Hindu civilization is so old, deep, and pervasive, one easily forgets that one-sixth of India’s population today is formed by the indigenous descendants of an even older civilization. In their forest habitat, India’s so-called tribals evolved apart from the Hindus, who viewed them as beneath civilization. The colonial British labeled them “criminal.” When the economic juggernaut of modern times depleted the forests, the stigmatized tribals were left to survive on the stingy fringes of India’s colonial and post-colonial economy, often in relationships of cruel dependency. As a result, says Bengali writer and activist MAHASWETA DEVI indigenous people today are “suffering spectators of the India that is travelling towards the twenty-first century.”

Born in Dhaka to a family of poets, writers, and artists, DEVI was molded as a child in the rich milieu of Bengali high culture. She studied at Rabindranath Tagore’s famous open university at Santiniketan and, in the decade after India’s independence, began seriously to write.

With her first book in 1956, she established a modus operandi. To reconstruct the life of a nineteenth-century female chieftain who died bravely resisting the British, DEVI plumbed historical records and traversed her heroine’s erstwhile kingdom collecting myths, legends, and ballads. Using similar techniques in over a hundred original works that followed, she created a distinctive personal style by interlacing literary, bureaucratic, and “street” Bengali with tribal idioms and by calling upon an eclectic array of classical and modern images.

In 1965, DEVI visited Palamau, a remote and impoverished district in Bihar that she calls “a mirror of tribal India.” Moving from place to place on foot, she witnessed the savage impact of absentee landlordism and debt-bondage on indigenous society, especially on women. In India’s other tribal districts, too, she subsequently observed, people led a “sub-human existence.” There was no education, no health care, no roads, no income.

This exposure focused DEVI’s work. A watershed novel in 1973 was Mother of 1084 in which a grieving mother comes to understand why her murdered son joined a violent uprising. In a stream of subsequent stories, DEVI cleverly fused indigenous oral histories with contemporary events to explore the bitter and oftenbloody relationship between tribal communities and India’s domineering classes and systems. In her stories, real women and men who rose defiantly to confront oppressors are transformed into mythical heroes.

Alongside her creative writing, DEVI bombarded the government with complaint letters and published a profusion of articles documenting abuses by police, landlords, politicians, and officials against tribal communities. Passionately, she made their cause her cause.

Beginning in the 1970s, DEVI intervened directly. She helped indigenous Indians lodge grievances, set aside tribal rivalries, and achieve their own development. Through the Kheria-Shabar Welfare Society, one of several organizations she helped to launch, members of West Bengal’s poorest tribal community are now planting trees, irrigating parched fields, producing handicrafts, accumulating savings, improving their health, and learning to read and write. At annual fairs–DEVI’s idea–they showcase their new products and celebrate in ceremonies and plays the values of literacy, sobriety, and self-assertion.

DEVI’s searing stories and novels not only give voice to India’s forgotten tribals but also stress the profound subordination of women in Indian society. In 1996, she was accorded India’s highest literary prize. “She has given us great literature,” says a fellow writer. “It makes us question ourselves.” This is DEVI’s goal. For too long, Bengali literature “has been plagued by an atrophy of conscience,” she says. “A conscientious writer has to take a firm stand in defense of the exploited.”

In electing MAHASWETA DEVI to receive the 1997 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Journalism, Literature, and Creative Communication Arts, the board of trustees recognizes her compassionate crusade through art and activism to claim for tribal peoples a just and honorable place in India’s national life.

I thank the Ramon Magsaysay for this privilege of being one of the 1997 Awardees. Friends, I accept the honor with humility, keeping in mind the tradition of the award and the good work done by worthier people who have drawn the attention of a wide audience to the condition of the indigenous people of my country, the tribals, as well as those who are not tribals but belong to the marginalized sections anyway.

