BBC needs to remove Jonathan Head from reporting about genocide in Burma & put him working the beat at Buckingham Palace. He just doesn’t get it. It isn’t that he’s mealy-mouthed but that he’s running interference for the junta. He describes genocide but then calls it communal violence; he accepts what the junta tells him about Rohingya terrorists setting off this onslaught when there is testimony to the contrary that the military prepared for this, including by arming, training, & inciting the nationalist death squads. He doesn’t interview any of the over 370,000 Rohingya who just fled for their lives. Is it possible that who the junta calls terrorists were actually Rohingya self-defense teams? Shouldn’t our man Head ask around & find out?

Now Head presents an apologetics for Suu Kyi–the same script presented in Counterpunch last week. It’s the script for all apologists now: she’s powerless; she’s just a politician & could lose her post; she would make the Buddhist nationalists mad–like Wirathu, the “monk” who said Rohingya are ‘animals who eat with their asses.” You wouldn’t want to rankle those guys. You wouldn’t want a military that burns people alive on your bad side.

Head speaks of Suu Kyi’s “immense moral authority.” Where has he been for the past three weeks? Or for that matter, for the past five years? Her authority went south a long time ago when she became not just the public face but a partner with the military in genocide. If she had an ounce of moral integrity she would long ago have denounced the military, even if she had to go into exile to do so.

Jonathan Head needs to be smartened up; he needs to listen to the voices of Rohingya refugees fleeing for their lives & stop listening to the generals. Otherwise his talents are much better used covering the decrepitudes of British feudalism.

You can read his regrettable apologia here in full: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-41243635

(Photo is Rohingya refugees from TRT)

A Burmese government official has announced that Aung San Suu Kyi will not be attending the UN General Assembly meeting later this month. She will be in hiding in Yangon from the tsunami of international outrage over her defense of genocide against the Rohingya people. She could expect Chinese & Russian diplomats to stand with her at the UN but the roar of protesters outside the UN building in NYC would be too much for her to take since she is more accustomed to fawning & adulation as a human rights champion. The genocide she is presiding over blew that delusion.

For some reason, people continue to rebuke Suu Kyi for her silence about the genocide. She has been far from silent going back as far as 2012 when she traveled to pick up her Nobel Peace Prize & a pile of other humanitarian awards. The catalog of her insults & lies about the Rohingya is multi-volumed, including mocking the claims of Rohingya women last year that the military was engaged in mass rapes as a weapon of war.

She is not a powerless figure in Burma even if she does not control the military. She is a partner with the military & paramilitary death squads in genocide.

Stand with the Rohingya against genocide & in their struggle for human, democratic, civil, & refugee rights.

(Photo of Indonesian protester on September 2nd by AFP/BayISMOYO)

It’s not politically wise to focus on the gruesome & deranged but in a time of genocide harshest realities must be confronted. Wirathu, the Buddhist nationalist “monk” who was the face of genocide in Burma before Aung San Suu Kyi took over that role, has been chanting hate mantras to cheer the death squads on in Arakan state. In a public speech on Sunday he said:

“Do these animals [Rohinga Muslims] eat with their asses when they have meals? For example, do they put their rice into their bottoms instead of their mouths? When they go to toilets, do they invert their asses & excrete from their mouths?”

If you are equivocal about or supportive of the genocide against the Rohingya people because of the crap about their being jihadi terrorists, this “monk” is who you will allied with. Just as Assad supporters are aligned with fascists, Islamophobes, & anti-Semites in Syria.

A Burmese nationalist justified military & nationalist death squads executing Rohingya children by burning, stabbing, beheading because “They are future generations to be terrorists in Rakhine state.” All Assad supporters are now lining up in agreement that the Rohingya are terrorists. So while they denounced the revolution against Assad as all jihadi head-choppers, they now enthusiastically support head-chopping in Arakan state, including of small children. No further condemnations necessary.

A little Rohingya girl, a newly arrived refugee in Bangladesh.
Unicef reported yesterday that more than 200,000 Rohingya children refugees are at great risk in Bangladesh. They’ve spent days fleeing from death squads, haven’t slept for days, are weak, hungry, sick, traumatized, & in urgent need of medical care.

Stand with the Rohingya against genocide & for human, democratic, civil, & refugee rights.

(Photo by KM Asad/AFP/Getty Images)

A Sikh team member from Khalsa Aid at the Bangladesh border with a little Rohingya refugee. Doing what the best of human beings do when other human beings are in need.

(Photo from Khalsa Aid)

Counterpunch published an article titled “America’s Long War: US Tightens the Noose on China” by a guy named Sean Stinson where he accused the persecuted Uighur Muslims of China & the Rohingya Muslims of being “insurgents backed by Western political interests, receiving arms & training from the usual sources”–meaning, of course, by the CIA. He said: “Playing the role of agents provocateur in the latest round of psy-ops, their violent crimes against the local Buddhist population have provoked brutal counter attacks against ethnic Muslims across the country–violence which the “international community” blames on the Burmese authorities.” How does that accord with Israel’s sale of weapons to the Burmese generals? Because if there is one thing we know for sure, it is that libertarian rednecks hate Israel based not on support for Palestinians but on a profound anti-Semitism. So are they on the same side as Israel in the genocide against the Rohingya people?

Counterpunch is not a progressive journal but a genocide denier. It is filled with Islamophobic hatred & paranoia & should be used for cleaning up horse manure.

Maung Zarni, a leading Buddhist dissident in exile, says Aung San Suu Kyi’s deeds are as genocidal as the generals who are her partners.

The government of China & Kofi Annan have both offered condolences for the deaths in Arakan state. By which both mean not the Rohingya subjected to genocide but the security guards allegedly killed by Rohingya terrorists. Not a word about the 370,000 Rohingya refugees.