Prof Surichai Wankaew, director of the Peace and Conflicts Study Center at Chulalongkorn University, has called on the Thai government to assist in the search for Sombath Somphone, a Lao activist whose disappearance has been widely linked to his attempts at fighting development projects along the Mekong River.
Sombath has been missing for 25 days. Surichai’s comments came during a seminar, called to draw attention to the missing activist’s plight.
Prior to his disappearance, which some panelists suggested was carried out by the Laotian police, Sombath had been working in opposition to a joint, Thai-Lao development project along the Mekong.
Surichai, and others at the symposium, framed the issue as integral to the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC), which Surichai told the Nation, “means more than trading.”
