Defending non existent attacks on fundamentalist religious dogma is always a good excuse for a crack down and scattering opponents. If introducing public female floggings can get you over the line then that is the new rally point. That aside democracy in Asia is similar to the US in that monied interests always have some bucks behind everyone so the corporate fascism and fraud riddled profit connected to government continues unabated.
I was completely entertained by the movie “Lincoln the Vampire Hunter” and this Hollywood version of Honest Abe’s did not provoke much controversy in USA I heard. But the Thai soap opera “Above the Clouds” is causing much hullabaloo because it closely parallels “Dishonest Thak’s” rise and fall; and my maid who had been devoted to this series told me that the fairy tale ending was the coming of Thailand’s first lady PM and which was why the TV show was quashed.
That saddens me. Because I heard that other exciting and controversial life-to-fiction Thai movies were being planned including:
(1) “Lt. Abhisit” – the story of the honest good-looking society darling who rose to be Thailand’s PM but was undone by the military rank he forgot he possessed until reminded by a powerful Defense Minister who resented society boys not bragging about their ranks (or medals) while holding an elected office.
(2) “Lt. Duang Yubamrung” – the story of the rapid rise (in the military ranks) by a thuggish son of a powerful politician whose claim to his rank rested on his sharpshooting skills ably demonstrated during a bar melee when a police sergeant was shot dead.
(3) “The Red Village” – This is a really scary horror movie. It seems to be about walking zombies who only sit down for lectures from mentors wearing Red coats; and, all lectures start with the Red mentors raising a huge photo to which the zombies start chanting “Thaksin! Thaksin!”
“Activists slam Asean’s lack of commitment to human rights”
Bangkok Post
Published: 9/01/2013
The governments of Laos and Thailand were accused of lack of sincerity in implementing the Asean Human Rights Declaration (AHRD) at a roundtable discussion on “What Does Sombath Somphone’s Abduction Signal to Asean?” in Bangkok on Wednesday.
Niran Pitakwatchara, a human rights commissioner, said the Thai government should encourage discussion within the Asean Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR).
“The region has just adopted the Asean Human Rights Declaration aimed to promote and protect rights of the people. The AICHR has also been working for three years now. Hence the forced disappearance of outstanding human rights defender Sombath in Laos should be of great concern for not only Laos but for Asean as well,” said Dr Niran.
Jon Ungphakorn, a member of the National Human Rights Commission’s subcommittee on civil and political rights, said similar circumstances elsewhere showed that human rights defenders of all forms could be “disappeared” by the powers-that-be as a signal to the people that challenging the rigid tenets of society would not be allowed.
“The Sombath and Somchai (Neelapaijit) cases are the same. I strongly believe the Lao government and/or Lao Communist Party high-ranking officials have something to do with Sombath’s disappearance,” said Mr Jon, a former Bangkok senator and a Ramon Magsaysay laureate.
Sombath’s disappearance was even more startling as there was a fledgling civil society in Laos.
“Sombath’s disappearance is intended to suppress or threaten the emergence of civil society in that country,” he said.
Mr Jon called for the dismantling of the principle of non-interference, held to like a mantra by member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean).
“The practice of non-intervention should be abolished, at least on the issues of the human rights of the Asean people, as it is does not concern issues within borders, but of a community which proclaims to be caring and sharing,” said Mr Jon at the seminar at the Student Christian Centre.
Mr Jon and 51 other Magsaysay laureates have sent a letter of appeal to Vientiane, together with other regional and international civil societies. The move prompted the United Nations in Geneva to express concern that the Lao activist, Sombath, may be the victim of an “enforced disappearance” by the authorities.
Sombath, 60, who had been honoured for his work to reduce poverty and promote education in Laos through a training centre he founded, has been missing since Dec 15 last year when he left his office in Vientiane to drive home to his wife, and never arrived.
Police closed-circuit camera footage from that night, which relatives have posted online, shows him being stopped by traffic police.
However, Vientiane’s ambassador Geneva, Yong Chanthalangsy, told UN Special Procedures officials – independent investigators assigned by the UN Human Rights Council – that they had been misinformed about the case and that traffic police had not taken Sombath into custody during the stop.
Pablo Solon, whose brother was among the large number of people in Laos who disappeared during the 1980s, said Asean people must not accept such weak explanations by the Lao officials.
“The state authorities are obliged to give an explanation – who were the traffic police involved and why did they stop the Lao activist. The state security in that country must be held responsible for this obvious abduction,” said Mr Solon, executive director of the Bangkok-based Focus on the Global South.
Surichai Wun’Gaeo, Chulalongkorn University’s director of Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, said Sombath was a modest and accommodative activist who raised for debate certain core issues about balancing economic development, as Laos was eagerly heading towards urbanisation and modernisation based on the “Battery of Asia” concept.
“The case of Mr Sombath is not only a tragedy and a shock for the Asean region but also the world, as he is part of tiny genre of people who are challenging the current socio-economic paradigm.
“He is a soft but determined scholar and activist trying to work towards the peace and harmony of the people and nature,” said Mr Surichai.
His disappearance should be a wake up call for Asean that focusing on quick business returns through a single market without ensuring a sustainable environment, traditional wisdom and human dignity, was inadequate, he said.
Mr Surichai called for Asean policy makers to accommodate and tolerate civil society individuals and organisations who work towards ensuring greater policy space for such a debate.
Witoon Lianchamroon, Bio Thai Foundation director, said Sombath was a charming activist model for Thailand as he was not aggressive, but humbly engaged his colleagues and the authorities.
The October forum of activists from Asean and Europe in Laos, for which Sombath was instrumental in mobilising debates around the nation, might be one of the reasons for Sombath’s disappearance, said Mr Witoon.
Sombath’s two main concepts – focusing on community-based policy formulation and the balancing of spiritual- and religion-based happiness with the country’s development might have been seen as a challenge.
Angkhana Neelapaijit, director of the Justice for Peace Foundation, said unless enforced disappearance was stipulated as a crime, the region was only makeing an empty boast in claiming to be modernising as a human rights-caring community.
“The cases of Sombath and my husband (Somchai) are similar, a threatening signal to those defending and fighting for the rights of others.
“Authorities in these two countries, which have ratified the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, should be ashamed of what they have proclaimed,” said Mrs Angkhana.
It is important to point out that the video of Sombath’s abduction was recorded by a person who was searching for Sombath, by holding a mobile phone up to a CCTV monitor. This is why it zooms in and out a bit. The recording was done in the day or two immediately after his disappearance, presumably before the footage could be secured or destroyed by the persons or organizations who were behind the abduction.
So the CCTV footage of the police checkpoint that appears on youtube was not released by the Lao government. It was recorded by people looking for Sombath.
The disappearance of a community leader threatens Vientiane’s recent progress.
By MURRAY HIEBERT
The year 2012 marked a coming of age for tiny landlocked Laos. In July Hillary Clinton became the first U.S. secretary of state since the 1950s to visit the country. The World Trade Organization formally voted in October to allow Laos into the trade grouping after years of negotiations. In early November, Laos’s capital Vientiane hosted the Asia-Europe Meeting, which was attended by dozens of world leaders and senior officials, including the prime minister of China and the president of the European Council. Laos’ estimated economic growth of 8.3% last year likely made it Southeast Asia’s top economic performer.
But all this good news is dissipating like mist on the Mekong because of the country’s suspicious response to the disappearance of an internationally recognized development leader. On Dec. 15, Sombath Somphone was driving on the outskirts of Vientiane when he was stopped in his Jeep by police and then transferred by non-uniformed men into another vehicle, as photo and video evidence from that day shows. No one has seen him since.
