A forlorn Kashmiri child blinded by pellet munitions.

–a digital work by artist Masood Hussain

It’s estimated that about 14-percent of pellet victims in Kashmir are under 15 years of age & as young as four. Probably most are in their 20s & teens but there have been reports of seniors near protests who were injured by pellets & other munitions. A huge percentage of them will never regain their vision; they will suffer permanent pain & health problems from lead pellets that cannot be excised from internal organs; most will suffer some measure of disfigurement.

The use of pellet guns is a human rights crime, illegal under (albeit unenforceable) international laws governing the use of excessive force against unarmed civilians. In response to legal action against their use in Kashmir, the Indian military argued that if pellet guns were banned there would be more civilian fatalities because the army would be forced to use live ammunition–a defense that documents the short political & psychological distance between militarism & derangement.

If we do not collaborate internationally in banning the use of pellet munitions, we will all be dealing with them as the militarization of policing continues to grow.

The Guantanamo phenomenon in India’s treatment of Kashmiri prisoners at Tihar jail near New Delhi:

It isn’t reported whether the Kashmiri prisoners being assaulted are incarcerated for criminal offenses or if they are political prisoners. Neither would justify physical assault but it is probably more the latter since this is the prison where Kashmiri freedom fighters Maqbool Bhat & Afzal Guru were hung (Bhat in 1984 & Guru in 2013). India still refuses to return their bodies for respectful burial in Kashmir by their families & those they continue to inspire.

http://kashmirlife.net/torture-of-kashmiri-inmates-at-tihar-mirwaiz-appeals-unhr-amnesty-icrc-to-intervene-157019/

“Brahmin atheists of india retain three things absolutely intact:
Caste privileges
Contempt for Dalits
Hatred for Muslims
Who says professing atheism can be more enlightening than following religion?”

–Mir Laieeq

They’re already rolling out boatloads of rubbish about how adeptly & sensitively Pope Francis handled the Rohingya genocide in his speech alongside genocidaire Suu Kyi. Who knows if they’re kidding themselves or just trying to kid us? Outright evasion is not subtle nor sensitive. In the midst of genocide it is callous & collusive.

There are men, women, & children in Palestine, Kashmir, Arakan state, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Bahrain, Egypt, Turkey, Guatemala, South Africa, the US Black, Latino, & Native American communities, & so many other countries who have been incarcerated, tortured, disappeared, disabled, disfigured, brutally murdered for standing up against oppression without bending the knee to oppressors, without compromises or equivocations of any kind. Ninety-five percent of Rohingya citizen journalists in Arakan state have been disappeared. Those who stand fearlessly against oppression & often lose their lives because of it are our spiritual leaders. Not Pope Francis who is openly canoodling with genocidaires.

This is a very moving, wrenching report about the visit to a Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh by Maung Zarni, a Burmese dissident in exile & uncompromising advocate for the Rohingya people.

https://tricycle.org/trikedaily/voices-inside-rohingya-refugee-camps/

Announcing an international conference on the Rohingya genocide at the University of Dhaka, Bangladesh on Nov 29th, 2017: Rohingya refugee activists & leaders, Bangladeshi human rights activists, scholars, students, & Burmese activists who stand in solidarity with the Rohingya people will meet to collaborate on strategies to defend the Rohingya people.

Such conferences will hopefully be held in other countries. Genocide is a call to arms for men & women of good will.

We don’t have to go all ecumenical & drum up excuses for why Pope Francis went to Burma in the midst of the Rohingya genocide or for why he spoke alongside Suu Kyi in banal platitudes with no reference to the Rohingya people. Vatican officials don’t seem the least embarrassed reporting that in his Yangon meeting with religious leaders from different faiths he never even euphemistically alluded to the Rohingya. Nor did he say a word about them & the genocide against them when he spoke on a podium with Suu Kyi. Some offer the lame excuse that by dodging the Rohingya Muslim genocide Pope Francis was protecting the 700,000 Burmese Catholics from persecution. Every Catholic school kid learns in catechism class about the early persecution of Christianity & about the martyrs & saints who stood up to it. Sniveling & cowering before persecution was not how Christianity survived. There is no dignity nor respect due Pope Francis for politicking with genocidaires.

Refusing to use the name Rohingya or to speak in no uncertain condemnation of the genocidal offensive against the Rohingya people wasn’t Pope Francis being politic to protect Catholics from persecution in Burma. It wasn’t even a capitulation to the fascist junta. It was an honest expression of the pope’s politics as he has played them out in Palestine, Syria, the Philippines. It’s time we stopped falling for his humble-pie schtick & that Catholics demand he start acting like a spiritual leader rather than an apologist for criminality & genocide. The entire world was watching Pope Francis including politicians, diplomats, & governments trying to weasel out of economic & military sanctions on Burma. He blew it because his loyalties are with the junta just as they are with Israel & with Assad in Syria.

