Many may prefer I post links & leave the commentary to myself. That’s not how I operate. A lot of journalism bores me, takes too long to tell the story & often gets it wrong. On top of that, the politics often stink. So I read lots of articles on a story & preempt all the other stuff by writing my own. That’s how I roll, like it or not.

Haven’t seen any reports about the fate of 150,000 Rohingya held in concentration camps in Arakan state since the 2012 genocidal campaign. If anyone does, please send me the link.

Jonathan Head, the BBC correspondent reporting about Burma, has published both a video & written report from the guided tour a group of journalists were allowed in Arakan state under guard by the army. Both reports confirm what traumatized refugees are claiming: a deliberate policy of genocide. Why else would now 370,000 people flee to another country while pregnant, carrying parents on their backs & in baskets, & as unaccompanied children? Despite the horrors of his report, Head just can’t help himself from parking his ass on the fence. He doesn’t even once use the terms genocide or ethnic cleansing. This is how he introduced the nightmare of what he witnessed:

“…the government has arguments that need to be heard. It is now facing an armed insurgency, albeit one some would argue has been self-inflicted. The communal conflict in Rakhine state has a long history, & would be difficult for any government to deal with.”

When he went to the military official in charge to hear ‘the arguments that need to be heard’, this is what the colonel said:

“…Bengali terrorists, as they call the militants of the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, had taken control of Rohingya villages, & forced them to offer one man per household as a fighter. Those who refused to comply have their houses burned, he said. He accused the militants of planting mines & destroying three bridges.

“I asked whether he was saying that all of the dozens of burned villages had been destroyed by the militants. He confirmed that was the government’s position. Responding to a question about military atrocities, he waved it away. “Where is the proof?” he asked. “Look at those women,” he meant the Rohingya refugees, “who are making these claims – would anyone want to rape them?””

For any journalist with half an ounce of intellectual or investigative rigor, this nationalist, racist, misogynist crap would discredit all government claims about Rohingya terrorists & he would hotfoot it to the refugees to find out what really happened. At least, such a journalist would report only what he knows for sure & not believe one single allegation coming from the military or Suu Kyi.

But read his report because despite Head’s equivocations, he confirms exactly what the refugees are saying:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-41222210?SThisFB

(Photo of refugee carrying his mother from Arakan News Agency)

Denmark stands with the Rohingya: thousands marched in Copenhagen on Sunday to protest the genocide in Arakan.

(Photo from Arakan News Agency)

http://indianexpress.com/article/india/rohingya-crisis-sikh-volunteers-reach-bangladesh-myanmar-border-to-provide-langar-to-refugees-4839349/

This is an article about Khalsa Aid, a Sikh humanitarian aid group (including a volunteer from Kashmir), sending teams for a major relief program to a border town in Bangladesh where thousands of Rohingya are encamped. They report it’s raining there but the refugees have no shelter so they will be providing food for 50,000 & trying to construct shelter.

According to the Dhaka Tribune, about 100 Rohingya babies have been born on the border since the refugee crisis began on August 25th. Births were carried out without medical care & under dangerous, unhealthy conditions. It’s likely some of those babies were born premature. Imagine being in the final stages of a pregnancy when the military or paramilitary death squads attack or torch your village & having to flee on foot nine months pregnant. The paper reported that most mothers & newborns had critical health conditions as a result.

Our protests must demand an end to genocide & human, democratic, civil, & refugee rights along with demanding massive humanitarian aid to the refugees, including healthcare addressing the particular needs of women & children.

(Photo from Arakan News Agency)

Gaza stands with the Rohingya: a rally September 10th in front of the UNHCR office in Gaza.

(Photos from TRTArabic)

The latest estimate of new Rohingya refugees seeking asylum in Bangladesh is 300,000. There’s plenty cause for criticism of the Bangladeshi government but it now has nearly 800,000 Rohingya refugees & needs help from other countries in addressing the humanitarian crisis. Of course, since only a few countries have raised even a peep of protest against the genocide, it’s unlikely most will lift a finger to help provide shelter, food, healthcare, or asylum to the Rohingya–especially with so many political forces claiming there is no genocide but only communal violence & Rohingya terrorism.

That’s what makes the ongoing protests in solidarity with the Rohingya people so important. We must demand not just an end to the genocide but humanitarian aid & rights for the refugees, including the right of asylum in other countries (including our own).

Photo is a Rohingya refugee who fled from the military carrying both parents in baskets. There are countless photos of refugees carrying parents on their backs or in baskets like these, of unaccompanied children carrying siblings, of course parents with children & infants, & that wrenching image of the little girl carrying her baby sister in the rain. That’s the breadth of spirit we should try to emulate in building solidarity with their struggle against genocide & for full human, democratic, civil, & refugee rights, including massive humanitarian aid in Bangladesh.

Thanks to Haseeb Rahman’s vigilance about the photo used on the petition to rescind Aung San Suu Kyi’s honorary Canadian citizenship, the initiator of the petition has changed the photo to one from Arakan state & removed the one from a quack healer in India. It was an honest mistake on her part, not an attempt to mislead. Changing it wasn’t a matter of being pedantic but that Suu Kyi & BBC are denying genocide by blithering about fake photos.

One can be dismissive of such petitions since they won’t stop the genocide but what they do isn’t small potatoes. They help educate people, help increase public pressure on Burma, & most importantly help build solidarity with the Rohingya people. It has now reached over 24,000 signatures in just a few days which signifies that solidarity is growing around the world. It would be to the advantage of the Rohingya if the petition succeeded in getting Suu Kyi bounced from this honorific. It’s not that the honorific means very much but that Suu Kyi is being exposed for genocide denial.

Apparently many, for different reasons, think criticizing Aung San Suu Kyi is pointless. That would be a serious misunderstanding of the political role she plays in Burma, particularly her role in denying genocide against the Rohingya people. Constitutionally, she does not control the Burmese military. The way it was set up in the so-called transition from military to civilian rule is that the junta continues to run Burma behind the scenes while Suu Kyi functions as the front office for the military, as a civilian facade. That way it was possible, without facing opposition from human rights activists, for countries to lift the human rights sanctions imposed after the violent crackdown on the 1988 social uprising when the junta jailed & executed thousands & forced thousands of Burmese dissidents into exile.

The US made a big splash of lifting its sanctions on Burma, including well-publicized trips in 2011 by then secretary of state Hillary Clinton & in 2012 by president Obama. Obama’s trip was during the major genocidal assault in Arakan state sending tens of thousands of Rohingya fleeing for their lives. Meeting with Suu Kyi, like a pilgrimage to the goddess of human rights, was the centerpiece of their trips. The US was lifting the sanctions to get in on the neoliberal investment free-for-all in Burma but also as a way to counter the influence of China which was the leading international patron of Burma during the sanctions, the primary supplier of arms, & already had many joint venture mining & oil exploration projects with the military.

Suu Kyi may function as civilian facade for the junta but she is not merely a decorative piece & it would be misogyny or maybe just misunderstanding to consider her as such. She is an active, committed representative of their political, economic, & military interests. Her primary mission is to use her now tarnished human rights credentials to deny genocide in order to shill for foreign investment. Criticizing her role is part of exposing military rule. As her denial of genocide against the Rohingya people shreds her image as human rights icon, an understanding of what is really going on in Burma emerges & military rule can no longer hide behind her pile of humanitarian awards.

Photo is Suu Kyi with General Min Aung Hlaing, Commander-in-Chief of the Burmese military who has been organizing the genocide of the Rohingya people since 2011.

(Photo is from 2015)