SHAN NEWS
More than 200 water buffaloes, used for plowing fields and pulling vehicles, have dropped dead since Songkran after suffering a hitherto unheard off “stand still” disease, in Shan State East, yet authorities are taking no notice of it let alone taking serious steps to deal with it, according to a reliable source coming to the border.
“They keep telling us to vote in favor of the draft charter and everything will go well,” a farmer in Mongyawng, 157 km north of Maesai on the Thai-Burma border, was quoted as saying.
Since Songkran, known as Thingyan in Burmese, 13-17 April, many buffaloes that were let off in the morning to graze in the forests surrounding the villages and recalled in the evening back to their sheds, were found standing still and refusing to move. “Some collapsed and died when they were forced to move at all,” said a businessman coming to the border. “Others died after arrival at their sheds.”
The dead animals share the same symptoms: their heads and feet are cold but their bellies are hot.
Village headmen then notified the authorities and a veterinarian was duly dispatched who charged K20,000 ($20) per treatment. “The fee was indeed steep for the rural people,” said another farmer. “We naturally filed a complaint with the authorities but they did nothing to improve the state of affairs. It seems there is nothing but the referendum that is occupying their whole beings.”
The referendum on the adoption on the new charter, which took 15 years to draft, will be held nationwide on 10 May, two weeks away.
According to an international NGO foreign employee, the generals are getting rich while the government is going bankrupt, reported Mizzima News on 25 April.
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