U.S. group awards Munir
Tiarma Siboro, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Murdered Indonesian human rights campaigner Munir Said Thalib and Myanmar pro-democracy advocate Min Ko Naing were on Monday named 2005 "Civil Courage Prize" winners.
The prize will be posthumously awarded to Munir during a ceremony at The Harold Pratt House in New York city on Tuesday.
But Munir's widow, Suciwati, said on Monday she would not attend the award presentation in a protest against the legal system in the country, which she said had failed to bring the perpetrators of Munir's murder to justice.
"Our friend from the Human Rights First in New York will receive the award on our behalf," she told The Jakarta Post. "It's an honor to win an international award, but that does little for our efforts to promote justice."
The award is presented annually by the New York-based Northcote Parkinson Fund, a private foundation that supports economic and political liberalism and honors "steadfast resistance to evil at a great personal risk."
The fund describes Munir as Indonesia's leading human rights activist. It said Munir exposed "disappearances," corruption, and other abuses until his murder by arsenic poisoning in September last year. The activist died en route to Amsterdam to take up a scholarship to study international law at Utrecht University.
An off-duty Garuda Indonesia pilot who was aboard the aircraft that took Munir to Amsterdam on the day he was found dead is now standing trial for conspiring to kill him.
A government-sanctioned fact finding team, however, discovered indications of the involvement of state intelligence officers, an allegation that prosecutors have failed to zero in on.
Director of human rights watch Imparsial Usman Hamid said the award proved international recognition of Munir. "But the award may not be enough for Suci, Alif and Diva," Usman said of Munir's wife and their two children. "For them it's more important to see the case being handled accordingly and the killers brought to justice."
Usman said Munir had planned to return international awards he had won, including the Rights Livelihood Award from Sweden (2000) and the UNESCO-Madanjeet Singh Prize (2002), because nothing changed afterward to the human rights protection in the country.
"Victims of rights abuse remain unable to find justice," Usman said, quoting Munir.
Munir had formed a group to investigate the disappearance of activists at the hands of security forces and went on to become a searing critic of the Indonesian Military, in particular of abuses in the regions of East Timor, Aceh and Papua.
Min Ko Naing, a leader of the 1988 non-violent popular uprising against Myanmar's military dictatorship, was described by the fund in its website as "an indomitable campaigner for democracy" in the Southeast Asian nation.
He endured "15 years of imprisonment, suffering torture and solitary confinement," the fund said in a statement ahead of the award ceremony.
Min Ko Naing has been described as second in importance only to Nobel Prize winner, Aung San Suu Kyi, the democracy icon currently under house arrest.
He was released from prison in November last year but is under government surveillance and unable to leave Yangon. He has declined his portion of the prize money of US$25,000, to be donated to a non-profit organization.
Another Prize winner is Anna Politkovskaya, a Russian journalist who had exposed the atrocities of war in Chechnya in the face of death threats, intimidation, and poisoning, according to the fund.