the Burmese military in the building of the Yadana pipeline. After nearly ten years of complicated litigation, Unocal agreed to compensate the eleven victim-petitioners in the case. The petitioners decided to commit substantial funds from the compensation to humanitarian relief for other victims. 

This precedent-setting case has served as a warning to the Burmese government and to multinationals investing in Burma. It has also inspired KA HSAW WA and EarthRights to investigate other infrastructure projects in Burma and the larger Mekong Region, such as the mega-dams along the Mekong River and the Shwe natural gas pipeline project in which Burma’s military junta is collaborating with foreign investors. 

EarthRights does much more than litigation-related work. It carries out research, publication, and advocacy on behalf of the people of Burma. It maintains EarthRights Schools in Thailand, training young people from Burma and other countries in nonviolent social change, environmental monitoring, and community organizing. Its network of alumni has become, for EarthRights, an important resource for mutual assistance and information sharing. Equally important, the network has inspired EarthRights to hope that by training young people from Burma and neighboring countries it is planting the seeds of civil society throughout the region. Despite the constant threat of government reprisal, Ka Hsaw Wa stays committed to the mission he found in the jungles of Burma. “There’s no dead end for me,” he says. “I don’t give up easily, and I don’t like to give up.”

In electing KA HSAW WA to receive the 2009 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Emergent Leadership, the board of trustees recognizes his dauntlessly pursuing nonviolent yet effective channels of redress, exposure, and education for the defense of human rights, the environment, and democracy in Burma.

Thank you so much. I am so honored to receive for this Award, especially here in Asia, where many government officials — especially those in my country — like to say that human rights is a Western concept. They say that human rights is not part of Asian culture, and this award is an important testimony to what I believe: that human rights are universal and all of us are entitled to dignity and human rights. 

I believe that one of the most fundamental human rights is the right to a clean and healthy environment. If you look around the world you can see so many human rights violations go hand in hand with the exploitation of natural resources, and the destruction of the environment. This is the main focus of EarthRights International, where we combine the power of law and the power of people in defense of human rights and the environment. 

In Burma, when corporations mine for gold, jade, copper and other precious resources, they do not let local people or sensitive ecosystems get in the way of their quest for the highest profit. In the process, they use chemicals and procedures that are outlawed in other parts of the world, whether or not these poison the villagers, the wildlife, or the ecosystems. Many people are suffering new diseases, dying in new ways due to pollution caused by the mining industry in my country. Is this a human rights or an environmental problem? Usually, pollution is considered an environmental problem. But I believe that this is an earth rights issue-the violation of both human rights and the environment. 

Think about this: when Unocal hired the brutal Burmese military to secure its gas pipeline, soldiers forced people off their lands, forced them to work as slaves, raped women and girls, and tortured and killed those who got in their way. These were earth rights abuses. When people could no longer feed their families because their farms had been destroyed, their forests logged, and they had to flee their homes to become refugees, these were earth rights abuses. We knew this was injustice, and we had to do something to demand for accountability. But how do you do that in a country like Burma, ruled by a brutal military dictatorship? And as if that is not difficult enough, how do you do that when that junta is supported by powerful U.S. oil companies? 

What we did, and what we still do, is simple. We give tools to people to help themselves. In the case of Unocal, we used the law-we trained villagers and community leaders from Burma on how to document human rights abuses, then took that documentation and filed a lawsuit in U.S. courts. Using international human rights law, we demanded justice for the rape, torture, killing, forced labor, and other abuses that Unocal helped commit while building their Yadana gas pipeline. The world thought we were crazy-people laughed at us-how can the world’s poorest, most oppressed people take on a powerful junta and powerful oil companies? With the law as our weapon and hope as our strength, in 2005 we took one big step on the long road to justice when Unocal paid compensation to the villagers who sued them. These villagers sent a message loud and clear to human rights abusers everywhere: no matter where you are-in Burma, or anywhere else in the world-you can’t escape responsibility when you violate the earth and its people. 

This is still our simple strategy. We train and work with emergent leaders from communities who are on the front lines of destructive projects like gas pipelines, mines, dams, what our governments like to call “development” projects. We have two EarthRights Schools that train people like me-from countries like Burma, China, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand who want to stand up to injustice and make a difference for their communities. And we use the law as one important tool to help people find nonviolent solutions to some very violent and destructive realities. 

