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ASEAN Should Confront Laos On Rights Abuses: NGOs

The Diplomat: 16 December 2014

Call issued on anniversary of disappearance of Lao civil society leader Sombath Somphone

By Prashanth Parameswaran

ASEAN member states should abandon their principle of not interfering in each other’s internal affairs and confront Laos on rights abuses in the country as responsible members of the international community, a group of leading regional and international non-governmental organizations said yesterday.

“Instead of invoking the principle of non-interference into one another’s internal affairs, ASEAN member states must act as responsible members of the international community and uphold the…key tenets enshrined in the ASEAN charter, which recognizes the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms….,” a statement, signed by 82 regional and international NGOs, said.

The statement was released on the second anniversary of the enforced disappearance of revered Lao civil society leader Sombath Somphone, who was last seen on the evening of December 15, 2012. A police security video of the incident showed Sombath being stopped at a police checkpoint while driving home, before being taken into custody by unknown individuals. Rights groups say the fact that the police officers who witnessed the abduction failed to intervene suggests some level of complicity by Lao authorities. Continue reading “ASEAN Should Confront Laos On Rights Abuses: NGOs”

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Laos must come clean

The Nation: 16 December 2014

The Laos government claims to care about its citizens. Now is the time to prove it.

Silence over the disappearance two years ago of community activist Sombath Somphone is a stain on the national conscience.

On the evening of December 15, 2012, Magsaysay award winner Sombath Somphone was seen getting out of his jeep and walking into a police outpost on Thadeua Road, Vientiane. Video from a traffic camera shows that a car with flashing lights then arrived, Sombath was escorted to it by unidentified men and then driven away from the scene.The video clip, available on YouTube and other websites, has been viewed by people around the world many times over the past two years. Lao authorities, meanwhile, have announced several times they are investigating Sombath’s disappearance, but on each occasion they have been unable to demonstrate any progress on the case to the public and his family.The international community, including the United Nations, has voiced concerns over his disappearance and pressured the government in Vientiane to make greater efforts to solve the case.Sombath had dedicated his life to the development of his motherland and the betterment of his fellow citizens, particularly the poor. He is a model Lao citizen with a deep love for Laos that he expressed in actions.

In the early 1970s, he received a scholarship to study at the University of Hawaii where he received a BA in Education and an MA in Agriculture. With these qualifications he was free to settle anywhere in the world after the Vietnam War and the fall of Vientiane to the communist Pathet Lao in 1975. But he chose to return home so as to help poor farmers improve their productivity. His contribution to Lao society matches that of the most idealistic members of the Vientiane government. In this regard, the government owes him a lot. But his work went largely unrecognised at home, only coming to international attention when Sombath was handed the prestigious Magsaysay Award for community leadership. Continue reading “Laos must come clean”

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Two years on: Still no answers in disappearance of Sombath Somphone

The Diplomat: 15 December 2014

Lao leading civil rights activist Sombath Somphone, right, with his wife Shui-Meng during a drip to Bali in 2005. Pic: AP.

Lao leading civil rights activist Sombath Somphone, right, with his wife Shui-Meng during a drip to Bali in 2005. Pic: AP.

Two years have passed since the enforced disappearance of Sombath Somphone, a celebrated civil rights worker in Laos. Sombath was last seen being driven away in an unknown vehicle in Vientiane on Dec. 15, 2012. He has not been heard from since. Sombath’s family, friends, and colleagues continue to demand answers about his whereabouts and accountability from a government notorious for strong-arming activists and others seen as “troublemakers”.

CCTV footage shows Sombath was last seen when he was stopped at a police post in Vientiane after leaving dinner with his wife. The video shows him at the post and then being driven away in another vehicle. No one knows his whereabouts since then and the Laos government denies having knowledge about where he is, why he was detained, or what has happened to him. Continue reading “Two years on: Still no answers in disappearance of Sombath Somphone”

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Two years on, still no sign of Laos' activist Sombath

Global Post: 15 December 2014

Rights groups on Monday urged Southeast Asian nations to turn up the pressure on Laos over the disappearance of prominent activist Sombath Somphone who vanished from the streets of Vientiane two years ago.

