Syrian Muslim Brotherhood rebel group killing Christian refugees

….and in a surprise move, the Iraqi government has opened its borders to Syrian refugees.

Here is the story from Catholic News Agency about the persecution of Christians by the rebel forces attempting to bring down the Assad regime:

Damascus, Syria, Jul 23, 2012 / 04:50 pm (CNA).- The Syrian rebels’ attack on Damascus has allowed radical Islamist groups to attack Iraqi refugees, Christians allegedly loyal to the Syrian government and other civilians.

Local Christians have expressed dismay and outrage at the attacks on defenseless civilians, a local source told Fides news agency.

The rebel group Liwa al-Islam, a Wahhabi group whose name means “The Brigade of Islam,” has claimed responsibility for killing top generals in President Bashar Assad’s government. On the morning of July 23, its members also killed an entire Christian family in the Damascus neighborhood of Bab Tuma.

Militants blocked the car of Nabil Zoreb, a Christian civil officer. They ordered him, his wife Violet, and his two sons George and Jimmy to get out of the car. The militants then killed them all.

In southeastern Damascus, Islamist fighters with the Muslim Brotherhood ally Jehad al Nosra attacked the homes of Iraqi refugees. They ransacked the homes, burned them and forced the occupants to leave.

The refugees said “gangs of Muslim terrorists attacked and chased us.”

Syrians to Iraq!

For years refugees fled Iraq for safe harbor in Syria, but now that the Muslim rebels affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood are on the move in Syria, the refugee flow will reverse direction as Iraq opens its borders to Syrians.

From Reuters:

(Reuters) – Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has ordered his country’s borders to be opened up to allow Syrian refugees fleeing violence at home to enter Iraq, his office said on Monday.

There is more, read it all.

Speaking of the Muslim Brotherhood, if you haven’t followed the controversy in the US where Reps. Michele Bachmann and four other members of Congress are under fire (from Republicans!) for asking for Inspector General investigations of several federal agencies to ascertain the depth of penetration by the Brotherhood into those agencies, see my other blog, here.

Somalis spreading to Minnesota small towns, opening businesses with your tax dollars

When I saw this story this morning in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, I jumped into it.  I thought great! now some reporter is going to tell us where the money is coming from to set up all these specialized Somali shops (11 of them in one town) when the Somali population is under 2000 (max) in that featured town.   No such luck!  No one ever investigates that question!

If Americans cannot open and make profitable stores on main street America, where are the immigrants getting all that money?????

Here is the story about Minnesota, little Somalia:

Once the henna artist arrives, business will really take off, Yonis Hajisaid said.

One of downtown Willmar’s newest entrepreneurs, he owns the Nuura Shop, the latest Somali-owned business to open in downtown Willmar in the past five years.

The change from a barber shop to a henna and perfume parlor is a sign of how new immigrants are transforming business districts outstate just as they have along some main streets in Minneapolis and St. Paul.

[…..]

The vast majority of the 11 African-owned businesses in Willmar surveyed are stores; they sell everything from food to books to gifts to housewares.  [the first one to open sold goat meat—ed]

….from 2005 to 2010, the number of ethnic-owned businesses in the Willmar area has jumped from 3 to 42.

Who are they kidding?  Henna and perfume will pay the rent, the insurance, the workman’s comp., salaries etc.

They came to Willmar originally lured by meatpacking jobs (what else!):

Drawn to Willmar because of jobs at the Jennie-O meatpacking plants, a growing number of Somali immigrants are calling this west-central Minnesota town home and opening small businesses on the side.

The official count says 700 of Willmar’s 19,610 residents are originally from Somalia, but city officials and Somali community leaders say the real number is at least 2,000. The city’s Latino population has leveled off at 4,099 according to the latest U.S. census data.

In cities such as Rochester and Faribault, too, new immigrants have arrived, adding new flavors and customers to downtown areas.

“Main Streets in many smaller Minnesota communities have not fared so well the last 25 or 30 years,” said Bill Blazar, an executive at the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce. “The growth of immigrant populations and the businesses that are a direct result really are a shot in the arm. They’re an economic development program.”

