A military coup in Burma (aka Myanmar) set off warning bells for me. I have been following the situation there for over a decade because of the conflict between Burmese Buddhist monks and the Rohingya Muslim population.
Basically the people of Burma want to remain a Buddhist country and the ‘humanitarians’ of the West have been pushing for them to accept the joys of diversity.
Further destabilization of the country will mean that the cry will go up that the West must save more of the Rohingya Muslims.
See my extensive Rohingya Reports file where 244 previous posts are archived.
Now the military has taken over because of what they claim is massive ELECTION FRAUD.
I’m not in any position to make a judgement except that I have written often about Aung San Suu Kyiwho was once the darling of the international Left, but fell out of favor with them and suffered horrific attacks by the so-called peace-and-love crowd because she obviously feared Islamic supremacism taking root in Burma.
My purpose in posting this news is to alert you all to the events that will result in further demands that the West must resettle the Rohingya Muslims because Buddhists are bad.
Unrest in the world = calls for more refugees to be brought to America!
Here is Reuters where I have rearranged a couple of paragraphs.
Myanmar military seizes power, detains elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi
(Reuters) – Myanmar’s military seized power on Monday in a coup against the democratically elected government of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who was detained along with other leaders of her National League for Democracy (NLD) party in early morning raids.
The army said it had carried out the detentions in response to “election fraud”, handing power to military chief Min Aung Hlaing and imposing a state of emergency for one year, according to a statement on a military-owned television station.
[….]
A verified Facebook page for Suu Kyi’s party published comments it said had been written in anticipation of a coup and which quoted her as saying people should protest against the military takeover.
The international Left had turned its back on Suu Kyi:
Nobel Peace Prize winner Suu Kyi, 75, came to power after a 2015 election win that followed decades of house arrest and struggle against the military, which seized power in a 1962 coup and stamped out all dissent for decades.
While still hugely popular at home, her international reputation was damaged after she failed to stop the forced expulsion of hundreds of thousands of ethnic Rohingya Muslims in 2017.
The coup derails years of Western-backed efforts to establish democracy in Myanmar, also known as Burma, where neighbouring China also has a powerful influence.
[….]
Hillary loved her too. These pics make me laugh because the Left later turned on Suu Kyi and was vicious when she worried about Burma’s Muslims gaining power.
Phone and internet connections in the capital, Naypyitaw, and the main commercial centre of Yangon were disrupted and state television went off air after the NLD leaders were detained.
[….]
Troops and riot police stood by in Yangon where residents rushed to markets to stock up on supplies and others lined up at ATMs to withdraw cash. Banks subsequently suspended services due to poor internet connections.
Condemnation of the coup came from Australia, Britain, the European Union, India, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore and the United States. China called on all sides to respect the constitution and uphold stability.
Biden’s response was “disappointingly weak.”
Human Rights Watch’s Asia advocacy director John Sifton, criticised the initial White House response as “disappointingly weak” and urged a more concerted international reaction “to put the Myanmar military on notice of the specific consequences that will occur if their coup is not reversed”.
So what exactly does Sifton want—a Biden war in Burma?
Endnote: Readers need to know that we have been resettling Rohingya for many years, even during the Trump administration (there was no Muslim ban!). However, when I first began writing about the Rohingya back in around 2007-2008, our State Department had them on a list of potential Islamic terrorists and we did not admit them as refugees.
“People here have been very engaged in the election results. There has been a lot of conversations about Biden and people are very optimistic now. I don’t think he will be racist like Trump.”
(Abdi, a Somali living safely in Kenya)
From Kakuma to a town near you!
Yup, they are chomping at the bit to get to Anytown, USA as soon as they can!
Muslim Somalis and Rohingya voice their enthusiasm and expectations here at Reuters:
From Asia to Africa, refugees hope Biden win could help rebuild lives
Joe Biden’s U.S. presidential election win [not so fast!—ed] has raised hopes of resettlement for refugees from Asia to Africa, many in countries where they are denied work and education and have no formal status.
[….]
President-elect Biden is expected to try to reverse much of Trump’s immigration legacy including travel bans on 13 countries that are either majority-Muslim or African nations.
He has also said he would raise the annual ceiling for refugee admissions to 125,000, but has not indicated how quickly that would happen.
Danielle Grigsby, Refugee Council USA’s Director of Policy and Practice, said there were many reasons to be optimistic about more progressive refugee and immigration policies under the Biden-Harris government.
“There has been a lot of early signals on from the Biden-Harris team to get rid of some of the totally unnecessary hurdles that have been put in place to intentionally slow refugees from coming to the U.S.,” said Grigsby.
[….]
In Sub-Saharan Africa, home to more than one in four of the world’s 80 million refugees and displaced people, tens of thousands of people have had their applications for resettlement suspended since Trump took office in 2017.
[….]
U.N. data shows 2,636 Somali refugees have so far been resettled in the United States under the present administration against the 32,068 Somali refugees accepted under the second term of former President Barack Obama.
[….]