Sombath, an award-winning campaigner for sustainable development, disappeared after he was pulled over at a police checkpoint in the Laos capital on the evening of December 15, 2012.

His case has cast a dark cloud over civil society in Laos, an impoverished tightly-controlled communist country, and raised the issue of impunity for powerful state and business interests held responsible for routinely killing or “disappearing” activists across the region.

A group of around 80 regional rights groups said the Laos government’s silence on Sombath was part of a strategy of “consigning to oblivion” crimes of enforced disappearance.

“Regrettably, all other ASEAN member states have remained conspicuously silent on the issue of Sombath’s disappearance,” the groups said in joint statement  released by the International Federation of Human Rights. Continue reading “Two years on, still no sign of Laos' activist Sombath”

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HRW: Lao government's investigation into Sombath case 'is a sham'

Deutsche Welle: 15 December 2014

Two years ago, prominent activist Sombath Somphone vanished from the streets of the Lao capital Vientiane. Although the authorities could give answers, they have remained silent to this day, says HRW’s Phil Robertson. SB-Magsaysay On the evening of December 15, 2012, civil society leader Sombath disappeared without a trace. He was on his way home from the office when he was pulled over at a police checkpoint. The rights activist was later taken to another vehicle and driven away. His whereabouts still remain unknown.

Right from the beginning, it is widely believed to be a case of enforced disappearance, with many suspecting the Southeast Asian nation’s Communist one-party government to be behind the abduction. The government, however, has so far firmly denied any responsibility for the incident. The Sombath case stirred an international outcry, with prominent figures like Hillary Clinton, John Kerry and Desmond Tutu calling for his safe return and urging the authorities not to block a thorough investigation.

Sombath had for decades campaigned for the rights of the land-locked nation’s poor rural population and the protection of environment. In 2005, he was awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Prize, considered Asia’s equivalent to the Nobel Prize. In a DW interview, Phil Robertson, Asia expert at Human Rights Watch, strongly criticizes the Lao government for their hard stance. Continue reading “HRW: Lao government's investigation into Sombath case 'is a sham'”

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Wife of missing Laos activist keeps his case alive

Straits Times: 12 December 2014

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Mr Sombath Somphone with his Singaporean wife Ng Shui Meng. Dr Ng has launched the Sombath Initiative to “seek resolution” to her husband’s disappearance and to carry forward his ideas. — PHOTO: COURTESY OF NG SHUI MENG

By Nirmal Ghosh, Indochina Bureau Chief In Bangkok

ALMOST two years after the disappearance of prominent Lao civil society figure Sombath Somphone in Vientiane, his Singaporean wife Ng Shui Meng, 67, says “the anxiety and despair grows with each passing day”.

Speaking in Bangkok yesterday at the announcement of the Sombath Initiative, she said: “Today marks 726 days, four days short of two years that Sombath has been taken away.

“Some people sometimes ask me, do you think Sombath Somphone is still alive? My answer is, I can only hope that he is still alive, for without that hope I will not have the strength to get up each day.”

The initiative had been formed in the “desperate hope that the Lao and other governments continue to show interest and pressure Lao authorities not to forget but employ all available resources” to probe the case, she said.

The group behind it includes Dr Ng, Philippine lawmaker Walden Bello, Malaysian MP Charles Santiago and Australian senator Lee Rhiannon.

The goal is to “seek resolution” to Mr Sombath’s disappearance and to carry forward his ideas. Continue reading “Wife of missing Laos activist keeps his case alive”

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Two years on, Laos activist still missing

Al Jazeera: 12 December 2014

Many suspect it was Sombath Somphone’s work empowering communities across Laos that led to his enforced disappearance.

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Sombath Somphone won the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership in 2005 [AP]
In August 2005, in front of an audience in Manila, Lao development worker Sombath Somphone received the Ramon Magsaysay Award for community leadership.

Known as Asia’s Nobel Prize, it showed that Sombath’s work was appreciated not just by the people of Laos but across the region.

The award recognised Sombath’s “hopeful efforts to promote sustainable development in Laos by training and motivating its young people to become a generation of leaders”.

But much of that hope has now been lost. Rather than mentoring a new generation of Lao community leaders, Sombath is missing – a victim of enforced disappearance – and Lao civil society is fractured and fearful.

