April 2013 - Page 2 of 2 - Sombath Somphone | ສົມບັດ ສົມພອນ

April 13, 2013July 28, 2015

Solidarity Event for Sombath Somphone in Manila

The Solidarity for Asian People’s Advocacy (SAPA) working group for ASEAN released a message during an event held in front of the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs on April 12th. The statement calls on the leaders of ASEAN to put enforced disappearances on the agenda of their upcoming summit:

On April 24 and 25, these ASEAN leaders will gather in Brunei under the theme of “Our People, Our Future Together.” But how can we invest our future in an ASEAN where peoples’ basic rights are continuously ignored and violated, a community where people are abducted and forced to disappear? We cannot be part of this. If ASEAN wants us to be part of this community then they should put the interests of the people above everything else. They should respect and uphold basic human rights.

The entire statement can be read here. A related letter from the Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances to the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs can be read here. A video of the event can be seen here.

The event was organized by Focus on the Global South, Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances (AFAD), and Families of Victims of Involuntary Disappearances (FIND).

April 11, 2013July 28, 2015

Missing activist's case losing prominence

The Straights Times: 11 April 2013

ST_20130411_JNISOMBATH90GK_3607406e — Magsaysay Award winner Sombath Somphone with his Singapore wife Ng Shui Meng. Mr Sombath disappeared in the Laotian capital of Vientiane four months ago. — PHOTO: COURTESY OF NG SHUI MENG

A WALL of silence has risen over the disappearance of Magsaysay Award winner Sombath Somphone in Laos four months ago.

His wife, Singaporean national Ng Shui Meng, is exhausted but still not contemplating leaving Laos, the couple’s home for more than 30 years.

“Sometimes I feel this has to be a (bad) dream, a nightmare,” she says. “I stay because there is still some hope.”

Madam Ng was on the way back to Singapore for a break and on a brief stopover in Bangkok yesterday where she had an emotional meeting with Mrs Angkhana Neelapaijit. Her husband – Thai human rights lawyer Somchai Neelapaijit – disappeared under similar circumstances in the Thai capital in 2004.

“I know what Shui Meng is going through,” Mrs Angkhana told The Straits Times. “It’s an emotional seesaw driven by rumours. One day you hear from someone that your husband is alive. The next day you hear that his body has been found.”

Neither man has been found – alive or dead.

Mr Sombath’s abduction may have been triggered by his role in coordinating the Asia-Europe People’s Forum in Vientiane in October last year, where the Laos government came under some criticism. Continue reading “Missing activist's case losing prominence”

April 10, 2013July 28, 2015

Carving up LAOS: Land disputes rattle the government

The Edge Review: 5 -11 April 2013

By Marwaan Macan-Markar / Bangkok

When they gathered for the second annual session of the National Assembly last December, Laotian lawmakers may have had a reason to feel buoyant. The communist-ruled country appeared on the verge of gaining international respectability. The preceding months had seen this impoverished nation shed some of its image as a diplomatic backwater in the region.

The remake came in stages. In July, Hillary Clinton flew into Vientiane, becoming the first US Secretary of State to visit the landlocked country in 57 years.

Then, in October, the World Trade Organisation approved Laos’ application to join the WTO, signalling that this agrarian nation had joined the world of international commerce. And finally, in November, Laos hosted its most important international gathering, the Asia-Europe Meeting (Asem), which drew world leaders from Asia and Europe.

But by the time the 12-day session of the country’s parliament drew to a close in December, the assembly had traded open buoyancy for secrecy, raising questions about the prospect of a liberal political culture taking root. Nothing was more deafening to some community leaders than the assembly’s decision to silence one of the rare new avenues of openness – a hotline for the public to call the 132-member parliament.

This rollback in a country where political dissent has traditionally not been tolerated was hard to ignore. After all, the first annual session of the parliament, held in July, seemed to indicate that the nod given to greater openness in recent years by the ruling Lao People’s Revolutionary Party (LPRP) might be genuine. There were close to 300 calls that citizens made using the hotline, a number that was widely publicised in the local media. Continue reading “Carving up LAOS: Land disputes rattle the government”

April 9, 2013July 28, 2015

Sombath: his ideas will not disappear

Sombath has been missing for 114 days, but his words, his ideas and his inspiration are still with us.

In 2012, Sombath was an adviser for a video called ‘Happy Laos’ that was shown at the closing session of the Asia Europe People’s Forum (AEPF). Here is what he says in the film:

What are we developing for? We develop because we want happiness, but we see happiness as material things. We develop to reach our material goals but actually that is not true happiness.

We do not deny the economy is important but it has to be balanced. The economy, society, environment and the human spirit… these four factors have to be balanced, and then we will find happiness.

Click this link to watch the ‘Happy Laos’ video at Youtube.

April 5, 2013July 28, 2015

Where in the World is Sombath?

The Edge Review: 05 April 2013

By Marwaan Macan-Markar / Bangkok

They were heading home for dinner in Vientiane on the evening of Dec. 15. Ng Shui-Meng, a former UNICEF staffer, was in the car ahead. Following behind was her husband, Sombath Somphone, in his battered old jeep.