The Laos government has said it has no idea what happened to Mr. Sombath. Its official news agency speculated that his disappearance may have been prompted by a business or personal dispute. But diplomatic sources in Vientiane who have seen the footage of Mr. Sombath’s roadside confrontation are convinced that he was taken and is being held by Laos’s security apparatus.
For a country that relies on foreign assistance for roughly 70% of its budget, the agronomist’s disappearance–and the government’s subsequent unwillingness to forthrightly address it–has become a major headache. Few in Laos have built bridges between the foreign and local development communities as effectively as Sombath Somphone.
The oldest of eight siblings, he grew up in a poor rice farming family in southern Laos at the height of the Vietnam War. In the early 1970s, he received a scholarship to study education and agriculture at the University of Hawaii.
I first met Mr. Sombath after he graduated in the late 1970s. I had worked in Laos with a small development agency from 1975, when communist forces seized control of the government, until early 1978. Mr. Sombath wanted to know whether he should return home to use his skills to aid the country’s subsistence farmers. Many of his friends warned him not to go back, arguing that the new communist leaders would not tolerate a U.S.-educated agronomist working directly with Lao farmers.
Because of his gentle and soft-spoken personality, and his non-political view of recent developments in Laos, I and others encouraged Mr. Sombath to help his country increase rice production. Mr. Sombath returned to Laos in 1979.
In 1996, he received authorization from Laos’ education ministry to establish a center that provides community-based development training to young people and local officials. In recognition of his work, Mr. Sombath in 2005 was awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership, one of Asia’s most prestigious awards for community service.
It is unclear why the country’s security apparatus would have abducted Mr. Sombath. Some observers speculate that it was due to his high profile at the Asia-Europe People’s Forum, held this fall. Mr. Sombath helped organize the event with the Foreign Ministry on the sidelines of the larger Asia-Europe Meeting, which was by far the largest international event ever hosted by Laos.
At a time when the world’s eyes were on the country, some of the speakers at the people’s forum raised concerns about environmental degradation and illicit land acquisition–two common problems stemming from no-holds-barred economic development in Laos and neighboring countries.
Some believe that Lao security officials detained Mr. Sombath to send a warning to others in the development community not to challenge the government and its economic agenda.
Eight days before Mr. Sombath’s abduction, the Lao government expelled the head of the Swiss NGO Helvetas for allegedly criticizing the government.
Laos appears caught in a dilemma that also troubled some of its other authoritarian neighbors like Vietnam and China. On one hand, the country wants to benefit from the rapid economic development sweeping Southeast Asia. On the other, government officials who took power at the height of the Cold War are wary about calls for increased political and economic openness.
Laos has recently sought to project a warmer, more business-friendly image in order to attract tourists and woo foreign investors beyond Chinese and Vietnamese mining and logging companies. The government should not undercut the country’s potential by mishandling Mr. Sombath’s case. Foreign governments should press the authorities to immediately investigate and be more forthcoming about the agronomist’s whereabouts.
After reaching milestone after milestone in 2012, Laos is now at a crossroads. Unless Sombath Somphone is released soon, the Lao government should expect that his disappearance will damage the image of progress it has worked so hard to promote among donor agencies, foreign companies and tourists.
Mr. Hiebert is deputy director of the Chair for Southeast Asian Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC.
I would like, if I may, to add something to this discussion based on my own observations of contract farming in Northeast Thailand, specifically at the Lam Nam Oon Irrigation Project (LNOIP), under the ownership and management of the RID, in Sakon Nakhon province. There is one point in particular I should like to raise, with reference to some findings from fieldwork in and around the LNOIP. In several places in the short excerpt provided by Andrew, farmers are said to regularly stress that they believe “that their only loss is the time they have invested in the crop and that their debt situation is not worsened.” It is also described as a “low-risk agricultural alternative”. However, I wonder if the farmers might be overlooking the impacts of another “loss” and “risk”, namely to that of their health (and possibly their family’s and neighbours’ too), when they take on the contract farming “package”.
Now, I don’t know the details of what comes with the Ban Tiam farmer’s contract deal, but at LNOIP, they are expected to not only follow the recommendations for pest control provided by the contract company reps, but also usually buy their products too (no matter how toxic) and have the costs deducted from their overall income at the time of sale, along with fertilizer, hormones, plastic, cash for paying labour, buying pumps and other advanced items. At LNOIP, the farmers since the mid-1980s, have mostly been growing intensive vegetables for sale fresh and for seed to a dozen or so companies. The model was originally set up by a USAID project and has waxed and waned over the years since, although it is officially thought of as a highly successful project by USAID, the Thai govt and a handful of consultants who worked on it. The situation gathered from the field in 2009-10 would suggest otherwise on a number of counts, although I will deal with just one aspect here, namely the public health issue.
Below I provide an excerpt from a draft of my unpublished thesis:
“There was another, perhaps more persuasive reason, why people were unwilling to adopt or continue with the intensive contract farming model beyond financial risk and off-farm options alone. From interviews with numerous villagers, the principal reason given for ceasing dry season intensive cropping was due to environmental and public health concerns, as a result of pesticide use. Indeed, Dolinsky (1995:61) in her report had flagged this issue as one of potential future concern under “Lesson 10: Incorporate preventative measures to protect the populace from the hazards of pesticide sprays”, and thought failure to adequately address this issue by the state authorities and private sector, “could grow to undermine the project over the medium-term” but seemed to assume it would somehow be addressed by a vague rhetorical commitment to IPM by relevant government agencies and agribusiness. It seemed this had become a self-fulfilling prophecy, as numerous respondents I spoke with in Ban Non Rua and neighbouring villages told me they or family members had taken blood tests and were told that they had “high” or “dangerous” levels of pesticides in their bloodstream and were concerned about practicing contract farming.
Curious about this finding, I approached the local (sub-district) and provincial public health authorities for more information and the data tended to confirm the villagers’ fears were well founded. Data provided by the Tambon Naa Hua Bor Health Centre collected in 2009 from conducting Cholinesterase blood tests on a general population sample of 301 villagers in 10 out of 19 villages in the Sub-District, suggested that 6.6 % had “normal” levels, 38.9 % had “safe” levels; 45.5 % had “at risk” levels; and 9.0 % of the population had “dangerous” levels of pesticide in their bloodstream. Similar Cholinesterase tests conducted in 2004 by the Sakhon Nakhon Provincial Public Health Office on 137 villagers directly involved in contract farming in Ban Non Rua (Moo 3) indicated that 10.9 % had “normal” levels; 13.1 % had “safe” levels; 23.4 % had “at risk” levels; and 52.6 % had “dangerous” levels of pesticide in their bloodstream (Bupsiri, 2005). Farmers who persisted with contract farming were taking protective measures, but these were mostly at a level well short of the manufacturers’ recommendations, from my limited assessment and the chronic environmental impacts of pesticide use were an issue of repeated concern by local observers I met.”
So to summarise, that’s over half of contract farmers and about one tenth of the general adult population having “dangerous” levels of pesticides in their bloodstream. Seems like quite a high-risk livelihood to me, with externalities. My sense was that contract farmers themselves were rather blase to the risks posed by regular handling and use of pesticides, despite the wider concerns in the community that it was detrimental to their health and that of the wider environment. Like chain smokers who see all the shocking pictures of cancerous lungs and warning labels on the packet, but still carry on smoking regardless, hoping this is not the year they get struck down with cancer or some other smoking-related illness, contract-farming pesticide sprayers too pray they will avoid being laid ill from year to year. Thus, I would suggest that contract farmers are one category of persons who are wont to overlook the “hidden costs” and risks of their chosen livelihood. And I would seriously question the “favourable outlook” prognosis, at least on the basis of what I saw with the LNOIP case and villagers who I interviewed, many of whom had decided to stop contract farming after being ripped off one time too many. The environmental costs of contract farming in Thailand haven’t even been started to be evaluated seriously, but they will also be ticking away quietly, adding up a bill to be paid by future generations. Of course, contract farming does not necessarily have to involve the use of pesticides, but I have yet to come across a model where pesticides and chemical fertiliser are not an integral part of the deal.
