“People at prayer in mosques seem to be preferred targets of counter-revolutionary violence. Hands off prayer sites!”

–Henry Lowi

On Monday, Pope Francis will be landing in Burma for a state visit at the invitation of Suu Kyi & the generals. Last May, despite several years of genocide against the Rohingya people, the Vatican established full diplomatic relations with Burma which involves setting up a Burmese embassy at the Vatican & a papal nuncio (equivalent of an ambassador) in Burma. What doesn’t the Vatican get about rendering legitimacy to a fascist military state? Why would it choose to establish diplomatic relations whilst the military is engaged in genocide? Why would the Pope agree to make a state visit to Burma in the very midst of a genocide?

Charles Maung Bo, who Pope Francis appointed Burmese Cardinal in 2015, has asked the Pope not to refer to the Rohingya people by their proper name but to use euphemisms. If the cardinal who openly supports the Rohingya genocide had his way, Pope Francis would speak in spiritual abstractions about love for humanity & zip any protests about the genocide. It would be truly courageous if Pope Francis openly denounced the genocide & stood with the Rohingya but no one should hold their breath. Pope Francis doesn’t have an inspiring history when it comes to standing with the oppressed. On a 2014 visit to Israel at the invitation of Israeli president Shimon Peres, he visited the West Bank & said a few prayers at the apartheid wall but then paid tribute at the grave of Zionist founder Theodor Herzl & almost canoodled with Peres, including later welcoming Peres at the Vatican.

Our hope for the Rohingya is that Pope Francis will show political & spiritual leadership & not become a willing pawn of the Burmese military. Just so he knows, talking in euphemisms don’t cut it when it comes to justice. Suu Kyi has already pioneered that territory & look where it got her.

(Photo from May 2017 from Osservatore Romano via Reuters)

Surely I’m not alone in considering the European Union a criminal enterprise. What about it is salvageable for working people? Because it’s a wrecking ball for refugees & immigrants, for workers & pensioners under EU austerity programs, for Palestinians, & now for the Rohingya.

It may seem to some that I’m posting too much about the Rohingya genocide & ignoring the extremes of violence in Palestine, Kashmir, Syria, Iraq, the Philippines, & elsewhere. To my mind, genocide must take political priority. If the fascist Burmese military in league with the US, EU, ASEAN, & other regimes can turn genocide into a counter-insurgency operation & cheapen the dignity of human life–specifically the lives of the Rohingya people–then freedom struggles around the world will be set back. Their struggle is our struggle, not just in sentiment but in fact.

Yesterday, Aung San Suu Kyi & the foreign minister of Bangladesh signed an agreement to forcibly return hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees to Arakan state starting within two months. The international politics involved in the Rohingya genocide are beyond the unimaginable, beyond the unthinkable, entering a sphere of surreal criminality. The Burmese military is still engaged in its siege of torching Rohingya villages & campaign of extermination, murder, torture, crimes against humanity, sexual violence. Meanwhile, the civilian government announced it is building “repatriation camps” for the Rohingya which means more concentration camps like the 36 they built after the 2012 genocidal siege.

There can be no forced repatriation of the Rohingya without the complete withdrawal of the Burmese military & the dismantling of all its bases in Arakan state. There can be no forced repatriation without allowing thousands of human rights monitors & journalists to enter the state. Mostly, there can be no repatriation of Rohingya refugees without their direct involvement in all decisions about if, when, & under what conditions they will return. What the hell makes Suu Kyi & Bangladeshi prime minister Sheikh Hasina think they have the right to preempt the judgement of the Rohingya people? Who in their right minds would put Suu Kyi in charge of repatriating refugees when her government plans on warehousing them in concentration camps until another siege of extermination?

These little brothers are one of hundreds of photos documenting what the Burmese military did to Rohingya, including small children, just in the past three months. That doesn’t even begin to describe how monstrously many were murdered nor the emotional scars suffered by nearly a million refugees as well as those remaining in Arakan state.

If we don’t stand with the Rohingya people, every struggle against war, occupation, genocide will be set back.

(Photo by Jorge Silva/Reuters)

In October, the NY Times published an article titled “Hands Tied by Old Hope, Diplomats in Myanmar Stay Silent” laying out why foreign diplomats based in Burma refuse to speak out against the genocide of the Rohingya people. According to the article, it’s a diplomatic strategy & nothing so venal as protecting commercial & military investments in Burma. The rationales offered were politically banal–such as Suu Kyi’s obduracy in the face of criticism–but the corker was when the article cited David Scott Mathieson, a researcher on Burma for Human Rights Watch who in December 2016 moved to Yangon to become an apologist for Suu Kyi. Previously, he showed what a rotter he is by trying to discredit Rohingya Blogger & Rohingya Vision, two of the best international sources of news about the Rohingya struggle. Mathieson, who works that fictional dichotomy between the military & Suu Kyi, said junta strategy is to let Suu Kyi take all the criticism & sustain international shaming & disgrace so they can carry on unobstructed against the Rohingya. Propaganda doesn’t get more sorry-assed than that.

Before diplomatic silence against the genocide became any more deafening, 54 Asian & European foreign ministers laid their cards on the table about where they stand when they met at the 13th Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) on November 20th to 21st in Nay Pyi Taw, the political capital of Burma. That the Burmese military is still engaged in its murderous campaign against the Rohingya people, driving almost a million into exile, did not deter high-ranking officials of the European Union, senior officials from every one of the 28 members of the EU, all 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Australia, China, Cyprus, India, Japan, South Korea, Russia, New Zealand, Mongolia, Bangladesh, Kazakhstan, Pakistan.

The officials agreed not to discuss the genocide but to focus on how to ‘combat terrorism & violent extremism’ & the misuse of social media to spread them. Diplomats only know how to talk through their rear ends so their lies require interpretation. What the ASEM diplomats mean is that what the junta does to the Rohingya people is of no consequence at all compared to the billions their countries have invested in Burma’s neoliberal gold rush & what those who sell arms to Burma also have invested in the genocide. To protect those investments, the diplomatic mission is sucking up to Suu Kyi & the generals by meeting in Burma while the military is in the heat of genocide.

Ending the ‘final solution’ against the Rohingya people requires massive, active international solidarity–meaning political pressure on our own governments to provide humanitarian aid to refugees & asylum with full refugee rights.

Photo is partial group shot of the ASEM officials who should all be bounced from office & prosecuted for collusion in genocide. To Suu Kyi’s left is Federica Mogherini, an Italian politician & high-ranking official in the EU.