Fairplanet: 18 December 2024
by: Hướng Thiện
On 15 December, 2012, Sombath Somphone, an internationally acclaimed community development worker from Laos, was reportedly abducted after being stopped at a police checkpoint in Vientiane.
Surveillance footage shows him being forced into another vehicle and driven away, widely pointing to state security forces as the perpetrators. Despite this evidence, the Lao government denies involvement and claims ignorance of his whereabouts.
Since his disappearance, numerous organisations, rights activists and academics have urged the government to conduct a thorough investigation but have been met with either complete silence or hollow promises of action.
Somphone’s case marks the first high-profile instance of a top-down crackdown on civic space in Laos, exposing both the state’s harrowing silence and the compliance of domestic NGOs.
Ng Shui Meng, Somphone’s wife, has criticised Western media for labelling her husband a “human rights activist,” arguing that such terms misrepresent his work. On a family-run website documenting his life and disappearance, she explained that while Somphone tirelessly worked to improve the lives of the rural poor, his efforts were never confrontational or antagonistic toward government policies, and all his projects were conducted with official approval.
Many activists and scholars emphasise the importance of avoiding the label “activist” when describing Sombath Somphone in the context of Laos.
“Public criticism of the party-state is not permitted”, Dr Kearrin Sims, Lecturer in Development Studies from James Cook University in Australia, told FairPlanet.” Activism is, by its nature, an attempt to challenge or resist state power.”
Laos is one of the most aid-dependent countries in the world. As of March 2024, the country remains among 45 global economies and eight Asian countries designated by the United Nations as the least developed countries. Yet, the monopoly of the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party (LPRP) in every facet of life makes it hard for non-state actors to participate in development work. The 11-member Politburo makes all significant decisions, from vetting Party-friendly or party-member candidates for election to the National Assembly to monitoring activity conducted by civil society actors. Worse still, the Lao government has been firmly cracking down on its civic space in the past decade.
Zero tolerance of civic autonomy
Since the mid-2000s, international donors like Sweden and Japan have focused on developing a civil society in the country. Civil society actors, from INGOS to community-based organisations, are wide-ranging and primarily active in poverty reduction. Yet, they are all subject to wide-ranging forms of government scrutiny.
The Decree on Associations, which came into effect in 2017, requires non-profit organisations in Laos to register with a state agency, bans human rights organisations, and imposes vague and broad restrictions on activities that might conflict with government policies. It also mandates strict monitoring of foreign involvement, including funding and membership. Human Rights Watch has criticised the decree for granting the government “arbitrary powers to prohibit activities by associations, dissolve and suspend associations, and ‘discipline’ or criminally prosecute associations or their members who violate the law.” As a result, there are effectively no independent non-profit organisations in Laos.
Operating outside the formal registration process is also challenging, as the government prohibits informal groups from directly engaging with indigenous communities without first going through local authorities.
Nanpon, an experienced NGO worker (who chose to remain anonymous due to the sensitivity of the issue), provided an example of an informal group trying to work with an impacted community on an environmental challenge.
“It takes them about ten years to build trust with the communities,” said Nanpon.
Civicus, a non-profit organisation based in South Africa that works to strengthen citizen action and civil society around the world, has rated civic space in Laos as closed since 2018.
The Ministry of Public Security reportedly monitors citizens and workers in civil society. Members of mass organisations also participate in sophisticated and secretive country-wide surveillance.
“The Lao government often controls access to the media, and as long as they continue to do that, it will be difficult for international news media to be able to verify sensitive news reports,” said Ian Baird, professor at the Department of Geography at the University of Wisconsin – Madison.
An anonymous Lao worker for an international NGO based in Laos told FairPlanet that local police would go to their office every month “for updates.” Lao staff members are required to disclose their work to the authorities and report on international colleagues and superiors.
“The police just showed up at our office,” said the worker. “They only check on Lao staff. They [give one day’s notice] or none at all.
An eerie silence
In 2012, Anne-Sophie Gindroz, the then country director of Helvetas Swiss Intercooperation in Vientiane, a Swiss non-profit organisation, was ordered to leave Laos within 48 hours after she wrote a letter in which she commented on the Lao government’s “strategy of imposing silence” because of its heavy-handed constraints on media freedom and the rule of law.