My interaction with these people started many, many years ago, in various parts of my country. I have seen how the tribals are being constantly deprived of their control over forests and lands, their only means of livelihood. The process started under the colonial rule of the country and still continues. In fact, it has accentuated in the name of development. The tribals are being pushed out of their homelands and become bonded and migrant labor. And why the tribals are alone. The landless agricultural laborers, the poor peasants are all being denied the benefits of development despite huge amounts of resources being spent in their name. I have seen how the resources meant for the poor evaporate even before they reach the people for whom they are meant. It would seem that the system has a vested interest in keeping the poor in their poverty. In denying them of their basic rights of food, shelter, clothing, drinking water and literacy.

At the same time I have seen the struggles and protests of the people. For an end to this exploitation. For access to basics which are needed for living with dignity. And I felt that I could not remain a mere writer of fiction without doing anything about it. So I write about them in my works of fiction. I write about them in journalistic reports. I provide a forum for them to write about their own problems. I take up their cause at every level. And, above all, I help them in organizing themselves in groups so that they could take up development activities in their own areas. And I do all this in my own small way.

I will have sense of fulfillment of more and more young writers took to unbeaten tracks. My India still lives behind a curtain of darkness. A curtain that separates the mainstream society from the poor and the deprived. But then why my India alone? Cannot one say the same for so many countries and societies today? As the century comes to an end, it is important that we all make an attempt to tear the curtain of darkness, see the reality that lies beyond and see our own true faces in the process.

Like many boons of Asia’s growing prosperity, decent health care is very unevenly distributed. Excellence for the few, yes. But for most, the region’s ill-equipped, understaffed public clinics and hospitals must somehow suffice. For the poorest, there is often nothing at all. Such a state of affairs, says SISTER EVA FIDELA MAAMO of the Philippines, belies the inherent right of the poor to be healthy. This is why SISTER EVA, a surgeon, works for the poor.

Born in 1940 in the small island town of Liloan, Southern Leyte, EVA MAAMO matriculated at the Velez College of Medicine in Cebu and, for a year or two, practiced at her family’s clinic in Liloan. But she soon moved on to Manila where she honored a childhood vow to enter the Sisters of St. Paul of Chartres. As SISTER EVA, she volunteered in 1974 to help establish a medical mission on the shores of Lake Sebu in Mindanao. There she built a crude bamboo infirmary and treated T’bolis, Manobos, and other hill folk from the surrounding mountains. Far from ready supplies and with only the simplest instruments to work with, SISTER EVA performed miracles of improvisation—operating by flashlight and substituting coconut water for dextrose. To expand health services beyond her tiny clinic, she trained local men and women to serve as “barefoot doctors” in isolated villages scattered across the hills.

Returning to Manila in 1980, SISTER EVA honed her skills at Philippine General Hospital and, at her Order’s direction, set out to revitalize a small neighborhood clinic. In Singalong she witnessed firsthand the squalid life of Manila’s teeming poor. Working through Our Lady of Peace Mission, which she founded in 1986, she was soon extending a helping hand to needy communities throughout the city.

Today, SISTER EVA maintains no-fee health clinics in ten Manila squatter areas and provides nutritious meals daily to malnourished children in six of them. In the same communities, there are livelihood and micro-credit programs to lift indigent adults from mendicancy to work. In her Mission’s shelters, street children and abused women find safe haven; through its scholarship program, hundreds of poor youths can afford to attend school. SISTER EVA is now devoted to completing her latest project, a charity hospital for the poor of Manila.

But SISTER EVA has spread her healing wings far beyond Manila. Following a calamitous earthquake and floods in the early 1990s, she led medical teams to the devastated regions. When Mount Pinatubo erupted in 1991, she developed a comprehensive resettlement project to help hundreds of displaced Aetas start a new life. Four times every year, moreover, SISTER EVA leads weeklong medical missions to far-flung sites across the country. To date, over forty thousand indigent patients have been treated by her volunteer doctors, nurses, and dentists. In similar missions, she and other Filipino surgeons have removed tumors, repaired cleft palates, extracted cataracts, and cured myriad other ills in thousands of free operations—usually working from dawn till dusk in makeshift operating rooms.