BANGKOK – For some Thais, the country’s latest hit soap opera seemed strangely familiar. The prime-time drama “Above the Clouds” revolves around black magic and a corrupt politician aiming to bag a lucrative satellite project, and appeared to some viewers to echo a few aspects of the life of one of the country’s most controversial leaders, ousted premier Thaksin Shinawatra.
An ambitious telecommunications tycoon who often refers to fortune tellers, Mr. Thaksin was driven from office in a military coup six years ago and was later convicted on a corruption charge which he says was trumped up to discredit him.
But if all that wasn’t enough to get tongues wagging, broadcaster BEC TERO Entertainment PCL unexpectedly pulled the final episode from its market-leading Channel-3 network on Friday, sparking a firestorm of speculation that the government of Mr. Thaksin’s sister, Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, is trying to set the networks’s TV schedules.
National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission commissioner Supinya Klangnarong Saturday said she wondered whether the country’s politicians had pressured BEC TERO to pull the plug on the show in order to protect its concession to run Channel 3, while the opposition Democrat Party is urging Thailand’s independent Ombudsman to investigate why Channel 3 suddenly dropped the drama. In a meeting Monday, the broadcasting commission decided to gather more information before deciding whether to call in Channel 3 executives for an explanation.
Network officials aren’t commenting on the decision to cancel the show. In a televised advisory to viewers who tuned in to watch Friday’s installment, Channel 3 said that the network considered the content of “Above the Clouds” to be inappropriate, without elaborating.
Varathep Rattanakorn, who supervises television broadcasters as part of his job as a minister in Ms. Yingluck’s office, denied that the government is directing events at Channel 3. A deputy spokeswoman for the ruling Puea Thai Party dismissed suggestions that Mr. Thaksin himself had ordered show’s run to end from his base in Dubai.
Either way, the controversy shows the pull which Mr. Thaksin continues to exert over Thailand despite in Dubai to avoid imprisonment on his corruption conviction.
His sister’s government is looking for a way to bring him back to the country a free man. It is considering an amnesty bill that would exonerate persons accused of political crimes, and which would enable Mr. Thaksin’s return. But Mr. Thaksin – the only Thai leader to be re-elected – is considered as toxic among the highest ranks of the country’s military and civil service. His brash, almost presidential style of government grates in a country where traditionalists insist on lavish displays of subservience to its constitutional monarchy. The prospect of his return to the political scene already is raising temperatures, and last year triggered violent scuffles in Thailand’s Parliament as Mr. Thaksin’s opponents attempted to derail discussions on the proposed amnesty.
Now, the axing of “Above the Clouds” is adding to the sense of unease that a larger conflict is looming.
Dialogue from previous episodes offered a sometimes biting commentary on the acrimonious state of Thai politics. In one scene a corrupt politician, a deputy prime minister, justifies feathering his nest by saying that “it’s totally stupid for a person with power to fail to use his power.” His nemesis, a do-gooding prime minister, retorts by saying “People who cheat the county don’t deserve any honor.”
The denouement, though, might come from not from Thailand’s politicians, but its soap viewers.
Thailand’s Constitutional Protection Association says the move to axe “Above the Clouds” violates consumers’ rights. The association’s secretary-general, Srisuwan Janya, said the group will petition Thai courts and the Consumers Protection Board to instruct Channel 3 to broadcast the remaining episodes, while a late-night TV sex therapist quit his show in protest at the axing of “Above the Clouds”. Kampanart Tansithabudhkun, host of “Spice Up Your Love, Spice Up Your Gratification”, described the canceling of the show as “a disgrace” on his Facebook page.
Parliamentary opposition leader Abhisit Vejjajiva, meanwhile, took to the Twitter social media urge the broadcaster to reconsider.
“I am not a drama viewer, but (axing the series) is tantamount to infringing on people’s rights and liberties,” Mr. Abhsisit, a former prime minister, said.
So far, though, there is no sign just yet of viewers getting the sense of closure many seem to be craving, just like in Thailand’s never-ending real-life political battles. This drama could be set to run a while longer.
THE government of Laos had been exuding a bluff, self-congratulatory air towards the end of 2012–having won admission to the WTO in October and then playing host to the Asia-Europe summit in November–until suddenly a foul wind blew through, mid-December. The country’s most distinguished leader of an NGO was grabbed at a police checkpoint in the capital, Vientiane, and has not been seen since. (continued…..)
“Roundtable Discussion: What does Sombath Somphone’s abduction signal to ASEAN?”
9:00 to 12:00 am – Wednesday, Jan. 9, 2013
Student Christian Center, Bangkok
Hua Chang Bridge (5 minutes walk from Rachadevi Sky Train station)
Co-organisers:
Center for Peace and Conflict Studies. Chulalongkorn University
NGO Coordination Committee on Development (NGO COD)
ASEAN Watch – Thailand
Thai Working Group on Sombath Somphone
Sombath Somphone – Lao senior development worker, promoter of ‘Gross National Happiness’ concept, the 1995 Ramon Magsaysay awardee – has in a certain way assumed a significant role in the modern age of Laos that attempts to show its readiness for playing an equal role with others in the global community.
Thus the CCTV clip showing his being abducted on 15 December 2012 in downtown Vientiane by a group of men has caused a situation that not only shocks his friends, colleagues and entire civil society in Laos; but those individuals, organizations as well as establishments on every level.
Civil society organizations in ASEAN and international community including the EU, US government and UN agencies have urged Lao government to take urgent investigations and disclose the results.
This round table will address the case of Sombath Somphon’s abduction, which has brought up the urgent need to review particular key, but hidden issues confronted by ASEAN community including human rights and the emergence of new actors amid ASEAN’s economic liberalization that has considerable influence to determine the fate of countries and the people of Mekong basin and perhaps the entire ASEAN.
Also, it will discuss questions related to possible future threats facing individuals and communities of the region, particularly the violation of basic rights of its people that will likely continue to worsen.
The ‘roundtable’ panelists are a combination of academic specialized in ASEAN affairs, NGO activist working on critical issues related to ASEAN, Thailand National Human Rights Commissioner, and eminent Thai human rights advocate who has direct experience Re: enforced disappearance.
Program
9.00 Greeting and introduction of panelists
9:15-9:35 Lead presentation by Professor Surichai Wankeo, Director, of the Center for Peace and Conflict Studies, Chulalongkorn University
9.-35-9.55 Dr. Niran Pitakvachara, Thailand National Human Rights Commissioner
9:55-10:15 Witoon Lianchamroon, Director, BioThai Foundation
10:15-10:35 Angkana Neelapaijit, Director, Justice for Peace Foundation
10:35 -10:50 Coffee Break.
10:50 -12:00 Open for questions and comments
Note: Earphone translation will be available for foreign participants and journalists throughout the discussion
For more information, please contact: [email protected] or Tel. +66 86 3942113
Find more information about Sombath Somphone, his works and the update information at http://www.sombath.org
Those who believe in keeping surname after marriage as sign of matriarchy usually believe in Myanmar successive Military Government rely on astrology and soothsayers as means to decision making.
Real independence/freedom i.e. from poverty, especially for any fairer sex is still afforded only through education, heath care and economic means.
