Thanks to each and every one of you.
First, nowadays champions have made innovative utilization of technology to uncover graft. In Serbia, the Criminal offense and Corruption Reporting System – founded and modified by Stevan Dojcinovic – created a public, searchable database of information, of documents and data, that can be mined with regard to corruption and conflicts appealing, as well as an online tool that will tracks the assets associated with public officials. These types of easy to use, accessible tools have got empowered journalists, activists, prosecutors, ordinary citizens to perform their own fact-finding on illicit activities to bring it to light.
You just about all hail from different nations, you work in different kinds of establishments, you focus on distinct difficulties. Several themes, though, cut across the extraordinary attempts to combat corruption that will join all of you together.
To you, to your teammates, to your families, we say extremely simply: thank you, thank you, appreciate it, for your courage and for your own sacrifice.
SECRETARY BLINKEN: Good morning everyone, and welcome everyone. It’s so good to find out you all here in person. We’ve, as Todd said, been proceeding with these very important recognitions and awards, but we’ve done this virtually, and I’m very, very glad that we are often able to get together today personally.
The final session is one that’s particularly important for anti-corruption advocates tuning in to this from around the world. Now, I suspect several you are under serious stress because of your work. Probably you’re feeling discouraged. Maybe you’re feeling daunted.
Todd and I, by the way, share some thing in common with some of the people getting awards today. We both actually started our own careers as journalists. The experience is one of the many reasons that we have such deep respect for journalists, whose function is indispensable to free and open societies.
Sixth, the awardees have shown the bright light on how graft undermines the ability of governments to fulfill people’s most basic needs in times of crisis. Journalist Rozina Islam exposed how authorities in Bangladesh exploited the COVID-19 pandemic to loot funding from the public health system and allowed lifesaving medical equipment to sit down unused in Dhaka’s airport terminal for months, costing countless lifestyles. Her reporting, which landed her in prison, sparked widespread indignation and calls for justice and change.
To our awardees, to their families and colleagues becoming a member of us in person, some becoming a member of us remotely, simply put I’m honored as well as inspired to be with all of you today.
Third, the champions have got mentored rising generations associated with anti-corruption activists. Since president of one of Malaysia’s highest courts, Judge Rakotondramihamina – excuse me for the pronunciation – has spearheaded numerous investigations that reach the highest levels of government. However he somehow also found time to build a team and also advisor many younger members that share his relentless commitment to accountability. And he’s trained them within the skills that he’s utilized to carry out effective prosecutions, like how to identify and track missing public funds.
Fourth, the champions have demonstrated that – even in opaque institutions which have struggled with corruption – pockets of transparency plus accountability can be nurtured. When Qismah Salih Ali Mendeli took over as Director General of the Central Bank of Iraq five years ago, the lady made it her top priority in order to systematically cut off the pathways of illicit finance. She created an online auditing system to track Iraqi banks’ internal workings; instituted rolling inspections of anti‑money-laundering safe guards; developed an electronic database of individuals who were violating banking laws. One reform during a period, she cut off those paths.
So what I’d like to do over the next few minutes is something a little bit different, and maybe try to pull some common lessons from the function of our awardees: eight lessons from eight champions. Consider them maybe a how-to guide for effectively combatting corruption and empowering people.
Fifth, nowadays honorees have defended the particular rights of underserved plus marginalized communities that are disproportionally impacted by corruption. Colombian Supreme Court Justice Marco Antonio Rueda has successfully prosecuted hundreds of corruption cases over his decades associated with service. One involved a governor in the country’s Putumayo region who illegally lifted restrictions on gold mining and awarded the particular contract in exchange for bribes. The mining triggered significant deforestation of the Amazon rainforest, deposited dangerous amounts of mercury, lead, and other toxins into rivers vital to indigenous communities – till the prosecution Marco led ceased it.
Todd, thanks to your leadership on this problem, and for now 36 years of service and counting towards the department. Todd began when he was 12 years old, which explains 36 years. (Laughter. ) And I’m also very glad to be joined by a excellent colleague and friend, Rich Nephew, who is leading the efforts, and we’ll listen to more from him in a little while.
(Applause. )
So to our awardees, individuals here, anti-corruption champions all over the place, our message is this: rely on us as partners. Learn from these innovative plus dedicated awardees. Pull inspiration from organizations, from institutions, from communities that will stand behind them and who show that together we are able to – you can – make real strides in rooting out corruption and improving the lives of our fellow citizens.
So no matter how great the particular obstacles are that you face, I hope you remember the that your work is producing for ordinary people.
For one, while we are honoring you today as individuals, we also understand that each of you did this work as part of a team.
Seventh, the awardees’ efforts have brought lengthy overdue justice to sufferers and to their families. Antonio de Jesus Cervantes, the journalist for the Mexican publication ZETA, traced a series of intense executions in Tijuana to some drug cartel and dodgy officials. His content led prosecutors to identify these responsible for dozens of killings plus gave victims’ families a feeling of closure previously denied. A close friend of one of the victims said that Antonio’s confirming gave them, and I estimate, “a light of hope, a light of justice. ”
Last year, Leader Biden launched our nation’s first ever U. S. Technique on Countering Corruption, which recognizes corruption as a national security threat and brings an all-of-government approach to addressing the problem. Maybe most important, the strategy focuses on teaming up with partners around the world, companions – like you – to root out corruption, increase transparency, promote accountability.
In events like these we usually try to give a quick overview of the accomplishments of each person receiving an award. But the contributions of these champions over decades of public service are in many ways almost too vast to achieve that.
You’re about to listen to from the State Department’s initial coordinator on global anti-corruption, Richard Nephew, about some of the ways that we’re broadening and deepening those partnerships and working to support the work of champions around the world.
Moreover, all of you persist in this work despite substantial harassment, significant threats. You’ve been interrogated; you have been detained; you’ve been prosecuted; you’ve been labeled as enemies of the state, agencies of foreign governments, partners of organized crime. Your homes have been researched and ransacked, your offices shuttered. You and your loved ones have been intimidated, and in some instances attacked. A few of you have seen colleagues killed for his or her work.
2nd, awardees have come up with innovative ways to raise public consciousness about impunity and its effect on people’s daily lives – a crucial step toward mobilizing the public to demand alter. In Zimbabwe, Jesse Zhou and her business, the Zimbabwe Coalition on Debt and Development, use billboards, tweets, even a dancehall playlist that they handed out in order to motorists at stoplights to build support for a campaign that will demanded answers in high-profile corruption cases. Their particular tagline was, “You should have to know; I deserve to learn. ” And with time, increasingly more Zimbabweans agreed.
All this I know has been brutal upon you and on your families. And yet the other thing that will joins you together is that you simply have refused to give up. You kept at this – out of a commitment to justice and to your many other citizens.
And wherever you are, know that you have a committed partner in the United States.
So I hope you’ll take heart from knowing that every one of the champions that we’re honoring today offers at one point yet another felt the same way. One honoree, Cynthia Gabriel, has written about an especially trying time she went through when the girl was leading a strategy to highlight a massive federal government kickback scheme in Malaysia. She and her fellow advocates were dragged in for questioning. Their offices were raided. They were being smeared in the news and all across social media. Yet at precisely the moment she was feeling the majority of beaten down, Cynthia had written, and I quote, “An outpouring of support from ordinary people gave me new strength to operate for change so that the country could begin to chart a more open and more clear course. ”
