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EU Must Maintain Efforts to Secure Safe Return of Sombath Somphone

AI-CSW-FIDH-HRWA number of international groups have called on European parliamentarians visiting Laos to maintain pressure to secure the release of Sombath Somphone. In part, the letter reads:

In line with the EU’s commitments to promote human rights through all its external actions, we call on you during your upcoming EP delegation visit to urge the Lao government to:

  • Ensure the safe and immediate return of Sombath Somphone.
  • Answer the many outstanding questions around Sombath’s disappearance and establish an independent commission to investigate the case.
  • Fully investigate the enforced disappearance of Sombath Somphone in a timely and transparent manner, appropriately prosecuting those responsible.
  • Address repression of civil and political rights, including freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly in Laos and ensure an enabling environment for civil society and human rights defenders.

Until Sombath Somphone is back safely with his family, his case will not be forgotten and calls for his return will persist.

The full letter can be read here.

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EU Parliament Dissatisfied with Lao Efforts to Locate Missing Activist

Radio Free Asia: (28 October 2013)

A European parliamentary delegation at a press conference in Bangkok on Lao activist Sombath Somphone's disappearance, Aug. 28, 2013.
A European parliamentary delegation at a press conference in Bangkok on Lao activist Sombath Somphone’s disappearance, Aug. 28, 2013.

A European parliamentary delegation has expressed dissatisfaction with the Lao government’s explanation over the disappearance of prominent local activist Sombath Somphone, who was last seen 10 months ago being stopped in his vehicle at a police checkpoint in the Lao capital Vientiane.

The second European Parliamentary visit to Laos this year came as rights groups urged sustained pressure on Vientiane to secure the safe return of Sombath, a rights campaigner who had been critical of the government’s policies for the poor.

The four-member parliamentary group, led by the chairman of the European Parliament’s delegation for South-East Asia, Werner Langen, met with a number of Lao officials and ministers on Monday, including Phongsavath Boupha, head of Laos’ national steering committee on human rights.

Langen told RFA’s Lao Service that his delegation had held “frank” discussions on the Sombath case with Lao officials, but that little progress had been made.

“The ministers said, ‘We don’t have an answer for where Sombath is now’,” Langen said.

“I said to the ministers, ‘We need a lifeline. Could you give us from the government side a lifeline?’ But the answer was not clear.” Continue reading “EU Parliament Dissatisfied with Lao Efforts to Locate Missing Activist”

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The future of Laos: A bleak landscape

The Economist: 26 October 2013

A secretive ruling clique and murky land-grabs spell trouble for a poor country.

20131026_ASP004_0THE Airbus A320 was ordered by Colonel Muammar Qaddafi, but somehow ended up as the prized possession of Lao Airlines. From a window seat flying above Laos a visitor gets a sense of the state’s weaknesses. Deforestation stretches all the way to the Chinese border. It is so recent and so extreme that scientists from Sweden’s Lund university picked Laos as a testing ground for a new method of monitoring economic activity from space. By combining night-time satellite images with land-use data, they can estimate, with surprising accuracy, changes in agricultural and non-agricultural activity. For Laos, it also means monitoring the impact of Chinese and Vietnamese cash from space.

On the ground in the northern province of Oudomxay, most jeeps roaming the deforested valley bear Chinese and Vietnamese number plates. Four of the province’s districts are among the fastest-growing rural economies in the country, according to the researchers in Sweden. (Laos’s obscurantist government publishes little information about anything.) Investment is flowing into agriculture, typically rubber plantations, market gardening and other cash crops, much of it destined for the huge Chinese population to the north. The side-effects include a loss of forests and biodiversity, serious soil erosion and growing numbers of people in this multi-ethnic province being pushed off their land. Continue reading “The future of Laos: A bleak landscape”

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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”

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Hollande meets Laos president to talk business, not rights

Radio France Internationale: 23 October 2013

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French President François Hollande (L) with Laotian President Choummaly Sayasone at the Elysée Palace. AFP/Bertrand Guay

French President François Hollande met Laos’s leader Choummaly Sayasone in Paris on Tuesday in the first visit by a Loatian president since the country’s independence from France some 60 years ago. The visit is distinctly low-profile as several NGOs demand news of disappeared Laotian activist Sombath Somphone.

