Category: Notable Quotes

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Materially Rich and Spiritually Poor…

Let’s look at our model of development as it exists today. The development model that is widely practiced today is not very sustainable. So many things do not fit, thus so many “failures” just like in our “schooling”. For example, the world is so rich and yet there is widespread poverty. Unprecedented advances have been made in agriculture and aquaculture, yet more people go to bed hungry each day than ever before. Some nations have become so powerful, but the world has become ever more insecure. One can be so rich in materials but yet so poor emotionally and spiritually. And the list goes on.Bust

Sombath, in “The Interdependencies Between Education and Sustainable Development,” presented at the 10th Asia-Pacific Programme of Educational Innovation for Development (APEID) in Bangkok, Thailand, December, 2008

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Education is too Important…

sombath_fishing_skillsEducation is too important to be left only in the hands of teachers and bureaucrats at the Ministry of Education. Educators and teachers need to work hand-in-hand with parents, the community, the private sector, and most especially, children themselves to transform the business of education.

Education has to become more participatory, experiential and stimulating. It has to be more fun. Both the process and content of education have to unleash the potential of every child to solve life problems. Education should be able to integrate information and knowledge into a coherent whole.

Sombath, in “Experiential Learning in Lao Rice Fields,” SangSaeng, Summer, 2008.

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He’s a Listener…

Castan CentreHe has also a very strong respect for indigenous practices and local wisdom. He always believes that you could not survive in farming if you did not know what to do.

Not like some agriculture specialists nowadays who walk straight into a developing country and say ‘We can teach you what to do.’

Sombath never did that. He always tried to learn and listen first, and that has always been the way he works with other people. He’s a listener. He doesn’t talk very much. He listens first.

Ng Shui Meng, in remarks given at Castan Event: Enforced Disappearances in Asia: the case of Sombath Somphone, held at the Monash University, Melbourne, Australia on 06 March 2014.

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Contravention of International Obligations

ICJ-Legal Memorandum on SBThe Government of Lao PDR has also publicly refused to accept the assistance of foreign experts to technically enhance the CCTV footage taken during the time Sombath Somphone “disappeared”, despite the fact that it had earlier admitted that it did not possess the technical capacity to enhance the footage so that the persons and vehicles shown there may be properly identified. This refusal by the Government of Lao PDR to cooperate with experts to look into evidence may be construed as an act impeding the investigation, in contravention of its obligations under the ICCPR, the CAT and the standards of the Convention and the Declaration.

International Commission of Jurists, in “Legal Memorandum on the case of Sombath Somphone.” A related press release can be seen here.

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Human Rights are not an Add-on

The world must hold the line of the UDHR, that human rights are not subject to government approval… Human rights are universal. …We must press Laos to help locate Sombath Somphone and to return him to safety. …These would be but beginnings in addressing the rights of the peoples in the region, but we must not delay any longer.

Universal human rights are just that, they belong to all the planet’s people and governments should stop pretending that it is in their authority to create exceptions to them. Human rights are not an add-on, or something to do after every other problem is solved; they are the ground from which to grow and measure our treatment of each other and our own selves.

Jack Healey, in the Huffington Post

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Gardening

SB-MOHe would be up early in the morning tending to our vegetables and he was very proud of our garden. I think that he got that from his mother. His mother is a fantastic gardener. Even in her old age she has a yard full of fruit trees and vegetables and he still goes to her for gardening advice. He spent a lot of time gardening in the last 6-7 months leading up to his abduction.

Ng Shui Meng, from an interview conducted by Kearrin Sims in April, 2014. Sombath’s mother passed away in June.

 

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Let the Young People Work on It

sombath_fishing_skillsThe most effective way of bringing about holistic education is the participation of young people in designing the future of our education and pattern of development. Young people themselves are more open-minded to new ideas and behaviors and should take ownership in designing their own future. We, adults, are not their future. We, adults, have broken the world. And we do not know how to fix it. So let the young people work on it. We can use our wisdom, not greed, and compassion to guide and mentor them.

Sombath, in “Interconnectedness for Happiness Together,” Asian Public Intellectuals Newsletter, March-August 2012.

 

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AICHR Must Act

afad-logoThe Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances (AFAD) calls on the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR) to ACT NOW against increasing human rights violations in the region.

In Lao, the government remains calloused to calls from the international community to surface Sombath Somphone, a 2005 Ramon Magsaysay awardee for Community Leadership who disappeared on 15 December 2012, exactly 18 months today. The Lao People’s Democratic Republic signed the Convention Against Enforced Disappearance (CED) on 29 September 2008. It also ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) on 25 September 2009.

Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances, in a call to AICHR issued on 15 June 2014.