Killing for Profit: Exposing the Illegal Rhino Horn Trade (55 page)

The farm on the outskirts of Paksan is run-down and neglected. Dozens of macaques clamour for attention in filthy, rusted cages. Some appear to have escaped and run wild around the wire pens, scaling the sides and looking in
at the macaques that are still caged. There is little food. They are housed fifteen to twenty in a pen. Many of the animals are ill and painfully thin, their hair falling out in clumps. There are rumours that Xaysavang is in trouble; that Mr Chen and the Chinese have pulled out and that the monkeys are being left to starve to death.

In late 2011, an undercover team from the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (BUAV) – a British-based NGO that campaigns to stop animals from being used in scientific experiments – counted 575 macaques in pens on the farm. They found that many of the animals were starving to death. ‘Some were dead in their pens.’

A man, who claimed to be the owner but is not named in the BUAV report, told them he did not have money to feed the monkeys, but in the same breath claimed that he was opening a ‘zoo’ and had been granted a government licence to do so. ‘I’m opening a new farm which is bigger than this one,’ he said.

In July 2012, the WWF released a ‘wildlife crime scorecard’ assessing levels of CITES compliance and enforcement in twenty-three countries that are central to the international wildlife trade. Laos, Vietnam and Mozambique were the worst performers. Vietnam was the top destination for rhino horn from South Africa. Laos and Mozambique had failed utterly in enforcing the international ban on trade in ivory, the ‘scorecard’ found, citing a recent survey in Vientiane that found 2 500 items of ivory at twenty-four retail shops.

‘While much of Laos’s illegal ivory was said by traders to derive from Laos’s Asian elephants, there have been seizures of African ivory en route to Laos in Thailand and Kenya,’ the WWF report noted. ‘Laos itself has never reported an ivory seizure.’

In a clear reference to Xaysavang, although it did not name the company, the report raised concerns about the trade in rhino horn trophies and lion bones from South Africa to Laos and Vietnam. ‘While the end-use of the lion bones is not known, it is likely that they are feeding into illegal internal markets for tiger bone medicine. Laos and Viet Nam should clearly
enforce prohibitions against the use of captive big cats to supply internal and international trade.’

Vixay Keosavang first came to the attention of Thai police nearly a decade ago. A 2003 Thai crime intelligence report on key figures in the illegal wild-life trade lists him by name and includes details of numerous wildlife transactions in which he was allegedly involved. Tons of animals were routed to buyers in China, the report states. It also suggests ties between Vixay and a Malaysian wildlife dealer. Information contained in the report about Vixay himself is sketchy and suggests that he may have at one stage been a police officer in Vietnam.

A far more detailed profile emerges in information from Vietnamese sources. Vixay was born in 1958 in Xiangkhouang Province in north-eastern Laos. During the CIA’s decade-long ‘secret war’, it would gain the unenviable distinction of being the most bombed province in the most bombed country in the world.

In the late 1970s, Vixay was conscripted into the Lao People’s Army. Reports suggest he was discharged in 1993. There is some speculation that he still has ties with Laotian military intelligence structures. There are also suggestions that he held a senior position in a powerful state-run company with interests in construction and international trade.

His political links seem to have taken shape in the early 1990s, when he was reportedly appointed as secretary to the chairman of the Bolikhamxay provincial assembly. Over the next ten years he worked in various positions within the provincial government, heading its ‘foreign co-operation division’ and later serving as deputy director of the province’s Department of Trade. His business card lists him as vice-president of both the Laos national swimming and boxing committees.

Vixay reportedly told Huong Quoc Dung, the Vietnamese journalist, that he had been ‘assigned by leaders’ in 2002 to run Xaysavang Trading. He did not name the ‘leaders’ and would give no explanation for the strange ‘assignment’.

In his house is said to be a collection of photographs showing him posing with senior Laotian government ministers, including the Minister of Trade, and the Minister of Planning and Investment. Perhaps most troubling of all is a report which states that Vixay accompanied the Laotian deputy prime minister, Bouasone Bouphavanh (later the country’s prime minister for four years), on an official visit to Vietnam in 2004.

It seems clear that Vixay’s background as a senior government official and his carefully cultivated ties to powerful Laotian and, possibly, Vietnamese politicians ensure that he can continue his dealings without fear of arrest or prosecution. Steven Galster, who heads up the Bangkok-based Freeland Foundation, which investigates wildlife crime and human trafficking in the region, describes Vixay as ‘the Mr Big in Laos’.

‘He seems so well protected and we haven’t met any law enforcement officers in Laos who are able, or willing, to take this on.’

Vixay’s home is just over a kilometre from the hotel. Its location hints at his influence. To reach it, we drive north, away from the river, past the offices of the Ministry of Justice, the People’s Court of Bolikhamxay Province and a local bank. We turn left into a street that leads to the Bolikhamxay planning and investment department. In the centre of the block is a sprawling building that houses the main provincial administration offices. Diagonally opposite it is a bright yellow, red and blue sign and the name Xaysavang Trading Export-Import. A Laotian flag flutters in the breeze. An ornate green-and-gold fence fronts the property. By Laos’s impoverished standards, the house is a mansion, although one that has seen better days. It is an odd-shaped construction with three second-floor balconies that look as if they have been randomly pasted onto the side of the building. The roof is a zigzag of red tiles, the garden unkempt and the grass overgrown.

The main gate is unlocked, but the front door is shut and there is no sign of Vixay. I dial his cellphone number. A male voice answers, but before I can say much, he cuts me off. ‘No English,’ he says. I hand the phone to the interpreter. I had decided it would be best to keep my story vague. The interpreter
has been briefed to tell Vixay that I have travelled to Laos from Africa and would very much like to meet him to discuss business. Given that I didn’t have official press credentials, I had decided I would only broach the subject once I met him.

Vixay is in Vientiane, the interpreter tells me. We had probably passed him on the road. He is tied up in meetings in the capital, he says, but will have time to meet in a few days. He asks that I send him a fax with a formal request.

Before I travelled to Laos, I’d only ever seen one photograph of Vixay. It was affixed to a copy of the 2008 company registration form. Formal and sterile, it told me very little. It showed a man with neatly combed black hair, plump cheeks and full lips in a neat black suit with a red tie.

Later I was shown digital footage that had been secretly filmed with a hidden camera in the office of Vixay’s house in Paksan. The footage was blurred and unsteady but, for a few moments, Vixay was clearly identifiable. He looked a little older than in the photograph, but there was no doubting that it was the same man. The camera panned. On the wall behind Vixay was a buffalo trophy. To his left was a photograph of him and his wife, both dressed in white, probably on their wedding day, mounted in a gilt, baroque frame. It was propped up on a table flanked on one side by a heavy wooden chair with dragons for armrests and, on the other, by a grey, steel filing cabinet.

The investigator who had obtained the footage remarked after I watched it: ‘Imagine what stories that filing cabinet could tell.’

I never did meet Vixay. The first meeting was postponed, then the next. When I pressed him, he did what any wildlife trafficking kingpin in Laos would do. He called the police. Eventually I sent him a fax with a list of questions about Xaysavang’s activities. He didn’t answer them. When the interpreter called him, he grew angry. He denied any involvement in trafficking rhino horn and lion bones, and insisted that his business was legally conducted ‘on behalf of
the Laotian government’. When the interpreter called him again, he was threatened with arrest. My fax had been given to the police, he was told. They were investigating. I was warned to leave. Later I heard that someone had been asking questions about me at the hotel I had stayed at in Vientiane. But by then I was in Hong Kong, on my way back to South Africa.