Myanmar has had it shares of women in the positions of power, during peace time that contributed to prospering of a society in every respects, and unjustly blamed for matters during trying times as well.
As always, in times of wars, economic downturns and any upheavals, that promote abject poverty, the most vulnerable, women and children always suffer the most.
Ironically the last round, of useless careless policy/upheavals that set a citizenry to more abject poverty is advocated by a women.
Hopefully now in power will remedy for the past,together with like minded cohorts advocate policy that will prolong the period in the advancement of the 3 aspects that counteract poverty.
Sombat has charisma and he is focusing on “good governance” which is obviously unbearable for some of the Lao politicians.
Having worked for more than 18 years in this country, and having recently seen the unacceptable land grabbing (and wood smuggling) in the South (mostly by the Vietnamese) and the extreme poverty the villagers of this part of the country live in, I think it is time to put as much pressure as possible on the Lao governement.
Enough is enough.
“In international human rights law, a forced disappearance (or enforced disappearance) occurs when a person is secretly abducted or imprisoned by a state or political organization or by a third party with the authorization, support, or acquiescence of a state or political organization, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the person’s fate and whereabouts, with the intent of placing the victim outside the protection of the law.
According to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, which came into force on 1 July 2002, when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed at any civilian population, a “forced disappearance” qualifies as a crime against humanity and, thus, is not subject to a statute of limitations.
On 20 December 2006, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance.
… Disappearing political rivals is also a way for regimes to engender feelings of complicity in populations. That is: the difficulty of publicly fighting a government which murders in secret can result in widespread pretense that everything is normal… “
The wider historical analysis of this post is that the end of the patriarchy draws near. By that I mean the Vatican, the Federal Reserve and Wall Street. All male dominated warmongering institutions.
The UN and some western governments are preparing to put fresh questions to the Lao government over the mysterious disappearance in mid-December of a prominent education and health campaigner, after Vientiane late last week rejected suggestions by the UN of state involvement in the case.
In a statement to the UN’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Laos denied knowledge of the whereabouts of Sombath Somphone, 60, and said he had not been taken into police custody, as widely reported, but rather may have been kidnapped because of a “personal conflict”.
UN human rights officials, as well as US and European governments, have expressed concern in recent weeks that the activist is being held by the Lao authorities.
Closed circuit video footage from police security cameras showed Mr Sombath, founder of a local non-government organisation Padetc, being stopped by traffic police at a roadside post while he was driving home from work in Vientiane, the Lao capital, in mid-December.
Mr Sombath was following his Singaporean wife in a separate car but never arrived home. The government has denied he was taken into custody at the stop, which they said was a “routine” check, but grainy CCTV footage shows a man resembling Mr Sombath being driven away by uniformed Lao officials.
Vientiane-based diplomats at the weekend expressed doubt about official denials of involvement in Mr Sombath’s disappearance and said their embassies were set to convey further concerns about the case. “We are considering the next move, and it could well be a démarche,” said one western diplomat.
The EU and the US have publicly called for explanation. Lady Ashton, EU foreign policy chief, last month expressed “deep concern” about Mr Sombath’s disappearance and urged the Lao government to “investigate” the case. In Washington, Victoria Nuland, state department spokeswoman, said the US had asked the government “to make every effort to locate him and figure out what’s happened”.
UN human rights officials meanwhile have suggested Mr Sombath was detained by the state because of his work. “We are highly concerned for his safety and believe his abduction may be related to his human rights work,” a UN human rights spokesman said in late December, noting “what appeared to be” Mr Sombath’s “enforced disappearance”, a phrase which under international law implicates the government.
Mr Sombath, 60, a winner of the prestigious Magsaysay award in 2005 for social development work, founded Padtec in 1996 to promote education and sustainable development. The organisation was “low-key” and Mr Sombath had not run foul of state authorities, said a western aid official.
His disappearance followed the Lao government’s expulsion a week earlier of Ann-Sophie Grindiz, head of Swiss development agency Helvetas. Diplomats believe the cases are not directly linked but one envoy cited “worrying signs of backsliding in Laos amid international pressures to democratise”.
Both cases appear to undermine the government’s moves to open up the country, after Laos’s accession to the World Trade Organisation in early December.
WTO membership will give Laos increased opportunities to integrate into “regional economic success and attract more foreign investors”, noted Murray Hiebert, an Asia analyst at CSIS, the US think tank. “But with the government’s lack of accounting about the disappearance of someone as prominent as Sombath, foreign investors as well as tourists will be more cautious about jumping into the country with both feet,” he noted.
Mr Hiebert said Mr Sombath was “soft-spoken, easy-going and uninvolved in politics”. His disappearance should raise concerns in Vientiane, he added, “not least because foreign aid accounts for nearly 70 per cent of government’s budget, and 16 per cent of the country’s gross domestic product”.
Together with the opportunistic side kick hoteldelta.
Any shopper will complain that Economy/Supply & Demand (S&D) is affected by Sanction, Internal conflicts, Weathers, government control etc due to DISTORTION/INTERRUPTION OF S&D.
“The black market nothing to do with supply and demand? Nor market distortion and manipulation?”
“–,all different incarnations of the same outfit.”
INDEED SELF CONTRADICTION AGAIN
Any -ism including Capitalism have certain degree of S&D control/distortion with Socialism, Communism the extreme example of S&D control.
Denying any distortion is preposterous if not idiotic.
Black Market is a sickness of curbing the supply side of S&D a true distortion of controlling supply, so is hoarding.
Which your dedicated Socialist Ne Win dealt with:
1) Shooting/Putting in jail, periodically the Black Marketeers.
Thus temporarily control the supply side of S&D
2) Multiple Demonetization, some under the guise of astrological guidance (to fool the West like Benedict Rogers).
All to control the demand side of S&D.
This current administration, USDP/Military dominated has so far being least controlling compared to BSPP and its anomaly SLOR and SPDC.
Hopefully in time will prepare the citizenry of Myanmar to demand for more.
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The big, bad Indonesian bogeyman
Defending non existent attacks on fundamentalist religious dogma is always a good excuse for a crack down and scattering opponents. If introducing public female floggings can get you over the line then that is the new rally point. That aside democracy in Asia is similar to the US in that monied interests always have some bucks behind everyone so the corporate fascism and fraud riddled profit connected to government continues unabated.
Bhumibol, Obama, Yingluck
I was completely entertained by the movie “Lincoln the Vampire Hunter” and this Hollywood version of Honest Abe’s did not provoke much controversy in USA I heard. But the Thai soap opera “Above the Clouds” is causing much hullabaloo because it closely parallels “Dishonest Thak’s” rise and fall; and my maid who had been devoted to this series told me that the fairy tale ending was the coming of Thailand’s first lady PM and which was why the TV show was quashed.
That saddens me. Because I heard that other exciting and controversial life-to-fiction Thai movies were being planned including:
(1) “Lt. Abhisit” – the story of the honest good-looking society darling who rose to be Thailand’s PM but was undone by the military rank he forgot he possessed until reminded by a powerful Defense Minister who resented society boys not bragging about their ranks (or medals) while holding an elected office.
(2) “Lt. Duang Yubamrung” – the story of the rapid rise (in the military ranks) by a thuggish son of a powerful politician whose claim to his rank rested on his sharpshooting skills ably demonstrated during a bar melee when a police sergeant was shot dead.
(3) “The Red Village” – This is a really scary horror movie. It seems to be about walking zombies who only sit down for lectures from mentors wearing Red coats; and, all lectures start with the Red mentors raising a huge photo to which the zombies start chanting “Thaksin! Thaksin!”
