State Department Warnings on Bali: Confusing

Travel Blog  •  Jim Benning  •  10.29.02 | 1:30 AM ET

Few predicted that Bali would be struck by the kind of violence that killed 180 people recently. But in the Los Angeles Times on Sunday, writer Jane Engle suggests that the warnings were there. “When they bombed paradise on Oct. 12, nearly everyone was surprised—except, perhaps, those who had carefully read the travel safety announcements issued by the U.S. State Department,” she writes.

Engle notes that the U.S. State Department issued a November 2001 warning for Americans to avoid visiting Indonesia, and that two days before the bombing it issued a worldwide caution urging citizens to avoid places where Americans hang out, such as clubs and restaurants. “Taken together,” she writes, “the Indonesia and worldwide statements said, in effect: Don’t go to a club in Bali frequented by Americans. But you had to read both to get the full picture.”

I don’t believe that the travelers injured or killed in that Bali nightclub or any other tourists in Bali at the time were acting irresponsibly—that if they had only done their research they might have avoided the place. Sure, Bali has long been surrounded by troubled islands. But the fact is that before the bombing, Bali was said to be generally safe—by the State Department and many others. A couple of months before the bombing, while researching a travel article, I called the State Department to question the agency’s contradictory statements about Bali. (As Engle later notes, the department’s consular information sheet for Indonesia both warned that the country was dangerous and stated that Bali was largely free of disturbances.)

Should I really be writing an article suggesting Bali was safe, I asked? Is it responsible? Not to worry, a department official told me. Bali had a safe track record, hence the caveat about the island being free of disturbances.

So there you go. State Department warnings and statements, however well intentioned, often raise more questions than they answer. The department’s statements about Bali were contradictory and confusing. Fortunately, Engle urges travelers to tap other sources of information about potential destinations beyond the State Department.

On that point, I couldn’t agree more.

Tags: Asia, Indonesia, Bali


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