“People here have been very engaged in the election results. There has been a lot of conversations about Biden and people are very optimistic now. I don’t think he will be racist like Trump,” he said by phone.
Not just Somalis itching to get here, but expectations have been raised among Rohingya in Bangladesh ….
Rohingya Muslims waiting in Bangladesh for a Biden ticket to America.
Sharifah Shakirah, a Rohingya former refugee who moved to Texas after 21 years in Malaysia, said resettlement was the best solution for the nearly a million members of her ethnic group living in Bangladesh after fleeing persecution in Myanmar. [Bangladesh is a safe Muslim country.—ed]
“One million Rohingya in Bangladesh have no livelihood, no security, no education,” she said. “They cannot live there for another 10 years. They need a solution and resettlement is one of the solutions.”
Once again, Bangladesh is a safe Muslim country. Just being poor isn’t sufficient to be declared a legitimate refugee under international law.
I have been following the Rohingya migration for more than a decade so if you are interested in learning more about the issue see my Rohingya Reportsarchive with 243 previous posts.
When the Chinese virus began spreading around the world the international press, the UN, and international NGOs used the Rohingya as an example of poor refugees that, due to their living conditions, would be ravaged by the virus. It never happened. No virus “wildfire” in the Rohingya camps or the African camps either. Hmmmm?
I’ve been reporting on and off for months about the dire warnings emanating from the international ‘humanitarian’ community and its media lackeys about how the Chinese virus would spread like “wildfire” through huge camps in Bangladesh housing Rohingya Muslims.
A million “vulnerable” people living virtually on top of each other in huts with limited sanitation/few masks, would be devastated we were told!
….are you ready for it!
Seven deaths among 1 MILLION inhabitants from COVID-19 in the last six months.
As a result of their early models the international media was going nuts sending out news about the pending doomsday for Rohingya Muslims as I told you in a series of posts, the most recent one ishere.
LOL! Let’s see if the mainstream media reports on that news from the University—the news that models were wrong.
Instead of putting so much into creating wrong models for refugees half a world away, maybe they should have focused on models for nursing homes in America!
EDGE OF EMERGENCY
Johns Hopkins scientists mobilized early during the pandemic to understand the threat COVID-19 posed to Rohingya refugees and help inform Bangladesh’s response. Their models have led to more questions than answers.
Yeh! We have questions too!
Here is a bit of the longish story in which the word WRONG does not appear.
Almost as soon as reports began circulating earlier this year that a new coronavirus-linked respiratory illness was spreading from China, researchers at the Johns Hopkins Center for Humanitarian Health thought of the refugees living in Bangladesh. In the district of Cox’s Bazar, nearly 1 million religious and ethnic minorities from Myanmar called the Rohingya live in refugee camps, with the majority—roughly 600,000—residing in the Kutupalong-Balukhali Expansion Site. At about 5 square miles, it is the world’s largest refugee camp and one of the most densely populated places on the planet.
“A pandemic is particularly worrying, but really any type of disease transmission is concerning when it comes to refugees living in camps because they are often living in high density and with poor water and sanitation,” says Paul Spiegel, director of the center and a professor of the practice in the Department of International Health in the Bloomberg School of Public Health. “We know from past experience that it’s very common for epidemics to transmit easily in these settings.”
Shaun Truelove, an assistant scientist in the departments of International Health and Epidemiology, had conducted previous research on diphtheria and found that the transmission of the bacterial infection was about 60% higher among the Rohingya than in other populations.
He knew the introduction of a highly infectious virus to the region could be devastating.
“Knowing how this population has fared and been treated in the past, we were quite concerned that without prompt action by the international community, the pandemic could be a real disaster,”Truelove says.
To gain a better understanding of the scope of the threat, Truelove and the Infectious Disease Dynamics group led the development of a coronavirus transmission model based on the demographics of the expansion site, assumptions about the health care capacity in Cox’s Bazar, and early data about the transmission potential of the virus, among other variables.
[….]
In the low-transmission scenario, the model suggested that at least 421,500 people could become infected. In the high-transmission scenario, that number reached 589,800—or nearly every person in the expansion site. The number of deaths was expected to be between 2,040 and 2,880.
[….]
“Among a population of nearly a million people, the number of total coronavirus cases reported is around 145,” Truelove says. “These are tiny, tiny numbers.”
More here. Seems the story is choke full of lengthy explanations dancing around having to come right out and say they were wrong.
So much for science!
See my Rohingya Reports category for nearly 12 years of news (242 previous posts) on Rohingya Muslims and all of my posts on how the COVID monster was coming to get them.
I promised over the last few months to update readers about what was happening in refugee camps with COVID, and as of this morning I can report NOT MUCH!
(In addition to the post linked above, see some of my previous postshere, here, and herefor example.)
I’m not planning to spend hours trying to find articles hidden in the dark recesses of the world wide web that might prove that the virus has developed into a “grave threat” for hundreds of thousands of refugees (living in close quarters without masks!) as the mainstream media was predicting for months.
There are many articles including this one below that discuss how the UN and other agencies have kept refugees safe, but they make me chuckle.