But Sombath never made it home that night.

Ng’s search for her husband began soon after, with an appeal by the native Singaporean to the Laotian government to help trace the man whose fame as a civil society leader had earned him praise at home and abroad. She wrote a letter to the ministry of public security and included a copy of the CCTV footage of Sombath being checked at a police post and then being led to another vehicle on the night he vanished.

Then on Jan 4, Yong Chanthalangsy, Laos’ ambassador at the United Nations in Geneva, released a statement: “It may be possible Mr. Sombath has been kidnapped perhaps because of a personal conflict or a conflict in business or some other reason,” according to a version published in the Vientiane Times newspaper.

The Laotian government’s attempt to distance itself from an event that unfolded within a police-controlled environment and was captured on video has raised questions about its credibility. It comes at a time when the country is seeking to open up after decades of socialist control since the end of the Indo-China war.

It is an attitude that has brought little comfort to Ng, who met Sombath when the two of them were students at the University of Hawaii in the 1970s and who then followed him, after marriage, to Laos in 1985. He came home to help the country’s rural poor and she contributed in the fields of education, women and children’s issues.

The following are excerpts of an interview Ng granted to The Edge Review:

REVIEW: It is now over 100 days since your husband, Sombath Somphone, disappeared. When was the last time you heard from a Laos government official about the status of the investigation?

Ng Shui-Meng: I contacted the public security once
again a week ago asking whether the investigation was still ongoing or (whether) they considered the case closed. The response is that they are still investigating. Before that was the public security’s second official report on the results of their investigation issued on 2nd March. Continue reading “Where in the World is Sombath?”

April 4, 2013July 28, 2015

Laos: Rhetoric Vs. Reality? – Analysis

Eurasia Review: 02 April 2013

By Aparupa Bhattacherjee, Research Intern, SEARP, IPCS

The arcane disappearance of a Laotian citizen, award-winning activist, Sombath Somphone has baffled the world. The Laos government is facing criticism from their neighbouring countries, and especially from the US, due to their inability to probe into the case after more than hundred days of Mr. Sombath’s disappearance. Interestingly, this is not the first case of disappearance in Laos. Authorities in Laos have obstructed the US’ investigations into the whereabouts of two US citizens and an American permanent resident that have been missing from Laos for a long time. The government has taken no major initiative to investigate these cases. These incidents hamper the image of the Communist Laos government, whose newly liberalised economy propels them to be dependent on their neighbour and the US for both investment and funding. Moreover, the changes which liberalisation has brought into Laos are being questioned under such circumstances.

Changes brought about due to Liberalisation

For the world outside, Laos is a beautiful landlocked country. That is the image portrayed by the Laos government, which is quite evident from their slogan “simply beautiful”. Laos has a long history of struggle and bloodshed. The Communist government, which followed the Chinese and USSR model of governance, faced a lot of criticism due to their mistreatment of the ethnic tribes, especially the Laotians of Hmong ethnicity. Voices against the government were also brutally crushed. The system of governance was very opaque. The disappearances of people who were critical of the government were not unusual. The situation seems to have changed only after liberalisation. But the question arises that has the scenario changed for the better or for worse? Continue reading “Laos: Rhetoric Vs. Reality? – Analysis”

April 1, 2013July 28, 2015

Where is Sombath Somphone?

by Focus on the Global South

Those who assert there is little civil society in the Lao PDR (Laos) have apparently never attended a celebration or festival in the country. Nor have they given due consideration to the staggering diversity of ethnicity and cultures, and the myriad and dynamic ways Lao communities have for centuries dealt with food shortages, natural disasters, and management and sharing of natural resources. Inside Laos, the current elite also seems to have forgotten that it was this same ability to organise and cope in the face of diverse, changing conditions that fed and sheltered the revolutionary struggle.

But if one were to put a face to those aspects of Lao civil society more recognized at the national and international levels, it would be that of Sombath Somphone.

Sombath grew up in rural Laos as the eldest child of a farming family. Passion, determination and a keen intellect led him through education at local, national and international institutions to obtain a BA in Education and an MA in Agriculture. While thousands of others were still fleeing Laos after the country gained independence in 1975, Sombath returned to work with the new government and his compatriots. Over the next three decades Sombath worked with remarkable persistence and humility to promote sustainable agriculture, participatory development and learner-centred education.

In 2005, he received the prestigious Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership for “…his hopeful efforts to promote sustainable development in Laos by training and motivating its young people to become a generation of leaders.” Sombath is one of only two Lao citizens to receive this award, often called Asia’s Nobel Prize, in its 55-year history. A practicing Buddhist, Sombath advocates a holistic approach to living, guided by respect for nature, compassion and honesty.

On the evening of December 15, 2012, Sombath Somphone was abducted at a major street in Vientiane after being stopped by the police. Recorded by a CCTV camera, the abduction shocked people inside the country and across the world. The abduction itself as well as the government’s responses, continue to raise many troubling questions and paint the Lao government in very poor light. Continue reading “Where is Sombath Somphone?”