Where's Our Compensation, Villagers Ask

 VIENTIANE, Sep 15 – Residents of the Lao capital whose poultry was culled in August in a bid to contain bird flu in Xaythany district have appealed to the government to provide them with compensation. Since the authorities slaughtered their backyard poultry, the residents of Ban Nasala, Dongbang and Nontae said that they have seen no sign of monetary compensation from the authorities.

   “Right now I would be happy to see any official come and help me to pay for the birds I lost,” said a fighting cock breeder, Vongphachan Sonesamlet.

   Vongphachan lives in Ban Nasala and his business was badly affected when bird flu was identified in neighbouring farms. Subsequently, the local authorities killed many poultry in the area, including his fighting cocks, which were very valuable.

   He said that the total weight of the dead birds was over 200 kilogrammes and that they were worth several hundred million kip at market prices. But the authorities offered him only 11,000 kip per kg in compensation and are prepared to pay him only three million kip in total.

   “Since they killed my birds, I haven’t received a single kip from anyone,” he claimed.

   It is not only Mr Vongphachan who is asking for assistance. Other residents of Ban Nasala and the neighbouring villages of Nontae and Dongbang are asking the local authorities for compensation, asking how long it will take to receive any form of payment.

   “The villagers say they want to be compensated for 100 percent of the value of the birds they lost,” said the village chief of Ban Dongbang, Souk Chanthavong.

   As the compensation process drags on, the village chiefs are becoming increasingly concerned that the people who lost their poultry in the culling are slowly losing faith in the local authority.

   The village chief of Ban Nasala, Kithanouson Phoumlavan, said :Nowadays, people here don’t believe me any more as they think that I lied to them about compensation,” he said.

   “I don’t know what to say to them now, because before their chickens were killed we told them that the authorities would compensate them at the beginning this month (September),” he said.

   Kithanouson asked the district authorities how much longer the villagers would have to wait, but they told him they were submitting the case to higher levels.

   The director of the National Avian Human Influenza Cooperation Office, Dr Bounlay Phommasack, told Vientiane Times that the authorities will certainly givecompensation.

   “At present the authorities are in the process of accounting for the losses incurred. I think it will not be much longer be Viengsavanh Phengphachan fore the government compensates the people concerned,” he said. (Vientiane Times)

(*This article is the first of several being produced under the ‘Imaging Our Mekong’ programme www.newsmekong.org, coordinated by IPS Asia-Pacific and Probe Media Foundation Inc with the support of the Rockefeller Foundation.)