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Board index ‹ MISC TOPICS ‹ Burma Muslim Genocide
Tue Jul 17, 2012 1:17 am
Wed Jul 18, 2012 9:08 pm
Thu Jul 19, 2012 2:43 pm
Thu Jul 19, 2012 11:41 pm
Fri Jul 20, 2012 3:04 am
Fri Jul 20, 2012 3:31 am
Fri Jul 20, 2012 1:15 pm
Fri Jul 20, 2012 4:31 pm
Fri Jul 20, 2012 4:38 pm
Fri Jul 20, 2012 5:18 pm
Sat Jul 21, 2012 2:41 pm
Tue Jul 24, 2012 1:50 pm
Thu Jul 26, 2012 10:45 am
Thu Jul 26, 2012 10:50 am
Sat Jul 28, 2012 3:58 am
Sat Jul 28, 2012 4:26 am
Sat Jul 28, 2012 8:43 pm
Sat Jul 28, 2012 8:59 pm
Sat Jul 28, 2012 9:30 pm
Sat Jul 28, 2012 9:42 pm
Burma Muslim Genocide
Tue Jul 17, 2012 1:17 am
Full Solidarity With The Muslim Brotherhood
Wed Jul 18, 2012 9:08 pm
Trust you, Aftab, to hit on a topic no one else would have thought worthy of notice. I freely confess I know little about Burma and Burmese politics. Except that the west is doing more and more to get Burma back into its own orbit. But more of that later. For the moment let me say that the Rohingya Muslims' plight as portrayed on the video looks pretty nasty to me. The people, too, look more like us than they look Burmese, another thing which was heartbreaking. As for the Bengalis, their behaviour doesn't surprise me in the least. The truth of the matter is, Aftab, the most generous people in every sense of the word happen to be the Pakistanis on the Subcontinent. We'd never have turned anyone away.
And now back to the political implications of all this. The West has got its claws into two countries showing surprising similarites, Burma and Thailand. Both have a Muslim population which is being seriously persecuted from what one hears. Both countries have two glamourous women leading the West camp in their respective countries, Aung San Suu Kyi in Burma and Yingluck Shinawatra, the young and pretty sister of Wall Street agent Thaksin Shinawatra, in Thailand. And apart from all the other implications of being west agents, the purpose of all this is to drive a wedge between China and these two natural allies of the Chinese.
And now back to the political implications of all this. The West has got its claws into two countries showing surprising similarites, Burma and Thailand. Both have a Muslim population which is being seriously persecuted from what one hears. Both countries have two glamourous women leading the West camp in their respective countries, Aung San Suu Kyi in Burma and Yingluck Shinawatra, the young and pretty sister of Wall Street agent Thaksin Shinawatra, in Thailand. And apart from all the other implications of being west agents, the purpose of all this is to drive a wedge between China and these two natural allies of the Chinese.
Thu Jul 19, 2012 2:43 pm
Thanks for the kind words brother MG. I too know very little of the Rohingya Muslims and felt very sad that they are being treated very harshly by the Burmese mobs and also that no Muslim country was raising it's voice other than Iran. I hear on TV and other media forums that there are 57 Muslim countries in the world and it should mean that we are a real powerhouse in world affairs, but in reality a toothless tiger.
I remember an article/words of wisdom being posted somewhere on this forum, by our dear brother S.E. MIrza, that human rights is only a weapon too beat the opponents of the West with through they controlled media houses. Any descent or going off script and you get shut down like Press TV was in the UK. In reality we all know that the Western Countries do not care about human rights of countries which are perceived as their adversaries or even in some cases of their allies like Pakistan. Of course why should there be worried about human rights because the more resentment within a country the more chance that CIA like people are given an opportunity to use these people against their own countries.
It's no rocket science, the more you keep countries destabilised, the more chance of getting concessions from them.
I remember an article/words of wisdom being posted somewhere on this forum, by our dear brother S.E. MIrza, that human rights is only a weapon too beat the opponents of the West with through they controlled media houses. Any descent or going off script and you get shut down like Press TV was in the UK. In reality we all know that the Western Countries do not care about human rights of countries which are perceived as their adversaries or even in some cases of their allies like Pakistan. Of course why should there be worried about human rights because the more resentment within a country the more chance that CIA like people are given an opportunity to use these people against their own countries.
It's no rocket science, the more you keep countries destabilised, the more chance of getting concessions from them.
Full Solidarity With The Muslim Brotherhood
Thu Jul 19, 2012 11:41 pm
Democracy’ and Slaughter in Burma: Gold Rush Overrides Human Rights
By Ramzy Baroud - July 17, 2012
The widespread killings of Rohingya Muslims in Burma – or Myanmar – have received only passing and dispassionate coverage in most media. What they actually warrant is widespread outrage and decisive efforts to bring further human rights abuses to an immediate halt.
“Burmese helicopter set fire to three boats carrying nearly 50 Muslim Rohingyas fleeing sectarian violence in western Burma in an attack that is believed to have killed everyone on board,” reported Radio Free Europe on July 12.
Why would anyone take such fatal risks? Refugees are attempting to escape imminent death, torture or arrest at the hands of the Ethnic Buddhist Rakhine majority, which has the full support of the Burmese government.
