Day: August 31, 2022

UPDATED at 9:29 p.m. EDT on 8-31-2022

China’s repression of Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities in its western Xinjiang province “may constitute international crimes, in particular crimes against humanity,” the U.N.’s human rights chief said Wednesday in a long-awaited report issued on her last day on the job. 

The report issued by U.N. High Commissioner of Human Rights Michelle Bachelet says that “serious human rights violations” have been committed in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) in the context of the Chinese government’s application of counter-terrorism and counter-“extremism” strategies. 

“The implementation of these strategies, and associated policies in XUAR has led to interlocking patterns of severe and undue restrictions on a wide range of human rights,” the report states. “These patterns of restrictions are characterized by a discriminatory component, as the underlying acts often directly or indirectly affect Uyghur and other predominantly Muslim communities.” 

The 46-page report goes on to say that the human rights violations documented in the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights’ (OHCHR) assessment, flow from “a domestic ‘anti-terrorism law system’ that is deeply problematic from the perspective of international human rights norms and standards.”

The system contains vague and open-ended concepts that give officials wide discretion to interpret and apply broad investigative, preventive and coercive powers, amid limited safeguards and little independent oversight, the report says.

“This framework, which is vulnerable to discriminatory application, has in practice led to the large-scale arbitrary deprivation of liberty of members of Uyghur and other predominantly Muslim communities in XUAR in so-called [vocational education and training centers] and other facilities, at least between 2017 and 2019,” it says.

The OHCHR based its assessment in part on 40 in-depth interviews with individuals with direct and first-hand knowledge of the situation in Xinjiang, 26 of whom said they had been detained or had worked in various facilities across the region since 2016. In each case, OHCHR assessed the reliability and credibility of these persons, the report says.

The report covers the period during which Chinese authorities arbitrarily detained up to 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities in internment camps in Xinjiang, according to numerous investigative reports by rights groups, researchers, foreign media and think tanks. 

The predominantly Muslim groups have also been subjected to torture, forced sterilizations and forced labor, as well as the eradication of their linguistic, cultural and religious traditions, in what the United States and several Western parliaments have called genocide and crimes against humanity.

“Even if the [vocational education and training centers, or VETC] system has since been reduced in scope or wound up, as the government has claimed, the laws and policies that underpin it remain in place,” the report says. “There appears to be a parallel trend of an increased number and length of imprisonments occurring through criminal justice processes, suggesting that the focus of deprivation of liberty detentions has shifted towards imprisonment, on purported grounds of counter-terrorism and counter-‘extremism.’”

The information available to OHCHR on implementation of the government’s stated drive against terrorism and ‘extremism’ in XUAR in the period 2017- 2019 and potentially thereafter, also raises concerns from the perspective of international criminal law, the report says. 

“The extent of arbitrary and discriminatory detention of members of Uyghur and other predominantly Muslim groups, pursuant to law and policy, in context of restrictions and deprivation more generally of fundamental rights enjoyed individually and collectively, may constitute international crimes, in particular crimes against humanity,” it states.

OHCHR’s report makes 13 recommendations to the Chinese government, including promptly releasing those detained arbitrarily in VETCs, prisons or other detention facilities. 

It also recommends that China release details about the location of Uyghurs in the XUAR who have been out of touch with relatives abroad, establish safe means of communication for them, and allow travel so families can be reunited.

The report also recommends that China investigate allegations of human rights abuses in the VETCs, including allegations of torture, sexual violence, forced labor and deaths in custody.

Quick response from China

China’s Permanent Mission to the U.N. Office at Geneva was quick to dismiss Bachelet’s report.

“This so-called ‘assessment’ runs counter to the mandate of the OHCHR, and ignores the human rights achievements made together by people of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang and the devastating damage caused by terrorism and extremism to the human rights of people of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang,” the mission said in a statement.

“Based on the disinformation and lies fabricated by anti-China forces and out of presumption of guilt, the so-called “assessment” distorts China’s laws and policies, wantonly smears and slanders China, and interferes in China’s internal affairs, which violates principles including dialogue and cooperation, and non-politicization in the field of human rights, and also undermines the credibility of the OHCHR,” the statement said.

In response to the report’s release, Sophie Richardson, China director at New York-based Human Rights Watch, said Bachelet’s “damning findings explain why the Chinese government fought tooth and nail to prevent the publication of her Xinjiang report, which lays bare China’s sweeping rights abuses.”

