Hillary (and Huma!) must surely be unhappy with Aung San su Kyi on the Rohingya issue!
Aung San Suu Kyicontinues to be beaten up in the western media for refusing to condemn her co-religionists in the on-going conflict between Rohingya Muslims and Buddhists in Burma (aka Myanmar).
And, why should you, living in American cities and towns, care what is going on in Burma?
Because we have been resettling tens of thousands of Burmese, largely Christian refugees for years. In FY2013 we resettled 16,299 refugees from Burma (how many were Burmese Muslims?).
I don’t have the time or energy to go back through the controversy, but I can assure you there is blame to be shared and the Rohingya are not pure as the driven snow as this Rohingya author (at the Huffington Post) would have you believe. In my view, Aung San Suu Kyi is correct when she gave an interview to the BBC and did this:
Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s interview with the BBC during her visit to the UK, has shocked many of her admirers. Despite being repeatedly pressed to do so, she repeatedly avoided giving a clear unequivocal condemnation of the anti-Muslim violence that is engulfing Burma.
Author Tun Khin can barely contain himself. If it quacks like a duck!
Daw Aung San Suu Kyi also started talking about global Muslim power, as if this is some kind of threat to Burma? To hear a Nobel Peace Prize winner talking in the same way about Islam as bigots and racists is very disappointing. There are conspiracy theories about a global Muslim conspiracy to take over Burma, but these kind of things are spread by crazy people on Facebook. It is not what you expect from a University educated leader of a democracy movement. Instead of dismissing these claims as the dangerous nonsense they are, she gave them credibility in the eyes of many Burmese.
Count me among the crazy people!
We have 157 previous posts in our Rohingya Reports category, here, for anyone who wants to get the full picture going back 6 years on the growing conflict. You will note that we have begun resettling Rohingya to American cities despite earlier reluctance by the State Department to do so.
I’ve been writing about the Rohingya (Bengalis) for years and have watched the Muslim grievance lobby, human rights agitators, and government contractors sucker the media into believing that everything evil in Burma has nothing to do with Rohingya (they are only, and always! the poor victims) and has everything to do with Buddhist racism toward Muslims.
It is infuriating, but fascinating too, to watch the Leftists/open borders/human rights cabal and their media lapdogs build the case that the Rohingya Muslims are never the aggressor and will surely, and soon, renew their push to get them to the West as refugees. I think they just got momentarily distracted by the hordes of Syrians and they need to work those drums—save the Syrians and send us money—before properly renewing the push for bringing Rohingya to your neighborhoods.
To make my case against the media….
Ethnic conflicts stirred again recently in Burma (aka Myanmar) between the Rohingya Muslims and the majority Buddhists. Here is the headline of a story atThe Nationearlier this week—“10 dead, mosques destroyed in Myanmar unrest.”
The casual reader might conclude that once again the bad evil Buddhists have killed ten Muslims and are busy burning down their mosques. But, read the storyand see that it is unclear who exactly is to blame and who is dead. A tip-off might be in the seventh paragraph:
Police said several mosques were destroyed and a Buddhist monk was among two killed on Wednesday, but they did not give an updated toll for Thursday.
So, at least one Buddhist was killed—a monk! Did that start the riots? I don’t know, but the headline of the story was clearly written to make it look like once again the long-suffering Rohingya were being persecuted.
Fire in a refugee camp in Thailand
Then just across the border in Thailand there are huge refugee camps and unfortunately a wind-whipped fire killed dozens last week.
Here is the story from the Bangkok Post (titled: 35 die in fire at Karen refugee camp)
The Karen are Christians from Burma.
Karen refugees take shelter on the road near the Ban Mae Surin refugee camp on Friday night after fire burned down their thatch huts. (AP Photo)
MAE HONG SON: Rescue workers picked through the ashes of hundreds of shelters on Saturday after a ferocious blaze swept through a camp for Karen refugees in Mae Hong Son, killing 35 people.
Around 100 people were injured in the fire that broke out Friday night at the Mae Surin camp, provincial governor Narumol Paravat told AFP by telephone, giving a reduced toll from the 45 dead previously stated.
[….]
Security sources said the blaze was not an act of sabotage.
However, investigators are trying to determine if the blaze was caused by an accidental cooking fire, or by sparks blown from forest fires that have been burning in the area.
[….]
“We have been able to get into the camp with food supplies and plastic sheets for shelters,” said Vivian Tan, a spokeswoman for the UNHCR.
The camp, located about 90 kilometres west of Mae Hong Son, town houses about 3,300 Karen refugees, she said.
It is one of nine refugee camps on the Thai-Myanmar border set up more than two decades ago to offer asylum for ethnic Karen fleeing the fighting between the Myanmar army and rebel troops.
Same unrest in Burma, same camp in Thailand, same fire, but Muslim publication!
Incredibly here is the story about both incidents in a Muslim news agency report (titled: Fire at Rohingya camp in Thailand kills 42).