The Laotian president was due to meet business leaders at the headquarters of bosses’ union Medef on Wednesday and business was the central theme of the Elysée Palace’s statement after the two presidents met.

It called for an increase in French companies’ investments in Laos and announced the signing of a feasibility study into the extension of a hydroelectricty project on the Nam Theun river, a tributary of the Mekong.

Some of Laos’s hydroelectric projects on the Mekong have caused rows with neighbouring countries because of their possible effects downstream but an experts’ report says that measures have been taken to mitigate the enviromental effects of the Nam Theun project.

No press conference was organised for either Tuesday’s or Wednesday’s meetings, leading to speculation that the authorities wished to spare Sayasone the embarrassment of questions over the whereabouts of anti-corruption campaigner Somphone.

Human rights groups have called on France to press the Laotian leader for information about the activist, the 63-year-old head of the Participatory Development Center who disappeared in December 2012 and was last caught on CCTV cameras near a police station in the company of two unidentified individuals.

Europe and France should be concerned about his whereabouts, Debby Stothard of the International Federation of Human Rights told RFI as the two presidents met.

In February the European parliament expressed concern over his fate and the slow progress of the investigation into his disappearance.

A French Foreign Affairs Ministry statement on Monday called on the Laotian authorities to do everythgin possible to investigate the case but there was no indication that Hollande raised the subject with Sayasone in the presidential statement.

The two presidents paid tribute to the victims of the plane crash that cost 49 lives earlier this month.

 

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France: discrète visite du président du Laos, Choummaly Sayasone

Radio France Internationale: 23 Octobre 2013

Les présidents français, François Hollande et laotien, Choummaly Sayasone sur le perron de l’Elysée le 22 octobre 2013. AFP/Bertrand Guay

Le président du Laos Choummaly Sayasone est en visite officielle en France. Cette visite est historique. C’est la première fois qu’un chef d’Etat laotien se rend en France tout juste 60 ans après la reconnaissance de l’indépendance du Laos. Plusieurs ONG saisissent l’occasion pour dénoncer la situation des droits de l’homme dans ce pays et attirer l’attention sur Sombath Somphone, un activiste célèbre au Laos qui a disparu depuis bientôt un an.

Cette visite historique passe presque inaperçue. Pourtant Choummaly Sayasone séjournera cinq jours en France. Il a déjà rencontré le président Hollande ce mardi 22 octobre et ce mercredi il est reçu par le Medef, le patronnat français, mais la presse n’a été conviée à aucun de ces rendez-vous. Une manière probablement d’écarter toute question gênante et ne pas embarrasser l’hôte lors de cette visite destinée entre autres à développer la coopération et les échanges économiques et commerciaux.

La disparition de Sombath Somphone

S’il est un dossier qui dérange c’est bien celui de Sombath Somphone, célèbre activiste reconnu pour son combat en faveur des pauvres et contre la corruption, qui n’a pas donné de signe de vie depuis une nuit de décembre 2012. Les autorités nient toute implication dans cette affaire, pourtant des images issues de caméras de surveillance montrent l’activiste en train de monter dans un véhicule de police.

Depuis plus rien, aucune nouvelle. Mais les ONG, ses amis et sa famille ne baissent pas les bras. Un énième appel a été lancé pour enquêter sur la disparition de Sombath Somphone, dont le cas vient s’ajouter à une longue liste de violations de droits humains au Laos.

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Försvunnen människorättsaktivist i Laos

Sverige Radio: (23 October 2013)

(Note: This radio program contains both English and Swedish. Click on the blue link above, and then on the blue arrow above the picture on the webpage.)

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Den försvunna aktivisten Sombath Somphone. Foto: Michael Töpffer/Sveriges Radio

Den kommunistiska enpartistaten Laos i Sydostasien var länge ett mottagarland för svenskt bistånd. Under många år verkade den politiska utvecklingen, om än väldigt sakta, gå åt rätt håll, men en händelse i december förra året har skapat en oro i landet. Nu är Laos i det internationella blickfånget för övergrepp mot mänskliga rättigheter. Reportage av Michael Töpffer. Hör Lisbet Bostrand som för Sidas räkning arbetat på svenska ambassaden i Vientiane.