Diminutive SISTER EVA is a dynamo of quiet determination who leads by example. Late into an exhausting day of surgery, her volunteer doctors drive themselves to continue, they say, “because SISTER EVA is continuing.” She herself is inspired by Jesus’ teaching to care for “the least of My brethren.” This SISTER EVA does tirelessly, with no thought for herself. Addressing the needs of the poor, she says, is her country’s “most crying need.” Besides, she adds, “Working with the poor is a joy.”

In electing SISTER EVA FIDELA MAAMO to receive the 1997 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership, the board of trustees recognizes her compelling example in bringing humane assistance and the healing arts to the poorest Filipinos.

Your Excellency, President Fidel V. Ramos; Mrs. Luz Banzon Magsaysay; members of the Board of Trustees; fellow Awardees; distinguished guests; friends, ladies; and gentlemen. I thank the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation for this privilege of being one of the 1997 Awardees. I accept this award with all humility to praise and thank God for His tremendous love and concern for the poor, the sick, and the underprivileged. In truth and in essence, an award for community leadership does not belong to any one person alone but rightfully to the community as a whole. And who is that community? It is the members of the board of trustees of the Foundation of Our Lady of Peace Mission, who together with the Alfon

I thank the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation for this privilege of being one of the 1997 Awardees. I accept this award with all humility to praise and thank God for His tremendous love and concern for the poor, the sick, and the underprivileged.

In truth and in essence, an award for community leadership does not belong to any one person alone but rightfully to the community as a whole.

And who is that community?

It is the members of the board of trustees of the Foundation of Our Lady of Peace Mission, who together with the Alfonso Yunchengo Foundation and the Manila Doctors Hospital, have provided the structure, direction, and logistic support for us to do our work.

It is our dedicated staff and our Sisters, who take care of the different project centers, compassionately bring mothers, brothers, teachers, doctors, advisers, and friends to the poor men, women, and children of the squatter and Aeta communities, helping them to cope with their lives and empowering them to rise above their many problems.

It is the committed young volunteer doctors, nurses, dentists, midwives, and non-medical professionals in our Medical-Surgical Missions, working tirelessly into the night not only in the operating rooms but also climbing up with me to the hills and mountains, unmindful of the heat and rain, to reach out to the Aetas and victims of calamities, bringing with them the gospel message of God’s love, mercy, and compassion to His people. Many times it seemed there was nothing more to give, yet they continued on giving.

It is my family: my parents, my brothers and sisters, who gave me love, taught me to love, and nourished me with their strength and courage.

It is my religious family, the Congregation of the Sisters of Saint Paul of Chartres not only in the Philippines but all over the world, through my Provincial Superior, Sr. Agnes Therese Teves and her council, and my Community Superior, Sr. Carmelita Chua, who encouraged and stood by me in many ways in this apostolate.

It is the men and women of business and government who have shared their many talents and resources so we could accomplish our mission. It is also the ordinary folks—just wanting to help, looking for neither reward nor recognition.

And most important of all, the community is the poor and the marginalized, our fellow Filipinos “who have less in life,” whom the late President Ramon Magsaysay sought to help and protect by giving them more in law. They are our brothers and sisters who hold a special place in the heart of Jesus, of whom He said: “Whatever you do to the least of your brethren, you do unto Me.”

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the community is all of us. And what of leadership?

Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself provided the definition of a leader—one who serves and inspires others by his life and example.

We are all leaders. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, we all can and should be community leaders.

Let this Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership be a challenge for us all. Let it be the impetus for inner spiritual growth and for reaching out to all our brothers and sisters so that this world could be the world God has intended it to be: a world of peace, a world of sharing, and a world of love. Let our goals go beyond the boundaries of our nations and the milestones of the year 2000. Let us focus our sights upon that time when all men shall become one and “all creation, everything in heaven and on earth shall be gathered together under Jesus Christ name.” It is God’s plan, and as His creatures let us, individually and as an entire humanity, confidently and wholeheartedly accept this challenge. Like our Blessed Mother, let us humbly say: “Thy will be done, My God!”

