Last week, an international newspaper asked me for a comment on the political implications for Laos after six foreign tourists were killed last week, most likely because of drinking alcohol laced with methanol, in Vang Vieng, a tourism hotspot. At the time, I didn’t have one. My thoughts were, and still are, principally with families affected by this tragedy – not just as a recent father but also as a son of parents who permitted me to live halfway across the world as soon as I legally could. As Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said quite succinctly, “This is every parent’s very worst fear and a nightmare.”
A few implications have become clearer, though. There are two reasons why Laos makes it into international headlines: its crippling national debt (chiefly because most of that debt is owed to China) and tourist deaths in Vang Vieng. The previous preoccupation regarding the latter came in 2012, after several backpackers died while “tubing” on the nearby river. Media attention has been much more intense this time around. International newspapers have sent their Asia correspondents to Laos; lesser papers have reprinted wire copy nearly daily and near the front page. A slew of damning sketches have been commissioned, such as an article in The Times headlined, “I worked in a bar in Laos. I know what goes into those lethal drinks.”
Up until now, Vientiane has handled “the narrative” fairly well. It has sensibly said little except what needed to have been said: that it is “profoundly saddened” by the deaths of the six foreign nationals and promises that it will find “the causes of the incident and to bring the perpetrators to justice in accordance with the law,” per its first official comments, published on the Foreign Affairs Ministry’s website over the weekend. There have been calls for Vientiane to be forthcoming with more information, notably on the likely culprits, but the Lao government is correctly trying to give clarity over conjecture. Foreign governments and, more importantly, the families of those who lost their lives need action, not press releases.
The human tragedy rightly commands media attention, but, at some level, one can say that this is a consequence of a Lao state that has wilted so much that it cannot legislate and implement simple laws. That this is a consequence of a state that stands near motionless as the country is defaced by cyber scammers, drug traffickers, and squeezing, wrenching, grasping Lao oligarchs and Chinese magnates. In May, I wrote an article in this column pondering whether the state apparatus was on the verge of collapse.
Then again, one can only pick at this thread so much. Indeed, one must be careful not to inflate the local into the national. It’s not uncommon for people to die from drinking booze laced with methanol, a way of bulking the alcohol content of cheap, home-distilled liquor. There are similar stories from almost every other Southeast Asian country, perhaps except Singapore.
In 2012, almost 50 people died in Cambodia after drinking rice wine contaminated by methanol. There were dozens of deaths in Malaysia in 2018 due to methanol poisoning. More than 40 people were killed in the Philippines after drinking methanol-laced palm liquor between 2018 and 2019. In 2018, more than 80 people died from drinking bootleg liquor in Indonesia, while more than 100 others were hospitalized. At least 65 people died in India in June this year due to methanol poisoning. Nor do these things only happen in Asia. I am writing in the Czech Republic, where more than 50 people died just over a decade ago after drinking methanol that had been mixed with alcohol.
However (and how should one phrase this?), the difference between those cases in Cambodia, Malaysia, and the Philippines and this case in Laos is that foreign tourists were killed. This should be a difference without a distinction: the nationality of a victim ought not to make a tragedy any less tragic nor the perpetrators any more guilty of their crime. On the other hand, at least for the consequences of the Vang Vieng poisonings, nationality does matter. Let’s be honest, had six Laotians perished last week (or even six Chinese nationals), we wouldn’t have heard a peep from the Australian premier nor most international news outlets. I doubt I’d be writing this column.
Indeed, Vientiane knows it has to respond carefully. Laos has been desperate to resurrect tourism since the COVID-19 pandemic. The government has lavished ample funds on advertising campaigns and spent much of its chairmanship of ASEAN this year lauding the “Visit Laos 2024” campaign. This poisoning story has not undone all this work, but type in Laos to a search engine over the next months and all you’ll get is news of tourist deaths.
Granted, Vang Vieng had somewhat shaken off its notoriety as a place where backpackers die from “tubing.” But that was arguably an easier feat. Floating down a river on a bit of rubber after being given incredibly cheap alcoholic shots is a knowable risk; drinking alcohol laced with methanol is not. There’s no way of knowing how many bottles of liquor laced with methanol are in circulation, and there’s no way of knowing whether the shot in your hand hasn’t come from one of them. For many foreigners who have read the headlines, Laos will stay in the back of their minds as a country where it’s potentially deadly just to have a drink.
It is uncertain how long it will be before the international media spotlight moves elsewhere. My guess is this story will still be in the news until the culprit is caught and prosecuted. Rightly so. And it has been good to see in some of the more recent coverage a few sentences calling for health standards on food and drink also to be improved for Laotians. As time passes, though, particularly if the international attention doesn’t abate, Vientiane may be tempted into what-aboutery. (‘There have been far worse alcohol poisoning epidemics elsewhere in Southeast Asia, so why focus on us?”) Indeed, it has happened elsewhere, but it has now happened in Vang Vieng as well. The communist government must deliver a transparent, definitive investigation of the poisonings and prosecute those found responsible, which would be unorthodox for the country’s authorities. But that is what the families of the victims deserve at a minimum. That’s also what could spare the tourism industry from maximum reputational damage.