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FIDH exige investigar la desaparición en diciembre de un activista de Laos

Hoy: 21 October 2013

París, 21 oct (EFE) La Federación Internacional de Derechos Humanos (FIDH) aprovechó hoy el encuentro que van a mantener este martes el presidente de Francia, François Hollande, con su homólogo de Laos, Choummaly Sayasone, para reclamar que se investigue el paradero de un activista desaparecido el pasado 15 de diciembre.

Sombath Somphone, de 62 años, fue visto por última vez en Vientiane, y aunque las autoridades de Laos niegan toda implicación en el asunto, existen imágenes de una cámara de videovigilancia, según la FIDH, en las que se ve cómo fue arrestado por la policía.

“Las autoridades de Laos tienen el deber absoluto de investigar sobre la desaparición de Somphone, conocido por su combate en favor de los más desfavorecidos y contra la corrupción”, dijo la ONG en un comunicado, que se sirve de la cobertura que va a tener la visita para llamar su atención sobre el caso.

Para ese organismo, “su desaparición forzada, en la que la policía está indudablemente implicada, deja a sus familiares y personas cercanas en el sufrimiento y la incertidumbre”, y a la sociedad laosiana en su conjunto, “ya aterrorizada”, “todavía más vulnerable”.

Hollande y Sayasone, según la agenda presidencial, está previsto que se reúnan mañana en París a las 10.00 hora local (08.00 GMT) en el Palacio del Elíseo, sede de la presidencia gala.

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Community Learning

This film, created in 2012 by PADETC, shows the impact of Sombath’s development concepts in a process of participatory problem solving in a village in Pek District of Xieng Kuang Province. The process is led by high school student volunteers involved in the ‘Youth Development for Drug Prevention in School’ project of the Ministry of Education and Sports. Students collected information about conditions in their communities using Sombath’s sustainable development framework with the four balanced pillars of social-cultural preservation, environmental harmony, spiritual well-being, and economic development. During the process, villagers agreed the issue of land boundaries was a priority problem that urgently needed to be solved. The film shows the process of problem solving, beginning from the root causes that are determined by the people themselves, and that brings hope to the community. You will also feel the warmth of Sombath’s heart towards his own country and listening to the people’s voice.

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Where is Sombath Somphone?

The Malay Mail: 10 October 2013

By Dr. Lim Teck Ghee

Today, Thursday, 10 Oct 2013, marks 300 days of the disappearance of Sombath Somphone, one of Lao PDR’s most prominent activists. Sombath is a long-time and good friend. In the late 1970s, he and I were part of a small group of human rights activists and social critics from the Southeast Asian region who met regularly to discuss the situation of our countries (at that time Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, Laos, Vietnam and Singapore) and to see how we could support each other in work to advance peace and development in our part of the world.

The outcome of our efforts was a pioneering regional civil society organisation called the Asian Cultural Forum on Development or ACFOD which was set up in 1977. ACFOD’s mission can be seen in the summary below of the organisation’s alternative vision of development which contrasts strongly with the mainstream development thinking prevalent in the region.

ACFOD Mission Statement

  • Advocate Holistic Development and to Counter Destructive/ Dehumanised Development.
  • Promote Peace, Harmony, Human Rights and Gender Equality and the Conscientisation of People.
  • Promote Participatory Democracy and Sustainable Development.
  • Respect for Minority Rights and Cultures.
  • Foster Humanist and Moral Values as a Core Part of Development.
  • Provide the Platform for Grassroots and People-to-People Exchange and Action.

Although we were a small regional grouping with limited resources and hardly any support from our national governments, ACFOD’s member organisations, which included the Consumers Association of Penang of which I was the honorary secretary at that time, pushed hard for this alternative vision of development in our national and regional work.

Sombath’s work in PADTC

Among our group of 15 hard core members, perhaps no one was more committed to an alternative and decentralised vision of development than Sombath. He founded the Participatory Development Training Centre in Laos in 1997 and became a respected voice in his country against authoritarianism and anti-democratic development, winning the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership – one of the most prestigious awards for human development in Asia. Continue reading “Where is Sombath Somphone?”