The changes have also created angst for some residents.  [I’ll bet it has!–ed]

The African Development Center is responsible.

African Development Center seems to have the connections to get you (Muslim immigrants) bucks.  And,  they use Shariah finance (called Murabaha) as well (Muslims are forbidden to pay interest).

In a nod to the growing Somali presence in outstate communities, a Minneapolis-based agency that offers technical support to help African immigrants run their businesses has planted flags in Willmar and Rochester.

Yusuf Ahmed heads up the Willmar branch office of the African Development Center of Minnesota, which opened downtown last September. The building, painted a vivid green and orange, stands out among the red-bricked edifices surrounding it.

You can check out the African Development Center’s (ADC) website here where they have a pretty impressive list of financial backers.  But, it does make you wonder if there is a special comparable loan agency called perhaps the Poor Americans Development Center helping regular old Americans open shops especially as we learn that the largest chunk of ADC funding comes from you!  the taxpayer via government grants.

See their 2010 Form 990 here.   Out of an income stream of $1.5 million that year, $841,000 came from you! (p. 9 govt. grants).   They paid out over a half million in compensation to officers, salaries and other benefits.

Just get used to it!

Somali sidewalk conventions are here to stay….

One always has to read to the end of these giddy stories about immigrant success to find out that everything is not so rosy with the local folks.    Another town experiencing a similar ‘renaissance’ in its downtown is Faribault.

Still, the new Faribault has been an adjustment for some residents.

“For a small town in southern Minnesota, to have this type of immigrant growth, it is a cultural shock to us a little bit,” Ross said. “It’s neither good nor bad. It’s just different.”

Large groups of Somali men tend to congregate at day’s end on downtown Faribault sidewalks, speaking Somali and often not moving out of the way for others walking by. The practice has annoyed and even intimidated some people in town, said Ross, who was prompted to write about the issue last week in a mass e-mail that was republished in the local newspaper.

“That’s the way they get together and exchange information,” he said of the Somali sidewalk conventions. “They get together and they really talk. We’re not used to seeing large groups congregating in public areas like that. We have to get used to how each other operates.”

So, you think the Shariah isn’t here already!

An afterthought!  Wouldn’t it be funny for a white American guy to go to the African Development Council for help securing a business loan or just help to set up a business and see if you were turned away.

The Saudis are hypocrites on Rohingya

Readers:  Why should you care about what is happening in far away Burma’s internal affairs?  Because the humanitarian grievance lobby is working overtime to make the West think that the only solution in the end will be for more Rohingya “refugees” coming to your town with the help of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops and other federal refugee contractors.

I wasn’t planning to write another post so soon on the Rohingya problem, but I can’t stand the hypocrisy of the Saudi government and its megaphone—-The Saudi Gazette.

But, here they are pontificating in an editorial on the plight of the allegedly poor persecuted Rohingya in Burma and Bangladesh when there are abundant reports about Muslim Rohingya living in hell in RICH Saudi Arabia.

Here is the hypocritical Saudi Gazette:

WILL Amnesty International’s latest report, released on Friday, open the eyes of the world community to the sad plight of the Rohingya in Myanmar before it is too late?    [Someone! Give them a hanky!—ed]

Mostly concentrated in Myanmar’s western Rakhine state, they have always suffered persecution and discrimination at the hands of local authorities or the majority Buddhists, sometimes both acting in unison. Many have fled the country to escape persecution, mostly to Bangladesh. Nearly 600,000 Rohingya Muslims live in Saudi Arabia, according to one estimate.  [Note here in Demographics of Saudi Arabia there is no mention of any significant number of Burmese—ed]

[….]

Far too long the world community has behaved as though this is a problem concerning only neighboring Bangladesh because of ethnic affinity between Bengalis and the Rohingya. This has only made Myanmar more intransigent and the Rohingya more vulnerable to abuses of every conceivable kind. Amnesty’s latest findings, we hope, will enable the world community to see the problem in right perspective and come out with appropriate solutions.  [LOL! The only thing the Saudis want you to see is that Muslims are the victims—always the victims!–ed]

Meanwhile, we reported previously about allegations that thousands of Rohingya men, women and children are residing in Jeddah prisons, here.

