By the way, in Burma (aka Myanmar), the majority Buddhist population does not think the group of people referred to as Rohingya are anything more than Bangladeshi ethnics who got in to the Buddhist country from Muslim Bangladesh over decades. That is why the word, setting them aside as some special ethnic group, should the Pope utter it, will not sit well with his hosts.
Pope Francis has arrived in Myanmar, becoming the first pope to ever visit the southeast Asian nation.
Pope Francis exchanges gifts with Burmese leader Aung San Suu Kyi who has been a greatly admired human rights activist. However, in recent years she has refused to promote the meme that the Rohingya are completely blameless in the violent clashes between Buddhists and Muslims and thus has been vilified by the Human Rights Industrial Complex.
The world’s most high-profile Christian takes center stage in a staunchly Buddhist country accused of horrifying acts of brutality against its Rohingya Muslim minority.
The Pope previously decried the violence against the Rohingya, calling them his persecuted “brothers and sisters.”
Experts warn that this trip will require balancing a uniquely complicated set of humanitarian, diplomatic and religious questions. Even his own cardinal has advised the Pope to steer clear of the word Rohingya for fear of stalling his message of reconciliation before it has even begun.
Aaron Connelly, research fellow at Australia’s Lowy Institute, said that there was little chance the Pope’s visit to Myanmar was going to be a “generic Papal visit.”
“Clearly the thing that motivated this visit was always a desire to talk about the Rohingya,” he said.
“The question is … is he going to do that in a way which is less confrontational and engages?” Connelly added. “Or is he going to say, this is outrageous, these people have a right to be in Myanmar?”
Reading almost like an afterthought, here is the last line of this news:
While Pope Francis’s stance on the Rohingya crisis will likely dominate headlines, the Pope is also expected to push for greater rights for the several million members of Myanmar’s Christian minority.
Why does all of this matter to you in America? We have already admitted nearly 20,000 Rohingya ‘refugees’ in the last ten years. I’ll be updating numbers soon.
For more on Rohingya, see my Rohingya Reportscategory herewith 214 previous posts.
Good for Secretary of State Tillerson! My estimation of him has just risen enormously!
He hasn’t fallen for the propaganda campaign that the Muslim Rohingya have no blame and that the Buddhist government of Burma (aka Myanmar) is made up of evil killer Islamophobes.
Secretary of State Tillerson is greeted by famous human rights activist and leader Aung San Suu Kyi. CNN parrots the Rohingya are victims meme here too! http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/15/asia/tillerson-myanmar-rohingya/index.html
Unlike VP Pence who immediately jumped to the international ‘humanitarians’ tune here in September, Tillerson wants more facts!
When Secretary of State Rex Tillerson made his first official trip to Myanmar on Wednesday, he did not describe the country’s brutal military crackdown on Rohingya Muslims as ethnic cleansing, as other diplomats have done.
Now read this next paragraph, so typical of the Leftwing media. NO mention of how some atrocities were perpetrated by Rohingya against their Buddhist neighbors!
Security forces have conducted or allowed what critics call systematic rape and murder against the Rohingya minority, leading more than half a million to flee to squalid camps in neighboring Bangladesh since August.
But speaking in Naypyidaw, Myanmar’s capital, Tillerson declined to call for sanctions or other censure, saying more investigation is needed.
“If we have credible information that we believe to be very reliable that certain individuals were responsible for certain acts that we find unacceptable,” Tillerson said, “then targeted sanctions on individuals very well may be appropriate.”
Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have already documented atrocities against the Rohingya, a Muslim minority in the Buddhist-majority country. In September, the United Nations’ top human rights official accused Myanmar of carrying out “a textbook example of ethnic cleansing.”
Whether Tillerson was ill-informed or following administration policy wasn’t clear. [It is almost laughable how they write the ‘news’!—ed]
Obama failed to sufficiently charm Suu Kyi!
