Author: rsbtws

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Laos must come clean

The Nation: 16 December 2014

The Laos government claims to care about its citizens. Now is the time to prove it.

Silence over the disappearance two years ago of community activist Sombath Somphone is a stain on the national conscience.

On the evening of December 15, 2012, Magsaysay award winner Sombath Somphone was seen getting out of his jeep and walking into a police outpost on Thadeua Road, Vientiane. Video from a traffic camera shows that a car with flashing lights then arrived, Sombath was escorted to it by unidentified men and then driven away from the scene.The video clip, available on YouTube and other websites, has been viewed by people around the world many times over the past two years. Lao authorities, meanwhile, have announced several times they are investigating Sombath’s disappearance, but on each occasion they have been unable to demonstrate any progress on the case to the public and his family.The international community, including the United Nations, has voiced concerns over his disappearance and pressured the government in Vientiane to make greater efforts to solve the case.Sombath had dedicated his life to the development of his motherland and the betterment of his fellow citizens, particularly the poor. He is a model Lao citizen with a deep love for Laos that he expressed in actions.

In the early 1970s, he received a scholarship to study at the University of Hawaii where he received a BA in Education and an MA in Agriculture. With these qualifications he was free to settle anywhere in the world after the Vietnam War and the fall of Vientiane to the communist Pathet Lao in 1975. But he chose to return home so as to help poor farmers improve their productivity. His contribution to Lao society matches that of the most idealistic members of the Vientiane government. In this regard, the government owes him a lot. But his work went largely unrecognised at home, only coming to international attention when Sombath was handed the prestigious Magsaysay Award for community leadership. Continue reading “Laos must come clean”

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Two years on: Still no answers in disappearance of Sombath Somphone

The Diplomat: 15 December 2014

Lao leading civil rights activist Sombath Somphone, right, with his wife Shui-Meng during a drip to Bali in 2005. Pic: AP.

Lao leading civil rights activist Sombath Somphone, right, with his wife Shui-Meng during a drip to Bali in 2005. Pic: AP.

Two years have passed since the enforced disappearance of Sombath Somphone, a celebrated civil rights worker in Laos. Sombath was last seen being driven away in an unknown vehicle in Vientiane on Dec. 15, 2012. He has not been heard from since. Sombath’s family, friends, and colleagues continue to demand answers about his whereabouts and accountability from a government notorious for strong-arming activists and others seen as “troublemakers”.

CCTV footage shows Sombath was last seen when he was stopped at a police post in Vientiane after leaving dinner with his wife. The video shows him at the post and then being driven away in another vehicle. No one knows his whereabouts since then and the Laos government denies having knowledge about where he is, why he was detained, or what has happened to him. Continue reading “Two years on: Still no answers in disappearance of Sombath Somphone”

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Two years on, still no sign of Laos' activist Sombath

Global Post: 15 December 2014

Rights groups on Monday urged Southeast Asian nations to turn up the pressure on Laos over the disappearance of prominent activist Sombath Somphone who vanished from the streets of Vientiane two years ago.

Sombath, an award-winning campaigner for sustainable development, disappeared after he was pulled over at a police checkpoint in the Laos capital on the evening of December 15, 2012.

His case has cast a dark cloud over civil society in Laos, an impoverished tightly-controlled communist country, and raised the issue of impunity for powerful state and business interests held responsible for routinely killing or “disappearing” activists across the region.

A group of around 80 regional rights groups said the Laos government’s silence on Sombath was part of a strategy of “consigning to oblivion” crimes of enforced disappearance.

“Regrettably, all other ASEAN member states have remained conspicuously silent on the issue of Sombath’s disappearance,” the groups said in joint statement  released by the International Federation of Human Rights. Continue reading “Two years on, still no sign of Laos' activist Sombath”

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HRW: Lao government's investigation into Sombath case 'is a sham'

Deutsche Welle: 15 December 2014

Two years ago, prominent activist Sombath Somphone vanished from the streets of the Lao capital Vientiane. Although the authorities could give answers, they have remained silent to this day, says HRW’s Phil Robertson. SB-Magsaysay On the evening of December 15, 2012, civil society leader Sombath disappeared without a trace. He was on his way home from the office when he was pulled over at a police checkpoint. The rights activist was later taken to another vehicle and driven away. His whereabouts still remain unknown.

Right from the beginning, it is widely believed to be a case of enforced disappearance, with many suspecting the Southeast Asian nation’s Communist one-party government to be behind the abduction. The government, however, has so far firmly denied any responsibility for the incident. The Sombath case stirred an international outcry, with prominent figures like Hillary Clinton, John Kerry and Desmond Tutu calling for his safe return and urging the authorities not to block a thorough investigation.