“The United Nations Human Rights Council should use the report to initiate a comprehensive investigation into the Chinese government’s crimes against humanity targeting the Uyghurs and others – and hold those responsible to account,” she said in an emailed statement.

Speaking in an interview with RFA Uyghur, Richardson said that Bachelet’s report is “not the report Xi Jinping wanted a month before the 20^th Party Congress,” when the CCP leader will seek an unprecedented third term in office, following constitutional amendments in March 2018 removing presidential term limits.

“But it’s the report that is essential, we think, to mobilizing international support for actual investigations and accountability,” she said.

“This report obliges Human Rights Council member states, and indeed other states too, to urgently respond. This is a sober assessment of serious human rights violations committed by a powerful state and it is imperative that they respond to that the way they would to violations anywhere.”

Adrian Zenz, a researcher at the Washington, D.C.-based Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation and expert on the Xinjiang region, welcomed the report’s findings on arbitrary detention and internment camps, but called it “comparatively weak” on issues such as forced labor, birth control, and sterilization.

“It’s not strong in every regard, but it is a very good start,” he told RFA. “I don’t think it’s the best possible outcome, but given the circumstances, it’s better than what could have been … This report is going to be a very good resource … to cite, for governments. It’s going to put China under significant pressure in my opinion, but it’s one step at a time.”

But he questioned why Bachelet waited until the end of her term to issue the report and had remained largely silent on the situation in Xinjiang while in office, calling her failure to exert pressure on Beijing “a huge missed opportunity.”

“All eyes are going to be looking to her successor to see what’s going to happen,” he said.

Uyghur response

The report’s findings were also welcomed by a group of 60 Uyghur organizations from 20 countries, who said that global governments, multilateral bodies, and corporations should use it as the basis for concrete actions aimed at ending atrocities in Xinjiang.

“This UN report is extremely important. It paves the way for meaningful and tangible action by member states, UN bodies, and the business community,” said World Uyghur Congress President Dolkun Isa. “Accountability starts now.”

Uyghur Human Rights Project Executive Director Omer Kanat called the report “a game-changer for the international response to the Uyghur crisis.”

“Despite the Chinese government’s strenuous denials, the UN has now officially recognized that horrific crimes are occurring,” he said.

The groups called for the U.N. Human Rights Council to take up the issue in a special session with the aim of establishing a Commission of Inquiry into the treatment of Uyghurs, the U.N. Special Procedures to respond to the report with recommendations for the international community, and the U.N. Office on Genocide Prevention to immediately assess the risks of atrocities in Xinjiang.

They also called for the International Labor Organization and UNESCO to launch investigations into the report’s findings, the global business community to cut all ties with entities assisting Beijing in carrying out the atrocities, and governments and international organizations to take steps to protect Uyghurs at imminent risk of refoulement.

Long-awaited report

Bachelet, a former Chilean president, told reporters at a press conference on Aug. 25 in Geneva that her office was trying to complete the report before the end of her four-year term on Aug. 31 but that it still had to review input from the Chinese government.

Bachelet first told the U.N. Human Rights Council in September 2021 that her office was finalizing its assessment of information on allegations of rights violations in Xinjiang, but delays followed. Three months later, a spokesperson said the report would be issued in a matter of weeks, but it was not, much to the dismay of Uyghur activists and rights groups. 

The rights chief visited China, including the towns of Ghulja (in Chinese, Yining) and Kashgar (Kashi) in Xinjiang in late May, but angered rights groups again who accused her of repeating  Chinese talking points during a news conference at the end of her trip and failing to denounce the repression Uyghurs face there as a genocide. 

In June, nearly 50 U.N. member states issued a statement criticizing China’s atrocities against Uyghurs and called on Bachelet to release the Xinjiang report, while Uyghur rights organizations continued to urge her to do the same.

A letter written by China that expressed “grave concern” about the Xinjiang report was circulated among diplomatic missions, asking other countries to sign it to show their support for China’s goal of convincing Bachelet to halt its release, Reuters reported in July from Geneva.

Updated to include response by Uyghur organizations, comments from Zenz of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, and additional comments from HRW’s Richardson in an interview with RFA Uyghur.

More than 5,000 civilians fled from more than 10 villages in Myanmar’s Rakhine state after fighting erupted Tuesday night between junta forces and the rebel Arakan Army (AA), residents told RFA.

The people, from Rathedaung township in the northwestern part of the state, were forced to leave their homes when a junta column attempted to break through an AA position along a supply route that goes through Ku Lar Chaung village, a resident of the area told RFA’s Burmese Service on condition of anonymity for security reasons.

