The one thing we can be sure Laotian authorities have done well in their apparent investigation into the 2024 poisoning deaths of Australian backpackers Holly Morton-Bowles and Bianca Jones has been to behave contemptuously to the grieving families in Melbourne.
No one from Laos has called the parents to give them updates, assurances or even condolences. Information has arrived piecemeal from Australian authorities or from similarly grieving families overseas.
The latest disrespect was to refuse a request by Australian embassy staff in the capital of Vientiane to record a press conference on Friday directly relating to the young women’s deaths. International media was blocked from attending altogether.
“We will nevertheless attend and record proceedings,” the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs, showing some welcome grit, wrote to the families on Thursday. “We have also requested an English transcript from the Lao authorities and will continue to press for any supporting material that can be shared.”
Some questions of the Laotian authorities were actually asked by foreign diplomats, including from DFAT, and even the Australian Federal Police. Not much of a “press” conference.
The backpacking friends from Melbourne died after drinking shots containing methanol at the Nana Backpacker Hostel in the party town of Vang Vieng. An American man, two Danish women and a British woman, all of them guests at the same hostel, were also killed, while many more became seriously ill.
Shaun Bowles, the father of Holly, told this masthead during the week that it was hard to put their disappointment into words. “We’ve had so many conflicting stories from the Lao authorities,” he said.
Bianca Jones’ mother, Michelle, said it was like their lives didn’t even matter. “We’re just really appalled by it all.”
The purpose of the Ministry of Public Security’s announcement on Friday to the approved attendees was to detail the upcoming prosecutions against a local distillery.
Laos has not been forthcoming about what was said at the so-called press conference. State-controlled media wasn’t much interested and Foreign Minister Penny Wong’s office was unresponsive on Friday.
Thankfully, the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs attended and provided Australian media with a statement suggesting the distillery owner faced a prison sentence of up to four years, and a fine, on charges of selling hazardous food products and operating a business illegally.
DFAT previously told the Australian families the maximum prison term on the table was one year. We don’t know which version is correct.
The Laotian government, of course, has not responded to questions. It also kept to itself court sessions earlier this year that handed some staff members at the hostel in Vang Vieng fines and suspended sentences for tampering with evidence. It is believed, however, those convictions were only in relation to the American, who died in his room, not the Australian women.
Laos is an information black hole. Multiple requests for interviews with Laotian authorities, either in person or on the phone, have been denied or ignored.
For some context, this is a country that still uses Yahoo and Bigpond for embassy and some department email addresses.
Unless more evidence emerges, action against the distillery may be the Australian families’ last real hope for some kind of justice for their daughters. That’s why the meagre charges reportedly on the table have drawn understandably emotional reactions, including from the Australian government, which needs to show it is advocating strongly following instances of the embassy in Vientiane dropping the ball.
Wong said of the Laotian government on Friday that Australia had “consistently made clear our expectations that charges should reflect the gravity of the tragedy”, and then summoned the nation’s ambassador in Canberra.
It is understood the distillery responsible is called Tiger. It was that brand’s bottles that were seen being tipped out following the deaths. Laotian authorities also banned the sale of its so-called vodka and whisky shortly after.
The problem is, nothing has yet emerged to prove the mass poisoning was Tiger’s fault. Bottles sell everywhere in Vang Vieng for the equivalent of about $2.50, but the only people to get sick were guests at Nana.
Could there have been a bad batch that only made it to the hostel?
Homemade spirits are also popular in Vang Vieng. These sell in small plastic water bottles for about 60¢ each. The details are scant, but it is possible this alcohol, perhaps brewed by someone so inexperienced, drunk or forgetful that they did not remove the natural methanol by-product, was poured into fancier looking Tiger bottles and then served up as free shots to backpackers.
A woman linked to Tiger told us in April that it didn’t actually brew its own alcohol but instead bought crude hospital-grade ethanol from the pharmacy and diluted it with water. She said tests had been done on their booze and they had been exonerated.
For now, it’s impossible to know if this, or anything else, is true other than that young people on the adventure of a lifetime died.
The investigation was opaque, weak or both.
The hostel was still open and still serving drinks for days after people got sick and died. The manager even poured some Tiger for himself to prove it was all safe. A handful of backpackers, all of them aware of what had happened but unable to change their booking at late notice, sat silently by the pool.
Who knows what investigators took for testing. When this masthead visited in April, empty bottles still remained at the hostel in Vang Vieng and also at the Tiger factory, on the outskirts of Vientiane.
One of the failings of Laotian authorities has been their contradictory and scarce messages delivered to DFAT about what kind of prosecutions they might bring. The fact that the charges are on the weaker end of the spectrum has deepened the family’s hurt and outraged Australians. Many of us have drunk at “fun” places in dodgy, cheap parts of the world. Others might have sons and daughters who have, or plan to.
DFAT’s handling of the particulars has only made the situation more difficult for the families. Despite apologising for not being on top of the detail – such as the court action against hostel staff – and then bypassing the ambassador by appointing Pablo Kang as a special envoy on the case, news that there was going to be a press conference in Vientiane on Friday was first delivered to the Australian families by their grieving counterparts overseas.
Australia has budgeted $64 million in foreign aid for Laos this year. That might be some leverage. But the country’s real benefactor is China. There was no mention of the methanol prosecutions on state media by Friday night, but there was a report pumping up the five million-plus foreign tourists Laos was expecting in 2026, “with Chinese visitors projected to account for around 2 million of that total”.
Laos might want the story to disappear. Or maybe it just doesn’t care.
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Zach Hope is South-East Asia correspondent. He is a former reporter at the Brisbane Times.Connect via email.
