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Face à l’impunité du régime laotien, ne nous taisons pas !

Libération: 15 Décembre 2016

Anne-Sophie Gindroz, ancienne directrice de Helvetas Swiss Intercooperation au Laos

Sombath Somphone en 2005. Il avait fondé l’ONG Padetc. Photo Bullit Marquez. AP

Fondateur d’une ONG de soutien aux paysans, le leader communautaire Sombath Somphone est porté disparu depuis quatre ans. Les autorités du Laos sont pointées du doigt pour leur autoritarisme et leur politique répressive.

Il y a quatre ans, le leader communautaire Sombath Somphone était enlevé devant un poste de police à Vientiane au Laos. C’était le 15 décembre 2012. Dans d’autres pays, la police lance généralement un appel au public pour rechercher la personne disparue. Pas au Laos où l’on vous intime de ne pas poser de questions. Dans d’autres pays, la police accueille favorablement toute aide. Pas au Laos où les offres d’assistance ont été systématiquement refusées. Dans d’autres pays, la population et les médias sont encouragés à diffuser l’information. Pas au Laos où les avis de recherche affichés ont été déchirés et la publication dans les journaux est soumise à autorisation spéciale. Continue reading “Face à l’impunité du régime laotien, ne nous taisons pas !”

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Four years since Laos activist Sombath Somphone’s ‘disappearance’

SE Asia Globe: 15 December 2016

On 15 December 2012, Laos activist Sombath Somphone was abducted in Vientiane. Four years later, his family and human rights groups are still searching for answers.

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Lao national and 2005 Magsaysay Award recipient Sombath Somphone stands beside a poster of fellow awardee V. Shanta during a press conference in Manila, Philippines on Monday 29 August 2005. Photo: EPA/ROLEX DELA PENA

Today marks four years since the forced disappearance of Sombath Somphone, an internationally recognised Laos civil society leader who spent three decades advocating for the environment, civic engagement and democracy in his home country.

Sombath was forcibly disappeared after being stopped at a police checkpoint in Vientiane. Police closed-circuit television shows officers stopping Sombath’s jeep and bringing him into the checkpoint. Within minutes, Sombath reappears and is taken away in another vehicle. His jeep is later driven away by another individual. Last December, Sombath’s family released new footage showing the vehicle being driven to the centre of Vientiane.

There has been no government investigation into Sombath’s disappearance and Laos authorities have not held a briefing on the status of his case since June 2013. Continue reading “Four years since Laos activist Sombath Somphone’s ‘disappearance’”

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NGOs urge search for Laos activist 4 years after he vanished

Washington Post: 15 December 2016

By Dake Kang | AP

BANGKOK — Ng Shui Meng hasn’t given up hope.

Thursday was the fourth anniversary of the day her husband, Laotian community organizer Sombath Somphone, vanished at a police checkpoint on the outskirts of Vientiane, the capital — a suspicious disappearance reflecting the repressive tactics of the country’s Communist rulers, who have quashed political dissent since taking power in 1975.

After Sombath vanished, Laotian authorities denied responsibility and promised investigations that never materialized, though video evidence showed that his last known location was in police custody.

“Nobody contacted me, I know nothing,” Singaporean native Ng said by phone from Vientiane, where she still lives, waiting for her husband. “The last update I heard was over two years ago.” Continue reading “NGOs urge search for Laos activist 4 years after he vanished”

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The Mystery of Sombath Somphone Still Resonates in Laos

Radio Free Asia: 15 December 2016

A 2005 photo of Sombath Somphone in the Philippines. AFP/Somphone family

The disappearance of Sombath Somphone remains one of the most enduring and heartbreaking mysteries of modern Laos as the abduction of the world-recognized rural development activist at a police checkpoint four years ago remains unsolved.

“As the fourth anniversary of Sombath’s disappearance approaches, my heart becomes heavier by the day,” his wife Shui Meng Ng told RFA’s Lao Service on Tuesday. “I never expected that I would still have no news of Sombath after so long.”

Video footage show’s Sombath’s Jeep being stopped at a police checkpoint on the evening of Dec. 15, 2012. In the video Sombath is herded into a white truck and taken away, and a man dressed in white returns and drives off in his Jeep. Continue reading “The Mystery of Sombath Somphone Still Resonates in Laos”

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FÖRSVUNNEN SEDAN 2012

Amnesty Press: 2016

Den 15 deshuimeng-2016-amnesty-presscember 2012 stoppades Sombath Somphones bil av polis. Sedan dess har ingen sett honom. – Jag hoppas att han lever. Att inte veta är det allra svåraste, säger hustrun Ng Shui Meng. Text: Ivar Andersen

Ng Shui Meng vill inte trä as i sitt hem. Hon misstänker att det är övervakat.

