Am I wrong, or has India killed more militants just in the past few months than there were militants when they began these nightly hunt to kill operations several months ago?
Daily Archives: November 5, 2018
Since the Great Return March began March 30th until October 29th, Israeli snipers have killed at least 210 Palestinians & injured over 18,000.
–Al Jazeera
The Burmese genocidaires & Bangladesh, with the help of China (which armed the genocide) & India (which supported the genocide & is forcibly deporting Rohingya refugees), are accelerating the forcible deportation of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh back to the killing fields of Burma. The most significant aspect of this monstrous plan is that representatives of the Rohingya people are not party to these negotiations. Deportation plans between Burma & Bangladesh actually began in November 2017 whilst the Rohingya genocide was in full throttle & thousands were fleeing for their lives. From then till now the plan has not gained an ounce of legitimacy or sanity. The Rohingyas are not cattle or sheep to be herded back & forth from killing field to squalid refugee camp at the whim of the oppressors. They have raised their voices in protest demanding they not be returned without substantial, ironclad assurances that they will not live in the concentration camps Burma has set up with help from China & India & that they will have full civil, democratic, & human rights.
Burma & Bangladesh call the forcible deportation plan a voluntary repatriation. But like the terms “crossfire” in Kashmir or “collateral damage” by the US Pentagon, they are just playing with words. Officials formulated a list of nearly 500 Rohingya families to be deported starting mid-November. Is there a single volunteer on that list? No, it was formulated entirely by Burmese & Bangladeshi authorities & it is almost certain that if the members of those 500 families were questioned, they would be outraged at their inclusion & terrified at being sent back to concentration camps & almost certain arrest, torture, death. It provides another chance for Burma to complete the “final solution.”
Does anyone in their right minds think Rohingya refugees should be sent back without their consent & without protections when they are still recovering from mass rape, mass executions, torture, the torching of entire villages, the loss of so many of their loved ones? Does anyone think barbarities of such a scale are psychologically overcome in just a matter of months whilst living in squalid refugee camps?
The Burmese generals, Suu Kyi, Sheikh Hasina, Xi, & Modi are the last people in the world the Rohingyas would trust with their destinies. There can be no decisions made about where they live without their direct participation in decision-making. If we do not raise our voices to support the Rohingya people, Burma & Bangladesh will get away with this continuation of genocide by other means. That we cannot allow.
(Photo of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh by Mahmud Hossain Opu/Dhaka Tribune)
Would anti-Assad war mongers care to explain how the US can do this to children in Yemen in order to destroy the Yemeni Arab Spring uprising but do humanitarian bombing in Syria to defend the Syrian Arab Spring uprising?
In 2001, Ben & Jerry’s ice cream was sold to Unilever, a British-Dutch conglomerate. Under the founders Ben Cohen & Jerry Greenfield, the Vermont-based company had built a corporate image of social consciousness & liberal activism which Unilever attempted to maintain. But in contrast to their image, since 1987 the company has had manufacturing facilities & retail outlets in Israel. To justify this the company said, “We are a values-based business & we do our best to make values-based decisions including investing in local farmers in the region.” A worthless statement that does not address Israeli apartheid, dispossession, & genocide against Palestinians & tries to blow smoke up our rumps. This nefarious relationship with Israel has earned them a long-standing place of ignominy on the BDS list of companies to boycott.
Apparently the BDS boycott is having an impact on Ben & Jerry’s business so they just pulled a savvy political stunt to make an end run around the boycott. With great public display, they announced a new flavor called Pecan Resistance with the profits to go to the Women’s March & they put on the whole dog & pony show with Linda Sarsour, the Palestinian-American who heads the Women’s Marches. This is intended to knock progressives for a loop & to counter BDS. Do we honor BDS or do we help bankroll the Women’s March? It’s a repugnant counterposition of Palestinian solidarity versus women’s rights.
The answer to this apparent conundrum is very simple. The lives of Palestinian women matter too. In solidarity with their struggle against apartheid & genocide, we do not accept hush money at their expense. Not a dime & that is not negotiable. Linda Sarsour will lose all credibility not just as a Palestinian supporter but as a leader of the Women’s March if she does not reject this malignant con. In the struggle against genocide, no one can play both sides of the street; she has no right to compromise the struggle for women’s rights by throwing Palestinian women to the wolves.
Those who support BDS & those who stand for a principled fight for women’s rights should go to her FB & Twitter walls or contact her in any way possible to protest her acceptance of hush money from Ben & Jerry’s because of their economic & political relationship with Israel.
FB: https://www.facebook.com/linda.sarsour
Twitter: https://twitter.com/lsarsour
(Photo is Linda Sarsour with Unilever officials announcing the exchange of hush money.)
Kashmiri Bilal Ahmad on how pellet munitions affect the lives of people in Kashmir. They are intended to disable & disfigure protesters & to demoralize political resistance to occupation. This information is what India is attempting to censor on social media & it is our commitment to stand in where Kashmiris are being silenced.
US troops deployed to the Texas-Mexico border are laying down razor wire ostensibly against the refugee caravan which is several weeks away from arriving at the border. Those immediately affected & endangered are young women with children & unaccompanied minors trying to cross the Rio Grande River. Where are the protests against such savagery?
There was a news report about the Field Museum in Chicago which houses, more aptly warehouses, over 10,000 pieces of Filipino art & artifacts. The curator, who inexplicably is a white guy, said most of the works were obtained during the US occupation of the Philippines. He assured the reporter that all of these works were obtained legally. (So maybe his appointment isn’t so inexplicable after all.) Anyone familiar with disputes around theft by the British Museum & all anthropology museums, not to mention the Iraq war, understands that ‘legal’ in the context of war & occupation is a euphemism for wholesale plunder & might makes right.
An important post & protest about the tsunamic censorship of Kashmiri activists on social media. In concert with the Indian government, the sole intent is to silence the voices of Kashmiri resistance to occupation.
Once again on the censorship of Kashmiri activists on social media.
The first snowfalls in Kashmir run with the blood of martyrs.
End the occupation. Self-determination for Kashmir. Go back, India, go back.