There are at least nine reported cases of forced disappearances in Laos. The disappearance of the civil society activist Mr Sombath Somphone is one of the most internationally renowned cases. Mr Sombath was last seen at a police checkpoint on 15 December 2012 and his whereabouts are still unknown. The government issued a statement that the disappearance of Mr Sombath would be thoroughly investigated. No results of the investigation have been publicly disclosed.
Sweden recommends that Laos intensify the investigation into the disappearance of Mr. Sombath and accepts external assistance in the investigation and make the results publicly known, and that Laos investigates in a transparent and credible manner all cases of enforced disappearances.
This month they are specifically to confront Laos with the issue of the enforced disappearance of prominent activist Sombath Somphone.
Jerald Joseph left speaks at a briefing on the upcoming ASEAN peoples’ forum while Sunsanee Sutthisunsanee, right, listens, April 2, 2015. (Steve Herman/VOA News)
BANGKOK—Civic organizations in Southeast Asia are expressing increasing concern their voices are being ignored by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), even though the current chair, Malaysia, has vowed to realize a “people-centered ASEAN.”
When ASEAN holds its 26th Summit later this month in Kuala Lumpur, the association’s civil society conference and peoples’ forum will jointly issue a stinging rebuke.
They will tell the leaders that recommendations submitted annually since 2005 by civil society “have been neither implemented nor adopted in any meaningful way.”
They say this is because ASEAN “prioritizes corporate interests and elite groups, including state-owned enterprises, over the interests of the people.”
At the fourth Australian-Laos Human Rights Dialogue in Canberra on 5 March, Australia further pressed Laos to conclude an urgent and credible investigation into Mr Sombath’s disappearance, emphasising pressure will remain on Laos unless the case is transparently and credibly resolved. Australia also underlined the need for Laos to respond in a considered manner to recommendations made by Australia and other countries at the recent United Nations Human Rights Council Universal Periodic Review (UPR), including on Mr Sombath’s disappearance and the constrained operating environment for civil society in Laos. Australia will continue to pursue this matter…
Richard Andrews, First Assistant Secretary, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, in a letter to The Sombath Initiative, responding to an earlier letter to Julie Bishop, Australian Foreign Minister. Despite the Lao government’s continued claims it is more concerned than anybody, a related article in the Vientiane Times makes no mention of Sombath
We should get them to find ways of doing a total accounting of the investment and the benefits, and especially I think ecological degradation should be accounted for when you do the accounting.
Remarks by Sombath at a panel discussion held at the FCCT in Bangkok, Thailand, 10 November 2008.
Members of the ASEAN Civil Society Conference/ASEAN People’s Forum. Photo courtesy ACSC/APF
The missing Laotian civil society leader Sombath Somphone will be at the forefront of the conversation at the ASEAN Civil Society Conference/ASEAN People’s Forum meets in Kuala Lumpur next month. Sombath is a victim of enforced disappearance, and was kidnapped in Vientiane, Laos, in 2013. The Laos government has consistently denied involvement or refused to provide real information about the missing civil society leader, and his case has come to represent one of the most egregious human rights offenses still committed in the ASEAN countries.
The ACSC/APF allows civil society activists from all the ASEAN countries to voice their concerns about rights violations in their countries, and become empowered by the strength in numbers there. In countries such as Laos and Vietnam, dissent is often suppressed with jail time or enforced disappearances, which makes it extremely dangerous for activists to speak out. Jerald Joseph, chair of the APF’s Regional Steering Committee, said that by coming to the forum, activists who face risks in their home countries find a safer space to voice their concerns. And their participation puts serious human rights issues in the international spotlight, putting pressure on their governments to address injustices. Continue reading “ASEAN rights activists demand change ahead of People’s Forum”
…the Somphone case is an excellent example of Asean’s failure to take a stance on human rights. Instead of criticising the Lao government for not investigating the disappearance, she said, Asean “hides” behind its policy of ‘non-intervention’ in national issues, even though it has previously intervened in internal matters.
