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Quan ngại về giới hoạt động ở Lào

BBC News: 1 tháng 2013

By Jonah Fisher

Đây là trường hợp mà một thám tử loại trung bình có thể giải phá trong vòng một tuần. Vụ bắt cóc ông Sombath Somphone được ghi lại trên camera và diễn ra trên một con đường đông đúc tại một trạm kiểm soát của cảnh sát.

Ông Sombath là người thành lập tổ chức PADETC tại Lào

Thế nhưng hơn bốn tháng sau khi nhà hoạt động hàng đầu trong lĩnh vực phát triển của Lào mất tích, các nhà chức trách nói họ không có đầu mối nào và chưa cần tới trợ giúp từ bên ngoài trong việc tìm kiếm ông.

Chẳng có gì đáng ngạc nhiên khi các nhân viên cứu trợ và các nhà ngoại giao tại quốc gia nhỏ bé ở Đông Nam Á này đang lo sợ điều tồi tệ nhất có thể xảy ra

Vợ của ông Sombath, bà Shui-meng Ng, nhìn thấy chồng mình lần cuối trong chiếc gương chiếu hậu trên chiếc xe của bà.

Đó là hôm thứ Bảy ngày 15 tháng Mười Hai năm 2012, và hai vợ chồng bà đang đi xe về nhà trong hai chiếc xe riêng rẽ dọc con đường Thadeua, chạy song song với dòng sông Mekong.

Trước đó ông Sombath, 61 tuổi, đã đi tập thể dục buổi tối trong khi bà vợ người Singapore của ông dự một cuộc họp trong thành phố.

Tới cuối ngày, họ gặp nhau tại một cửa hàng nhỏ mà bà Shui-meng quản lý và quyết định về nhà.

Mặc dù không bị tắc nghẽn giao thông, hai xe mất liên lạc với nhau. Khi về đến nhà, bà Shui-meng đợi vài giờ sau đó đã quay trở lại để tìm chồng.

Sau khi không thấy bất cứ dấu vết nào của ông hay của chiếc xe Jeep của ông, sáng hôm sau bà đã trình báo việc ông bị mất tích.

Continue reading “Quan ngại về giới hoạt động ở Lào”

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Wife pleads for return of abducted Laos aid worker

BBC video, 30 April 2013

Click this link or the image below to watch the video.

BBC_coverage_of_Sombath_disappearanceThe wife of a prominent Laos civil society leader who disappeared four months ago while driving home has urged that more be done to find her husband.

Security camera footage showed Sombath Somphone being taken away by unidentified men after he was stopped by police in the capital Vientiane.

The communist authorities in Laos say they do not know what has happened to him.

Mr Sombath had been campaigning for sustainable development and fair land rights for small farmer.

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Fears grow for abducted Laos campaigner Sombath

BBC News: 30 April 2013

By Jonah Fisher

It is a case that a decent detective would crack in a week. Sombath Somphone’s abduction was caught on camera and took place on a busy road at a police checkpoint.

Mr Sombath founded the PADETC organisation in Laos

But more than four months after Laos’ leading development worker disappeared, the authorities say they have no leads and yet need no outside help finding him.

It is little wonder that aid workers and diplomats in this small South East Asian nation are fearing the worst.

Mr Sombath’s wife Shui-meng Ng last saw her husband in the rear-view mirror of her car.

It was Saturday, 15 December 2012, and the couple were driving home in their respective vehicles along Thadeua Road, which runs parallel to the Mekong River.

The Mr Sombath, 62, had been doing some early evening exercise while his Singapore-born wife had attended a meeting in town.

With the day coming to a close, they met up at the small shop Ms Shui-meng runs and decided to head home in convoy.

Despite the absence of traffic, the cars lost contact with each other. When she got home, Ms Shui-meng waited for several hours before heading back out to look for her husband.

Having found no trace of him or his Jeep, she reported him missing the next morning. Continue reading “Fears grow for abducted Laos campaigner Sombath”

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ข่าวไทยพีบีเอสเรื่องการชุมนุมที่กรุงมะนิลา ประเทศฟิลิปปินส์เพื่อเรียกร้องผู้นำอาเซียนให้ถือเรื่องการหายตัวไปของสมบัด สมพอนเป็นประเด็นการทำงานเร่งด่วน

คลิ๊กที่ภาพเพื่อชมวิดีโอบน YouTube

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A Congruence of Disappearances

The Straits Times: 18 April 2013

ST_20130411_JNISOMBATH90GK_3607406eMr Sombath Somphone, a 62-year-old award-winning Laos civil society activist, with his Singaporean wife Ng Shui Meng. Mr Sombath was driving his jeep near a busy intersection in Vientiane when he went missing on Dec 15, 2012.