This is what really has the Human Rights Industrial Complex (HRIC) steamed. Their hero won’t come to an unqualified defense of the Rohingya:
In Myanmar, human rights groups have been dismayed at the failure of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi to speak out on the plight of the Rohingya, especially now that she is state counselor, a position akin to prime minister.
“What people mean is what I say is not interesting enough,” she said of her critics during Tillerson’s visit. “What I say is not meant to be exciting. It’s meant to be accurate, not set people against each other.”
John Sifton, who is following the conflict in Myanmar for Human Rights Watch, said it was “naive” for Tillerson to call for another investigation.
Continue reading herewhere the reporter gives another opportunity for Republican Senators Corker and McCain to badmouth Trump and the changes being made at the US State Department.
You should know that, in my opinion, Trump and Tillerson are making a huge mistake with this staff cut-back by leaving in place career bureaucrats to run the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM), the agency within the State Department that hires the contractors that place refugees in your towns.
But, for the moment, I am thrilled that Tillerson has enough sense to not buy the HRIC line that will soon be followed by demands that we admit even more Rohingya to your towns and cities than we have already (nearly 20,000 in the last decade).
See my Rohingya Reports category herewhere for nearly ten years I’ve reported on the build-up of this propaganda campaign—that the Rohingya are the sole victims here.
Or more specifically when he gets between the Muslims and the Buddhists in Burma.
Scratching his head: How can two “peaceful” religions be killing each other?
See my report on the recent violence here: https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2017/08/29/as-violence-in-burma-escalates-us-resettling-more-rohingya-muslims/
See Pope in a pickle by George Neumayr at American Spectator (hat tip: Judy).
(Before you go on with your laugh, you need to know that the Buddhists do not recognize the label ‘Rohingya’ because they think the Muslims in Burma (aka Myanmar) are simply Bangladeshi Muslims who moved into Burma illegally and deserve no special label. I’ve followed the issue for ten years and have a huge archive, Rohingya Reports, here. The latest outbreak of violence that began in 2012 resulted from a brutal rape and murder of a Buddhist girl by a gang of Muslims, something the media never mentions! You also need to know that the US has admitted thousands of Rohingya to America, most of them arriving in recent years.)
In late August, the New York Times reported on a controversy only a pope like Francis would bother to court. Like many of his fellow Jesuits, Pope Francis exudes enthusiasm for every religion except his own. Out of this hyper-ecumenism has come a torrent of flaky tributes to what his predecessors would have called “false religions” and silly trips to remote countries with almost no Catholics.The Times reported on one such upcoming trip to Myanmar/Burma: “Pope’s Planned Visit to Myanmar Risks Stoking Religious Tensions.”
Pope to Burma in November—watch for it! Should be fun!
The tensions to which the article refers don’t involve Catholics. There aren’t enough of them around to start a fight. The article refers to the fighting between Muslims and Buddhists. The latter group evidently finds the pope’s Islamophilia annoying and wants him to keep his nose out of their business. In February, Pope Francis rebuked Burma’s Buddhists for mistreating Muslims from Bangladesh who call themselves the Rohingya: “They have been suffering, they are being tortured and killed, simply because they uphold their Muslim faith.”
[….]
Besides, talking about his “Rohingya brothers” gives him a break from the difficult work of having to explain away jihad. Here is an opportunity, as Vatican correspondent Sandro Magister pointed out, where he can defend Muslims in the role of the persecuted instead of the persecuting.But the problem, as Magister notes, is that it also puts him in the awkward position of criticizing Buddhism, another religion that he is inclined to cast as impeccably peaceful. Maybe he can find a way to blame the tensions on Catholics, whose numbers in Burma’s dioceses have swelled to the point where they can fit into the back of a mini-van.