In India, as elsewhere in Asia, laws to protect the environment have long been in place. Yet in India, as elsewhere, such laws are often honored in the breach, and flagrantly so. As a result, there is little to prevent the malignant discharges of the subcontinent’s polluting industries, its sewers, and its trucks and cars from fouling the air and water and earth—with crippling consequences for India’s crowded millions. India’s environmental agencies do have teeth, says crusading public interest lawyer M. C. MEHTA, “but they refuse to bite.”

MEHTA was drawn to environmental issues in 1984, when someone called his attention to the corrosive impact of air pollution upon India’s architectural masterpiece, the Taj Mahal. He studied how effluents from nearby industries were eating into the soft marble of the shrine and filed a writ petition against the polluters with India’s Supreme Court. For more than ten years he pursued the case, marshaling mountains of facts. In a series of staggered directives, the Court responded by banning coal-based industries in the Taj’s immediate vicinity, by closing 230 other factories and requiring three hundred more to install pollution control devices, and by ordering the creation of a traffic bypass and a tree belt to insulate the unique monument.

Meanwhile, when a gas leak at a fertilizer factory in 1985 killed several people and made nearly five thousand others sick, MEHTA won a landmark decision for damages. And when someone inadvertently ignited the Ganges with a lighted match that same year, he filed petitions that led to orders against five thousand polluting industries along the holy river. At his insistence, 250 towns and cities in the Ganges Basin have been required to install sewerage plants. MEHTA vigilantly monitors compliance with all such orders.

In similar MEHTA cases, the Supreme Court has ordered the Delhi Administration to relocate nine thousand dirty industries safely away from the crowded capital, to protect the city’s one remaining forest from illegal encroachments, and to build sixteen new sewerage treatment plants. Other MEHTA campaigns have resulted in the compulsory introduction of lead-free gasoline in India’s four largest cities and the prohibition of commercial prawn farms within five hundred meters of the national coastline. In a 1991 ruling, moreover, the Court compelled India’s radio and television stations and movie theaters to disseminate environmental messages daily.

These victories have required years of singleminded exertion. By working eighteen hours a day, MEHTA manages with a tiny staff and the fervent support of his wife and daughter. He work from a cramped office at home and subsidizes environmental cases with fees from his private practice. He faces constant harassment and even threats to his life.

MEHTA’s marathon effort is making legal history. In forty landmark judgments, the Indian Supreme Court has put the stamp of its authority upon his assertion that the “right to life,” as guaranteed in India’s constitution, includes the right to a clean and healthy environment. Furthermore, it has ruled that violators of this right are absolutely liable for the harm they cause. Indian courts may therefore grant compensation to victims of environmental abuse with the certain understanding that “the polluter pays.”

Fifty-year-old MEHTA keeps his organizational affiliations to a minimum and is known as something of a lone crusader. Still, he devotes several weeks each year to Green Marches, during which he works with grassroots organizations around the country. The movement for a clean habitat must be a people’s movement, he says. “The future lies in the hands of a vigilant public.”

In electing MAHESH CHANDER MEHTA to receive the 1997 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public Service, the board of trustees recognizes his claiming for India’s present and future citizens their constitutional right to a clean and healthy environment.

This is a moment of great honor for me to be with you today. I would like to share with you on this great occasion some of the thoughts and feelings that coursed through me when I received news of being conferred the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public Service. One was a feeling of gratitude at the recognition of my struggle to work for the protection of the environment through the legal process. The other feeling that arose in me was of immense satisfaction that the environmental movement in Asia has received great impetus and encouragement.

The need to protect the environment is linked to the very survival of the human race as well as all the other forms of life that coexist with it. Today, the planet is under constant threat form pervasive pollution, pressures of population, poor planning and indiscriminate use of natural resources. Rivers, lakes, coastlines, forests, and the ozone layer have become victims of the depredations of the greedy few, resulting in grave danger to the life and health of a large population in the world.

In the name of development, many Asian countries have become vulnerable to exploitation by the so-called “developed” part of the world. It has been fallacious solution or them to blindly follow the Western model which has overtaxed their natural resources leading to serious socio-economic and environmental consequences. We should not forget that the purpose of development is not to develop material things but develop humankind. Until now, the industrial growth at any cost has been an unchallenged and unquestioned placebo for human welfare. The time has come to do some stock-taking, to look around and see what the consequences of a reckless development are.