By Nirmal Ghosh, Indochina Bureau Chief

BANGKOK – Mr Sombath Somphone, a Magsaysay Award winner for public service, was last spotted by the cold and unblinking eye of a CCTV camera on the evening of Dec 15 last year, getting into an unknown SUV on a street in Vientiane and being driven away.

Since his disappearance, the Lao government has said he was abducted, but denied that any security agency took him. This has been received with wide scepticism, and the Lao government continues to come under pressure at international forums.

Mr Sombath had only just retired as head of the Participatory Development Training Centre, Laos’ most prominent home-grown civil society organisation. He was a well-known figure in the international development community, and a mentor for countless young Laos.

In Vientiane itself, a curtain of silence has descended over his disappearance more than 100 days ago. His wife, Singaporean Ng Shui Meng, is physically and emotionally exhausted but still not contemplating leaving Laos, the couple’s home for over 30 years – any time soon.

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

The 100-day anniversary, on March 15, of Mr Sombath’s disappearance roughly coincided with the ninth anniversary of the disappearance of Thai lawyer Somchai Neelepaijit in Bangkok on March 12, 2004. He has also not been found and, as in the case of Mr Sombath, there is no proof he is still alive. Continue reading “A Congruence of Disappearances”

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Somchai, Jonas, Sombath: Southeast Asia’s Missing Human Rights Warriors

The Diplomat: April 16, 2013

By Mong Palatino

Sombath-DiplomatThai human rights lawyer Somchai Neelapaijit went missing on March 12, 2004. Filipino activist Jonas Burgos was last seen on April 28, 2007. Lao development economist and educator Sombath Somphone disappeared on December 15, 2012.

The search for these missing activists has become a campaign for human rights promotion, not only in their respective countries but across Southeast Asia. Their names have become synonymous with the fight against enforced disappearances, kidnapping, torture, and other human rights atrocities, often carried out with apparent impunity.

At the time of his disappearance, then 53-year-old Somchai was handling cases in southern Thailand, a region ravaged by infighting between government troops and Muslim separatist rebels. Somchai was pursuing a case against police officers accused of torture when he mysteriously disappeared in Bangkok.

Jonas, the son of Philippine press freedom fighter Joe Burgos, was connected with a left-leaning peasant group when he was abducted by suspected state agents in a Quezon City shopping mall. There were witnesses who testified in the court that Jonas shouted ‘Aktibista ako!’ (I’m an activist!) while he was being dragged out of the mall.

Sombath is a popular NGO leader whose work with the Participatory Development Training Centre in Laos earned him the 2005 Ramon Magsaysay Award, known as Asia’s Nobel Prize, for community leadership. Sombath’s disappearance was captured on CCTV footage, which shows Sombath being stopped by police and then abducted by unidentified men. Sombath’s abduction is believed to be related to his advocacy for the protection of land rights for ordinary villagers. Continue reading “Somchai, Jonas, Sombath: Southeast Asia’s Missing Human Rights Warriors”

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Editorial: Missing Activist’s Family Deserves Help and Answers

The Nation: 16 April 2013

30203977-01_bigLao social campaigner Sombath Somphone was allegedly abducted last December in Vientiane, but no one in authority wants to offer any clue to his whereabouts or fate

Since December 15 last year, when Lao social activist and Magsaysay Award winner Sombath Somphone went missing, his wife Ng Shui Meng has spent most of her time campaigning and working to ensure his safe return. It’s a daily struggle that so far has reaped no reward.

Sombath was last seen driving his jeep in Vientiane, where he was stopped at a police post and then driven away in a pickup truck by unidentified men.

Members of Sombath’s family, including his 85-year-old mother, are of course desperately concerned about his fate. His ageing and weak mother was still hoping to see her eldest son during Songkran, the traditional New Year festival also celebrated in Laos.

It is difficult for Shui Meng to explain to her mother-in-law why that Sombath appears to have been abducted, and why those in power are reluctant to help find him or offer any theory on his disappearance.

Born into a poor family in Ban Don Khio, central Khammouane province, Sombath spent most of his early life struggling with poverty, hunger and insecurity. He and his family had to seek refuge during the Indochina war in the 1960s. Like many others, Sombath was fortunate to get the opportunity to leave Laos and permanently settle in another country. However, he chose to return home and work for the better development of his country and people. Continue reading “Editorial: Missing Activist’s Family Deserves Help and Answers”

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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”

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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.Carving up Laos

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”

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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:

imageREVIEW: 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?”