…Calling this “the hypocrisy of Asean,” Naidu added that the regional body refuses to intervene on human rights but has no qualms about the region’s “capitalist elites” influencing the national economic policies of member states.
Ng Shui Meng at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand in Bangkok, Dec. 11, 2023. RFA
Lao activists are crying foul at a stealthy, failed attempt by their government to delete the disappearance of the country’s most prominent civil society leader from the list of regional human rights issues to be discussed on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit in Malaysia next month.
The activists say a retired Lao government official served as a proxy for the authoritarian government in Vientiane and lobbied the ASEAN People’s Forum to erase the name of Sombath Somphone, a prominent civil rights leader who has been missing for more than two years, from a list of human rights and governance problems in Southeast Asia.
Sombath went missing on Dec. 15, 2012, when police stopped him in his vehicle at a checkpoint in the capital Vientiane. He was then transferred to another vehicle, according to police surveillance video, and has not been heard from since.
Rights groups suspect that Lao officials were involved in or aware of the abduction of Sombath, who received the 2005 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership—Asia’s equivalent of the Nobel Prize—for his work in the fields of education and development.
Lao officials have yet to state a reason for his disappearance or make any progress in the case, which has become a major headache for the Vientiane government, drawing criticism from European and U.S. development partners and aid donors and attention from the United Nations. Continue reading “Laos Tries But Fails to Make ASEAN NGOs Ignore Plight of Missing Activist”
The Lao government does not want the Steering Committee of the ASEAN People’s Forum to include Sombath Somphone’s name in the CSO Statement for their meeting to be organised in Malaysia on April 21-24, 2015.
Mr. Maydom Chanthanasinh, a member of the APF committee from Laos, recommended to other members to remove Sombath from the statement, particularly the reference to enforced disappearance and human rights violations, according to a CSO staff.
The recommendation to remove Sombath’s name came from a meeting for CSO representatives held on March 10-11 in Vientiane. The meeting, to “exchange information between the state and CSOs,” was chaired by the Minister of Home Affairs, Mr. Xaisy Somtivong.
According to one staff, towards the end of that meeting the Chair asked whether Sombath’s name should be removed from the APF statement. About 20 out of 100 persons present raised their hands in agreement, but the Chair concluded the resolution had passed.
States and non-state actors continue to commit violations with impunity, including police brutality, torture and enforced disappearances, against civil society activists. For example, the lack of immediate and transparent investigation into the case of Sombath Somphone by ASEAN governments, the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR), or any other human rights mechanisms in the region. Human rights defenders continue to be persecuted under oppressive laws, including laws against activities as “injuring the national unity”, “propaganda against the State“, “abusing democratic freedoms” and sedition laws, which deny the people safe and constructive political space.
Dear Sombath, your words resonate so deeply in the face of what development proponents are and do. Listen to communities, interacting humanely (outside of formal time-bound and agenda-based meetings) and take the time for critical reflection are not activities that are really valued and rewarded in development cooperation. Because we need to be productive, we need to deliver, we need to perform.
We are deaf to voices of civil society actors not fitting our criteria, we are blind to the non-monetized economy (which is not only highly relevant for the majority of ‘disadvantaged’ people, but also constitutes the basis of the formal economy), and we are mute to environmental, cultural and spiritual values which do not generate any income.
I can only agree with you when you say: “We become very self-centered […] unable to listen to others. We are what the development model trains us to do and behave and work”.
There are at least nine reported cases of forced disappearances in Laos. The disappearance of the civil society activist Mr Sombath Somphone is one of the most internationally renowned cases. Mr Sombath was last seen at a police checkpoint on 15 December 2012 and his whereabouts are still unknown. The government issued a statement that the disappearance of Mr Sombath would be thoroughly investigated. No results of the investigation have been publicly disclosed.