There is no other option before us but to seek innovative ways to alleviate our problems without negating the greatness in our cultures and depleting our natural resources. Our traditional wisdom and ways of life provide many viable solutions and alternatives. These need to be examined, revitalized, and incorporated into our planning process.

We must all arise in unison to ace the challenges before us to seek redressal of the present situation. A different mind-set and approach are required to creatively deal with the problems facing Asian nations. The struggle will be a long and hard one, but it promises to bear rich fruit for the future.

Friends, the award, I am sure will go a long way in encouraging and strengthening the environmental movement. I am grateful to the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation for acknowledging my humble contribution to this cause.

The bloodless revolution that ended Thailand’s absolute kingship in 1932 also heralded democracy. But in the years thereafter, military coups d’etat, not elections, became the common landmarks of political change in Thailand. Generals dominated government, rarely elected civilians. By 1990, however, after a decade of hopeful change, many Thais believed that democracy was at last taking root in their country. But the army struck again in February 1991. Promising new elections in due course, the successful coup plotters chose an esteemed civilian to serve as interim prime minister: ANAND PANYARACHUN.

Born in 1932, ANAND ascended through schools in Bangkok and London and earned his B.A. (Honours) at Trinity College, Cambridge. He joined Thailand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and subsequently served as its Permanent Representative to the United Nations and as ambassador to Canada and the United States. As Permanent Secretary for Foreign Affairs under a civilian government, he paved the way for reconciliation with China and Vietnam and opposed the continued presence of American military bases in Thailand. As a result, when yet another coup returned the army to power in October 1976, he was branded a communist-sympathizer. Exonerated by an investigation panel, he was assigned to a post abroad. In 1979, he resigned and entered business. By 1990, ANAND was Executive Chairman of the Saha-Union conglomerate and a widely respected business leader.

ANAND disapproved of military coups and accepted the premiership only from a sense of duty. Acting with surprising independence and broad public acclaim, he launched a volley of reforms. He expanded press freedom, committed the government to combat the spread of AIDS, enacted Thailand’s first comprehensive environmental law, promoted philanthropy and private support for education, insisted upon transparency in the state’s joint ventures with private companies, and generated millions of extra public revenue by renegotiating questionable deals between the previous government and its favored companies. Hundreds of vexing regulations were updated or eliminated. ANAND’s aggressive pursuit of privatization, tax reform, and trade liberalization stoked the country’s economy and helped win the confidence of investors at home and abroad. All this in one year’s time!

Elections in March 1992 brought a new crisis. When victorious military-linked political parties named the chief architect of the 1991 coup as prime minister, outraged citizens protested. In May, government soldiers fired upon pro-democracy demonstrators in Bangkok; nearly a hundred died. Thailand’s king now intervened to pave the way for a democratic restoration. ANAND was called, once again, to assume the interim premiership and organize credible elections. Three months later, he passed the reins of leadership to a freely elected government.

ANAND then returned to Saha-Union. In the years since, he has remained an influential public figure, investing his energy and prestige to harness the resources and goodwill of business on behalf of the environment and to advance other social and political reforms.

Thailand’s democracy is still fragile and flawed by corruption. Yet ANAND remains a believer. “It is no longer in question whether we should opt for economic development or democracy,” he asserts. “The two must proceed together.” As a leading member of the assembly drafting his country’s new constitution, he has labored to strengthen democracy in Thailand by securing civil liberties, making government more accountable to citizens, and eliminating vote buying and other scourges of money politics.

A straight-speaking and patient man, sixty-five-year-old ANAND knows that not all of Thailand’s problems will be solved in his lifetime. “Diplomats and businessmen are taught to be realists,” he says. “As an ex-diplomat working in the business community, I am very much a realist. ”

In electing ANAND PANYARACHUN to receive the 1997 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Government Service, the board of trustees recognizes his sustaining the momentum for reform and democracy in Thailand in a time of crisis and military rule.

I am honored to have been conferred the 1997 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Government Service.