It’s reported that while in Bangladesh the pope will meet with a small delegation of Rohingya refugees “in a symbolic gesture.” Symbolic of what? Collusion with the fascist military junta at the expense of human rights for the Rohingya people?

Shame on Pope Francis. But at least now we know where he stands on justice for Muslims & on genocide. People who mistake words for deeds have nothing to explain away his collusion with genocide in Burma.

(Photo by Max Rossi/Reuters)

The pope’s visit to Burma is just bad business all the way around. General Min Aung Hlaing, head of the Burmese military & architect of the Rohingya genocide, met with Pope Francis at Cardinal Bo’s residence not long after the pope landed in Yangon. The general reported on FB that he told the pope that Burma “has no religious discrimination at all.” It isn’t reported what the pope responded to Hlaing–& therein lies the problem. What do you say to a guy who is orchestrating the torching of villages, rape, torture, executions including of small children, burning people alive? More importantly, what should a spiritual leader say to a genocidaire? Most people wouldn’t want to shake the general’s blood-drenched hand or show him any kind of respect but the the pope exchanged presents with the general. The pope should have headed straight from this unsavory meeting to an exorcist or at least to confession.

Tomorrow, the pope will move on to the capital city Nay Pyi Taw to meet with Suu Kyi, other political figures, & Buddhist officials. Thursday he’ll fly on to Bangladesh to meet with Bangladesh’s Catholic cardinal & politicians but he has not scheduled a visit to Cox’s Bazar to meet with Rohingya refugees. What’s wrong with that picture? Is this papal visit to show solidarity with the Rohingya people or solidarity with the fascist junta? It’s a reasonable question & not impertinent at all.

Kenneth Roth from Human Rights Watch tweeted “We’re all waiting for the Pope to say the R word.” Other media sources from the NY Times to Al Jazeera are asking “Will he say the incendiary name?” What kind of Mickey Mouse spiritual operation is the Vatican running when it plays coy & tiptoes around the issue of genocide? Has it no moral bearings that make it able to distinguish right from wrong or compels it to speak out against such monstrous crimes? Is it a religious institution or a political operation that talks morality & compassion but runs interference for genocidaires & pedophiles?

Pope Francis delivered a message to the people of Burma before his trip saying he was coming to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ & deliver a message of ‘reconciliation, forgiveness, & peace’. Who’s he talking to in Burma with that kind of nonsense? How can one speak of reconciliation & forgiveness while the military is engaged in a genocide? You can go through the New Testament with a fine tooth comb & won’t come up with justification for that kind of compromise. We should not hold Pope Francis to a lower standard than we hold anyone when it comes to human rights & we should be able to hold him to the gospel he purports to proclaim. If that seems too harsh a judgement, consider that 95-percent of the underground Rohingya reporting network in Arakan state have gone missing, that nearly a million Rohingya have been displaced to refugee camps, that the military is still engaged in unspeakable violence against the Rohingya, & that thousands may be forced back to apartheid, concentration camps, & continuing genocide in Arakan state.

Photo is 30-year-old Momtaz Begum at a refugee camp in Bangladesh. She is who Pope Francis should be talking to; not the genocidaires.

(Photo by Jorge Silva/Reuters)

This story is about the extraordinary underground of Rohingya reporters who have been sending videos, photos, & reports by cellphone from Arakan state since 2012. It is their reports which have informed us about the scale of oppression & violence & which Aung San Suu Kyi denounced as fake news. According to the Rohingya activists who receive & publish these reports, over 95-percent of the mobile reporters have gone missing since the genocidal offensive began on August 25th. This is a profound loss & we share the grief of their families & the Rohingya community. We should take a moment to honor these remarkable & courageous reporters for their contribution to the Rohingya struggle & their contribution to making this world suitable for all human beings to live in. They are among the very best of humanity.

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2017/nov/27/starved-of-news-myanmar-derailing-coverage-rohingya-crisis-rakhine-state

A stone pelter with ammunition in his backpack, by Kashmiri artist Masood Hussain:

India & Israel have criminalized stone pelting & severely punish children & youth who engage in it, including with the the use of lethal force & lengthy jail sentences. Stone pelting is certainly not a strategy to end the occupation but we cannot accept criminalizing it or even moralizing about it as violence. It isn’t antisocial hooliganism but a method used to thwart & distract the occupying forces & to protect unarmed protesters–if not also to vent youthful anger at the extreme violence & humiliation of occupation. The very fact that Israel & India so harshly punish stone pelters speaks to the role they play in the struggle against occupation. A stone pelter armed with a political strategy is a force that can end occupation.

Long live Kashmiri & Palestinian Intifada. End the occupations. Self-determination for Kashmir & Palestine.