Sombath had for decades campaigned for the rights of the land-locked nation’s poor rural population and the protection of environment. In 2005, he was awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Prize, considered Asia’s equivalent to the Nobel Prize. In a DW interview, Phil Robertson, Asia expert at Human Rights Watch, strongly criticizes the Lao government for their hard stance. Continue reading “HRW: Lao government's investigation into Sombath case 'is a sham'”

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Dear Sombath…from Shui Meng (6)

My dearest Sombath,

It is already two years since you were so rudely taken away from me on that fateful night of 15 December 2012. I can tell you that over the past two years, I don’t know how many times my mind went back to that moment when you walked into Saoban Shop where I was and said, “Let’s go home”. I remembered answering “OK”, picked up my things, and we got into our respective cars and headed for home, except you never arrived home.

Sombath, over the last two years, I kept wondering, could things have been different, if I had not taken our family car that day to go out first, leaving you to drive your beaten-old jeep to go for your usual evening ping-pong game with your ping-pong teacher? Then we would have been riding in the same car, and even if we were to be captured that night, we would at least be together. Or, what would have happened, if we had gone out for a beer together before going home, as we so often did on weekend nights. Then, maybe, just maybe, the people who laid in wait for you would tire of waiting and leave the police post before you drove by. After all it was a Saturday evening and most police on duty would leave for home early. Then you would have escaped your cruel fate.

Sombath, I know these are futile thoughts, but I cannot help it that they keep coming back again and again. Maybe, these senseless thoughts will continue to haunt me for the rest of my life.

Frankly, Sombath, I sometimes wonder how I manage to hold myself together through the 730 days that you have been disappeared. When people complement me for being strong, I could only smile a mirthless smile – for what else could I do but to go on? I cannot possibly accept that you have been taken from me without doing anything. I need to find out what happened to you, where you are now, and how to get you returned safely to our family. So I keep urging the Lao leaders to give me answers, and to mobilize all the help I can to persuade the Lao Government to expedite the investigation and resolve your case. I used to think that with the evidence of your capture recorded in the police’s own surveillance camera, it would not be so difficult to trace you and bring you home. But, to my utter disappointment and despair, you are still missing after two years.

Sombath dearest, I often worry that as time passes even your most faithful friends and supporters will tire of pleading your case. Well, at least for now the momentum of support for your return has not diminished. In fact, two years on, more and more people from across the globe are petitioning for you, and more and more concerned governments and human rights groups are calling upon the Lao Government to investigate your disappearance quickly, honestly and openly and bring the perpetrators to justice. Continue reading “Dear Sombath…from Shui Meng (6)”

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Two Years….

It has been two years since Sombath Somphone was taken. Many events have been held, statements released, and articles written. These will be shared over the next days.

But first, a moment of contemplation, of prayer, of reflection, of remembrance, and of resolve.

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Wife of missing Laos activist keeps his case alive

Straits Times: 12 December 2014

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Mr Sombath Somphone with his Singaporean wife Ng Shui Meng. Dr Ng has launched the Sombath Initiative to “seek resolution” to her husband’s disappearance and to carry forward his ideas. — PHOTO: COURTESY OF NG SHUI MENG

By Nirmal Ghosh, Indochina Bureau Chief In Bangkok

ALMOST two years after the disappearance of prominent Lao civil society figure Sombath Somphone in Vientiane, his Singaporean wife Ng Shui Meng, 67, says “the anxiety and despair grows with each passing day”.

Speaking in Bangkok yesterday at the announcement of the Sombath Initiative, she said: “Today marks 726 days, four days short of two years that Sombath has been taken away.

“Some people sometimes ask me, do you think Sombath Somphone is still alive? My answer is, I can only hope that he is still alive, for without that hope I will not have the strength to get up each day.”

The initiative had been formed in the “desperate hope that the Lao and other governments continue to show interest and pressure Lao authorities not to forget but employ all available resources” to probe the case, she said.

The group behind it includes Dr Ng, Philippine lawmaker Walden Bello, Malaysian MP Charles Santiago and Australian senator Lee Rhiannon.

The goal is to “seek resolution” to Mr Sombath’s disappearance and to carry forward his ideas. Continue reading “Wife of missing Laos activist keeps his case alive”

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Two years on, Laos activist still missing

Al Jazeera: 12 December 2014

Many suspect it was Sombath Somphone’s work empowering communities across Laos that led to his enforced disappearance.

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Sombath Somphone won the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership in 2005 [AP]
In August 2005, in front of an audience in Manila, Lao development worker Sombath Somphone received the Ramon Magsaysay Award for community leadership.

Known as Asia’s Nobel Prize, it showed that Sombath’s work was appreciated not just by the people of Laos but across the region.

The award recognised Sombath’s “hopeful efforts to promote sustainable development in Laos by training and motivating its young people to become a generation of leaders”.

But much of that hope has now been lost. Rather than mentoring a new generation of Lao community leaders, Sombath is missing – a victim of enforced disappearance – and Lao civil society is fractured and fearful.

An enforced disappearance takes place when a person is arrested, detained or abducted by the state or agents acting for the state, who then deny that the person is being held or conceal their fate or whereabouts, placing them outside the protection of the law.

And this serious human rights violation, recognised as an international crime since the aftermath of World War II, is ongoing as long as Sombath’s fate and whereabouts remain unknown.

Continue reading “Two years on, Laos activist still missing”