Burmese doctor awarded for humanitarian efforts

By Hungfu Hsueh
Taiwan News, Staff Reporter
Page 1
2007-12-14 01:30 AM

Burmese human rights worker Dr. Cynthia Maung yesterday received the Asia Democracy and Human Rights Award in recognition of her contribution and 19 years of service in humanitarian work.
ADHRA, inaugurated in 2006, is given by the Taiwan Foundation of Democracy to human rights workers or organizations in the Asian Pacific region, and includes a US$100,000 cash award.

TFD said that Maung was selected by the final review board for her tenacious and long-term commitment to the thousands of Burmese refugees and migrant workers who seek refuge from oppression and violence by the Burmese military junta that governs the country, as well as for her dedication to training and educating those refugees in order to build a community based on respect for life and human rights.

President Chen Shui-bina presented the award yesterday to Maung, who called on the international community to pay more attention to human rights atrocities.

Speaking at the award ceremony, Maung said that after her 19 years of forced exile on the Thai-Burmese border, she still sees the Burmese people being subjected to oppression by the military junta amid deteriorating human rights conditions.

"Burma's military regime is one of the most corrupt one in the world," she said. "Without the assistance and support provided by the international community, the human rights condition in Burma would never improve."

Maung also stressed the importance of human rights education, saying that only by having people understand the importance of respecting human lives can lasting peace become feasible.

An estimated 150,000 Burmese refugees are in camps on the Thai-Burmese border, and around one million Brumes refugees are in exile in Thailand. It is also estimated that there are several hundred thousands of refugees inside Burma who have been displaced.

Maung, 48, is a member of the ethnic Karen minority and a refugee herself. In 1988 she was working at a hospital in Burma when clashes broke out between demonstrators and the military government and Burmese soldiers opened fire on civilians. Maung and 12 other hospital workers, running for their lives, fled to the jungles of Thailand and ended up at the Huay Kaloke refugee camp.

Maung started a makeshift clinic in 1989, close to the town of Mae Sot, in an effort to help victims of the deteriorating situation within Burma. The clinic now has the capacity to provide medical care to some 200 patients a day, free of cost.

The clinic's staff, which consists of five physicians, 140 health workers, and 100 support staff, provides, in addition to basic health care, such services as occupational training, health education and counseling, and HIV/AIDS prevention education. The clinic also provides housing for unaccompanied children and facilitates cultural and community events.

President Chen Shui-bian yesterday offered his congratulations to Dr. Cynthia, and said the crackdown on Burma's Saffron Revolution in September this year reminded him of the brutal response by a dictatorial regime to the 1989 democracy movement at Tiananmen Square in China.

Chen called on all democratic countries around the world to unite in pushing for the democratization of autocratic regimes.