A week after her expulsion, Sombath Somphone vanished. Gindroz’s friend Somphone’s ongoing disappearance motivated her to write the book The Silent Repression in 2017. The book recounts her experiences during her three years (2010 – 2012) of working with the country, mainly in the field of rural development. Gindroz says the Laotian government has not officially reacted to her book.
In Laos, activism is deeply politically sensitive.
In 2014, rights groups worldwide urged the Association for Southeast Asian Nations, ASEAN, to join efforts to uncover Somphone’s whereabouts. In 2022, human rights defenders and organisations renewed calls for the government to reveal the truth about his fate. Notably absent from these calls were any domestic entities from within Laos.
“This was a highly sensitive incident in Laos, and domestic actors would have placed themselves at risk of retaliatory actions by the state had they opted to be a signatory,” explained Sims.
In his 2020 research article “Risk Navigation for Thinking and Working Politically: The Work and Disappearance of Sombath Somphone,” Sims highlighted the blurred and constantly shifting boundaries between “what is acceptable and unacceptable” in civic activities in Laos. While issues like women’s and disability rights are tolerated, topics involving religious or political rights are perceived as threats by the Party-State.
In May 2023, 25-year-old Anousa “Jack” Luangsuphom, a well-known critic of the Lao government and a citizen journalist, was shot in the face and chest by an unidentified assailant while sitting in a cafe in Vientiane, the capital of Laos.
He survived the ordeal and fled the country for medical treatment with the help of international NGOs like the Manushya Foundation, though his current whereabouts remain unknown.
A woman who goes by the alias Fundee, a journalist working in Laos, has written about Luangsuphom’s story with great caution and in English only.
“I did not mention that he was a political activist,” she told FairPlanet.
Forced disappearance
Many activists and scholars are not optimistic about Somphone’s fate. In August 2024, the Human Rights Committee highlighted a lack of substantive progress on combating and criminalising enforced disappearances in Laos.
“It seems likely that [Somphone] is no longer alive, although it is not possible to confirm his death,” said Baird. “But there have been no reports of him being alive since he disappeared.”
Sims describes Somphone’s case as emblematic of escalating state violence in Laos and Southeast Asia, including imprisonment, assassination, and enforced disappearances.
He noted, however, that the abduction of an internationally recognised community worker, known for his non-confrontational approach to development and lack of political dissidence, is particularly alarming.
“His case is a little bit different because he was not an activist –he was a community development worker – and because he was seeking to work with the Lao Government, not as an oppositional actor,” he said.
“[Somphone’s case] had the merit of sparking debates within ASEAN, but in the name of the principle of non-interference, no statements or measures were taken,” said Gindroz.
The reach of state repression through enforced disappearances has extended beyond borders. Somphone’s case is not an isolated incident. In August 2019, Od Sayavong, a Lao refugee and outspoken critic of the Lao government, disappeared in Bangkok. Thailand has remained silent on the case despite international calls for action.
Similarly, Thai nationals Ittiphol Sukpaen, Wuthipong Kachathamakul, and Surachai Danwattananusorn – critics of the Thai monarchy – were last seen in Laos in 2018, their disappearances still unresolved.
More international pressure is needed
“Within civil society, I believe the impact has been and remains significant: one must be extremely cautious when working in Laos, and there are taboo subjects,” said Gindroz. “Within a context such as Laos, domestic actors often need to pursue more indirect means to seek to influence the Party-State.”
Sims urged diverse actors and preeminent human rights organisations not to stop seeking answers regarding what happened to Somphone, both in formal submissions to the Government of Laos and public awareness campaigns.
“Continuing to seek answers on [Somphone’s] disappearance demonstrates to other development workers and social activists that there is an international community that will seek to support them if they experience state violence,” said Sims.
“This support may not always be successful. The risk remains high for these courageous individuals. But more than a decade since [Somphone] was abducted, many are still calling for answers.”
Gindroz emphasises the need to break the silence surrounding repression and the inaction of those who could speak out.
“In Laos, public condemnation of enforced disappearances is essential to legitimise those defending land and human rights and who continue to be at risk.
Silence is never neutral. Silence is taking sides.”