“There’s a place called Yay Soe Chaung Byuhar in the north of Rathedaung.  The AA intercepted the military that came along this supply route yesterday,” said the source.

“We heard four junta soldiers were killed. And this morning, they came to get the bodies. We heard a lot of gunfire and explosions of heavy weapons this morning,” the source said.

RFA has not yet been able to independently confirm any casualties.

The Myanmar army has occupied most of the area since 2019, after a series of battles with the AA. More junta troops are now stationed in Ma Nyin Taung village near the battle site, sources said.

Thein Nu from Pyain Taw village told RFA that she and her family fled across the river about an hour after the fighting started at 7 p.m. She said the clashes lasted until around midnight. 

“We escaped the fighting by crossing the river in a boat,” Thein Nu said. “We couldn’t worry about other families because we were so afraid. We just fled taking our children and the elderly. 

“The river was so wide, but we just crossed it because we were scared. We were afraid that we’d be shot at from the air like in the past. We were also afraid that they might fire at us from a ship. A plane was circling in the air and we were frightened,” she said.

People in the area were also forced to flee fighting in 2019. They remained in refugee camps near Rathedaung for more than two years.

A fierce battle also broke out between the junta army and the AA in Rathedaung township on Aug. 13, and the Rathedaung-Maungdaw-Buthidaung road was closed indefinitely by the military.

Local villagers said the commander of the military’s light infantry regiments 536, 537 and 538, based in Rathedaung, demanded that the AA leave its camp in Pyar Chaung Gyi village on Aug. 25.

Residents also told RFA that the junta bombed suspected AA camp sites in the northern part of Maungdaw township, along the Let Pan and Wai Lar mountains on the Myanmar-Bangladesh border on Saturday, Monday and Tuesday.

They said the AA has also launched attacks on the junta military camp on Kha Moung Seik Byuhar hill since Aug. 25, and the junta side has suffered many casualties.

Neither side has released any information about the fighting.

AA spokesman Khine Thukha told RFA on Monday that the AA was defending civilians in the area. 

“Whether the fighting will be more intense or not depends on the activities of the Myanmar army,” he said.

“If they launch more attacks, we will retaliate. The Burmese army has been targeting mainly the Rakhine people in Rakhine state and imposing various restrictions on the people,” Khine Thukha said.

The Myanmar military has opened up to 15 checkpoints along the Ann-Sittwe road and has strictly limited travel and the flow of goods, the AA said. 

RFA tried to contact Hla Thein, attorney general of Rakhine and the junta’s spokesman in the region, about the situation, but he did not respond.

Pe Than, a former representative of the People’s Assembly in Rakhine, said the fighting might be more intense than it was two years ago.

“In the past, there were clashes, but it was not about capturing camps. Now, the AA side is gradually taking over the border guard camps and the Burmese military has been gradually retreating,” Pe Than said. 

“The junta troops only have air support. They get their food rations only from the air. They can only fire their heavy weapons from afar. That’s all they can do. The ground troops are all surrounded. So this is no longer an ordinary battle. It’s meant to take over territory. It all started from the north,” he said.

The junta’s army and AA troops were engaged in the townships of Maungdaw and Mrauk U as well as in Paletwa township in Chin state and the fighting has gradually expanded, according to Pe Than. He said at least 10 junta camps, including border guard stations, have withdrawn.

After a truce that lasted a year and a half, fighting between the two sides erupted again in July. Residents said more than 10,000 people have fled their homes in Rathedaung township and more than 700 in Mrauk U township as a result.

In a statement Wednesday, the AA claimed that it had captured a military camp near milestone No. 40 near the Bangladesh border area despite heavy resistance.

It said fighting has been going on in that area since the beginning of August and that the military has fired about 300 to 400 rounds of heavy weapons into the area between milestones No. 34 and No. 39. 

The statement also said that the junta has recently used helicopters and jet fighters to bomb the area. 

The camp fell this morning at 9:12 a.m., the statement said, and 19 junta soldiers, including Police Capt. Soe Soe Paing, were captured or killed. The AA was also able to seize weapons and ammunition.

The AA acknowledged in the statement that it suffered some casualties but didn’t say how many. The AA said it discovered fresh graves of junta soldiers who had been killed in earlier clashes.

The statement also said that there was a skirmish Tuesday night on the road about 700 meters (half a mile) west of Ma Nyin Taung village in Rathedaung township and another clash Wednesday afternoon at a spot about 500 meters west of Myeik Wa village in Paletwa township of Chin state. Both sides suffered casualties, according to the statement. 

Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

As another armed forces recruitment period in North Korea approaches, parents hope their military-age children do not get assigned to construction units where they would face years of hard labor but fewer benefits compared to other soldiers.

While the concern is an annual worry for North Korean parents, their fears may be especially acute this year as the country already suffers from a shortage of food and other supplies. Construction unit soldiers could be especially vulnerable as North Korea struggles under international sanctions and trade restrictions from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Every able-bodied citizen must serve in the North Korean military. Until recently soldiers spent 10 years in the service, but since 2020, men serve eight years and women five as part of a fighting force estimated by the CIA World Factbook to be 1.15 million strong. Eligible youths sign up for the military in recruitment drives held in April and September.

Much of a soldier’s tour of duty has little to do with preparing to fight — instead the government uses the available manpower as free labor for things like farm work, road maintenance and construction.

“The fall recruitment for the military has begun nationwide,” a resident of Unhung county in the northern province of Ryanggang told RFA Korean on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “Many parents are concerned that their children will go to the construction unit.”

Soldiers sent to general construction units are sent to state projects like a massive home-building effort in Pyongyang, or to build power plants, greenhouses and roads. They may be assigned to repair damage from natural disasters like floods.

Construction units are still, at least on paper, units in the Korean People’s Army. But soldiers hope to avoid the assignments because it typically means doing hard labor for their entire service. They are also a lower priority when it comes to doling out food and supplies, according to the source. 

“Powerful and wealthy people use bribes and connections to send their children to comfortable, well-regarded units. Parents who don’t have anything can do nothing about it,” the source said. “I can’t help but be worried to hear from the soldiers I meet from time to time that their supplies have become even more pathetic than before.” 

Supplies are tight because North Korea at the beginning of the pandemic closed the border with China and suspended all trade. The trade ban has been on and off again in 2022, and supplies have continued to dwindle.

“The authorities are taking away precious youth of the young men and women who serve in the military, but they are not interested in improving their lifestyle and treatment,” the source said. “Parents who send their children to the military would not worry as they do now if their living conditions would improve, and they get adequate food, clothing and daily necessities.”

Sometimes even after completing their service, the country extracts more duty out of soldiers, ordering them to continue toil in coal mines and farms, according to the source.

“I really don’t like the way soldiers who have finished their military service are not sent back to their hometowns,” the source said. “All parents long for their children to return to their hometowns after eight years of hard work in the military away from home.”

The gates in front of the Military Mobilization Office in each district of the city of Chongjin in the northeastern province of North Hamgyong were crowded for the fall recruitment period, a resident there told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely. 

“The spring recruitment period is in April and the fall recruitment is in September every year. These days, messages are sent out on loudspeakers and propaganda cars that come and go on the streets. They encourage young people to join the military by saying, ‘Securing the homeland is the greatest patriotism and military service is the sacred duty of young people,’” the second source said.

“Each district hospital has been conducting physical examinations for those on the military enlistment list. Young people who have passed the physical examinations will gather at the provincial Military Mobilization Office in an organized order after completing an interview at the Military Mobilization Office in their district,” the second source said.

Once at the provincial Military Mobilization Office, the prospective soldiers will undergo more physical organizations, tests and interviews over the next 10 days. They will then be assigned to a unit and go to basic training, according to the second source.

“The second recruitment in the fall includes those who were not on the first recruitment list due to college admissions recommendations, those who failed the college entrance exams, failed to pass the physical exam from the previous recruitment period, and those who entered society for work due to family circumstances,” the second source said. 

“As mandatory military service has been reduced from 10 years to eight years, it seems like more women are subject to be recruited in order to make up for the shortage of troops,” the second source said. 

Even with two recruitment periods each year, there are those who would attempt to get out of military service by falsifying health records or family tragedies.

“Controls for draft evaders is being strengthened. Military mobilization officers are conducting field investigations by visiting workplaces and the neighborhood watch units of young people who have been exempted due to their health and family circumstances.”

Translated by Claire Shinyoung Oh Lee and Leejin J. Chung. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

The clock is ticking for Michelle Bachelet, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, who has said her office would try to complete a long-overdue report on rights abuses in western China’s Xinjiang region before she leaves her post today (Aug. 31).

China vehemently opposes the publication of the report, while rights organizations and rights groups have pushed for its release. The report would cover a period in which Chinese authorities arbitrarily detained up to 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities in internment camps in Xinjiang, according to numerous investigative reports by rights groups, researchers, foreign media and think tanks.