Since they can’t report some horrifying death toll, they are now taking credit for keeping the virus at bay in camps where dozens of people share latrines for their daily excretions, soap and water are not plentiful and they live in crowded huts (so much for social distancing).
You know if the case numbers and death toll was high we would be hearing about it from the front pages of the WaPo and the NYT!
Bangladesh, 24 August 2020: The global death toll from the coronavirus has crossed 800,000 as confirmed cases surged past 23 million, with Bangladesh overtaking Pakistan to become 15th on the list of countries with most COVID-19 patients. While the country has crossed a grim milestone, there are so far fewer causalities in the densely-populated Rohingya camps that have been and still are considered one of the most vulnerable places to the ongoing pandemic.
As of now, COVID-19 situation across the camps has been tackled somewhat successfully. However, the apparent success in keeping the virus away should not hide the fact that the risks of a COVID-19 outbreak in the camps remain very high. Despite taking all the preventative measures, it cannot fully alleviate the very difficult conditions continually present in the camps.
[….]
“Close to a million Rohingya refugees are living in highly overcrowded camps in the Cox’s Bazar region of Bangladesh. So far with the collective effort of all humanitarian agencies and the government we have been able to limit the spread of COVID-19 successfully. However, the risk still remains and we need to keep working with the communities on food and nutrition security, creating health awareness while reinforcing our disaster preparedness activity”- said Ram Das, Deputy Country Director – Humanitarian Response of CARE Bangladesh.
Sure seems like the international health establishment should be figuring out why the virus isn’t spreading where it seems that it should be—in crowded and unhealthy living conditions housing the “vulnerable.”
And, that reminds me, why isn’t there a huge sick/death count in the tent cities where the homeless are congregating in Democrat controlled cities?
Months ago I began following the dire warnings from the international humanitarian industry and its media arm about the “vulnerable” refugees living cheek by jowl in massive camps where social distancing and wearing masks is not happening.
But, surprisingly the high numbers of cases and deaths that have been predicted are not happening.
See my previous postshere, here, and herefor example.
This morning I dutifully (because I promised I would continue reporting on the topic) began searching for any updates that might have happened while I was busy on other issues over the last couple of weeks, and guess what!
There is no explosion of cases, no COVID “wildfire” blowing through camps.
The only story of any interest was this one, but it mostly focuses on the fear/mistrust Bangladeshis have of the Rohingya refugees living in their country—fear that the refugees are spreading disease, which they aren’t.
I know you have more important concerns, but I think it is very strange that the predicted “carnage” has not arrived. The lack of spread raises questions about the whole concept of social distancing as a means to stop the virus.
Rohingya scapegoated as Bangladesh battles COVID-19
DHAKA — “Two more Rohingya die from corona: Locals in panic” — screamed a recent newspaper headline in southeastern Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar.
Social media has sometimes been equally hysterical. One college teacher posted on Facebook that lack of awareness about COVID-19 among Rohingya refugees from Myanmar “will lead to our collapse.”
In August 2017, more than 740,000 mostly Muslim Rohingya fled a brutal military crackdown in northwestern Myanmar’s Rakhine state and entered Bangladesh as refugees. The United Nations described it as a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing.” Bangladesh already had 200,000 refugees from earlier Rohingya exoduses that began in the 1970s.
The novel coronavirus pandemic has exacerbated resentment in the densely populated country toward the refugees, and also brought further uncertainty to their chances of repatriation.
[….]
Abdul Mozid, a rural physician, runs a drug store near Kutupalong camp, a sprawling settlement made of bamboo and plastic sheets that is home to over 500,000 refugees. “Camps are like slums,” he told the Nikkei Asian Review. “People are scared that this will spread the coronavirus.”
More here, but it is mostly about the Rohingya Muslims and the fact that Burma, a Buddhist country that wants to remain Buddhist, doesn’t want them there, populating and pushing for Muslim control of the country. LOL! The article doesn’t say it, but that is what is happening.
There was this other interesting bit of new news on the issue of the Chinese virus and its impact on refugees, or lack of any great health impact so far.
It is about a World Health Organization study where they are trying to assess the impact of COVID-19 on refugees and migrants. It is called ‘Apart Together.’
Maybe because they aren’t finding enough sick refugees, they are switching focus to find out about the “psychosocial impact of COVID-19.”
(I assume planning to use the results to badger western countries once the panic dies down.)
ApartTogether is a global study to assess the public health social impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on refugees and migrants. It is a collaboration between World Health Organization, across its regional offices, the UN System, and a consortium of research centres led by Ghent University (Belgium) and the University of Copenhagen (Denmark). The study aims to better understand how refugees and migrants experience the psychosocial impact of COVID-19 and how they deal with any challenges that have arisen.
In collaboration with key UN partners, the insights from this survey will be used to inform policy and decision-makers on how they can better support refugees and migrants during and after this pandemic. The survey runs until 31 August 2020.
It is about a World Health Organization study where they are trying to assess the impact of COVID-19 on refugees and migrants. It is called