Six months after the abduction of activist Sombath Somphone, the nation appears to be falling behind its neighbours and stuck in the grip of a self-serving regime ruling on fear
Six months after the disappearance in Vientiane of Sombath Somphone, the founder of an NGO set up to help rural youth, the Lao government is looking increasingly like the black sheep among its Asean.
As Myanmar progressively distances itself from its dictatorial past by liberalising the press and opening political space for the opposition, the Lao regime is sinking into an obscurantist authoritarianism which seems out of touch with the regional context.
The last sign of this anachronism came at the end of May when Lao authorities sent back to North Korea nine youths who had fled their Stalinist mother country and, with the help of South Korean Christian, had crossed from China into Laos.
”I would characterise the Laotian regime as a plutocracy that is auctioning the natural resources of the country for the benefit of a small group under the guise of communism,” said a Western observer in Vientiane.
And the disappearance of Mr Sombath, the most well known and respected Lao NGO worker, is a tragic testament to the country’s dark side. Continue reading “Activist's disappearance gives Vientiane a black eye in Asean”
Early in the evening of Dec. 15 as Sombath was driving home in his Jeep from his office in the Lao capital Vientiane he was stopped at a police checkpoint on Thadeua Road, which runs by the Mekong River.