The 2000 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts

RESPONSE of Atmakusuma Astraatmadja

Ramon Magsaysay Award Presentation Ceremonies
31 August 2000, Manila, Philippines

Excellencies, Chairman and Trustees of the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation, Friends, Ladies and Gentlemen:

It is a great honour and privilege for me to become the third Indonesian journalist to receive the prestigious Ramon Magsaysay Award for Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts in 42 years.

The second Awardee, in 1995, Pramoedya Ananta Toer, in a way was also a journalist although he is best known internationally as a literary writer. The first Awardee from Indonesia for the same category, in 1958, happens to be my former superior, Mochtar Lubis, the editor-in-chief of Indonesia Raya (Greater Indonesia), an independent daily publishing in Jakarta. The daily -- a crusading newspaper, as people call it -- was banned six times during the "guided democracy" of President Soekarno and once, but fatally, by President Soeharto's government in January 1974.

It was in 1958, 42 years ago, that as a 19-year-old cub reporter who had just begun a fledgling career as journalist for only several months, I tasted the suppression of press freedom. I wrote for the August 17 issue of Minggu (Sunday) Indonesia Raya the 17 August edition an "innocent" two-column front-page report on the first five Ramon Magsaysay Awardees including Mochtar Lubis who was then under house detention. But the Military Police who visited our office did not seem to like the piece, and warned my editor to discontinue the publication of similar reports.

The second paragraph of that report I wrote read: "The announcement (of the Board of Trustees of the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation) said that Mochtar Lubis is best known in the international press circles as a fighter who has relentlessly fought against corruption in governments, violation of civil liberty by the military and the invasion of totalitarianism in Indonesia."

Less than two months later, Indonesia Raya was forced to close down because the government refused to give a license to the newspaper. The Islamic-oriented Abadi (Eternal) daily even decided to terminate its publication on the 1st of October of the same year in opposition to the newly established licensing system. The banning of tens of press publications continued for almost four decades under both the Soekarno and Soeharto regimes.

The spirit of press freedom and free expression, however, never dies.

I am glad to be told that my election as one of the 2000 Ramon Magsaysay Awardees is a symbolic appreciation for the struggle of the Indonesian journalists and other concerned activists who have fought for a free press.

I feel proud to have been able to work together with them for many years. They include organized and unorganized groups of journalists and university students, and supporters of human rights in many places throughout the country. Their deep concern for freedom and democracy prompted me to travel -- oftentimes accompanied by my wife or my children -- to about 30 cities and towns for the last 30 years to discuss with them, in open or closed meetings, the meaning of a free press in a democratic society.

Thank you for the honor you have done my country. This is a great encouragement for morale of the younger generations who have to continue the fight for press freedom, free expression and democracy.