AP Features, February 6th, 2007
A Khmer Rouge death camp survivor now battling chronic health problems is among 10 Southeast Asians chosen as recipients of the Hellman/Hammett human rights award, the New York-based Human Rights Watch said Tuesday.
Eight Vietnamese writers _ all of whom have either been jailed or harassed by police for challenging Vietnam's one-party system _ and a journalist from Myanmar forced to flee his homeland were also among the 45 writers from 22 countries to receive the award, Human Rights Watch said.
The awards are meant to assist writers in financial need as a result of expressing their views.
Cambodia's Vann Nath, 62, managed to survive the infamous Khmer Rouge S-21 prison by taking the job of painting and sculpting portraits of the group's leader Pol Pot. He is one of just seven survivors of the prison in Cambodia's capital Phnom Penh, now known as the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum.
At least 14,000 men, women and children were interrogated, tortured and executed there during the 1975-79 Khmer Rouge regime. The group's radical policies led to the deaths of some 1.7 million people nationwide from execution, overwork, disease and malnutrition.
Vann Nath documented his painful experiences in a 1998 book called "A Cambodian Prison Portrait: One Year in the Khmer Rouge's S-21 Prison."
"Vann Nath is an important painter and writer whose memoirs and paintings of his experiences in the Tuol Sleng prison are a powerful and poignant testimony to the crimes of the Khmer Rouge," Marcia Allina, coordinator of the awards program, was quoted saying in the statement.
He is "also living proof of the need for greater human rights protection today," she added.
Despite battling long-standing health problems, including chronic kidney disease, Vann Nath continues to paint and write about his experiences under the Khmer Rouge time, said Human Rights Watch.
Vann Nath said he is "very lucky" to have been picked as an award winner and that he plans to use the award for medical care "so that I can live longer to see the trials" of former Khmer Rouge leaders. Human Rights Watch did not specify the size of the awards.
Preparations are under way to hold a joint Cambodia-United Nations genocide tribunal for the few surviving top Khmer Rouge leaders.
Vietnam had the second biggest number of recipients after China, which had nine winners. Iran was just behind Vietnam with seven.
Vietnam's winners include jailed former journalist Nguyen Vu Binh, banker Do Nam Hai, novelist and journalist Tran Khai Thanh Thuy and attorney Nguyen Van Dai.
Also honored were essayist Nguyen Chinh Ket, democracy activist Nguyen Khac Toan, historian and editor Pham Que Duong and attorney Le Chi Quang.
The government of Vietnam says it does not jail or harass people for their political beliefs but only incarcerates people who break the law.
"By honoring these writers, we hope to bring international attention to courageous individuals that the Vietnamese government is trying to silence," Sophie Richardson, deputy director of the group's Asia division, said in a statement.
The region's other winner was Maung Maung Kyaw Win of Myanmar, a reporter, editor, publisher, translator of English and author of numerous short stories. Human Rights Watch said he assisted foreign journalists and researchers in gathering information in military-ruled Myanmar.
It said he fled to Cambodia after receiving a death threat from military officials for having arranged for a U.S. reporter to meet with a Myanmar dissident, and is waiting to be resettled outside the region.
The Hellman/Hammett award is named after U.S. playwright Lillian Hellman and her longtime companion, novelist Dashiell Hammett, both of whom were interrogated in the 1950s about their political beliefs and affiliations.