In all Asian countries, people need a healthy environment to live. And people need human rights-like freedom of speech and association, and access to information-to protect their environments. You cannot separate human rights from the environment. You cannot separate corporate abuse from government abuse. And most importantly, we cannot be divided or separated from each other. All of us must stand together to protect this one planet that we have, that we all depend on, for our own dignity and the future of our survival. 

There are many people like me who work every day, in secret, in hiding, and at great risk to themselves to protect their people and their planet. This award is for all those people who choose to address human rights and environmental abuses and who keep their commitment to justice in their hearts. I thank and honor all who speak the truth to those in power, and do so with dignity and graciousness. And I thank all of you who have made this evening happen.

Like many Thai towns along the Thailand-Burma border these days, Mae Sot is a sanctuary for Burmese refugees in flight from upheaval and civil war at home. There, tens of thousands of Karens and other Burmese minorities subsist on the rough fringes of the Thai economy and await a brighter future. Their thoughts are often of their villages across the border where, for years now, the Burmese Army has waged a violent campaign to bring the region’s people into the firm embrace of the Burmese military state. This brutal war goes on and on. In Mae Sot, CYNTHIA MAUNG, a doctor, has been treating its victims for fourteen years. 

Born to a Karen family in Moulmein in 1959,  CYNTHIA MAUNG studied medicine at the University of Rangoon. She was practicing in a Karen village near her hometown when, in 1988, Burma’s military junta launched its bloody crackdown against democracy advocates. Packing a few clothes and a medical reference book, she fled with some students to Mae Sot, Thailand, where she joined other exiles. Trauma and illness were rampant among the refugees. In a dilapidated building with bare dirt floors, Dr. CYNTHIA went to work. 

Her makeshift clinic had hardly any supplies at all. She improvised by sterilizing a few precious instruments in a kitchen rice cooker and by soliciting medicines and food from Catholic relief workers and nearby refugee camps. As she and her companions lived from hand to mouth and shared in all the work, Dr. CYNTHIA treated the local scourges of malaria, respiratory disease, and diarrhea as well as shrapnel and gunshot wounds and injuries from land mines. To keep up, she trained health workers to assist in the clinic and to serve as “backpack medics” across the border. By 1996, she was supporting six thatch-and-tin clinics in the Karen-controlled war zone. Here her medics treated common illnesses, set broken bones, and performed simple frontline surgery. They also trained midwives, installed sanitary toilets, and brought lessons of hygiene, nutrition, and reproductive health to villagers-all this until the villages were overrun by the Burmese Army, uprooting thousands and raising the flood of refugees to Thailand. 

Dr. CYNTHIA expanded her clinic to meet the need. She attracted volunteer doctors, nurses, and medical interns from abroad and tirelessly solicited help from relief agencies and NGOs. They responded and, year by year, the clinic grew. 

Today, staffed by five doctors and dozens of health workers and trainees, Dr. CYNTHIA’s clinic provides free comprehensive health services to thirty thousand people a year. Last year, 563 babies were born there and 700 patients received new eyeglasses. The clinic operates its own laboratory and prosthetics workshop and receives support from some international organizations. Meanwhile, sixty teams of Dr. CYNTHIA’s backpack medics continue to assist displaced villagers across the border and to support two field clinics in the war zone. 

Life along the border is hard in many ways. At Dr. CYNTHIA’s clinic, injuries from domestic violence are equal to injuries from war. This is why, aside from treating patients, she fosters women’s organizations, youth programs, and other efforts to redress the corrosive social consequences of refugee life. 

Dr. CYNTHIA lives above her clinic in Mae Sot with her husband and two children. She dreams of going home to Burma. The World Health Organization has said that Burma’s health care system is one of the worst in the world. Dr. CYNTHIA would like to change that. In Mae Sot, she says, “We have already started.” 

In electing CYNTHIA MAUNG to receive the 2002 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership, the board of trustees recognizes her humane and fearless response to the urgent medical needs of thousands of refugees and displaced persons along the Thailand-Burma border.

Good evening ladies and gentlemen. 

I am greatly honored to receive the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership. 

I accept this award on behalf of the many health and community workers from Burma who have committed themselves to serve our nation and without whom I could not carry out my activities. 

