Tag: Sombath’s Family

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Dear Sombath…from Somchit

Dear uncle,

One year you are not home… Auntie couldn’t sleep for many months. She spend most of her time working and meeting people asking for help and ways to search for you and to bring you back. She’s so worry about you, especially in cold weather like this. How will you live? Will have blanket and warm clothes?

I still remember that, after you came back from you mediation trip during last year, a nun told you have to pray for aunty 400 times. For what reason you don’t know, but you said you did start doing it from that time.. I do hope that you are still doing that, even it’s already 400 times praying, please keep praying… She feels it.

Grandmother, went sick because of her old age. Auntie really want to visit her but it’s too tough for her and she afraid that grandma will be worst. Till now, she has no idea what happened to you. This time of last year she waited for you because you said you will visit her. She asked for you but we all have to lied that you are working abroad and couldn’t come to visit her, no matter what happened to her. We told her that you called and said that you miss her.

Now a day, grandma has loss much of her memory, she couldn’t sit or walk, she never mention about you, but she cries and yell with pain when she sees me. She said she has no pain for her body, nothing. I think she’s still waiting for you.. please pray for her too.

Yesterday, it’s one year anniversary that you are away. Friends from around the world are thinking about you and doing as much as they can to ask for your safety return. You are in their heart, always.

PADETC did amazing work, that they organise a fair to inspire people about the work you have done to your own people and country, and the people you’ve touched. More than 200 people joined. We did a big pray for you. Many people wrote to you, on the inspiration tree, hope you could come back and read it. I did wrote on the tree, as well as Koung and Mui.

I know you miss all of us, wherever you are. We miss you too. Please be strong, as you always be. I do believe that one day you will come back home again. I will do my best as what you and auntie taught me.

Somchit

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Dear Sombath…from Shui Meng (0)

My dearest Sombath,

A year ago on Saturday, December 15, it began as a normal day for us. Who would have thought that before the end of that day, it would be the beginning of a nightmare for both of us – a nightmare that even today, after 365 days, I still wish I could wake up from. I do not even dare think what those 365 days were like for you. I can only hope that you are still safe, and that those who have taken you will not harm you, and treat you with kindness and compassion. I can only hope that your gentle and humble “Buddha nature” will touch the hearts of the people around you, and they will in their hearts know the injustice done to you.

Dearest Sombath, I just want you to know that your plight has not been forgotten. You are in the minds and hearts of all your friends and family, as well as among the colleagues from the civil society networks across the region and beyond.

In particular, the youth groups in the region have been most active since your disappearance. They have carried out many activities to demonstrate their concern for your safety and urged for your return. This activity carried out today and organized by people who respect and love you, is once more to tell the world that you are not forgotten, and they will continue to do everything they can until you are surfaced.

Sombath, you may be somewhat comforted to know that apart from the development networks and partners, many international Human Rights groups, like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Forum Asia, AFAD, FIDH and so on, have also mounted a campaign against this violation of your rights. In addition, many governments around the world and a number of prominent leaders, including Catherine Ashton of the EU, Hilary Clinton and John Kerry of the US, and also Singapore’s Prime Minister, Lee Hsien Loong, have taken up your case with the Lao leaders. They have urged the Lao Government to quickly find you and bring you home. Your leaders, including President Choumaly Sayasone, have promised to conduct serious investigation and find the perpetrators who took you. I can only hope that their promise is true, even though it has now been a year, and there is still no information whatsoever on your whereabouts or your situation.

Sombath, your absence has left such a big void in my life, and the ache does not go away. The only thing that keeps me going is to hang on to the hope that you are still safe, and that you will come home. Sombath, wherever you are, you too must stay strong and have courage and faith that not too long in the near future, you will be reunited with us.

I can solemnly promise you, Sombath, that I will not rest, no matter how hard and how long it would take, I will leave no stone unturned until I get you back.

Stay strong, my love.  Shui Meng

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Interview: 'All That Matters Is Sombath Be Found Quickly And Returned Safely'

Radio Free Asia: 13 December 2013

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Ng Shui Meng at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand in Bangkok, Dec. 11, 2013. RFA

Ahead of the first anniversary of Lao NGO leader Sombath Somphone’s disappearance on Dec. 15, 2012, his wife Ng Shui Meng, in an interview with RFA’s Lao Service, looks back to the day he went missing and says that believing he will come home is what gives her the strength to go on:

Q: Can you share with us what progress has been made in the search for Sombath Somphone?

A: The police said the investigation is ongoing, but I have no knowledge of what they are doing to conduct the investigation. Nor have the police kept us informed. They just said to trust them.

Q: Could you walk us back to what happened on  Dec. 15? Start at the very beginning. What do you remember about that day? What were you doing? Where were you when you parted company? What was the last thing you said to one another? When did you start to get worried? What did you do? Who did you call for help? How did they respond?

A: Dec. 15, 2012 was a Saturday. I had a meeting with a friend earlier in the day and I took the car. Sombath had no appointment and said he did not need to go anywhere, except for his usual ping-pong game which he plays regularly with his ping-pong teacher at the PADETC [Participatory Development Training Centre] office. He said not to worry, as he could take his old jeep to go to play ping-pong later in the afternoon. Continue reading “Interview: 'All That Matters Is Sombath Be Found Quickly And Returned Safely'”

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Missing Lao NGO Leader's Wife Urges Pressure on Government

RFA: 12 December 2013

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Ng Shui Meng at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand in Bangkok, Dec. 11, 2013. RFA

The wife of missing Lao civil society leader Sombath Somphone pleaded with the international community to pressure the Lao government to speed up an investigation of his case ahead of the one-year anniversary of his disappearance on Sunday.