Now check out The Sail, a pro-Rohingya on-line publication on the treatment of Rohingya in Saudi Arabia (Saudi Arabia mistreats Rohingya).

About 3,000 Rohingya families are awaiting deportation in Saudi prisons, but like the rest of their people, they have nowhere to go.

They have been described as some of the world’s most persecuted refugees, and among the most forgotten, too. During my imprisonment in Jeddah I saw and met hundreds of inmates from Burma.

Thousands of Burmese Muslims from Arakan – often called Rohingyas – were offered a safe haven in Saudi Arabia by the late King Faisal, but with the change in monarch the rules changed too. What was to have been a permanent abode of peace for these uprooted people has now turned into a chamber of horrors.

[….]

But the interesting question is: where will they be sent when they are eventually deported? Burma doesn’t want them. Bangladesh, with a large population and poor economy, doesn’t have the inclination or the ability to handle a refugee population of this size. The Rohingyan refugees in Bangladesh are having a rough time as it is. Other Muslim countries play silent spectators.

[….]

The late King Faisal’s decision to offer them a permanent abode in Saudi Arabia was a noble gesture. However, later Saudi rulers have found the Burmese Muslims a thorn in their side. With strict regulation on their employment and movement within the kingdom, they are easy targets for extortion and torture.

There are said to be about 250,000 Burmese Muslims in Saudi Arabia – the majority living in Mecca’s slums (Naqqasha and Kudai). They sell vegetables, sweep streets and work as porters, carpenters and unskilled labour. The fortunate ones rise to become drivers.

In Saudi Arabia it is not uncommon for poor Rohingyas to marry off their young (sometimes underage) daughters to old and sick Saudis in the hope of getting “official favours”. But this hasn’t worked for many. Rohingyan wives of Saudi men, who have to survive as second class human beings on the periphery of society.

Those whom I met in Jeddah prisons seem to have accepted the situation as a fait accompli. But it is unfortunate that they are being made to suffer in a country considered to be the citadel of Islam.

So much for the much ballyhooed Muslim charity. 

And, by the way, the Saudis send Somali asylum seekers back to Somalia on a regular basis.  As far as I know the chickens at the Obama State Department are silent about this.

And one more thing, since it appears most Rohingya in Saudi Arabia are from Bangladesh, here is a post that might be somewhat edifying from March of this year.

Saudi Arabia authorities are closely observing Bangladeshi expatriate workers as some of them were allegedly involved in various criminal offences in the Gulf kingdom, according to a Bangladesh minister.

“At the moment they (Saudis) are not willing to recruit workers from Bangladesh until the crime tendency among Bangladeshi workers goes down,” Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment Minister Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain told reporters at Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka yesterday on his return from the Gulf country.

Mosharraf, who led a six-member delegation to Saudi Arabia, said involvement in crimes by a few Bangladeshi workers has damaged the image of the country.

So, here is the bottomline!  We should stay out of their business and out of their civil wars.  Let these RICH Muslim countries take care of their fellow Muslims.   We don’t need to be showing our generosity by importing Muslims rejected by Saudi Arabia! to the US.  In fact, Saudi Arabia should stop pouring so much money into the US for mosque building and instead take care of the suffering of Muslims in Muslim countries!

And, how dare the damn Saudis lecture any other country about human rights abuses.

New readers:  See our entire category, Rohingya Reports, for five years of background posts on the Rohingya.

Texas: Catholic Charities bails out on Congolese family, so empty nesters take them in

…. Americans are good-hearted people, but I would like to see where this family is one year from now!

From My San Antonio (emphasis mine):

SEGUIN — Leonia Espe, a Congolese* woman who fled her village in Africa five years ago after Hutu rebels destroyed her home, imprisoned her husband and raped and murdered her two teen daughters, is finally catching a break.