My colleagues and I face many challenges working to assist displaced communities resulting from the conflict and presence of military dictatorship in our country. Until the late 1950’s, Burma was known as the rice bowl of Asia, a beautiful country rich in natural resources with a highly literate population. 

But fifty years of civil war have left Burmese civil society divided and disrupted. The military dictatorship in Burma has displaced hundreds of thousands, or forced them to flee to neighbouring countries where they cannot live as full members of society. Since 1988, all university education has been interrupted and there are more closing days than opening days. 

Today, the country is in a severe economic crisis with one of the poorest health and human rights violation records in the world. Even though the country’s opposition leader, Daw Aung Sann Su Kyi has been released from house arrest there has been no political change and no attempt has been made by the regime to deal constructively with ethnic conflicts. 

More than 1,500 people still remain as political prisoners in the country. Under military oppression, access to information from the outside world is very limited. Within the country all information sharing and the media are controlled by the military regime. Burma has been isolated from her neighbours and from the international community. 

The oppressive situation continues for the people of Burma — the forced relocations, forced labour, systematic rape, extortion and military offensives are go on and on, and therefore people?s basic need for survival increases. 

Thousands of children are born everyday and cannot officially be registered. Children continue to drop out of school and are often separated from their families. Trafficking and prostitution is a growing problem among people of all ages and both sexes who are helpless to defend themselves. 

Along Burma’s borders, health, youth and women’s organizations have exited, grown and supported each other for many years to address the needs of these people. Education, training and networking are our priorities. In exile, we continue to work together to promote the welfare of the people and to assist them in building the skills that will develop trust and confidence among the different communities. This will lead to creating a better understanding and establishing an agenda for a new society for Burma as a whole in the future. 

However, even with all this community support and education the underlying problem can only be solved through political reform, reconciliation, the return of freedom of expression and the establishment of healthcare and education for all. 

We strongly urge all countries, not just our neighbours, to support us in our struggle to free Burma from the military dictatorship. 

This award recognizes the dignity and courage of all the people who are working toward peace and democracy in Burma. 

We hope that one day Burma will again be a free country. Thank you for your support.

Eleven years ago EDWARD MICHAEL LAW YONE founded The Nation of Rangoon. Since then, under his guidance, it has steadily grown in stature to become the leading English-language paper in his country. Rejecting sensationalism and fanaticism, The Nation has presented to the Burmese people a consistently fair and comprehensive report of events that most immediately affect their welfare. 

In promoting clean government, LAW YONE has on numerous occasions clashed with officialdom, but he has stood firm even under prosecution. Through his reasoned editorials he has helped to bring about reforms that have promoted the progress of his country. Notable among contributions to his profession in Burma has been his active participation in a School of Journalism he helped found in order to raise the standards of press reporting. 

TARZIE VITTACHI has also wielded a potent pen in the public interest in his country. As editor of the Ceylon Observer, he has called to public attention abuses in government and supported those who deserved the public trust. With his recent book, Emergency ’58, Mr. VITTACHI has given his people and the world a vivid documentary of the 1958 communal riots in Ceylon. This book was written when the conflict was still smoldering and before the truth could be obscured or glossed over. 

Himself a Sinhalese, he has subjected the role of Sinhalese and Tamil to equal unsparing scrutiny. He has likewise chronicled the manipulations of politicians who are exploiting old divisions to their advantage and who were ultimately responsible for the wave of violence that swept over Ceylon. 

Emergency ’58 appeals to all elements of Ceylonese society, particularly the leaders of the diverse groups, for a more rational attitude toward old differences and new insecurities. Though addressed chiefly to the Ceylonese, the book bears a wider implication for similar problems plague other newly-independent people in our part of the world. 

These two editors, like Ramon Magsaysay, have had the courage of their convictions. Setting personal security aside, they have worked, the one in Burma and the other in Ceylon, to build nations where man could live with man in honor and peace. 

In electing EDWARD MICHAEL LAW YONE and TARZIE VITTACHI to share the 1959 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Journalism and Literature, the Board of Trustees recognizes their defense of civil rights and press freedom and their able stewardship of the power of the press which they have discharged with a sense of responsibility in keeping with the highest traditions of journalism.