The predominantly Muslim groups also have been subjected to torture, forced sterilizations and forced labor, as well as the eradication of their linguistic, cultural and religious traditions, in what the United States and several Western parliaments have called genocide and crimes against humanity.

Residents of a village in Laos’ Oudomxay province have rejected a government offer of compensation for their farmland, which has been leased to a Thai company to build a “Smart City” in the area, saying it is too low for them to relocate.

On Aug. 25, the Lao government signed an agreement with Bangkok-based Amata Corporation Public Company Ltd., one of Thailand’s leading industrial estate developers and operators, allowing it to use 3,150 hectares (7,785 acres) of land in Na Mor district to develop a Smart and Eco City there, although portions of it are actively farmed by area inhabitants.

The Smart and Eco City project is intended to spur sustainable and eco-friendly development in the northwestern province of the impoverished and landlocked country of more than 7 million people.

The government offered to pay residents 100,000-150,000 kip (U.S. $6.50-9.50) per square meter of land, though the villagers had asked for 250,000-500,000 kip (U.S. $16-32) per square meter, an official from the province’s Department of Natural Resources and Environment told RFA. 

The villagers have not agreed to accept the deal, said the official, who declined to provide his name so he could speak freely.

“The compensation is still low,” he said. “When villagers get the money, they won’t be able to use it to buy new land or build a new house. They are concerned. They want [the government] to review [the offer] again.”

The state owns all land in Laos, though it allows villagers to use parcels and pay taxes on them annually. But because they aren’t property owners, villagers forced to relocate for projects often say the proposed payments for the land they use, maybe for years, are insufficient.

While the government works on an acceptable compensation scheme for affected villagers and searches for new land for them to farm, area residents say they want fair compensation before construction begins.

Villagers don’t want to give up their farmland to the project, but they cannot resist,” said one affected resident on Tuesday. “They want fair compensation if they give up their land.”

Many locals are concerned that they may receive money but no land on which to earn a living and feed their families, said the villager, who declined to give his name.

“If they give up land to the project, they will have no land to produce food to feed their families,” he said.

Other Na Mor residents said they support development and would willingly surrender the land in exchange for fair compensation. 

“Villagers worry that if they give land to the project then they won’t have land to produce [vegetables],” he said. “What are they going to do to feed their families? What they have right now to support their families is their land. Without land they will not survive.”

Amata, which is ready to begin the Smart City project, has rights to use the land but is still waiting for the Lao government to allocate new land to the displaced villagers, said a company official.

“We expect it will happen very soon, then we will start the project at the end of 2022,” he said. “[Once] everything has been completed, we will invest right away.” 

The Lao government also granted Amata a concession to build a U.S. $1 billion Smart and Eco City in Nateuy on 410 hectares of land in northern Laos’ Luang Namtha province, which could expand to 20,000 hectares in subsequent construction phases, the Bangkok Post reported in January, citing Vikrom Kromadit, the company’s chairman and chief executive, as the source. 

Amata’s wholly owned subsidiary, Amata City Lao Sole Company, is building the industrial park that will incorporate energy-efficient infrastructure and sustainable environmental management, the report said. Once completed, the Smart City will serve international investors in sectors such as logistics and warehousing, machinery and food and beverage processing.

Amata has developed other industrial estates in Thailand and Vietnam.  

Translated by Sidney Khotpanya for RFA Lao. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
 

A Filipina pediatrician who advocates for children, a French eco-warrior combating pollution in Indonesia, a Cambodian trauma expert and a Japanese eye doctor will receive the 2022 Ramon Magsaysay Award, Asia’s equivalent of the Nobel Prize, the Manila-based organization that hands out the annual honors announced Wednesday.

This year’s honorees are Dr. Bernadette J. Madrid of the Philippines, Frenchman Gary Bencheghib, Sotheara Chhim, a psychiatrist and mental health advocate from Cambodia, and Tadashi Hattori, an ophthalmologist and humanitarian from Japan, the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation said in a Zoom call. The four are expected to attend an awards ceremony in Manila on Nov. 30.

Established in 1958 and named after the Philippines’ seventh president who died in a plane crash a year earlier, the award is considered Asia’s most prestigious prize. It honors people across the region who have done groundbreaking work in their fields. 

