At around 5:30 pm on 15th December 2012, Sombath Somphone, a world-renowned community development worker, was caught on CCTV being stopped by police, then being escorted from his vehicle to an unmarked truck by unknown individuals. He has not been seen since.
Sombath is one of many ‘enforced disappearances' seemingly carried out by the Laotian state. On Monday, 28 September 2020, UN members and NGOs questioned Laos over such disappearances and called for ‘impartial and transparent’ investigations in all cases, including Sombath’s. Laos has said investigations were ‘considered on a case by case basis’ but refused to elaborate. Laos also made no commitment to ratify the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance (ICPPED), despite signing the convention in 2008.
Laos’ reluctance to address the disappearances of its citizens is especially worrisome for land rights activists and ethnic minorities, who have been the principal victims of such disappearances and state persecution.
BATTERY OF ASIA
The Laotian government says it wants the country to become the ‘battery of Asia'. It hopes that by exporting hydroelectric power the country will graduate from its 'least developed country' status at the UN by 2030. Having built approximately 50 dams in the last 15 years, Laos’ hydropower capacity has jumped tenfold from 0.7 GW to 7.2 GW. With an additional50 dams under construction and a staggering 288 planned, the country could reach a capacity of 27 GW.
To finance its ambitions, Laos has resorted to leasing land to foreign investors, and evicting the local farmers from occupied land. Under Laotian law, all land belongs to the state but so-called ‘land use rights’ may be issued to individuals by the government, permitting them to use a plot of land in a specified way, such as farming. However, Article 63 of the 2003 Land Law empowers the state to revoke such rights at any time for undefined ‘public purposes’.
While Article 68 of the law envisages compensation to those whose land rights are revoked for public purposes, in practice the government is not forthcoming compensation and any remuneration tends to fall below market value. Unsurprisingly, protests against evictions are common. Arrests, beatings and electrocutions, deaths in police custody, and enforced disappearances of protesters have all been reported. Shortly before his disappearance, Sombath had also criticised the state’s use of land seizures.
HMONG & OTHER ETHNIC MINORITIES
Laos’ ethnic minorities have been disproportionately impacted by the government’s land seizure policies. The Khmu, Oey, and Hmong peoples live in the resource-rich uplands, which have been eyed by Chinese and Vietnamese investors. The Hmong (many of whom are Christians in a majority Buddhist nation) have been subjected to a 45-year campaign of persecution, after fighting alongside US troops against the Laotion and Vietnamese communist regimes in the 1970s. Around 17,000 Hmong soldiers and 50,000 Hmong civilians have been killed since then. Of the remaining few thousand Hmong living in the jungles of the Saysomboun region, at least 2,000 have disappeared since 2005.
RELIANCE ON CHINESE INVESTMENT
Last month Laos handed over majority control of its national power grid to a Chinese state-owned company to avert defaulting on its loans. The country’s growing financial dependence on Chinese investment is likely to result in further land seizures and continue the persecution of land rights activists and ethnic minorities. The US, EU, and regional powers like India, Japan, and Singapore, should increase their investment in Laos to ween the country off Chinese capital while also prohibiting their own corporations from leasing land that has been seized. They should promote alternatives to hydroelectric power, such as wind, solar, and biofuel, and support sustainable industries in the country to diversify its economy, which should reduce the economic pressure necessitating the land seizures. While these investments should be conditional on improvements in property rights and minority rights, these conditions should not be so onerous as to force Laos into greater dependence on China.
Samuel is a trainee solicitor and postgraduate at Cardiff University. He is active in several U.K.-based organisations campaigning on behalf of Hong Kong and BNOs. His research interests include transitional justice and the rule of law.