My citation, which you have heard, is extremely complimentary, but honesty compels me to say that I feel I do not deserve it. We in this profession of journalism, which is among the lowest paid in Asia, generally enter with a sense of public duty or some such high ideal. But very soon in our career we tend to become dissatisfied, disgruntled and dispirited. The men and institutions in which we place our trust, even the whole community, sometimes desert their high principles, so that with the disclosure of every broken pledge, of every act of folly, madness or sheer criminality on their part, we are apt to become hard and cynical to the point where we at times wonder whether there is any use in going on. 

Fortunately for our sanity, there appears, at infrequent intervals, out of the mass of ineptitude, neglect and corruption, a new personality who by his example and accomplishments reveals a greatness of spirit. In our day and age, against the backdrop of maharajas, sultans, prime ministers, kings and emperors, fading into ignorant oblivion “against the backdrop of these failures” there appears clear and life-sized a man whose private life bears close scrutiny and whose public actions give encouragement and inspiration?a man who leaves footprints on the sands of time. 

Such a man was Ramon Magsaysay, your late President. If he could be with us today, I am sure he would be pleased to find that a country called Burma, not too different from his own in climate and geography, in leadership and in objectives, has been cited in not one but two of this year’s Awards. For this signal honor, I am deeply grateful.

TEE TEE LUCE has given abandoned and wayward boys off the streets of Rangoon not merely a roof and food but what they missed and needed most—a home and a share of her heart. 

Alarmed by the incidence of crime in her country, she spent a year studying and coming to know the deserted children who were its breeding ground. Other civic-spirited citizens joined with her in forming a Children’s Aid and Protection Society and helped plan and finance a home. On September 1, 1928, they offered a group of street boys a place to live and study and with 19 volunteers the Home for Waifs and Strays was launched. 

From that time, except through the war years, Daw TEE TEE, has carried on with singleness of purpose the mission of the Home she founded. There have been runaways and other failures, but for most the Home has been a haven and an opportunity to lead a decent life. Now caring for as many as 130 boys, she has provided formal schooling, physical education and training in useful crafts and introduced these boys from the meanest walks of life to classics of music and literature. Above all, she has been their “mother.” 

An active partner in her enterprise has been her husband, Professor Gordon H. Luce, himself held in affection and high regard by the people of his adopted country for his scholarship on Burma’s history and for many contributions over 47 years as teacher and unfailing friend. Though others have given generous assistance, often the two of them have had to strain their resources to keep the Home for their boys in operation. It is a fitting coincidence that she should receive this Award on the eve of its thirtieth anniversary. 

JOAQUIN VILALLONGA dedicated himself to a life of service when he entered the Society of Jesus in 1885 at the age of 17. He has been closely associated with the development of our Philippine nation since he was first assigned to teach at the Ateneo Municipal de Manila 67 years ago. Later, he became Rector of that fine institution, where many of our leaders have been trained, and served in other senior posts of his Order in our Islands. His example of discipline, erudition and simplicity and his abiding faith in man’s humanity to man have been an inspiration to generations of Filipinos. 

Twelve years ago, after he had held other high administrative positions of his Order in Spain, India and the Far East, he asked to come back to our country to serve the lepers at Culion. Today, at 92, he still ministers to their spiritual needs. A Chaplain extraordinary, Father VILALLONGA has shared the wisdom of his experience and the warmth of his understanding with those men, women and children who live in the banishment of a dread disease society has not yet learned to accept in its midst. 

Father JOAQUIN VILALLONGA and Daw TEE TEE LUCE, caring as did Ramon Magsaysay for all people as individuals and believing in their dignity and importance, have sought to improve the lot of the unfortunate and have approached the task with selfless devotion. 

In electing them to share the 1959 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public Service, the Board of Trustees recognizes their compassionate concern for others whom society had cast aside. 

Humanitarians, both, they exemplify the ideal of service embodied in the doctrine of many faiths and expressed by the Founder of the Christian faith in this way: “Inasmuch as you have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto me.”

I am greatly honored to receive the Award, together with Reverend Father JOAQUIN VILALLONGA, S.J., for Public Service. Please kindly accept my heartfelt gratitude. 

I feel very unhappy to be unable to accept your kind invitation to come to Manila. I myself am not quite fit, my husband is away and two members of my staff are down with bad attacks of flu and are weak and miserable. Now many boys are having high temperatures, one after another. Besides, I have several difficult boys in the Home and I must be here. Please kindly forgive me. 

U LAW YONE knows the Home very well. I have requested him to represent me at the ceremonies.