The Times gingerly approaches this squabbling among two groups of religionists it normally wants to protect and sanitize. The Times is also loath to criticize an interfering liberal pope. But even from its elliptical reporting one gets the sense that the Buddhists would prefer that the pope virtue-signal somewhere else…
This is a must read for those of you who love irony (and how dumb Leftist drivel gets them in trouble).
I don’t want to have to write a book (although I have written 201 posts on the topic at my Rohingya Reports category), so I’ll be brief with the background.
Burma is a Buddhist country and they want to keep it that way (I’m not judging them, you may). So as a result, the US has for years been taking tens of thousands of ‘refugees’ representing Burmese minority religions. The largest numbers have been Christians.
Burmese monks: No fear about political correctness! Imagine such a banner on a French or British street! (Or, San Francisco for that matter!)
So when I saw this latest news about an uptick in violence between the Buddhists and Muslims (Rohingya) by the Associated Press (story below), I had a check of the number of Burmese being admitted to the US and how many are Muslims.
This isn’t just a story about far away Burma, this effects you—Americans—too!
The important takeaway from the numbers is that we brought no Rohingya to America in the first year I wrote RRW (2007), but I see that this year (2017) just over a quarter of the ‘refugees’ admitted from Burma are Muslim according to Wrapsnet.
The AP storyreferences the 2012 riots between the Rohingya and Buddhists. I saw the reports as they were coming in and the media shamefully never mentions that the fuse was lit that year when a Buddhist girl was raped and murdered by a gang of Muslim criminals.
Here are the facts about Rohingya resettlement to America:
In FY2008: We admitted 18,139 Burmese ‘refugees’ to America. The vast majority were Christians. None were Muslim.
I then checked numbers for FY2012: We admitted 14,160 ‘refugees’ from Burma and only 759 were Muslims (5%). After that year the numbers have steadily risen.
This year, so far in FY2017, we have admitted 4,803 Burmese and 1,269 are listed as Muslim (26%).
Here is the AP story which should be entitled, ‘Rohingya insurgent group takes responsibility for latest violence.’ Instead that news is 19 paragraphs down in the story.
A picture worth a thousand words—UN High Commissioner for Refugees supports terror group. At least one portion of the red type says: NGOs get out! Politically correct they are not! https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/25/rohingya-militants-blamed-as-attack-on-myanmar-border-kills-12
Violence in Myanmar’s western Rakhine state has driven thousands of ethnic Rohingya Muslims fleeing toward Bangladesh for safety, along with a smaller exodus of ethnic Rakhine Buddhists.
A majority of the country’s estimated 1 million Rohingya live in the northern part of Rakhine state, where Rohingya insurgents launched coordinated attacks last week against police posts, setting off allegedly brutal retaliation by government forces.
Human rights groups and advocates for the Rohingya say the army retaliated by burning down villages and shooting civilians. The government blames Rohingya insurgents for the violence, including the arson.
[….]
Tension has long been high between the Rohingya Muslims and Rakhine Buddhists, leading to bloody rioting in 2012.
Most of the violence since last week seems to be directed at Rohingya villages, but Rakhine Buddhists, feeling unsafe after the upsurge in fighting, are moving south to the state’s capital, Sittwe, where Buddhists are a majority and have greater security.
[….]
A Rohingya insurgent group, the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, or ARSA, took responsibility for last week’s attacks on more than 25 locations, saying they were in defense of Rohingya communities.
The other day I told you that I believe that the Trump team doesn’t have a good understanding of where all of the questionable ‘refugees’ might be coming from. https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2017/01/25/trump-watch-dont-leave-the-rohingya-off-extreme-vetting-list/
We have been taking tens of thousands of refugees from Burma (Myanmar) over many years. Most have been Christian minorities that the Buddhist government there was forcing out. Now we are stepping up and taking Rohingya Muslims from Burma and Bangladesh.
I told you about it herejust the other day. Bangladesh is a Muslim country and so is Malaysia, one of several countries in the region harboring Rohingya boat people.
Why are the Rohingya our problem?
