The 1959 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts

BIOGRAPHY of Edward Michael Law Yone

EDWARD MICHAEL LAW YONE was born February 5, 1911 at Kamaing, Myitkyina District (now Kachin State), Burma. Educated at St. Peters' School, Mandalay, at 16 he went to work as a clerk in the Burma-China border frontier service. He joined the Burma Railways in 1930 as a probationer and by 1938 was in charge of the rates and commercial section, traveling in that year over the recently-constructed Burma Road to survey the route proposed for linking the Burma and Yunnan-Indochina Railways.

Commissioned in the British Army at the outbreak of war, as Movement Control Officer he evacuated troops and civilians out of Myitkyina. When the British Army retreated, he was ordered to remain behind, serving first as Headquarters Assistant and then as District Commissioner. In May 1944, with the landing of Merrill's Marauders, he escaped across the Japanese lines to the Myitkyina airfield and was flown out to India where, in October, he joined the U.S. Office of Strategic Services as an intelligence officer with the rank of major.

Upon reoccupation of Burma, LAW YONE was appointed by the newly-formed Aung San Government as Chief Traffic Superintendent in charge of a fleet of 1,400 trucks, and, in 1946, was elected Associate of the Institute of Transport in London, the only Burman to be honored by that Chartered Institute.

With independence a certainty and foreseeing that a vacuum would be created with the departure of British journalists, he decided in 1947 to join the editorial staff of the Burmese Review. Shortly thereafter, he accepted the editorship of the The New Times of Burma, then owned by the late Foreign Minister U Tin Tut. On July 15, 1958, he founded his own newspaper, The Nation, which he has edited since that time.

Now the leading English-language paper in Burma and "ranked with the best in Asia," The Nation has been a vigorous defender of civil rights, an outspoken critic in the public interest of successive governments and a staunch foe of communism in and outside of Burma.

More than any other paper in Burma, The Nation has taken the role of a social conscience, speaking energetically against restrictive press laws, waste, inefficiency, and intolerance, and censuring "apartheid" and racial discrimination wherever its editor has seen these destructive prejudices at work. U LAW YONE’s policy of printing the news, whether or not it would reflect favorably on the government in power, and pointing out inconsistencies and arbitrary actions in sober editorials has had effect in defeating practices that were undemocratic.

The paper took note of the divisive tendencies of Karen and Arakense nationalism and counseled patient handling of the genuine upsurge of nationalist feeling. When the first Government of independent Burma, in the last item of its 15-point program, proposed establishment of a Marx-Engels-Lenin Institute, LAW YONE denounced it as the surest means of subverting the Constitution and kept up the fight until after the offensive provision was dropped. In 1956, at a time when the Government had not revealed to the Burmese people that Communist Chinese troops had crossed the border at several points, his report exposing these incursions into northern Burma created popular reaction which encouraged his government to take firmer and more positive action with confidence. A frontiersman, born and bred, he has been unrelenting in his campaign to keep the Chinese reminded of international agreements in regard to the defined border line.

In 1952, LAW YONE was prosecuted for criminal libel for calling attention to the corruption of a high ranking civil servant. The Government was represented by three leading lawyers, including Dr. Ba Han, doyen of the Bar, and LAW YONE defended himself. Though witnesses refused to answer questions in cross-examination, pleading "official secrecy" or "privilege," he was convicted, fined and sentenced to prison for one month. The trial, however, caused a public furor, and MPs in the Government Party (AFPFL) stood up for the editor in party caucus. When the High Court wiped out the prison sentence on appeal, LAW YONE was garlanded in court by fellow editors in Rangoon.

After the AFPFL split in 1958, LAW YONE’s impartiality was recognized by his appointment, together with a Justice of the Supreme Court and Judge of the High Court, to serve on two Rice Commissions, one to sell the accumulation of old stocks and the other to formulate a policy for the improvement and sale of rice. He also served on a government inquiry commission investigating delays and alleged malfeasance in the modernization of Rangoon's telephone system. The present Government has appointed him to the Board of Film Censors.

U LAW YONE has also campaigned for religious freedom. He worked for the admission of Jesuits to staff a seminary in Rangoon and is currently credited with helping to bring medical Sisters from Holland to manage a needed hospital in the new town of Okkalapa. He has backed the tearing down of squatters' huts, including desecrated monasteries, and advocated schemes to revive cow slaughter and the destruction of stray dogs. A Roman Catholic, he today espouses the teaching of Buddhism in the schools, as well as the opening of a Department of Religion at Rangoon University.

The Nation's technical and editorial standards have remained high despite successive losses of key assistants, recruited and trained by LAW YONE, who have gone on to more responsible positions with other papers, including U Sein Win, editor of The Guardian and U On Myint, editor of The Reporter. Recognized as a newspaper of record, the bound volumes of the The Nation were a principal source of information for the most authoritative work on postwar Burma, The Union of Burma by Hugh Tinker.

In the interest of strengthening the Burmese press, LAW YONE has headed for three years and frequently lectured at a private Burma School of Journalism, founded to raise the standards of press reporting. Former Prime Minister U Nu, recognizing the value of an independent press, contributed funds for starting this School. Its graduates now hold staff appointments in many vernacular newspapers. One student from the hill areas started his own Kachin newspaper, the Jinghpaw Times, which has proved a great success. Judges, lawyers and doctors, who have attended the School, are putting out law reports and professional journals. The present government has now erected a new department of Journalism at the University of Rangoon where the School will be incorporated.

LAW YONE was elected Vice President of the Burma Journalists Association in 1953 and President in 1954. He has served as Chairman of the Burma National Committee of the International Press Institute, President of the Foreign Correspondents Association and was the originator of the monthly editors' dinners at which the Prime Minister meets and exchanges views with Burmese editors.

He has traveled extensively and is considered one of the more world-minded of Burma's opinion leaders. He attended the Geneva Conference in 1954 and the Bandung Conference in 1955, later that year accompanying U Nu to Moscow.

For recreation, LAW YONE enjoys sailing, fishing, big game hunting and an occasional game of golf and is a devotee of folk music from his own and other lands. He and his wife, Eleanor, have six children; three sons and three daughters. A member of the Executive Committee of the Burma National Boy Scouts Association, he has been an active promoter of scouting, taking the lead in fund-raising activities and traveling to international scouting meetings.

This editor's handling of his newspaper, considering the severe limitations of a technical character as well as other local handicaps that he has had to face, has set an example of what can be done by an independent and resourceful journalist. He has not only helped to improve performance in his own profession but also has taken a constructive part in many civic activities.

August 1959 Manila

REFERENCES:

Files of the The Nation.

Interviews with Burmese journalists, government officials, educators and other newspapermen.