Labor activist wins Magsaysay award

Labor activist wins Magsaysay award

MANILA (Agencies): Indonesia's woman activist Dita Indah Sari
was included in the list of 2001 Ramon Magsaysay Award winners,
organizers announced on Monday.

Dita, 29, jointly won the newly created Emergent Leadership
category with fellow woman activist from Cambodia Oung Chanthol.

Dita was honored for being at the forefront of the struggle
against labor abuses in Indonesia, while 34-year-old Oung
Chanthol was honored for her work in opposing crimes against
women in Cambodia.

The Surabaya District Court sentenced her to five years in
prison in 1997 on subversion charges for organizing a labor rally
demanding a pay hike. She was released in 1999 after being
pardoned by former president B.J. Habibie.

She then formed the National front for Labor Struggle (FNPBI)
which she chairs and continued her fight for the basic rights of
workers.

Dita will join senior journalist Mochtar Lubis and noted
author Pramudya Ananta Toer as Indonesian winners of the award
which is often billed as Asia's version of the Nobel Prize.

The "Emergent Leadership" category, according to the Ramon
Magsaysay Award Foundation "affirms the role of young people who
are effecting significant social change in their immediate sphere
and beyond".

"The awardees are being given recognition for their work as
selfless achievers who provide models for the new generation of
Asians," foundation president Carmencita Abella said in a
statement.

"These men and women have exhibited greatness of spirit in the
service of the people," she added.

The awards will be formally presented on Aug. 31 in Manila.

Other winners include Wu Qing, 63, a deputy in the Beijing
Municipal People's Congress, Yuan Longping, a 71-year-old plant
scientist from China, Indian Rajendra Singh, 43, Japanese Ikuo
Hirayama, 70, and K.W.D. Amaradeva, 74, of Sri Lanka.

The annual Ramon Magsaysay Awards were established in honor of
the Philippines' third president, who died in a plane crash in
the 1950s.

A prize of US$50,000 per category is awarded by the
foundation.