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Civil Society speaks on Sombath

ACSC-APF2.2.3 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[3] 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.

[3] Sombath Somphone, an internationally acclaimed community development worker and prominent member of Lao civil society, went missing on 15 December 2012, when police stopped his vehicle at a checkpoint in the capital. He was then transferred to another vehicle, according to police surveillance video, and has not been heard from since. Reports say that the Lao government continues to deny responsibility for his disappearance.

From Reclaiming the ASEAN Community for the People, the CSO Statement for the 2015 ACSC/APF.

For Para. 2.2.3, on page 2 the sentence containing the individual name of Sombath Somphone and the related footnote must be completely deleted because in any statement we just point out the fact and suggest recommendation and for avoiding unwilling or detrimental consequences, we never put in the name of individual nor we name of specific country. Furthermore, in LAO PDR few people know Sombath Somphone. He is known as a simple Lao citizen and as a development worker, but not prominent as pretended in the footnote. He has established a none registered Association. He does not elected as leader of Lao CSOs. The facts are there.

…This is the determinate voice of Lao people concerning ASEAN CSOs STATEMENT. Once again the People of LAO PDR hope that the sentence of multi-Party and pluralistic system and the other sentence with the individual name of Sombath Somphone, the word LGBTIQ and also all the footnotes shall be deleted or erased from the final Statement prior submission to the high level ASEAN LEADERS during the interface event.

From a resolution allegedly resulting from a meeting of Lao CSOs held on 10-11 March, 2015.

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Dear Sombath…from Somchit (2)

Dear Uncle Sombath,

Today we made merits for you as well to blessed us all for the fresh Lao new year. Wherever you are i wish you received our pray and the food we offer in spirits. We did the ceremony at the wooden house that you bought just couple months before someone disappeared you. I remember very well this house and the rice hut, you said you were very very proud you found it, they are old that the owner wanted to tear it down and you want to preserve it. I never thought before that I will have to work on this house for you, moving them in pieces all the way from Savannakhet province and rebuild in Vientiane capital. It was my very first time in my life to build a house, and I always wish that you could come back and tell me what I should do with these old pieces of woods.

I sometimes thought whether it’s worth to work on them, but I manage to finished them at last, with some adaptation. For nearly 2 years that it’s done, we never use it, and not many people see the house attractive because it’s typical Lao house. But to me, I always say to myself that this house is lovely. I love looking at it and it make me smile inside. For me it’s symbol of you, your taste and happiness. Hope you will get to come back to see it by yourself soon. Jit

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Sweden speaks out for Sombath

Swedish FlagThere 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.

From the Swedish statement to the Universal Periodic Review on Laos held in Geneva on 20 January 2015.

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Civic Activists: ASEAN Ignoring Peoples' Concerns

Voice of America: 02 April 2013

By Steve Herman

This month they are specifically to confront Laos with the issue of the enforced disappearance of prominent activist Sombath Somphone.

APF-KL-2015
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.”

The four-day summit will be held in Malaysia’s capital from April 24. Continue reading “Civic Activists: ASEAN Ignoring Peoples' Concerns”

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Australia promises continued pressure

Australian-FlagAt 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

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Sombath on Investment & Transparency

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.

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ASEAN rights activists demand change ahead of People’s Forum

Asian Correspondent: 26 March 2015

By 

APF-2015
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”

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'The Hypocrisy of Asean'

SEA Globe-23 March 2015…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.

Wathshlah Naidu, in “An Uncomfortable Question,” by  David Hutt, in The Southeast Asian Globe.

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Laos Tries But Fails to Make ASEAN NGOs Ignore Plight of Missing Activist

Radio Free Asia: 20 March 2015

Ng Shui Meng at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand in Bangkok, Dec. 11, 2023. RFA
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”