How many times has it been now that Republicans have tried to destroy Obamacare & had their asses handed to them instead by activists in wheelchairs.

This is one of the bambinos who came to me weighing about two pounds & left for her new family weighing at least 40. This one named Beatrice was the one who couldn’t get enough loving or find enough of my shoes to tear apart. They’ve both been adopted & this is Beatrice with her new family. Thank you to my FB friends who helped me get them medical care. It looks like she found the very loving family she deserves.

PS on Gustavo & Bianca, the uncle & mother: Gustavo was not rescued & Bianca is still with me until I can find her a suitable home. She no longer jumps the fence to prowl the neighborhood & menace the neighbors.

You can learn quite a lot about genocide in Burma by following Burmese dissident in exile Maung Zarni on Facebook, on Twitter, or on his blog. He was an organizer & participant at the International People’s Tribunal on Burma’s crimes against humanity. He’s not a guy who pulls his punches.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/drzarni
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/maung.zarni.9
Blog: http://www.maungzarni.net/

Reuters coverage of the Rohingya genocide can only be called a journalistic disgrace. It doesn’t address the issue of genocide or nearly 500,000 refugees but repeatedly focuses on ARSA insurgents, claiming the ‘troubles’ were set off when ARSA attacked 30 police posts & an army camp. They do cite a US official who said the government response was “disproportionate.” Now, without batting an eyelash in shame, Reuters reports that “Muslim insurgents” killed 45 Hindus & dumped them in mass graves & that the Burmese army is looking for more such graves. Their authority for these claims? The Burmese government carrying out the genocide. What kind of journalism is that which plays ventriloquist dummy to the genocidaires?

Reuters may not be able to get reporters into Arakan state but they can get reporters into the refugee camps in Bangladesh to interview people or they can talk to Rohingya representatives who actually know what’s going on. They’ve chosen to play stupid for the junta.
Stand with the Rohingya people against such journalistic lies & treachery.

(Photo of little Rohingya refugee giving more compelling testimony than the junta by Cathal McNaughton/Reuters)

UNICEF issued a press release yesterday announcing the delivery of 100 tons of supplies for the estimated 250,000 Rohingya children in refugee camps. The aid arrived in Dhaka yesterday by cargo plane & will be trucked to Cox’s Bazar about 367 km/228 miles away.

No one wants to be a carping critic but this refugee crisis is going into its fifth week with reports all over media that thousands of refugees have been without food, clean water, shelter, medical care that entire time. So it is not unreasonable to ask UNICEF, whose stated mission is the welfare of children & whose annual budget is over $5 billion, why the hell it took them so long to deliver aid?

There has to be a public accounting from these private & public humanitarian aid agencies which are Johnny-on-the-spot to raise billions but so parsimonious & dilatory in delivering aid.

Stand with the Rohingya against genocide; demand our governments provide immediate emergency aid to the refugees along with the right to asylum.

(Photo of Rohingya mothers & children waiting in line for aid by Cathal McNaughton/Reuters)

Cover of Time magazine, October 2nd, 2017: condemnation of Aung San Suu Kyi & the generals is now mainstream–leading Assad cult to claim US is engaged in a regime-change scenario. Color the cult beyond redemption because to human rights activists, the condemnation & exposure of genocide is elementary.

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

Came across a report in Indian media that between July 8th, 2016 (the death of the Kashmiri man whose name & image are censored on FB) & August 18th, 2016, the Indian occupying army had fired 1.3 million lead pellets at unarmed protesters. The Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) reported that to the Jammu & Kashmir High Court in response to legal action demanding the use of pellet guns be ended. The CRPF admitted to firing over 3,000 pellet cartridges, each containing about 400 to 500 pellets.

That was the discharge of pellets just in one month & is likely lowballing the actual number discharged in a military rampage that went on several months longer. At one point, in response to international exposure on social media, the Indian army considered replacing lead pellets with rubber ones. It’s a mockery of our intelligence to suggest that rubber pellets fired at high velocity would be more humane or one whit less dangerous, especially when combined with the other arsenal they use of tear gas, grenades, & live ammo.

End the occupation. Self-determination for Kashmir.

(Photo is 2015 CT scan of pellets embedded in the face of a protester from Umer Beigh)

Reposting from a year ago because it elaborates US & EU reasons for playing stupid about the Suu Kyi government.

Media is awash with headlines announcing that the European Union (EU) chose not to introduce a resolution at the 2016 UN General Assembly (UNGA) condemning Myanmar for human rights crimes, particularly the apartheid conditions & genocide of Rohingya Muslims. The EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini justified this by claiming Myanmar has “taken bold measures to improve human rights” under Aung San Suu Kyi.