Sombath’s wife, Ng Shui Meng, said the Lao government claims to be investigating the case but has offered little information on the whereabouts of the 61-year-old civil society leader, who was last seen on December 15, 2012 being stopped in his vehicle at a police checkpoint in the Lao capital Vientiane.

“I’m hoping that ASEAN, [other countries in] Asia and the U.N.—actors that work to protect human rights—will help pressure the Lao government to look for Sombath as urgently as possible,” Ng, a Singaporean, told members of the media at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand in Bangkok on Wednesday. Continue reading “Missing Lao NGO Leader's Wife Urges Pressure on Government”

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Wife's fears for missing Lao activist

Bangkok Post: 12 December 2013

The wife of a missing Lao civil society leader Sombath Somphone has pleaded with the media to stop idolising him, saying the attention could be doing more harm than good.

“When you read what has been written in the press over the past 12 months, Mr Sombath is made to be like a super-Laotian,” Singaporean Ng Chui Meng said. “He’s not,” she told the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand late Wednesday, ahead of the anniversary of her husband’s disappearance in Vientiane on Dec 15, 2012.

“We understand that Sombath is already in very dire circumstances if he is still alive, and this is why I appeal to our media friends to be a little more circumspect of the real situation in Laos,” Ms Ng said.

Mr Sombath, 61, went missing after being detained at a police checkpoint outside the Lao capital, where CCTV images captured him leaving his own vehicle, then getting into a pickup truck and being driven away.

Laos’ communist regime has offered no explanation for Mr Sombath’s disappearance, suggesting it may have resulted from a personal dispute. Continue reading “Wife's fears for missing Lao activist”

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A year on, unanswered questions over Lao activist’s disappearance

Reuters Foundation: 12 December 2013

By Thin Lei WIn

Winners of the Ramon Magsaysay Awards pose for a photograph during a ceremony in Manila August 31, 2005. Sombath Somphone of Laos is on the left of the picture. Photo REUTERS/Romeo Ranoco
Winners of the Ramon Magsaysay Awards pose for a photograph during a ceremony in Manila August 31, 2005. Sombath Somphone of Laos is on the left of the picture. Photo REUTERS/Romeo Ranoco

BANGKOK – On the evening of Dec 15, 2012, Sombath Somphone, possibly Laos’ most prominent activist, left his office in the capital Vientiane and headed home for dinner. He never arrived.

Security camera footage obtained by his wife, Ng Shui Meng, showed police stopping his jeep at a police post and taking him inside. A motorcyclist drove up, stopped and drove away in Sombath’s jeep.

Later, a car with flashing lights stopped at the post. Two people got out, fetched Sombath from the police post and put him in their car, and drove off into the darkness. He has not been seen since.

Ng is still trying to find out what happened to her husband, winner of the 2005 Ramon Magsaysay Award for community leadership – the region’s equivalent of the Nobel Prize – and founder of the Participatory Development Training Centre (PADETC), and where he is.

“There were no warnings,” Ng told journalists in Bangkok on Wednesday night. Since Sombath, 60, disappeared, “a wall of silence has fallen in Vientiane and the rest of Laos,” she added.

Despite international pressure, the authoritarian government of poverty-stricken Laos has denied involvement in his disappearance but said nothing more. Continue reading “A year on, unanswered questions over Lao activist’s disappearance”

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Wife of missing Lao community leader pleads against hero-worship

The Nation: 12 December 2013

The wife of a missing Lao civil society leader Sombath Somphone has pleaded with the media to stop idolising him, saying the attention could be doing more harm than good.

“When you read what has been written in the press over the past 12 months, Sombath is made to be like a super-Laotian,” Singaporean Ng Chui Meng said.

“He’s not,” she told the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand late Wednesday, ahead of the anniversary of her husband’s disappearance in Vientiane on December 15, 2012.

“We understand that Sombath is already in very dire circumstances if he is still alive, and this is why I appeal to our media friends to be a little more circumspect of the real situation in Laos,” Ng said.

Sombath, 61, went missing after being detained at a police checkpoint outside the Lao capital, where CCTV images captured him leaving his own vehicle, then getting into a pickup truck and being driven away.

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Clarification

“While Sombath has always advocated broader dialogue and participation on the overall development approaches in Laos and, especially advocated for sustainable development which is more balanced, taking into consideration development’s impact on culture, nature, spiritual well-being, as well as the economy, he never criticized specific projects nor actively supported any organizing against hydro-power dams.”

Ng Shui Meng, quoted in Dam dilemmas: Laos cashes in on hydro

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Sombath Somphone, Lao activist missing for 10 months, spurs wife’s desperate plea

Sidney Morning Herald: 25 October 2013

SMHVientiane: The wife of prominent social activist Sombath Somphone has made a desperate plea to Lao authorities, declaring he will leave the country and retire quietly with her if returned safely after being abducted in the Lao capital 10 months ago.

Ng Shui Meng, who has been married to the award-winning Sombath for 30 years, says she does not want to see any more damage done to Laos’ image and credibility over the abduction which human rights groups describe as a state-sponsored forced disappearance.

Every day since Sombath disappeared has been “an eternity of waiting, wavering between hope and despair.”

“All I want is only the safe return of Sombath,” Ms Shui Meng, a Singaporean, told Fairfax Media.

“He is an old man who is in need of medical attention. Once he is returned I will take him out of the country for medical care and we will live out the rest of our lives in quiet retirement,” she said. Continue reading “Sombath Somphone, Lao activist missing for 10 months, spurs wife’s desperate plea”