(Obama admitted 13,500 during his term in office.)
I have followed the Rohingya story since I first began writing RRW in 2007 and I can assure you the media has skewed the news to make it appear that the Rohingya are pure as the driven snow. They never mention that the latest round of conflict began when Muslim men raped and murdered a Buddhist girl. I have no time to go back over the 194 previous postsin my Rohingya reportscategory, you might want to have a look yourself. The writer, below, reports things that I found to be true over the years.
This is a comment we received in response to my post here (I don’t know this person). Emphasis is mine.
Winthan Aung:
Those so-called Refugees “Rohingya” Muslims are “economic” refugee. Basically, they are from Bangladesh. They will claim they are from Myanmar, for getting a refugee status and blame Myanmar government with bias fake stories. Trump must not take them into the US anymore. These people are good for nothing, and but for troubles. In Myanmar, they have caused a lot problem. They are with Mujahideen Terrorists.
Burmese monks making their views clear!
The “Rohingya” name pop out not long ago, ridiculously they wanna claim themselves as new ethnic of Myanmar. In fact, The “Rohingya” word is not mentioned in any dating back to Arakan (now Rakhine) Kingdom years, not long before 1950 as well. In fact, there was no historical report about fighting for Burma Independent movement at all. The ‘Rohingya’ was totally unknown to the British administration of Burma.
In WWII, British India region merged Burma/India border, that opened freely Western border of Myanmar. The people who lived Chittagong of Bangladesh and India got opportunities to travel and work in Western of Myanmar.
The Partition of India gave East Chittagong Bangladeshi people ideas that they could take advantage on the Western part of Burma as well. There was 1971 Bangladesh genocide, the Urdu-speakers was “Non-Bengalis” that time. That worries for Chittagong Bangladeshi, they wouldn’t be considered as Bangladeshi in Bangladesh.
From 1946 a separatist, the jihadist uprising had gripped Arakan and in support of their political agenda, the ‘Rohingya’ myth was created after.
At Uprising of jihadist Chittagong Bangladesh (now Bengali Muslims) chanted “Pakistan Zindabad” while killing Rakhine Citizen. Mujahideen took advantage and encroached Rakhine land at WWII. There were the mass killing of Rakhine people and hundreds of villages burned down in 1942. On 28 March 1942, Bangladeshi Muslims from Northern Arakan massacred around 20,000 Buddhists in Buthidaung and Maungdaw townships. At the same period, around 5,000 Muslims in Minbya and Mrauk-U Townships were also killed by the Arakanese Buddhists.
However, Myanmar government intervened the Mujahideen movement by the time of 1962. The Myanmar Government banned all Bangladeshi illegal immigrants who are already in Rakhine state (Western Part of Myanmar) not to travel all states of Myanmar. The economic illegal immigrants stuck in Rakhine state, mostly Maungdaw township, Buthidaung and Rathedaung Townships of Northern Rakhine State.
Due to the poverty of Bangladesh, the economic immigrants from Bangladesh never stop coming to the Western part of Burma. More than 26 million live under the poverty line in Bangladesh, they live on less than $1.25 a day. the Government is not willing to do anything for them.
On the other hands, Myanmar Government was totally corrupted and the Junta was notoriously threatening to all ethnic groups in Myanmar. The Shan, Kachin, Kaya, Kayin, Chin, Rakhine ethnic groups suffered and they become refugees in Thailand and Malaysia. Real ethnic groups of Myanmar got opportunities to settle down in third countries after suffering.
When UNHCR focuses on Myanmar for ethnic crisis, Bangladeshi fake refugees approached and got aids by UNHCR as well, the people who didn’t make $1.25 a day got the opportunity to live with UN aids in Burma is their fortune, as long as they fabricated with fake stories to convince UNHCR staffs of their so-called people beaten up by Junta and harsh treatment of Myanmar Government. In order to convince UNHCR, they had pretended they were one of ethnic, “Rohingya”, which never existed in History of Burma.