“We are elated to share that our proud Asian tradition of celebrating greatness of spirit through the Ramon Magsaysay Award continues. This year’s roster of Magsaysay awardees have all challenged the invisible societal lines that cause separation and have drawn innovative and inspiring ones that build connections,” Aurelio R. Montinola III, the foundation’s chairman, said in a statement. 

Madrid, 64, is being recognized for her work in advocating child protection that is admired throughout Asia, the foundation said.

During a post-residency fellowship in New York, she was exposed to work dealing with child abuse. Shortly after she returned to her native Philippines, Madrid set up the Child Abuse Program at the Philippine General Hospital (PGH) in Manila, the country’s largest public hospital, but the program was short-lived because of lack of support.

She left the hospital but was asked to return to Manila in 1996 to head its emergency unit for children.

Madrid soon assumed leadership of the PGH Child Protection Unit, the first of its kind in the country. The unit provides a coordinated program of medical, legal, social and mental health services for abused children and their families, according to the foundation’s profile of Madrid. As of 2021, it served 27,639 children.

This in turn led to the establishment of the Network of Women and Child Protection Units in the Philippines. These consist of 123 WCPU centers in 61 provinces and 10 cities involving more than 230 physicians, nearly 200 social workers and 85 police officers to assist children.

“I feel I was prepared to do this work. I was given the talent to do this and it has developed as I worked. That’s why I’m happy. It has become, for me, work that is God’s work,” she said.

The foundation credited Madrid with establishing “the best medical system for abused children in Southeast Asia.”

“We are honoring her for her admirable commitment in championing the rights of the most vulnerable and for her transformative work in integrating child protection into the health infrastructure in the Philippines,” Montinola said. “She has been at the forefront in providing medical, legal, and psychosocial care to children and women who are victims of abuse.”

Bencheghib, 27, a Frenchman based in Indonesia, is an anti-pollution activist whose work, the foundation said, inspired all to reimagine the environmental impact of pollution in Southeast Asia’s largest and most populous country.

The foundation is honoring Bencheghib for raising public awareness of the environment particularly among the young and through documentary filmmaking. It noted that he had produced more than a 100 videos on plastic pollution and environmental protection posted on YouTube, Facebook and other platforms.

In 2017, Bencheghib and his team kayaked and filmed an expedition on the Citarum River in West Java, dramatizing the state of what was called “the world’s most polluted river.”

The documentary, which comprised nine videos, generated wide public interest and caught the attention of President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo as the Indonesian government embarked on a seven-year Citarum River rehabilitation program.

The foundation said it was recognizing Bencheghib for “his inspiring fight against marine plastic pollution, an issue at once intensely local as well as global; his youthful energies in combining nature, adventure, video and technology as weapons for social advocacy; and his creative, risk-taking passion that is truly a shining example for the youth and the world.”

Khmer Rouge survivor

Cambodia’s Sotheara, 54, was a child when the Khmer Rouge gained power in 1975. The Cambodian communists then systematically forced people into slave labor and reeducation in tightly controlled camps. The Khmer Rouge’s brutal rule through 1979 killed an estimated 1.7 million.

Later, Sotheara graduated from Phnom Penh’s University of Health and Sciences, becoming one of his country’s first psychiatrists to graduate after 1979. 

The foundation noted that mental health was a major issue as about 40 percent of Cambodia’s citizens suffered from mental issues and trauma. Yet mental health services still are severely lacking today – the country of about 15 million has only two psychiatric inpatient units with a total of 14 beds. 

Sotheara serves as executive director of Cambodia’s Transcultural Psychosocial Organization, which began as a branch of Netherlands-based TPO International before becoming an independent organization in 2000. It is considered the biggest non-governmental organization providing mental health care and psychological support in Cambodia.

He developed the Cambodian concept of “baksbat” or broken courage – a post-traumatic state of fear, passivity, and avoidance, which is deemed more nuanced and appropriate to the Cambodian experience than post-traumatic stress disorder, the foundation said. 

For this, he is being recognized for “his calm courage in surmounting deep trauma to become his people’s healer; his transformative work amidst great need and seemingly insurmountable difficulties and for showing that daily devotion to the best of one’s profession can itself be a form of greatness,” the foundation said. 

This year’s fourth Magsaysay honoree, Japanese ophthalmologist Hattori, 58, is being cited for his work in helping people in Vietnam by providing free eye treatment, training Vietnamese doctors and donating equipment and supplies to hospitals. 

Described as the embodiment of individual social responsibility, Hattori, is being recognized for “his simple humanity and extraordinary generosity as a person and a professional,” the foundation said.

BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated news service.