This Award carries the name and spirit of a great Asian leader, one known for his unstinting efforts to pursue reform in every segment of Philippine life. President Magsaysay’s commitment to reform for the benefit of Philippine society and his well-deserved reputation for incorruptibility provide us with a shining example of Asian values.

Throughout my own life and career, I have tried to pursue the same goals. It has been my view, tested in the crucible of my public and private careers, that the advancement of Asian societies can be achieved only in the presence of good governance, including:

First, an honest government, one that serves the interests of the people; Second, an efficient government, one that provides good value for money; Third, a just government, one that endeavors with sincerity and vigor to minimize economic and social inequalities.

Above all, good governance requires compliance with the precepts of democratic rule.

The lessons of the twentieth century are clear. First, no nation can any longer afford to base its prosperity, its security, and its future on military might. Second, no nation can any longer feel secure if its citizens are deprived of the opportunities for meaningful participation in political, economic, and social life. Third and most important, real security can only derive from a nation’s inner strength, the well-being of the people.

In accepting this Award, I do so on behalf of the many Thais who have pursued the same goals that I have striven for, namely, the building of a democratic society, emphasizing people’s participation, economic prosperity, and social justice.

As SADAKO OGATA reminds us, no one flees home and homeland of their own accord. Wars and persecutions drive them away, and the havoc that occurs when old hatreds are given new license. Such conditions are on the rise, so much so that during OGATA’s six-year tenure as United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) the number of refugees in the world has swelled by ten million. Some twenty-three million displaced people now rely upon the UNHCR to protect their rights to asylum and to provide humanitarian relief. They are High Commissioner OGATA’s responsibility.

Born to a prominent family in Tokyo in 1927, SADAKO OGATA experienced in her youth the apex and collapse of Japan’s modem empire. She was seventeen when the atomic bomb ended the era. After college in Tokyo, she earned a master’s degree in international relations in the United States and, in 1963, completed her doctorate at the University of California at Berkeley. Years of teaching and domestic life followed. In 1976 OGATA joined Japan’s mission at the United Nations. Later she chaired the executive board of UNICEF and represented Japan on the UN Commission on Human Rights. In 1991, the General Assembly elected her to her current post.

As High Commissioner for Refugees, OGATA faced an avalanche of crises: Iraq, Bosnia, Mozambique, Burundi, Afghanistan, Myanmar, Rwanda. But the world was weary of refugees. Many countries denied them asylum. On the run, they were subject to deadly assaults, sexual abuse, and conscription. Relief supplies were looted. Even OGATA’s own workers were harassed and attacked. Facing these challenges with the fearless dedication for which she is noted, Ogata energized her agency to fulfill its mandate.

As the number of refugees soared, OGATA created standby emergency teams and improved links with the hundreds of non-governmental organizations that are her agency’s frontline partners in delivering food, shelter, and medical supplies. She inspected far-flung UNHCR projects and tirelessly encouraged her burgeoning staff. To really help refugees, she concluded, the UNHCR must look beyond the immediate misery and address their long-term needs for rehabilitation and development. In doing so, she stressed the needs of women and children, who form the lion’s share of the world’s refugees and who suffer most when civilized life breaks down.

OGATA also worked assiduously to cultivate UNHCR collaboration with governments, gaining their assistance in helping refugees and pressing them to honor the right to asylum. To poor countries, she offered practical aid in return for their agreement to host refugees or to accept returnees.

In Asia, for example, two hundred thousand Burmese Muslims who fled to Bangladesh have been repatriated to Myanmar and supported with health, education, and development aid through the UNHCR, as have thousands of refugees resuming to Cambodia. Some one hundred thousand Vietnamese boat people have been successfully repatriated to Vietnam; twenty seven thousand Laotians have returned to Laos. A key to success in such programs has been OGATA’s insistence that the UNHCR be permitted to monitor the experience of returnees against reprisal and discrimination.

OGATA believes that all refugee problems are inherently political. They begin when governments turn against their own people, or when certain basic rights to life, security, and liberty are denied. Her experience teaches her that if the refugee crisis is to end, the injustices that create refugees must also end.