When refugees crisis is the focus by internationals. They take advantages of getting resettlement. fake media will promote for their rating. Their advocates gain access to so many political, social and academic platforms to promote their sole agenda. Meanwhile, Myanmar government unethically approached them as well, issue “White card” as temporary identity card and forced them to vote for their Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) at Election. On the other hand, Global Muslims (grassroots to imams) gang up on the people of Myanmar (all over internet and media). Speaking of “Rohingya”, there is no ethnic name in Myanmar, If you have ethnic, you must have own language, they don’t have Rohingya language, they speak only as Chittagong Bengali, breath as Chittagong Bengali, they are only recognized as Bengali in Myanmar, nothing more than that. They are not really stateless, their motherland is Bangladesh.
By staying in the refugees camp in Bangladesh or getting aids from UNHCR office in Myanmar couldn’t make them satisfied. In Myanmar, they cannot travel only in Rakhine state. They later learned about resettlement program of UNHCR. But UNHCR in Myanmar didn’t have any resettlement program for them. However, UNHCR at Malaysia and Thailand provides the refugee to resettlement in third countries.
Getting into Myanmar is easy, bribery helps them to get inside of Myanmar easily. Or just cross over the river where there is no border guard. However, getting to Malaysia is hard for them. Smugglers convinced Bangladeshi how they could earn $1000 in a month in Malaysia. Indeed the Bangladeshi who made to Malaysia could get a better living. Thus, Bangladeshi are deliberately paying smugglers about US$200 to $250 to travel to Malaysia to become economic Refugees. The people who move in this route, bet with their lives at risk. But this is the only way they could effort to travel. If they got lucky, they will get a chance to get resettlement in third countries instantly.
Any Refugees coming to Malaysia/Thailand are usually sent to countries like Australia, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, New Zealand, Norway, and the United States for resettlement.However, Thailand route has long wait time to get to third countries. Their best destination is the Malaysia. There is already 42,230 Rohingya under UNHCR protection in Malaysia. That is the main motivation for them to get to there, and it is the cheapest way for traveling to Malaysia if they are not very lucky, they usually end up in Thailand, wait for more years to get the resettlement or travel again to Malaysia.
After arriving in Malaysia, they filed asylum (application) at UNHCR for refugee status, UNHCR aid these refugees, and provides monthly allowances for them until they get the settlement in third countries. Anyhow, they could easily go back without problems if they don’t get refugee status (but they are not willing to go back, even without refugee card, they could earn money) or if they have money, they usually buy refugee status in Malaysia. Some smuggler applied UNHCR card for selling the Refugees status in Malaysia. They usually pay Malaysia RM-3,500 for the card. UNHCR aware about those fraudulent activities, but they kept on silences.
The economic refugees are traveling again and again to Malaysia until international leaders push pressure to Bangladesh. Sooner or later, you will see another boat come out from Bangladesh, and claims they are from Myanmar since the topic is hot. In that case, Myanmar government is easy to blame. They have kept doing for the decade. This time they got caught by authorities (Thai, Malaysia, Indonesia) who got enough of their problems (too many crimes cases with Rohingya in Thai, Malaysia), and push back to sea.
The people are sneaking into other countries without papers by boats, they left the Bangladesh, they have only 2 points in this immigration – firstly try to get UNHCR status or get a chance to work in any country, because they don’t get enough to make living in Bangladesh. Bangladesh has been overcrowded you can view the Dhaka video – https://www.facebook.com/Rmbds/videos/1245958078756125/, they cannot make up living at there, some of Bangladeshi in that country even sell their organs just little as $5000 well.
If you call these fake people a “Refugees”, then we fail to support real refugees who really need for. We must save cards for real one, not these fakes.
This post is filed in our ‘Comments worth noting’ category here, and in our Rohingya Reports category, here.