Sub-heading:
A blaze at a refugee camp for Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar in northern Thailand leaves at least 42 people dead and dozens injured, the provincial governor says.
(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) – “The latest death toll we can confirm through military walkie-talkies is 42,” Mae Hong Son provincial governor Narumol Paravat told AFP on Saturday.
The official added that the death toll from Friday’s fire was likely to increase further as rescue workers are searching the area. [Fascinating! No mention of Rohingya dead here, but yet the title leaves the reader assuming the dead are Rohingya!—ed]
Hundreds of Myanmar’s Muslim residents have fled their homes following the eruption of fresh clashes between extremist Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims in Meiktila, located some 130 kilometers (80 miles) north of the capital city of Naypyidaw.
At least 20 people have lost their lives in clashes late on Wednesday after extremist Buddhists set fire to several mosques in the city. [No mention here that a Buddhist monk died—ed]
Following three days of deadly unrest, Myanmar President Thein Sein on Friday announced a state of emergency in the town of Meiktila.
Myanmar’s government refuses to recognize Rohingya Muslims as citizens and labels the minority of about 800,000 as “illegal” immigrants from neighboring Bangladesh.
Readers, I’ve been following this biased news on the Rohingya for five years now (135 posts)—it is so frustrating to watch! And, based on this type of reporting, your US federal refugee contractors will surely be telling the State Department we need to bring more Rohingya to America in 2014 to add to our collection of thousands and thousands of other Burmese ethnic group members already here.
Update March 26th: Hackers involved with “Anonymous” have created a twitter storm to help fuel the one-sided story of evil racist Nazi Buddhist monks vs. the good pure poor and maligned Rohingya Muslims. Hereis just one report on what is happening.
The Organization of Islamic Cooperation and the government of Iran both plan to send delegations to Burma (Myanmar) to give that Buddhist country a tongue-lashing about their alleged mistreatment of the Rohingya minority there. (Remember the monks!)
Here is the story about the OIC delegation. And, here, Iran gets into the action to defend what they call the most persecuted minority on the planet. This is all to advance the Muslims-are-victims meme from this bunch.
The latest round of violence in Burma began early last summer when Muslim men raped and murdered a Buddhist girl (no one wants to remember that!).
And, as I pointed out here just last Saturday there seems to be no interest in bashing MUSLIM Bangladesh for its treatment of Rohingya. If the rich Islamists of the OIC wanted to really help the Rohingya they would be pouring money into the refugee camps in Bangladesh!
One side benefit for the Islamists in beating this drum is that the clamor to resettle Rohingya in the West (especially the United States) will increase thus advancing the Islamic Doctrine of Immigration!
To learn more about the Rohingya issue, visit our Rohingya Reports category, here. This is the 129th post in that archive. Anyone want to write a book? Your research has been started for you!
We reported, here, in October that thousands of Buddhist monks came out to protest the announcement that the Organization of Islamic Cooperation was planning to set up shop in Burma. The monks carried signs that said “Get out OIC” and “we are not an Islamic country.” The monks prevailed and the OIC was banned.
Now I see that the OIC has grabbed onto the coattails of the Indonesian Red Cross in order to get their foothold in the Buddhist country, here in the Jakarta Post.
The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and the Indonesian Red Cross (PMI) are in talks to jointly launch a humanitarian mission for refugees of the deadly conflict between the Rohingya and Rakhine ethnic groups in Myanmar.
OIC secretary-general Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu and PMI chairman usuf Kalla discussed the operation in a closed meeting at PMI headquarters on Monday.
Kalla said after the meeting that the organizations would send food and help rebuild homes in the area.
“The value of the aid is quite big and will be used for various purposes. Currently, the refugees desperately need food, clean water and homes,” he said after the meeting, declining to mention the exact value of the aid or a deadline for the mission.
Obama lectured Burmese leaders in the press afterward!
I’m trying to clear out my backlog of stories and I never reported this one from when Obama did his Asian swing in November.
New York, Nov 19 (bdnews24.com)—US President Barak Obama on Tuesday urged Myanmar to give citizenship to hundreds of thousands of stateless Rohingyas in the west of the country where ethnic bloodshed has caused massive displacement.
After Obama’s landmark visit to the reclusive South-East Asian nation, the White House in a press briefing said the Myanmar government responded positively to the issue.
Although the Royingyas in Myanmar claim themselves as aborigines, they are yet to get state recognition.
The operative word there is “claim.” Others claim that Rohingya Muslims are illegal aliens from Bangladesh.
Now, get this! Obama must not have told them to their face that they need to give citizenship to Rohingya, but did it from his plane while jetting to Cambodia.
The statement came on board Air Force One, the US President’s private jet, as he was going to Cambodia after the six-hour Myanmar trip.
Want to learn more about the Rohingya that the US Conference of Catholic Bishops wants to bring to America in larger numbers (we have already brought some)? Check out our previous 126 posts on the Rohingya in our special category, here.
