Trump says it’s too hard to get relief supplies & aid to Puerto Rico because “it’s an island in the middle of the ocean”…

But we were able to get supplies & 100,000 troops to Afghanistan….no problem!

–Bob Lindsey

“Media if you are “disappointed” with Suu Kyi, take Valium or meditate. But let’s talk about the real thing: Myanmar GENOCIDE.”

–Maung Zarni

This photo is from a 2010 garment workers’ strike in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The boy is a striking sweatshop worker. A second photo shows him being kicked while on the ground. Why should Rohingya refugees entrust unaccompanied children, already traumatized by losing parents in the genocide, to the care of a government which allows child labor & assaults them when they strike for their rights?

(Photo by Munir Uz Zaman/AFP/Getty Images)

Same little boy moments later getting kicked by police officer.

Another small boy among striking garment workers being assaulted by police.

Just as a UN agency warns that Rohingya refugees, the majority women & children, are at risk of human trafficking, the Minister for Social Welfare Nuruzzaman Ahmed announced the Bangladeshi government will “rehabilitate” about 6,000 orphaned Rohingya children. It will provide them national ID cards (he didn’t specify what rights, if any, come with the card) & will provide services “per the standard of Sheikh Russel Destitute Children Training & Rehabilitation Center for Children” (he didn’t specify what those standards are). The children will be isolated from the rest of Rohingya refugees & separated by age into different camps on 200 acres of land which the government has requisitioned (but not yet received) specifically for that purpose. Children up to seven years of age will be placed in one camp & those between eight & 18 years of age will be placed in another. This has all the smell of a Trojan Horse.

A government which administers a sweatshop economy based on the exploitation of women & child laborers & which has proposed deporting Rohingya refugees to an uninhabitable island subject to monsoons & regular flooding cannot be trusted with the welfare of Rohingya children. Why do orphaned kids have to be isolated from the rest of the Rohingya community? The minister expressed concern that “they may get involved in unrest if they remain amongst the rest of the Rohingya” & that separating them was for their own good. What kind of nefarious influences among refugees is the minister talking about? He’s blowing smoke. Isolating them takes them away from oversight by their own community with vested interests in protecting their kids, even if they are without parents or guardians. Why would the minister separate children by age & ignore that many older children are now the sole caretakers for their little siblings & that separating them would be extreme trauma from which many would not recover?

There does need to be a database of orphaned Rohingya refugees; there do need to be thoroughly vetted professional staff to deal with their special needs & advocate for their safety & care until homes & asylum can be found for them. But this should not be left to a ministry of the Bangladeshi government which very well may feed these little kids into a pipeline of sex & labor trafficking. Whatever happens to the kids must be monitored by Rohingya refugees & their representatives.

(Photo of unaccompanied minor children from Al-Fatiha Global‏ @AlFatihaGlobal)

This is a thoughtful article about the right of return to Burma for Rohingya refugees & forced repatriation. Clearly, it is not safe for refugees to return to apartheid & genocide in Arakan state so the demand must be for asylum with rights to education, work, health care, social services, free movement–along with demanding the end of genocide in Burma.

https://www.opendemocracy.net/beyondslavery/natalie-brinham/breaking-cycle-of-expulsion-forced-repatriation-and-exploitation-for-r

Brisbane, Australia stands with the Rohingya at a rally on September 17th.

Facebook has such delicate sensibilities that when I posted this photo of a Kashmiri pellet victim they covered it with a caution notice that it might show violence & gore. That it does. But if this is so gruesome that it requires warning notices, perhaps Facebook should stop censoring news from Kashmir about the occupation which involves all sorts of human rights horrors. Perhaps it should allow Kashmiris to show exactly what is happening to them at the hands of the Indian army.
End the occupation. Self-determination for Kashmir.

“Muslim and Dalit unity is the only way to defeat the Hindu fascists and closet Hindu fascists in india. Traditional left has not only failed but completely discredited itself, their ivory-tower-kind-intellectuals will always disdain such unity by calling it “regressive”, “identity politics”, “minority communalism” and what not, but this unity is the only way forward. The small victories have to be extrapolated onto the larger scene. Seeing things from Kashmir, this is the breath of fresh air coming amidst the stink the Indian polity has been reduced to by its Brahmanical proponents within and outside the state structure.”

–Mir Laieeq

Puerto Rico is beginning to look just like Hurricane Katrina & racism is the unifying theme. I remember watching Katrina on TV for a week before the Bush administration sent the first aid or attempted to rescue people.

Trump on delivering aid to Puerto Rico: “This is an island sitting in the middle of an ocean. It’s a big ocean, it’s a very big ocean.”