The article, “The truth about Sombath’s fate”, reprinted in Sunday Post (Jan. 20) from the Thai newspaper, The Nation, probably wasn’t given much attention by most of your readers, with it being about someone who had disappeared in a small country, Laos, quite far from Indonesia.
However, to those of us who know, care about and deeply respect Sombath Somphone and his development work in Laos, we were pleased to see that his abduction continues to receive media attention and the Post is to be commended for publishing this story. It is indeed unfortunate that for more than a month now, the Laotian government has continued to deny any involvement or knowledge of his abduction, despite the fact that he was abducted from a police post in full view of CCTV cameras (see sombath.org/video).
We were also heartened to see that an ASEAN Parliamentary Delegation (comprising Walden Bello, Lily Wahid and Charles Santiago) visited Vientiane from Jan. 12–14 to try and establish more regarding his abduction.
In a briefing to the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand on Jan. 15 following their visit, the trio said that after their meetings with senior government officials, they were left with more questions than answers, and that they suspected a military or police unit with links to senior hard line members of the Laos politburo may have been involved in abducting Sombath.
At the briefing in Thailand, Lily Wahid said that the delegation would now present its findings to the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights in Jakarta for further action.
This recently established commission is comprised of ASEAN member country representatives who have been criticized in the past for putting their own national interests before those of victims of human rights abuses.
Investigating the abduction of Sombath now provides them with an opportunity to firmly establish their credibility as a commission, and we urge them to immediately follow up on the report received from the ASEAN Parliamentary Delegation and conduct an in-depth investigation.
We would also urge The Jakarta Post to continue to monitor this story, particularly in terms of follow-up actions taken by the Jakarta-based ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights and also by asking questions of the Laotian ambassador to Indonesia, to both ensure that answers regarding Sombath’s abduction are forthcoming as soon as possible from the Laos government — and that Sombath is returned safe and well to his family.
