These are the repatriation demands of Rohingya refugees which were displayed on placards when a UN delegation recently visited refugee camps in Bangladesh. They contrast completely with the repatriation agreement signed between the Burmese genocidaires & Bangladeshi government which would return refugees to barracks in concentration camps in Arakan/Rakhine state. These are the essential conditions laid down for their voluntary return & not a one of them is likely to be honored. The only politically problematic demand is #1 calling for the deployment of UN troops to Arakan state. Given the violent history of blue-helmeted UN “peacekeepers,” it would be inadvisable in the extreme to trust in them for security against military & nationalist death squads in Arakan. The Rohingya could only give such trust if UN troops were put under the control of the Rohingya community in the state which is a mandate not likely to be forthcoming from the UN. If the UN still plays stupid about the character of this genocide & has done nothing to stop it, it can hardly be trusted to put lives on the line to stop violence against the Rohingya.

What’s most important about these demands is that Rohingya refugees are asserting their right to be central to the repatriation process & not excluded from decision-making. The Rohingya people are not just victims of genocide but are demanding agency in opposing it. To think that only six years ago the 2012 genocidal onslaught against the Rohingya was drowned out by the spectacle over Suu Kyi going to pick up her Nobel Peace Prize. The question is no longer “Who are the Rohingya?” because the Rohingya take their place as one of the most important political & freedom struggles of our era.

(Photo of placard from Anayet Ullah Arman & Shakira Banu)

https://www.facebook.com/muhammadashrafwani/videos/1900114356719956/UzpfSTE2MjUyMjkwNjE6MTAyMTM5OTc4ODk4OTQzOTk/

Indian occupation forces fired on protesters & stone pelters in Drubgam village in the Pulwama district of Kashmir today. Reports in Indian & Kashmiri media don’t agree on some of the details, but all say several units of the Indian army, including special forces, cordoned Drubgam village on Friday morning for a hunt to kill operation on a tip from a snitch that two militants were hiding there. Protesters came out to defend the militants & hopefully provide a means to escape the cordon. But one of the men, called the Tiger of Drubgam, was on India’s most wanted list in Kashmir. Both militants, Sameer Ahmad Bhat alias Tiger of Drubgam & Aqib Ahmad Khan of Rajpora, were killed along with 14-year-old Shahid Ahmad, a civilian. Fifteen other unarmed protesters (unless you consider rocks to be a weapon against high-tech artillery) were injured.

One of the most tragic things about this hunt to kill operation is that it is repeated so often in Kashmir, including in the Pulwama district where there were a couple such incidents just in the past six months. When searching for information on the most recent operation, one has to be scrupulous about dates since this violent scenario is a constant under the occupation. Once again, these teenage civilians killed by the army are not “collateral damage,” in the repugnant parlance of the US Pentagon, but are direct targets to demoralize resistance among the young.

Since there are protests today against the killings at Drubgam, it seems clear that even gunning down young unarmed boys will not stop protests against the occupation.

End the occupation. Self-determination for Kashmir.

Meet Trump’s nemeses on the caravan from Central America: this young mother & these small children are among those waiting to be processed by US immigration at San Ysidros port of entry as asylums from political violence in Honduras, El Salvador, & elsewhere in Central America. These are the women & children who Trump claimed are being “raped at levels that nobody has ever seen before” along the caravan route. That scurrilous charge from America’s Molester-in-Chief & uber-sexual predator.

Immigration is a women’s right & child welfare issue. Open the damn borders. No human being is alien to us.

(Photos Victoria Razio/AFP/Getty & Felix Marquez)

Trump is waging a warped, spiteful campaign against the asylum caravan from Central America organized by the immigrant rights group Pueblo Sin Fronteras. It’s extremely dangerous for Central Americans to transit Mexico whilst the country is under occupation by its own army & during the reign of drug cartels which are intertwined with the government & army. Those transiting to the US border have been robbed, raped, assaulted, kidnapped, tortured, disappeared, murdered, & dumped in mass graves by paramilitary forces, cartels & criminal gangs. Pueblo Sin Fronteras began operating caravans about 15 years ago to protect groups of immigrants from such predations on their journey. We would probably not know about this caravan from Central America to Tijuana on the California border if Trump had not gone after them with his venom on Twitter & in speeches. He has actually urged Mexico to break up the caravan.

About a month ago, this caravan launched with 1,175 people, almost 80-percent of them fleeing political violence in Honduras. They included children between 1-month & 11-years-old; pregnant women; people on crutches & one in a wheelchair; elderly; & a group of LGBT teens. They are not coming to the border to enter the US as undocumented immigrants but as refugees seeking political asylum. The caravan proceeded on foot, on top of freight trains, & by buses traveling with the refugees. After Trump began his racist fulminations against them on Twitter, many of the refugees decided to remain in Mexico & seek asylum there. An estimated 600 have decided to continue on to the US border & demand asylum. Thus far, about 400 of them have arrived in Tijuana & are living in an encampment near the border crossing to California. Yesterday, they began presenting themselves at the San Ysidro port of entry which has a processing center for asylum requests.

Trump’s ongoing rantings against the caravan have ironically brought attention to who immigrants & refugees from Mexico & Central America are. This is generating sympathy with them but unfortunately not any significant political protests in the US demanding they be given asylum. US officials at San Ysidro, reflecting the racism & xenophobia of US immigration policy, make it clear that the motives of the refugees are suspect & that those with invalid claims will be denied entry & swiftly deported.

It’s going to be a long, hard battle–not just against the Trump regime but against the stranglehold the Democratic Party has on many immigrant rights groups–to win immigrant & refugee rights. But it is one of the most important political battles of our era & is directly tied to war, occupation, genocide, & to sweatshop economics.

This young mother & child are among the Central American refugees at the San Ysidro port of entry waiting to be processed by immigration authorities.

Immigration rights are human rights. Open the borders. No human being is alien to us.

(Photo by Jean Guerrero)

A financial expert on CBS explained why Americans require at least $1-million in savings to live a comfortable, not extravagant retirement. They can only spend 4-percent of that annually, which is $40,000 per year for expenses. Most retirees don’t have more than social security which can be as low as $500 a month & it’s why so many retirees have to work. That’s why homelessness is an issue to seniors.

In an episodic break with the news blackout on US wars, a TV journalist spent several minutes discussing the war in Afghanistan focusing on ISIS & the Taliban without once mentioning the nearly 17-year US occupation & massive bombing. The lack & the distortions of war reporting, the deceptions about the number of US troops deployed, the focus on ISIS & the Taliban are all part of systematic Pentagon policies to blunt antiwar opposition. This cannot be effectively combated by the corrupt antiwar movement which spends most of its time defending Syrian & Russian bombing of civilians. A new antiwar movement must be built on antiwar & human rights principles opposing all military intervention in foreign countries, even under a humanitarian guise.

This is six-year-old Laiba Hazrat, an Afghan who has lived her entire life as a refugee in Pakistan.

US out of Afghanistan!

(Photo by Muhammed Muheisen)