An enforced disappearance takes place when a person is arrested, detained or abducted by the state or agents acting for the state, who then deny that the person is being held or conceal their fate or whereabouts, placing them outside the protection of the law.

And this serious human rights violation, recognised as an international crime since the aftermath of World War II, is ongoing as long as Sombath’s fate and whereabouts remain unknown.

Continue reading “Two years on, Laos activist still missing”

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ถ้าโลกนี้ไม่มีการอุ้มหาย: การแสดงพลังของคนรุ่นใหม่ ผ่านวาระ 2 ปีการหายตัวไปของอ้ายสมบัด

Thai PBS: 12 ธันวาคม 2557

ถ้าโลกนี้ไม่มีการอุ้มหาย: การแสดงพลังของคนรุ่นใหม่ ผ่านวาระ 2 ปีการหายตัวไปของอ้ายสมบัด

สองปีแล้ว ‘สมบัด สมพอน’ ก็ยังไม่กลับมา สมควรแก่เวลาที่คนรุ่นใหม่จะร่วมกันสร้างสังคมที่ใฝ่ฝัน, สังคมแห่งสันติภาพ?

นี่คือบทสัมภาษณ์คนรุ่นใหม่กลุ่ม Sombath Somphone and Beyond Project

12 ธันวาคม 2557, บันทึกไว้ด้วยจิตคารวะ

Continue reading “ถ้าโลกนี้ไม่มีการอุ้มหาย: การแสดงพลังของคนรุ่นใหม่ ผ่านวาระ 2 ปีการหายตัวไปของอ้ายสมบัด”

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Wife of Missing Lao Civil Society Leader Vows to Keep Pushing For Answers

Radio Free Asia: 12 December 2014

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Ng Shui-Meng, wife of Sombath Somphone, talks about her husband’s disappearance at a press conference in Bangkok, Dec. 11, 2014.

The wife of a missing prominent civil society leader in Laos vowed to continue pushing the authorities for answers over the disappearance of her husband, who vanished under mysterious circumstances in the capital Vientiane two years ago. Ng Shui-Meng, the wife of Sombath Somphone, said she would continue to highlight her husband’s case “until the end of my life.” “I will not give up asking, looking for and requesting the Lao government, officials and police to please give our family sympathy and give us answers soon, because after Sombath’s disappearance, we felt pain and our lives became difficult,” she said at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand in Bangkok on Thursday. “However, I am committed to looking for Sombath until the end of my life if I don’t get the answers.” Continue reading “Wife of Missing Lao Civil Society Leader Vows to Keep Pushing For Answers”

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En Asie du Sud-Est, la liste des militants "disparus" s'allonge

RTL Info: 12 Décembre 2014 SM-FCCT-02
Deux ans après la disparition de Sombath Somphone, célèbre militant laotien, sa femme se désespère de savoir ses ravisseurs toujours impunis. Un cas loin d’être isolé en Asie du Sud-Est, où l’enlèvement est fréquemment utilisé pour imposer le silence aux contestataires.

“Faire disparaître quelqu’un est un crime particulièrement cruel. C’est très difficile de vivre avec cette inconnue”, explique à l’AFP lors d’un passage à Bangkok Ng Shui-Meng, Singaporienne à la voix douce, et qui vit au Laos depuis 30 ans.

Sous ce régime communiste autoritaire qui s’ouvre timidement ces dernières années, la disparition, le 15 décembre 2012, du fondateur de l’ONG Participatory Development Training Center (PADETC) a profondément choqué la société civile.

Mais aussi la communauté internationale: des personnalités telles que le secrétaire d’Etat américain John Kerry, le sud-Africain Desmond Tutu ou Hillary Clinton ont réclamé une enquête. Car dans le cas de Sombath, l’enlèvement fait peu de doutes.

Des images prises par des caméras de vidéosurveillance le montrent en effet s’éloignant d’un poste de police avec deux individus non identifiés dans les rues de la capitale Ventiane.

Depuis ce jour, son nom est venu s’ajouter à une liste déjà longue de “disparus” de la région. Continue reading “En Asie du Sud-Est, la liste des militants "disparus" s'allonge”