This will take time, says the High Commissioner. “We will probably have to go through a period of rather cruel experiences and fighting,” she says. “But I think human beings will learn. I hope.”

In electing SADAKO OGATA to receive the 1997 Ramon Magsaysay Award for International Understanding, the board of trustees recognizes her invoking the moral authority of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to insist that behind the right of every refugee to asylum lies the greater right of every person to remain at home in peace.

SADAKO OGATA, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, truly wishes that she could be here today, but because of the ongoing refugee crisis in central Africa, and a previously arranged official visit to the Ukraine, she is unfortunately unable to attend this important ceremony. On her behalf, I would like to deliver the following message:

Quote:

I am deeply honored to receive the Magsaysay Award for International Understanding. This award means much to me, not so much because of the personal recognition it bestows, but because of the attention it brings to the cause if refugees and to my 5,500 highly dedicated colleagues in UNHCR, who are often working under arduous and even perilous conditions. The Magsaysay Award reinforces and encourages us, it helps to invigorate us with the strength we need to meet the challenge of protecting and assisting nearly 23 millions uprooted victims of war and persecution.

The fact that this award is being given for international understanding is particularly gratifying. Understanding of the refugee problem is crucial to finding solutions. Understanding is one the links in a chain of actions, without which the problems is crucial to finding solutions. Understanding is one of the links in one of the links in a chain of actions, without which the problems of refugees will not be solved. That chain, as I see it, is as follows: Firstly, governments and the public at large must be made aware of the problem of refugees. Secondly, they must understand the nature of the problem, particularly its humanitarian and sometimes political dimensions. Thirdly, government must find ways of cooperating with one another, because international solidarity and burden sharing are vital for the protection of refugees, and because cooperation among the countries directly affected by refugee crises is crucial for solving them. Awareness, understanding, cooperation, and solutions—these are the links in the chain.

Today’s world is full of contradictions, of increasing peace and economic growth, on the one hand, and of conflict and human rights abuse, on the other. Images of war and oppression, coming close to us on the screen, can be turned off at the flick of a switch. But the refugees remain, asking for understanding and humanity. From former Yugoslavia to Rwanda and from Guatemala to Cambodia, I have seen countless personal tragedies occasion by man’s savagery, mostly affecting families, women, and helpless children. And yet, these refugees are increasingly seen only as a burden and rejected at borders.

UNHCR alone cannot make people aware of the world’s refugee situation. The news media and the voices of the many dedicated workers in nongovernmental organizations also serve to help the cause of refugees. Exceedingly important are such institutions as the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation, which through recognition of the work and effort of such person as my fellow awardees—Anand Panyarachun, M.C. Mehta, Sister Eva Fidela Maamo, and Mahasweta Devi—give a healthy boost to our various causes. Being in such splendid company as esteemed awardees is a collective honor which I cherish.

With more international understanding, we can better protect and save lives and restore human dignity. For refugee problems, however intractable they often appear to be, are solvable, provided there is cooperation and teamwork. It can be at the level of individual filed workers in a refugee emergency or at the level of governments, with all the power of their resources and institutions. In Asia, where the traditions of consensus run long and deep, I am proud to say that examples of international cooperation in the history of UNHCR is the Comprehensive Plan of Action for Indochinese refugees, which, thanks to the efforts of countries of asylum, or origin, and of resettlement, resulted in over 1.1 million persons being helped to rebuild their lives. I am grateful that today some 1,500 Vietnamese have been able to benefit from the generosity of the government of the Philippines.

I am pleased that the Magsaysay Foundation, in granting this award, brings worldwide attention to the serious threats to the institution of asylum that are taking place. We must not give in to the forces of xenophobia. We must speak out in defense of those persons who have been uprooted by force and persecution. And we must join forces to prevent refugee crises from occurring, by insisting on the right of all fellow human beings to live in peace in their own homes.

These words are mine, but I hear in them the voice of Ramon Magsaysay and his ideal of promoting the welfare of others. I thank you. The refugees and displaced persons of the world thank you too.

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