U.S. group awards Munir

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.