Distressing developments in Laos
“Activists slam Asean’s lack of commitment to human rights”
Bangkok Post
Published: 9/01/2013
The governments of Laos and Thailand were accused of lack of sincerity in implementing the Asean Human Rights Declaration (AHRD) at a roundtable discussion on “What Does Sombath Somphone’s Abduction Signal to Asean?” in Bangkok on Wednesday.
Niran Pitakwatchara, a human rights commissioner, said the Thai government should encourage discussion within the Asean Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR).
“The region has just adopted the Asean Human Rights Declaration aimed to promote and protect rights of the people. The AICHR has also been working for three years now. Hence the forced disappearance of outstanding human rights defender Sombath in Laos should be of great concern for not only Laos but for Asean as well,” said Dr Niran.
Jon Ungphakorn, a member of the National Human Rights Commission’s subcommittee on civil and political rights, said similar circumstances elsewhere showed that human rights defenders of all forms could be “disappeared” by the powers-that-be as a signal to the people that challenging the rigid tenets of society would not be allowed.
“The Sombath and Somchai (Neelapaijit) cases are the same. I strongly believe the Lao government and/or Lao Communist Party high-ranking officials have something to do with Sombath’s disappearance,” said Mr Jon, a former Bangkok senator and a Ramon Magsaysay laureate.
Sombath’s disappearance was even more startling as there was a fledgling civil society in Laos.
“Sombath’s disappearance is intended to suppress or threaten the emergence of civil society in that country,” he said.
Mr Jon called for the dismantling of the principle of non-interference, held to like a mantra by member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean).
“The practice of non-intervention should be abolished, at least on the issues of the human rights of the Asean people, as it is does not concern issues within borders, but of a community which proclaims to be caring and sharing,” said Mr Jon at the seminar at the Student Christian Centre.
Mr Jon and 51 other Magsaysay laureates have sent a letter of appeal to Vientiane, together with other regional and international civil societies. The move prompted the United Nations in Geneva to express concern that the Lao activist, Sombath, may be the victim of an “enforced disappearance” by the authorities.
Sombath, 60, who had been honoured for his work to reduce poverty and promote education in Laos through a training centre he founded, has been missing since Dec 15 last year when he left his office in Vientiane to drive home to his wife, and never arrived.
Police closed-circuit camera footage from that night, which relatives have posted online, shows him being stopped by traffic police.
However, Vientiane’s ambassador Geneva, Yong Chanthalangsy, told UN Special Procedures officials – independent investigators assigned by the UN Human Rights Council – that they had been misinformed about the case and that traffic police had not taken Sombath into custody during the stop.
Pablo Solon, whose brother was among the large number of people in Laos who disappeared during the 1980s, said Asean people must not accept such weak explanations by the Lao officials.
“The state authorities are obliged to give an explanation – who were the traffic police involved and why did they stop the Lao activist. The state security in that country must be held responsible for this obvious abduction,” said Mr Solon, executive director of the Bangkok-based Focus on the Global South.
Surichai Wun’Gaeo, Chulalongkorn University’s director of Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, said Sombath was a modest and accommodative activist who raised for debate certain core issues about balancing economic development, as Laos was eagerly heading towards urbanisation and modernisation based on the “Battery of Asia” concept.
“The case of Mr Sombath is not only a tragedy and a shock for the Asean region but also the world, as he is part of tiny genre of people who are challenging the current socio-economic paradigm.
“He is a soft but determined scholar and activist trying to work towards the peace and harmony of the people and nature,” said Mr Surichai.
His disappearance should be a wake up call for Asean that focusing on quick business returns through a single market without ensuring a sustainable environment, traditional wisdom and human dignity, was inadequate, he said.
Mr Surichai called for Asean policy makers to accommodate and tolerate civil society individuals and organisations who work towards ensuring greater policy space for such a debate.
Witoon Lianchamroon, Bio Thai Foundation director, said Sombath was a charming activist model for Thailand as he was not aggressive, but humbly engaged his colleagues and the authorities.
The October forum of activists from Asean and Europe in Laos, for which Sombath was instrumental in mobilising debates around the nation, might be one of the reasons for Sombath’s disappearance, said Mr Witoon.
Sombath’s two main concepts – focusing on community-based policy formulation and the balancing of spiritual- and religion-based happiness with the country’s development might have been seen as a challenge.
Angkhana Neelapaijit, director of the Justice for Peace Foundation, said unless enforced disappearance was stipulated as a crime, the region was only makeing an empty boast in claiming to be modernising as a human rights-caring community.
“The cases of Sombath and my husband (Somchai) are similar, a threatening signal to those defending and fighting for the rights of others.
“Authorities in these two countries, which have ratified the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, should be ashamed of what they have proclaimed,” said Mrs Angkhana.
—
Distressing developments in Laos
It is important to point out that the video of Sombath’s abduction was recorded by a person who was searching for Sombath, by holding a mobile phone up to a CCTV monitor. This is why it zooms in and out a bit. The recording was done in the day or two immediately after his disappearance, presumably before the footage could be secured or destroyed by the persons or organizations who were behind the abduction.
So the CCTV footage of the police checkpoint that appears on youtube was not released by the Lao government. It was recorded by people looking for Sombath.
Next stop? Laiza?
So far Charles F.
You are correct.
Please stay tuned.
Distressing developments in Laos
Wall Street Journal
OPINION ASIA
January 8, 2013, 11:44 a.m. ET
“Is Laos Losing Its Way?”
The disappearance of a community leader threatens Vientiane’s recent progress.
By MURRAY HIEBERT
The year 2012 marked a coming of age for tiny landlocked Laos. In July Hillary Clinton became the first U.S. secretary of state since the 1950s to visit the country. The World Trade Organization formally voted in October to allow Laos into the trade grouping after years of negotiations. In early November, Laos’s capital Vientiane hosted the Asia-Europe Meeting, which was attended by dozens of world leaders and senior officials, including the prime minister of China and the president of the European Council. Laos’ estimated economic growth of 8.3% last year likely made it Southeast Asia’s top economic performer.
But all this good news is dissipating like mist on the Mekong because of the country’s suspicious response to the disappearance of an internationally recognized development leader. On Dec. 15, Sombath Somphone was driving on the outskirts of Vientiane when he was stopped in his Jeep by police and then transferred by non-uniformed men into another vehicle, as photo and video evidence from that day shows. No one has seen him since.
The Laos government has said it has no idea what happened to Mr. Sombath. Its official news agency speculated that his disappearance may have been prompted by a business or personal dispute. But diplomatic sources in Vientiane who have seen the footage of Mr. Sombath’s roadside confrontation are convinced that he was taken and is being held by Laos’s security apparatus.
For a country that relies on foreign assistance for roughly 70% of its budget, the agronomist’s disappearance–and the government’s subsequent unwillingness to forthrightly address it–has become a major headache. Few in Laos have built bridges between the foreign and local development communities as effectively as Sombath Somphone.
The oldest of eight siblings, he grew up in a poor rice farming family in southern Laos at the height of the Vietnam War. In the early 1970s, he received a scholarship to study education and agriculture at the University of Hawaii.
I first met Mr. Sombath after he graduated in the late 1970s. I had worked in Laos with a small development agency from 1975, when communist forces seized control of the government, until early 1978. Mr. Sombath wanted to know whether he should return home to use his skills to aid the country’s subsistence farmers. Many of his friends warned him not to go back, arguing that the new communist leaders would not tolerate a U.S.-educated agronomist working directly with Lao farmers.
Because of his gentle and soft-spoken personality, and his non-political view of recent developments in Laos, I and others encouraged Mr. Sombath to help his country increase rice production. Mr. Sombath returned to Laos in 1979.
