Dr. Kearrin Sims who is a lecturer in Development in Studies at James Cook University said that the reason why he published his article warning about the disappearance of Mr. Sombath Somphone in the Development Policy Journal is that he wants to figure out "what happened to Mr. Sombath Somphone, why was he the victim of enforced disappearance, and what do the circumstances around his disappearance tell us about working in a country with a constrained or oppressive political regime and how did that happen?."
Dr. Sims says it is because Mr. Somphone's case is "unique," due to he is not an activist who protests the Lao government as many other activists do, but rather a community development worker who spent his entire life working collaboratively with the Lao government to contribute to the betterment of Lao communities and if he can still disappear, it could happen to anybody.
Sadly, said Dr. Sims, 'it is not uncommon within Southeast Asia for activists to be the victims of enforced disappearance, or of arbitrary detention, or in some cases of assassination or other forms of human rights abuses by the state or by the government.'
"There are different risks for international workers and local workers. If you are an international worker who works in a country like Laos, you need to be careful and think about how you might put at risk local workers and the risk are much higher for local workers. So you have to think about not just your own safety and well-being but also the safety and well-being of those you are working with."
Dr. Kearrin Sims says that I think Laos is a very peaceful, stable country and has a wonderful culture, but alongside that, it is a country with a very little tolerance for any conversation around things that the government deems sensitive, and I think that it is a country where people still continue to face human rights abuses by the state. And people would argued that enforced disappearance is a deliberate strategy, a deliberate means of governance to maintain silence on politically sensitive issues.
Dr. Kearrin Sims says that 'I wouldn't discourage people from going to work in Laos to try to bring about some sort of positive outcome of social or environmental changes. My paper just argues that they need to be aware of the political context that they are working in, and they need to think carefully and reflexively about their actions and how that will affect not only their safety but the safety of others.'
Asking if the Lao government knows anything or involve in any form with Sombath Somphone's disappearance? Dr. Simsrefers to the undeniable CCTV footage showing Mr. Somphone was stopped at a police checkpoint in the presence of police in Vientiane, he was then intercepted, driven away in a different vehicle.
"When international civil societies offer their support to help with the investigation and the Lao government declined. Furthermore, there were also reports that the Lao civil society organizations at the ASEAN People Forum were pressured not to discuss Sombath's case. There have been no reports about Sombath from any of the Lao media outlets and they have been silenced on the discussion of his disappearance. So the evidence has made it very difficult to believe the suggestion that the government had no involvement in Sombath Somphone's disappearance.
Of course, we know that his disappearance followed the 2012 Asian Europe Meeting and ASEAN-Europe People which members of the Lao communities spoke of the negative effects of foreign investment and government land concessions, and people have been pushed off their land to make wave for this investment, and Sombath Somphone was one of the co-chairs of this event, and so his abduction was linked to his role in this event."
There is a view, and I think that it's quite probably correct that Sombath Somphone is abducted not because of his action but due to his well-known character, and this will send a very powerful message to other Lao development workers to say, if Sombath Somphone can be abducted, then anybody can be abducted, and we know this was not the first enforced disappearance," says Dr. Sims.
But when it comes to development, the Lao government could argue that the benefits are outweighed those few who oppose it. Though Dr. Sims has a different view.
"My view will be that the development of Laos that is crucial and critical part of that development is people have the ability to speak freely about the things that they believe in. The Lao strong economic growth had negative consequences on many people's lives, and negative consequences on the environment in many cases, so development everywhere, not just in Laos comes with costs. There are costs and benefits to rapid economic growth and modernization and we have to make a decision about benefits and costs and what we consider to be acceptable and unacceptable costs," says Dr. Sims.
In my view, any acts of enforced disappearance are intolerable, and in Sombath Somphone's case, in my view, it was more even sad and tragic because he is a man who devoted his career to working toward community development and had had much success in his work. It's important that we push for or try to encourage changes and encourage more political freedom and more human rights, but how do we do that carefully so that is achieved, and so we don't see this kind of tragic acts like the enforced disappearance that happened to Sombath Somphone, says Dr. Sims.says Dr. Sims.
Laos' economic growth in the last decade relies heavily on international aid and foreign investments though it still has a huge budget deficit as well as huge debt to deal with along the limited skilled workforce and business opportunities. Despite these challenges, Laos is very ambitious to graduate itself from the least developed countries (LDCs) by 2024 according to the state media. Will graduating from LDCs benefit Laos or bringing challenges instead?
"There are certain criteria (Gross National Income, Human Asset Index, and Economic Vulnerability Index-UN -OHRLLS) that Laos has to meet in order to graduate from least developed countries. We shouldn't simply assume that graduating from the least developed countries status means that people's lives across Laos have significantly improved. All it means is that certain criteria have been met, and there have been a number of cases where countries have graduated from the least developed countries status and experienced costs as a consequence. Just recently, I was listening to a speaker at a conference from Fiji who was discussing that the least developed countries' graduation will not bring any benefits at all. In fact, It will bring you many challenges because being a least developed country entitle you to certain benefits in terms of international aid and support, and so on. So when Laos graduates from LCDs status it will lose a number of these privileges," Dr. Sims mentioned.
I want to say that Laos is a really wonderful country in many ways and I don't want my research into Sombath Somphone's disappearance, political oppression, and human rights abuses to paint a negative picture of the country as a whole, Dr. Kearrin Sims concluded.
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