Is Erdogan a champion of the oppressed or a thug?

Billboard of Netanyahu:Erdogan apology (AP) July 19 2016

Which Erdogan are we to believe? The man of the people, champion of the oppressed one who speaks out for Palestinians, Rohingya, Syrians? Or the realpolitik guy who brokers economic & political deals with Israel & Burma & violently represses Kurds; who houses US nuclear weapons on Turkish soil, allows US warplanes in Syria to use Turkish airbases, has the second largest army in NATO; makes unsavory deals with the European Union denying refugee rights to Syrians & other refugees trying to reach Europe; & who represses democracy protesters, raids newspaper offices & arrests reporters?

Did those Turkish naval ships he promised in May 2015 to rescue Rohingya refugees stranded in the Andaman Sea ever arrive? Did the millions in humanitarian aid he promised to refugees in Bangladesh ever get delivered? Did the humanitarian aid he promised to Gaza ever get delivered? Only the Turkish media controlled by Erdogan answers those questions in the affirmative because if they didn’t, they would be incarcerated.

Erdogan could be called a master of grandstanding empty gestures but his actions & inactions speak louder than words. This photo is a billboard in Ankara, Turkey in 2013 with images of Netanyahu & Erdogan celebrating their economic & political rapprochement. Turkey dropped the demand that Israel end the blockade of Gaza in exchange for an apology, some economic contracts, & $20 million compensation for Turkish activists killed by Israeli commandoes on the 2010 humanitarian aid flotilla to Gaza. Erdogan eventually threw the organizers of the flotilla under the bus by publicly asking, “Did you even ask me before you set sail?”

Always in politics, there is the deed before the word.

Can Kashmiris explain to us what this two model villages with human rights thing is all about? Isn’t it an admission that under AFSPA & the occupation there are no human rights?

Got another nastygram complaining that I write my own posts rather than post articles. What can I tell you? I’m a political writer so that’s what I do. If you don’t like my point of view, let me refer you to Twitter or you might even try googling. But don’t pester me with your nonsense. I’m already behind in my writing.

Bangladesh’s prime minister Sheikh Hasina finds Rohingya genocide “unacceptable”

Sheikh Hasina with Rohingya boy Oct 21 2017

When pressed by an interviewer from France 24, Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina refused to characterize the human rights crimes in Burma as ethnic cleansing or genocide but simply repeated that the atrocities were “unacceptable.” There are stronger condemnations for children farting or picking their noses at the dinner table.

The reason she’s watering down the scale of criminality against the Rohingya people is to avoid public outrage (certainly not UN or governmental censure) over their forcible repatriation. She said Bangladesh has received guarantees from Burma for the safety & security of Rohingya refugees on their forcible return. There are over one million Rohingya refugees just in Bangladesh from successive waves of genocide so Sheikh Hasina knows exactly what is going on in Arakan state. Rohingya refugees have been quoted as saying they would rather die than return to Burma & it is what they say that counts. The fate of Rohingya refugees is for them to decide.

Photo is Sheikh Hasina doing her humanitarian schtick with a Rohingya child she will try to forcibly return to a concentration camp in Burma & to another genocidal offensive.

December 16th, 2016 marked the fall of east Aleppo to the Assad dictatorship & its foreign military backers, the final weeks of a brutal military offensive against the uprising in Kashmir, & the final weeks of a genocidal offensive against the Rohingya people in Burma. There were tens of thousands of victims & incalculable suffering for Syrians, Kashmiris, Rohingya. It was a time of requiems.

It was then I received this video & an article from Umar Lateef Misgar expressing solidarity from Kashmiris with Aleppo. That solidarity from one besieged people to another is as moving now as it was then. Requiems do not signal that war, occupation, genocide have triumphed but only that they take their toll on human beings. Solidarity means the struggles continue until human rights, justice, & peace have triumphed.

Article titled “Fall of Aleppo: the Day After” by Umar Lateef Misgar:

http://withkashmir.org/2016/12/16/fall-aleppo-day/

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSe5Wr9JH9I&feature=youtu.be