In 1996, he received authorization from Laos’ education ministry to establish a center that provides community-based development training to young people and local officials. In recognition of his work, Mr. Sombath in 2005 was awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership, one of Asia’s most prestigious awards for community service.
It is unclear why the country’s security apparatus would have abducted Mr. Sombath. Some observers speculate that it was due to his high profile at the Asia-Europe People’s Forum, held this fall. Mr. Sombath helped organize the event with the Foreign Ministry on the sidelines of the larger Asia-Europe Meeting, which was by far the largest international event ever hosted by Laos.
At a time when the world’s eyes were on the country, some of the speakers at the people’s forum raised concerns about environmental degradation and illicit land acquisition–two common problems stemming from no-holds-barred economic development in Laos and neighboring countries.
Some believe that Lao security officials detained Mr. Sombath to send a warning to others in the development community not to challenge the government and its economic agenda.
Eight days before Mr. Sombath’s abduction, the Lao government expelled the head of the Swiss NGO Helvetas for allegedly criticizing the government.
Laos appears caught in a dilemma that also troubled some of its other authoritarian neighbors like Vietnam and China. On one hand, the country wants to benefit from the rapid economic development sweeping Southeast Asia. On the other, government officials who took power at the height of the Cold War are wary about calls for increased political and economic openness.
Laos has recently sought to project a warmer, more business-friendly image in order to attract tourists and woo foreign investors beyond Chinese and Vietnamese mining and logging companies. The government should not undercut the country’s potential by mishandling Mr. Sombath’s case. Foreign governments should press the authorities to immediately investigate and be more forthcoming about the agronomist’s whereabouts.
After reaching milestone after milestone in 2012, Laos is now at a crossroads. Unless Sombath Somphone is released soon, the Lao government should expect that his disappearance will damage the image of progress it has worked so hard to promote among donor agencies, foreign companies and tourists.
Mr. Hiebert is deputy director of the Chair for Southeast Asian Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC.
————–
The benefits of contract farming
I would like, if I may, to add something to this discussion based on my own observations of contract farming in Northeast Thailand, specifically at the Lam Nam Oon Irrigation Project (LNOIP), under the ownership and management of the RID, in Sakon Nakhon province. There is one point in particular I should like to raise, with reference to some findings from fieldwork in and around the LNOIP. In several places in the short excerpt provided by Andrew, farmers are said to regularly stress that they believe “that their only loss is the time they have invested in the crop and that their debt situation is not worsened.” It is also described as a “low-risk agricultural alternative”. However, I wonder if the farmers might be overlooking the impacts of another “loss” and “risk”, namely to that of their health (and possibly their family’s and neighbours’ too), when they take on the contract farming “package”.
Now, I don’t know the details of what comes with the Ban Tiam farmer’s contract deal, but at LNOIP, they are expected to not only follow the recommendations for pest control provided by the contract company reps, but also usually buy their products too (no matter how toxic) and have the costs deducted from their overall income at the time of sale, along with fertilizer, hormones, plastic, cash for paying labour, buying pumps and other advanced items. At LNOIP, the farmers since the mid-1980s, have mostly been growing intensive vegetables for sale fresh and for seed to a dozen or so companies. The model was originally set up by a USAID project and has waxed and waned over the years since, although it is officially thought of as a highly successful project by USAID, the Thai govt and a handful of consultants who worked on it. The situation gathered from the field in 2009-10 would suggest otherwise on a number of counts, although I will deal with just one aspect here, namely the public health issue.
Below I provide an excerpt from a draft of my unpublished thesis:
“There was another, perhaps more persuasive reason, why people were unwilling to adopt or continue with the intensive contract farming model beyond financial risk and off-farm options alone. From interviews with numerous villagers, the principal reason given for ceasing dry season intensive cropping was due to environmental and public health concerns, as a result of pesticide use. Indeed, Dolinsky (1995:61) in her report had flagged this issue as one of potential future concern under “Lesson 10: Incorporate preventative measures to protect the populace from the hazards of pesticide sprays”, and thought failure to adequately address this issue by the state authorities and private sector, “could grow to undermine the project over the medium-term” but seemed to assume it would somehow be addressed by a vague rhetorical commitment to IPM by relevant government agencies and agribusiness. It seemed this had become a self-fulfilling prophecy, as numerous respondents I spoke with in Ban Non Rua and neighbouring villages told me they or family members had taken blood tests and were told that they had “high” or “dangerous” levels of pesticides in their bloodstream and were concerned about practicing contract farming.
Curious about this finding, I approached the local (sub-district) and provincial public health authorities for more information and the data tended to confirm the villagers’ fears were well founded. Data provided by the Tambon Naa Hua Bor Health Centre collected in 2009 from conducting Cholinesterase blood tests on a general population sample of 301 villagers in 10 out of 19 villages in the Sub-District, suggested that 6.6 % had “normal” levels, 38.9 % had “safe” levels; 45.5 % had “at risk” levels; and 9.0 % of the population had “dangerous” levels of pesticide in their bloodstream. Similar Cholinesterase tests conducted in 2004 by the Sakhon Nakhon Provincial Public Health Office on 137 villagers directly involved in contract farming in Ban Non Rua (Moo 3) indicated that 10.9 % had “normal” levels; 13.1 % had “safe” levels; 23.4 % had “at risk” levels; and 52.6 % had “dangerous” levels of pesticide in their bloodstream (Bupsiri, 2005). Farmers who persisted with contract farming were taking protective measures, but these were mostly at a level well short of the manufacturers’ recommendations, from my limited assessment and the chronic environmental impacts of pesticide use were an issue of repeated concern by local observers I met.”
So to summarise, that’s over half of contract farmers and about one tenth of the general adult population having “dangerous” levels of pesticides in their bloodstream. Seems like quite a high-risk livelihood to me, with externalities. My sense was that contract farmers themselves were rather blase to the risks posed by regular handling and use of pesticides, despite the wider concerns in the community that it was detrimental to their health and that of the wider environment. Like chain smokers who see all the shocking pictures of cancerous lungs and warning labels on the packet, but still carry on smoking regardless, hoping this is not the year they get struck down with cancer or some other smoking-related illness, contract-farming pesticide sprayers too pray they will avoid being laid ill from year to year. Thus, I would suggest that contract farmers are one category of persons who are wont to overlook the “hidden costs” and risks of their chosen livelihood. And I would seriously question the “favourable outlook” prognosis, at least on the basis of what I saw with the LNOIP case and villagers who I interviewed, many of whom had decided to stop contract farming after being ripped off one time too many. The environmental costs of contract farming in Thailand haven’t even been started to be evaluated seriously, but they will also be ticking away quietly, adding up a bill to be paid by future generations. Of course, contract farming does not necessarily have to involve the use of pesticides, but I have yet to come across a model where pesticides and chemical fertiliser are not an integral part of the deal.
Bhumibol, Obama, Yingluck
BANGKOK – For some Thais, the country’s latest hit soap opera seemed strangely familiar. The prime-time drama “Above the Clouds” revolves around black magic and a corrupt politician aiming to bag a lucrative satellite project, and appeared to some viewers to echo a few aspects of the life of one of the country’s most controversial leaders, ousted premier Thaksin Shinawatra.
An ambitious telecommunications tycoon who often refers to fortune tellers, Mr. Thaksin was driven from office in a military coup six years ago and was later convicted on a corruption charge which he says was trumped up to discredit him.
But if all that wasn’t enough to get tongues wagging, broadcaster BEC TERO Entertainment PCL unexpectedly pulled the final episode from its market-leading Channel-3 network on Friday, sparking a firestorm of speculation that the government of Mr. Thaksin’s sister, Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, is trying to set the networks’s TV schedules.