She and her eight surviving children were brought to San Antonio last September by Catholic Charities, but recently the agency’s assistance ran out. Espe, who has chronic health problems, was about to be evicted from her shabby apartment, along with her kids. The situation looked dire.

More than 20 readers responded to a story in last Sunday’s San Antonio Express-News with offers of help — food, money, clothing.

But Nancy and Scott Hagerup, empty nesters and devout Christians who live in Seguin, took things a step further.

They looked at the three empty bedrooms — each with its own bath — that have stood vacant since their four grown kids moved on to lives and families of their own, and made what seemed like the only decision their faith directed them to make.

They invited the Espes to move in with them.

Abandoned by their refugee resettlement agency?

“I was so surprised,” said Leonia in her native Swahili. “The people who I had known seemed to have abandoned us, and people I didn’t know at all opened their home to us. I have such a sense of joy and peace now. This seems like a miracle.”

They won’t stay with the Hagerups forever.   Some people are working now to get them a Habitat for Humanity house (because we have run out of poor Americans needing homes), and they need to get Social Services lined up because no one is going to take care of the large family’s medical needs, housing needs, food needs, education needs, etc. except the Texas and US taxpayer.  In Seguin, TX, 17% of the population is below the poverty line.

Akhahenda [a minister] said he and his wife, Margaret, a nurse, will help connect the family with social services in Seguin, such as subsidized housing, since they won’t be able to live with the Hagerups forever.

* Check out the numbers here at the State Department’s Refugee Processing Center.  Texas has “welcomed” 1479 refugees from the Dem. Republic of Congo and 222 from the Congo in the last five years.  The article doesn’t tell us from which country this family came from.

Asst. Sec. of State for PRM Richard doing the rounds of refugee overloaded cities, visits Portland, OR

Update July 30th:  Here is another account of Richard’s trip to Portland.

….but, haven’t seen any mention yet of her visiting Manchester, NH, have any of you?

Here she is in Portland, OR yesterday:

Refugee contractor Catholic Charities:  Wahhhhhh!  We want more taxpayer money!

The Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees, and Migration [PRM] is in Portland today  — to see how well refugees settle into their new lives in the city.

Anne Richard visited two families and met with local charities and government organizations.

Anne Holloway of Catholic Charities says Secretary Richard asked a lot of questions.

“She has already visited two other cities, trying to get a handle on the success of the U.S. Refugee program,” Holloway says. “What the local agencies are being able to do to help resettle them. How they’re faring in our school systems, with employers,all of those kinds of things.”

Holloway says the federal government could help local resettlement efforts by providing more money. She says families get eight months of financial help, but it often takes longer to assimilate into the community.

When she says they need more time to “assimilate” what that really means is that they aren’t finding jobs and need more welfare.

Here is more information for new readers on Anne Richard who came in through the revolving door from the International Rescue Committee (a major federal refugee contractor).

Awhile back I directed readers to ‘fun with numbers’, here, where you could find your state/city and see which nationalities were resettled in your town.

Below are the numbers for Oregon for FY2007-2012.   You can check it out yourself by following links in that fun with numbers post, but MOST of those resettled in Oregon went to Portland.   Most came after the recession began. No wonder they can’t find work!  And, get out your world map!  Isn’t diversity grand!

Afghanistan…..93

Albania………….1

Belarus…………27

Bhutan………..591

Burma………..979

Burundi………101

Cent. African Rep….16

China………….1

Congo………….7

Cuba…………..52

Dem. Rep. Congo…..159

Eritrea…………51

Ethiopia……….50

Georgia…………4

Iran…………….90

Iraq…………….554

Kazakhstan…….16

Kyrgyzstan…….21

Liberia…………..9

Moldova……….122

Palestine…………4

Russia……………134

Rwanda…………9

Somalia……….709

Sudan……………11

Syria…………….1

Thailand………..1

Turkmenistan….4

Uganda………….2

Ukraine…………428

Uzbekistan………62

Vietnam………….31

total……………4340   (compared to some other states and cities that is a small number, Texas had over 5000 last year alone, here)

That was fun….will do it again real soon!