Istället föreslår hon ett möte i den lilla butik för rättvisemärkta och lokalproducerade varor som hon driver i centrala Vientiane. Hon startade rörelsen som en extra inkomstkälla för att nansiera de landsbygdsutvecklingsprojekt hon drev tillsammans med maken och livskamraten Sombath Somphone. Det var också här hon såg honom sista gången – den 15 december 2012 – för nästan fyra år sedan. Continue reading “FÖRSVUNNEN SEDAN 2012”

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Singaporean wife of missing Laos man: ‘Time can never heal a wound like this’

Channel News Asia: 16 September 2016

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Ng and Sombath on a trip to Japan in 2010 (Photo courtesy of Ng Shui Meng)

Sombath Somphone’s high-profile disappearance in 2012 came into focus again during the ASEAN Summit in Vientiane. Although world leaders shied away from public mention of the Laotian civil society leader, his other half Ng Shui Meng vows to keep searching for her husband until her “dying day”.

For a moment, just one, Ng Shui Meng’s tough facade cracked as she appeared to contemplate giving up what has been an arduous four-year slog to locate her missing husband Sombath Somphone.

“You always break down. You always try and make sense of things. All kinds of thoughts come through your mind, like ‘Why don’t you jump off a cliff? Why do you bother to wake up?’” said the Singapore-born, Laos-based woman.

It was a departure from the otherwise calm, measured manner of the 69-year-old PhD-holder in sociology, who met with Channel NewsAsia in a muggy shophouse along Chanthabouly District in Vientiane. Continue reading “Singaporean wife of missing Laos man: ‘Time can never heal a wound like this’”

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Mystery surrounds disappearance of Laos man after traffic stop

USA Today: 11 September 2016

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Ng Shui Meng, the wife of disappeared Laotian activist Sombath Somphone, stands near a missing person flyer at her crafts shop in Vientiane, Laos. (Photo: Thomas Maresca)

The last time Ng Shui Meng saw her husband, he was driving his beloved vintage American jeep.

That was a December evening almost four years ago, after Sombath Somphone was stopped by traffic police. He never arrived home for dinner.

The disappearance of Sombath, 64, a prominent Lao activist who focused on rural development and reducing poverty, is a persistent reminder of human rights abuses by the communist government here. Continue reading “Mystery surrounds disappearance of Laos man after traffic stop”

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For disappeared man’s wife, Obama trip yields little

CNN: 08 September 2016

Shui Meng Ng, the wife of Sombath Somphone, who disappeared in Laos in 2012. She has appealed to President Barack Obama for help in finding out what happened to her husband.
Shui Meng Ng, the wife of Sombath Somphone, who disappeared in Laos in 2012. She has appealed to President Barack Obama for help in finding out what happened to her husband.

In 1975, 14-year-old Barack Obama and 23-year-old Sombath Somphone were both living in Oahu, the future US president starting high school and the Lao exchange student on his way toward a bachelor’s degree from the University of Hawaii.

Forty-one years later, their paths converged again, in a way. Obama this week became the first sitting US president to visit Laos. Sombath, meanwhile, has vanished — stopped on a street in this sleepy Mekong outpost in 2012, stuffed into a pick-up truck, and never heard from again. Continue reading “For disappeared man’s wife, Obama trip yields little”

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Obama aide to meet with wife of missing UH-educated Laotian activist

Honolulu Star Advisor: 06 September 2016

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In this June 25, 2008 photo provided by Shui Meng Ng, Sombath Somphone poses for a photograph in an unknown location in Japan. The disappearance of Sombath Somphone nearly four years ago is a reminder of the dismal human rights record of the authoritarian government of Laos.

A top aide of President Barack Obama said he will meet with the wife of a missing Laotian activist and East-West Center graduate, whose case has been repeatedly highlighted by human rights groups as an example of authoritarian excesses of Laos’ one-party Communist government.

Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes told reporters today he will meet with Shui Meng Ng on Thursday while Obama is visiting Laos. The president arrived on Monday to attend a regional summit.

Human rights activists were hoping that Obama would speak about Ng’s husband, Sombath Somphone, who was picked up apparently by security forces on Dec. 15, 2012. He has not been seen since.

Obama has not mentioned him so far in his public remarks, but Rhodes said that “we care very deeply about her case and her husband, and we believe she deserves to know what happened to her husband.” Continue reading “Obama aide to meet with wife of missing UH-educated Laotian activist”