National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission commissioner Supinya Klangnarong Saturday said she wondered whether the country’s politicians had pressured BEC TERO to pull the plug on the show in order to protect its concession to run Channel 3, while the opposition Democrat Party is urging Thailand’s independent Ombudsman to investigate why Channel 3 suddenly dropped the drama. In a meeting Monday, the broadcasting commission decided to gather more information before deciding whether to call in Channel 3 executives for an explanation.
Network officials aren’t commenting on the decision to cancel the show. In a televised advisory to viewers who tuned in to watch Friday’s installment, Channel 3 said that the network considered the content of “Above the Clouds” to be inappropriate, without elaborating.
Varathep Rattanakorn, who supervises television broadcasters as part of his job as a minister in Ms. Yingluck’s office, denied that the government is directing events at Channel 3. A deputy spokeswoman for the ruling Puea Thai Party dismissed suggestions that Mr. Thaksin himself had ordered show’s run to end from his base in Dubai.
Either way, the controversy shows the pull which Mr. Thaksin continues to exert over Thailand despite in Dubai to avoid imprisonment on his corruption conviction.
His sister’s government is looking for a way to bring him back to the country a free man. It is considering an amnesty bill that would exonerate persons accused of political crimes, and which would enable Mr. Thaksin’s return. But Mr. Thaksin – the only Thai leader to be re-elected – is considered as toxic among the highest ranks of the country’s military and civil service. His brash, almost presidential style of government grates in a country where traditionalists insist on lavish displays of subservience to its constitutional monarchy. The prospect of his return to the political scene already is raising temperatures, and last year triggered violent scuffles in Thailand’s Parliament as Mr. Thaksin’s opponents attempted to derail discussions on the proposed amnesty.
Now, the axing of “Above the Clouds” is adding to the sense of unease that a larger conflict is looming.
Dialogue from previous episodes offered a sometimes biting commentary on the acrimonious state of Thai politics. In one scene a corrupt politician, a deputy prime minister, justifies feathering his nest by saying that “it’s totally stupid for a person with power to fail to use his power.” His nemesis, a do-gooding prime minister, retorts by saying “People who cheat the county don’t deserve any honor.”
The denouement, though, might come from not from Thailand’s politicians, but its soap viewers.
Thailand’s Constitutional Protection Association says the move to axe “Above the Clouds” violates consumers’ rights. The association’s secretary-general, Srisuwan Janya, said the group will petition Thai courts and the Consumers Protection Board to instruct Channel 3 to broadcast the remaining episodes, while a late-night TV sex therapist quit his show in protest at the axing of “Above the Clouds”. Kampanart Tansithabudhkun, host of “Spice Up Your Love, Spice Up Your Gratification”, described the canceling of the show as “a disgrace” on his Facebook page.
Parliamentary opposition leader Abhisit Vejjajiva, meanwhile, took to the Twitter social media urge the broadcaster to reconsider.
“I am not a drama viewer, but (axing the series) is tantamount to infringing on people’s rights and liberties,” Mr. Abhsisit, a former prime minister, said.
So far, though, there is no sign just yet of viewers getting the sense of closure many seem to be craving, just like in Thailand’s never-ending real-life political battles. This drama could be set to run a while longer.
Distressing developments in Laos
“Gone missing”
The Economist
Jan 8th 2013, by T.F. | PHNOM PENH
THE government of Laos had been exuding a bluff, self-congratulatory air towards the end of 2012–having won admission to the WTO in October and then playing host to the Asia-Europe summit in November–until suddenly a foul wind blew through, mid-December. The country’s most distinguished leader of an NGO was grabbed at a police checkpoint in the capital, Vientiane, and has not been seen since. (continued…..)
http://www.economist.com/blogs/banyan/2013/01/civil-society-laos
Distressing developments in Laos
“Roundtable Discussion: What does Sombath Somphone’s abduction signal to ASEAN?”
9:00 to 12:00 am – Wednesday, Jan. 9, 2013
Student Christian Center, Bangkok
Hua Chang Bridge (5 minutes walk from Rachadevi Sky Train station)
Co-organisers:
Center for Peace and Conflict Studies. Chulalongkorn University
NGO Coordination Committee on Development (NGO COD)
ASEAN Watch – Thailand
Thai Working Group on Sombath Somphone
Sombath Somphone – Lao senior development worker, promoter of ‘Gross National Happiness’ concept, the 1995 Ramon Magsaysay awardee – has in a certain way assumed a significant role in the modern age of Laos that attempts to show its readiness for playing an equal role with others in the global community.
Thus the CCTV clip showing his being abducted on 15 December 2012 in downtown Vientiane by a group of men has caused a situation that not only shocks his friends, colleagues and entire civil society in Laos; but those individuals, organizations as well as establishments on every level.
Civil society organizations in ASEAN and international community including the EU, US government and UN agencies have urged Lao government to take urgent investigations and disclose the results.
This round table will address the case of Sombath Somphon’s abduction, which has brought up the urgent need to review particular key, but hidden issues confronted by ASEAN community including human rights and the emergence of new actors amid ASEAN’s economic liberalization that has considerable influence to determine the fate of countries and the people of Mekong basin and perhaps the entire ASEAN.
Also, it will discuss questions related to possible future threats facing individuals and communities of the region, particularly the violation of basic rights of its people that will likely continue to worsen.
The ‘roundtable’ panelists are a combination of academic specialized in ASEAN affairs, NGO activist working on critical issues related to ASEAN, Thailand National Human Rights Commissioner, and eminent Thai human rights advocate who has direct experience Re: enforced disappearance.
Program
9.00 Greeting and introduction of panelists
9:15-9:35 Lead presentation by Professor Surichai Wankeo, Director, of the Center for Peace and Conflict Studies, Chulalongkorn University
9.-35-9.55 Dr. Niran Pitakvachara, Thailand National Human Rights Commissioner
9:55-10:15 Witoon Lianchamroon, Director, BioThai Foundation
10:15-10:35 Angkana Neelapaijit, Director, Justice for Peace Foundation
10:35 -10:50 Coffee Break.
10:50 -12:00 Open for questions and comments
Note: Earphone translation will be available for foreign participants and journalists throughout the discussion
For more information, please contact: [email protected] or Tel. +66 86 3942113
Find more information about Sombath Somphone, his works and the update information at http://www.sombath.org
——–
http://sombath.org/2013/01/08/roundtable-discussion-what-does-sombath-somphones-abduction-signal-to-asean/
Review of Authority of Influence
Those who believe in keeping surname after marriage as sign of matriarchy usually believe in Myanmar successive Military Government rely on astrology and soothsayers as means to decision making.
Real independence/freedom i.e. from poverty, especially for any fairer sex is still afforded only through education, heath care and economic means.
Myanmar has had it shares of women in the positions of power, during peace time that contributed to prospering of a society in every respects, and unjustly blamed for matters during trying times as well.
As always, in times of wars, economic downturns and any upheavals, that promote abject poverty, the most vulnerable, women and children always suffer the most.
Ironically the last round, of useless careless policy/upheavals that set a citizenry to more abject poverty is advocated by a women.
Hopefully now in power will remedy for the past,together with like minded cohorts advocate policy that will prolong the period in the advancement of the 3 aspects that counteract poverty.
Distressing developments in Laos
Sombat has charisma and he is focusing on “good governance” which is obviously unbearable for some of the Lao politicians.
Having worked for more than 18 years in this country, and having recently seen the unacceptable land grabbing (and wood smuggling) in the South (mostly by the Vietnamese) and the extreme poverty the villagers of this part of the country live in, I think it is time to put as much pressure as possible on the Lao governement.
Enough is enough.
