Day: December 8, 2014

Rich nations not doing enough for Syrian refugees says Amnesty International

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

In advance of tomorrow’s United Nations “pledging conference,” Amnesty International took aim at most of the countries in the world for not taking in Syrian refugees.

Every time I see a story like this one, I look for what they are saying about the US and I continue to be amazed by the silence.  Are they protecting Obama (if this were the Bush Administration they would be tar and feathering him)?  The US has only taken a small number of Syrians (so far) and for that we are grateful, but why is the US conspicuously not mentioned.

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia: Why would we want to take any of those Syrians (or Iraqis or Afghans or Somalis)? Let Obama do it! The US Muslim population is the one we are building. Photo: http://foreignpolicynews.org/2014/03/28/president-obama-meets-king-abdullah-saudi-arabia/

Or, do they know something we don’t know (yet).

They do blast Russia, China, most of Europe and the GULF ARAB STATES (which includes Saudi Arabia) which take zero refugees.

From Alarabiya:

Amnesty International warned Friday of the “catastrophic consequences” of failing to offer protection to Syrian refugees being “left out in the cold” a week after the World Food Program (WFP) said it was suspending aid to exhausted funding.

About 3.8 million Syrian refugees are currently scattered across five main host countries in the region, of which only 1.7 percent have been “offered sanctuary” by the rest of world since Syria’s civil war erupted in 2011, the Amnesty report said.

The report, “Left Out in the Cold: Syrian refugees abandoned by the international community,” said Syria’s most vulnerable refugees include unaccompanied children, alleged survivors of torture, and people with severe medical conditions.

“The shortfall in the number of resettlement places for refugees offered by the international community is truly shocking,” said Sherif Elsayed-Ali, Amnesty International’s Head of Refugee and Migrants’ Rights, in a statement.

“Nearly 380,000 people have been identified as in need of resettlement by the U.N. refugee agency, yet just a tiny fraction of these people have been offered sanctuary abroad,” he said.

[….]

Russia, China and Gulf states have “failed to pledge a single resettlement place” for Syrians, while the European Union (EU), with the exclusion of Germany, has only pledged to “resettle a paltry of 0.17 percent of refugees in the main host countries,” according to the report.

[….]

Amnesty International’s report was released only a few days ahead of a U.N. pledging conference due to take place in Geneva on Dec. 9.

What do you think the odds are that if the UNHCR offered Syrians a new home in China or Russia they would actually take it?

The newest “refugees”—Guantanamo prisoners sent to Uruguay

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment
Clifford Stone, former Publisher of Slate magazine and now Obama State Dept. Special Envoy for Guantanamo: We are so grateful to Uruguay for agreeing to take these poor refugees (aka Islamic terrorists). Photo: http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/biog/219065.htm

Everybody is a refugee!

Update December 9th:  Of course they can leave right away, here.

I wonder how the true humanitarians feel when the word “refugee”—which they worked so hard for decades to produce only warm and fuzzy feelings of good will in the media and the general public when uttered—is now a dirty word.

Think about those Uzbek trouble-makers the Bush Administration brought here a few years ago—refugees.  Earlier the Clinton Administration airlifted about 20,000 Albanian (Kosovars) here who didn’t want to be here—refugees. Then there are those illegal aliens we are picking up in Malta—refugees.  And, who could forget the Somalis who said s**** America and your welfare, we are fighting for Al-Shabaab and ISIS—refugees.  And, last but not least the thousands of mostly teenaged boys who stormed the US border this past summer—refugees all!

Now we have Guantanamo Bay prisoners, captured on the battlefield, sent off to Uruguay as refugees!  So what is going to keep them in Uruguay, the weather?  From Fox News:

The U.S. government said early Sunday that it had transferred six detainees held at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba for over 12 years to Uruguay for resettlement as refugees.

All six men had been detained as suspected militants with ties to Al Qaeda, but had never been charged. A Pentagon statement on Sunday identified the men as four Syrians, a Tunisian and a Palestinian. They are the first Guantanamo Bay prisoners to be sent to South America.

There is more if you feel like reading it.

Wouldn’t you love to know how much we paid Uruguay?