After Suu Kyi’s September 21st address to the General Assembly, US ambassador to the UN Samantha Powers praised Suu Kyi’s firm commitment to human rights & UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon seconded that even though Myanmar will not allow the UN human rights agency (UNHCR) to set up an office in the country. The UNHCR is unlikely to be an impediment to Myanmar’s genocidal policies since in June 2016, their report said subjecting Rohingya to forced labor, sexual & other violence, persecution “would suggest” or “could amount to” crimes against humanity in Myanmar. That’s equivocal, not condemnatory language.

Other than florid diplomacies, the EU, US, & UN chief did not describe what actions the Suu Kyi regime has taken to end the genocide against Rohingya. She has only been head of state since March of this year. In truth, she is only the nominal head of state since Myanmar is still run by the military. Her government does not have control of the military & her government is 25% unelected military officials. The persecution of Rohingya is carried out by the military in league with rightwing nationalist Buddhist monks. So exactly what are the details of the program Suu Kyi has laid out to rein in the generals (who she has a collaborative relationship with) & nationalist monks to stop them from persecuting Rohingya? Will her government be able to prosecute them for human rights crimes? Who will enforce her program when the army is orchestrating the genocide?

No one could expect Suu Kyi to eliminate persecution of Rohingya in just a matter of months, especially when she has the generals making sure she accomplishes nothing in that regard. But why is she so willing to front for them & pretend there is progress? Has she changed her mind from when she insisted the pogroms against Rohingya are religious, not political disputes & that violence is committed on both sides?

What has her government done or even proposed to provide housing for the 125,000 Rohingya living in concentration camps without freedom of movement, to end forced flight & displacement, rape & other forms of sexual violence, arbitrary arrest & detention, extrajudicial executions, torture, & trafficking, all committed by the military & their monk allies in Rakhine State?

What has her regime done to ensure Rohingya access to full citizenship; civil & political rights including the right to marry & to practice their religion; the right to healthcare, jobs, education? It isn’t promising that in May 2016, she asked the US not to use the term Rohingya, which is how they self-identify, but to call them Bengali, as the military & rabid monks insist.

So why did the EU choose to discontinue the 2015 UNGA resolution on Myanmar human rights crimes when 99% of the demands haven’t even begun to be addressed? When it isn’t likely the Suu Kyi regime will ever be able to contradict the military’s genocidal policies without being thrown out of office on her ass?

Suu Kyi is not some rookie or political babe in the woods but a savvy political operator. If you get past the florid bits in her speech to the UN & listen to her exchange with Obama in Washington before the UN speech, she is proposing economic “development” & foreign investment in Myanmar as a necessary precondition for democratic & human rights for Rohingya. Actually she is counterposing development to democracy. She knows exactly what she’s saying & who she’s saying it to.

Since the EU lifted sanctions against Myanmar in 2011, it has been negotiating an investment protection treaty (likely involving sweatshop economics) to open up Myanmar to European multinational corporations. They want terms that would grant them rights & protections in regulatory disputes & other issues & they want them adjudicated not in Myanmar courts but in a European tribunal they can control. The EU set up a European Chamber of Commerce in Myanmar in December 2014. The German company BMW, the Swiss company Nestlé, the Swiss-Swedish industrial firm ABB are among those opening business in Myanmar. It appears many European companies doing so are trying to keep a low profile likely to avoid censure for sweatshop practices.

Since 2012, before she was even head of state, Suu Kyi met with Hillary Clinton, Obama, & Christine Lagarde of the IMF. Obama has lifted most sanctions on Myanmar & the US now has immense capital investments in Myanmar & some of the biggest US corporations operate there, including Coca Cola, PepsiCo., MasterCard, Visa, Cisco, Gap, Inc., Microsoft, & General Electric. During the years of sanctions, most investment, primarily based on the extractive industries, came from China & Thailand. There is now a competition shaping up in Myanmar between Chinese, Indian, & US business enterprises–& soon EU companies.

What is going on is an attempt to transition the economy from the crony capitalism of the military junta to the scorched earth sweatshop economics of neoliberal capitalism. The EU, US, India, & China want Suu Kyi as a partner in that transition & are as indifferent to genocide of Muslims as she is. That’s why the sanctions against Myanmar were dropped & why the EU scrapped its human rights resolution.The EU is a cabal of European commercial interests, not a champion of human rights.

The only good news is that there is opposition among farmers, students, environmentalists, human rights activists in Myanmar & in exile who oppose sweatshop economics, land grabs, genocide, & understand exactly the role Suu Kyi is playing in that regard.

(Photo of Suu Kyi from 2017)