Domesticating royal power
р╕Др╕│р╕зр╣Ир╕▓ “р╕Ър╕▓р╕гр╕бр╕╡/р╕Ыр╕▓р╕гр╕бр╕╡” р╕лр╕гр╕╖р╕н “р╕Ыр╕▓р╕гр╕бр╕┤р╕Хр╕▓” р╣Гр╕Щр╕Чр╕▓р╕Зр╕Шр╕гр╕гр╕бр╕Щр╕▒р╣Йр╕Щ р╕Щр╕┤р╕вр╕бр╣Бр╕Ыр╕ер╕зр╣Ир╕▓р╣Ар╕Ыр╣Зр╕Щр╕ар╕▓р╕йр╕▓р╕нр╕▒р╕Зр╕Бр╕др╕йр╕зр╣Ир╕▓ “Perfection” р╕лр╕гр╕╖р╕н “Completeness” р╕лр╕гр╕╖р╕н “Fulfillment” р╣Ар╕Вр╕▓р╣Ар╕гр╕╡р╕вр╕Бр╕зр╣Ир╕▓р╕Ър╕▓р╕гр╕бр╕╡.
It is not a dream. This is called Completeness.
р╕бр╕▒р╕Щр╣Др╕бр╣Ир╣Гр╕Кр╣Ир╕Др╕зр╕▓р╕бр╕Эр╕▒р╕Щр╕лр╕ер╕нр╕Б р╣Ар╕Вр╕▓р╣Ар╕гр╕╡р╕вр╕Бр╕зр╣Ир╕▓ “р╕Ър╕▓р╕гр╕бр╕╡”
Distressing developments in Laos
It is worth noting the legal definition of the term “enforced disappearance.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forced_disappearance
“In international human rights law, a forced disappearance (or enforced disappearance) occurs when a person is secretly abducted or imprisoned by a state or political organization or by a third party with the authorization, support, or acquiescence of a state or political organization, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the person’s fate and whereabouts, with the intent of placing the victim outside the protection of the law.
According to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, which came into force on 1 July 2002, when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed at any civilian population, a “forced disappearance” qualifies as a crime against humanity and, thus, is not subject to a statute of limitations.
On 20 December 2006, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance.
… Disappearing political rivals is also a way for regimes to engender feelings of complicity in populations. That is: the difficulty of publicly fighting a government which murders in secret can result in widespread pretense that everything is normal… “
Review of Authority of Influence
The wider historical analysis of this post is that the end of the patriarchy draws near. By that I mean the Vatican, the Federal Reserve and Wall Street. All male dominated warmongering institutions.
Next stop? Laiza?
The only person that will benefit from Aung San Suu Kyi is…………..
Aung San Suu Kyi.
Distressing developments in Laos
Financial Times
“Laos Pressed on Disappearance of Activist”
January 6, 2013
By Gwen Robinson in Bangkok
The UN and some western governments are preparing to put fresh questions to the Lao government over the mysterious disappearance in mid-December of a prominent education and health campaigner, after Vientiane late last week rejected suggestions by the UN of state involvement in the case.
In a statement to the UN’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Laos denied knowledge of the whereabouts of Sombath Somphone, 60, and said he had not been taken into police custody, as widely reported, but rather may have been kidnapped because of a “personal conflict”.
UN human rights officials, as well as US and European governments, have expressed concern in recent weeks that the activist is being held by the Lao authorities.
Closed circuit video footage from police security cameras showed Mr Sombath, founder of a local non-government organisation Padetc, being stopped by traffic police at a roadside post while he was driving home from work in Vientiane, the Lao capital, in mid-December.
Mr Sombath was following his Singaporean wife in a separate car but never arrived home. The government has denied he was taken into custody at the stop, which they said was a “routine” check, but grainy CCTV footage shows a man resembling Mr Sombath being driven away by uniformed Lao officials.
Vientiane-based diplomats at the weekend expressed doubt about official denials of involvement in Mr Sombath’s disappearance and said their embassies were set to convey further concerns about the case. “We are considering the next move, and it could well be a démarche,” said one western diplomat.
The EU and the US have publicly called for explanation. Lady Ashton, EU foreign policy chief, last month expressed “deep concern” about Mr Sombath’s disappearance and urged the Lao government to “investigate” the case. In Washington, Victoria Nuland, state department spokeswoman, said the US had asked the government “to make every effort to locate him and figure out what’s happened”.
UN human rights officials meanwhile have suggested Mr Sombath was detained by the state because of his work. “We are highly concerned for his safety and believe his abduction may be related to his human rights work,” a UN human rights spokesman said in late December, noting “what appeared to be” Mr Sombath’s “enforced disappearance”, a phrase which under international law implicates the government.
Mr Sombath, 60, a winner of the prestigious Magsaysay award in 2005 for social development work, founded Padtec in 1996 to promote education and sustainable development. The organisation was “low-key” and Mr Sombath had not run foul of state authorities, said a western aid official.
His disappearance followed the Lao government’s expulsion a week earlier of Ann-Sophie Grindiz, head of Swiss development agency Helvetas. Diplomats believe the cases are not directly linked but one envoy cited “worrying signs of backsliding in Laos amid international pressures to democratise”.
Both cases appear to undermine the government’s moves to open up the country, after Laos’s accession to the World Trade Organisation in early December.
WTO membership will give Laos increased opportunities to integrate into “regional economic success and attract more foreign investors”, noted Murray Hiebert, an Asia analyst at CSIS, the US think tank. “But with the government’s lack of accounting about the disappearance of someone as prominent as Sombath, foreign investors as well as tourists will be more cautious about jumping into the country with both feet,” he noted.
Mr Hiebert said Mr Sombath was “soft-spoken, easy-going and uninvolved in politics”. His disappearance should raise concerns in Vientiane, he added, “not least because foreign aid accounts for nearly 70 per cent of government’s budget, and 16 per cent of the country’s gross domestic product”.
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The Company in Dawei
W/o any confusion
Rather be a chauvinist on behalf of a long suffering citizenry than a condescending chauvinist against its own.
Myanmar tourism after the boycott
“what burma needs first =
proper education & proper health care”
At least we concur on the needs of the Citizenry of Myanmar in 2 category.
Let’s work on the Economic Well being for the future of the Citizenry instead of re litigating useless careless policy induced past.
Myanmar tourism after the boycott
Ko Moe Aung
High time for a review of Econ 101 or better yet from:
http://www.newmandala.org/2012/10/10/andrew-selths-burma-bibiliography/
Together with the opportunistic side kick hoteldelta.
Any shopper will complain that Economy/Supply & Demand (S&D) is affected by Sanction, Internal conflicts, Weathers, government control etc due to DISTORTION/INTERRUPTION OF S&D.
“The black market nothing to do with supply and demand? Nor market distortion and manipulation?”
“–,all different incarnations of the same outfit.”
INDEED SELF CONTRADICTION AGAIN
Any -ism including Capitalism have certain degree of S&D control/distortion with Socialism, Communism the extreme example of S&D control.
Denying any distortion is preposterous if not idiotic.
Black Market is a sickness of curbing the supply side of S&D a true distortion of controlling supply, so is hoarding.
Which your dedicated Socialist Ne Win dealt with:
1) Shooting/Putting in jail, periodically the Black Marketeers.
Thus temporarily control the supply side of S&D
2) Multiple Demonetization, some under the guise of astrological guidance (to fool the West like Benedict Rogers).
All to control the demand side of S&D.
This current administration, USDP/Military dominated has so far being least controlling compared to BSPP and its anomaly SLOR and SPDC.
Hopefully in time will prepare the citizenry of Myanmar to demand for more.