The relatively little media interest in Burma’s ‘ethnic clashes’ is by no means an indication of the significance of the story. The recent flaring of violence followed the raping and killing of a Rhakine woman on May 28, allegedly by three Rohingya men.
The incident ushered a rare movement of unity between many sectors of Burmese society, including the government, security forces and so-called pro-democracy activists and groups. The first order of business was the beating to death of ten innocent Muslims. The victims, who were dragged out of a bus and attacked by a mob of 300 strong Buddhist Rhakine, were not even Rohingyas, according to the Bangkok Post (June 22). Not all Muslims in Burma are from the Rohingya ethnic group. Some are descendants of Indian immigrants, some have Chinese ancestry, and some even have early Arab and Persian origins. Burma is a country with a population of an estimated 60 million, only 4 percent of whom are Muslim.
Regardless of numbers, the abuses are widespread and rioters are facing little or no repercussions for their actions. “The Rohingyas…face some of the worst discrimination in the world,” reported Reuters on July 4, citing rights groups. UK-based Equal Rights Trust indicated that the recent violence is not merely due to ethnic clashes, but actually involves active government participation. “From June 16 onwards, the military became more actively involved in committing acts of violence and other human rights abuses against the Rohingya including killings and mass-scale arrests of Rohingya men and boys in North Rakhine State.”
The ‘pro-democracy’ Burmese groups and individuals celebrated by Western governments for objecting to the country’s military junta are also taking part in the war against minorities. Writing in the Sydney Morning Herald on July 8, Hanna Hindstrom reported that one pro-democracy group stated on Twitter that “[t]he so-called Rohingya are liars,” while another social media user said, “We must kill all the kalar.” Kalar is a racist slur applied to dark-skinned people from the Indian subcontinent
Politically, Burma has a poor reputation. A protracted civil war has ravaged the country shortly after its independence from Britain in 1948. The colonial era was exceptionally destructive as the country was used as a battleground for great powers.
Many Burmese were slaughtered in a situation that was not of their making. As foreign powers divided the country according to their own purposes, an ensuing civil war was almost predictable. It supposedly ended when a military junta took over from 1962 to 2011, but many of the underlying problems remained unresolved.
Per western media coverage, Burma is defined by a few ‘iconic’ individuals’ quest for democracy, notwithstanding opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Since an election last year brought a civilian government to power, we have been led to believe that a happy ending is now in the making. “Burma opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi made her historic parliamentary debut on Monday (July 9), marking a new phase in her near quarter century struggle to bring democracy to her army-dominated homeland,” reported the British Telegraph.
But aside from mere ‘concerns’ over the ethnic violence, Aung San Suu Kyi is staying on the fence – as if the slaughter of the country’s ‘dark-skinned Indians’ is not as urgent as having a parliamentary representation for her party, the National League for Democracy in Burma. Secretary General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu called on ‘The Lady’ to do something, anything. “As a Nobel Peace Laureate, we are confident that the first step of your journey towards ensuring peace in the world would start from your own doorstep and that you would play a positive role in bringing an end to the violence that has afflicted Arakan State,” he wrote. However, “Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy continues to carefully sidestep the hot-button issue,” according to Foreign Policy.
The violent targeting of Burmese minorities arrived at an interesting time for the US and Britain. Their pro-democracy campaign was largely called off when the junta agreed to provide semi-democratic reforms. Eager to offset the near exclusive Chinese influence over the Burmese economy, Western companies jumped into Burma as if one of the most oppressive regimes in the world was suddenly resurrected into an oasis for democracy.
“The gold rush for Burma has begun,” wrote Alex Spillius in the British Guardian. It was ushered in by US President Barak Obama’s recent lifting of the ban on American investment in the country. Britain immediately followed suit, as a UK trade office was hurriedly opened in Rangoon on July 11. “Its aim is to forge links with one of the last unexploited markets in Asia, a country blessed by ample resources of hydro-carbons, minerals, gems and timber, not to mention a cheap labour force, which thanks to years of isolation and sanctions is near virgin territory for foreign investors.” Since US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made her ‘historic’ visit to Burma in December 2011, a recurring media theme has been ‘Burma riches’ and the ‘race for Burma’. Little else is being discussed, and certainly not minority rights.
Recently, Clinton held a meeting with Burma’s President Thein Sein, who is now being branded as another success story for US diplomacy. On the agenda are US concerns regarding the “lack of transparency in Burma’s investment environment and the military’s role in the economy” (CNN, July 12). Thein Sein, however, is guilty of much greater sins, for he is providing a dangerous political discourse that could possibly lead to more killings, or even genocide. The ‘reformist’ president told the UN that “refugee camps or deportation is the solution for nearly a million Rohingya Muslims,” according to ABC Australia. He offered to send the Rohingyas away “if any third country would accept them.”
The Rohingyas are currently undergoing one of the most violent episodes of their history, and their suffering is one of the most pressing issues anywhere in the world.
Yet their plight is suspiciously absent from regional and international priorities, or is undercut by giddiness over the country’s “ample resources of hydro-carbons, minerals, gems and timber.”
Meanwhile, the stateless and defenseless Rohingyas continue to suffer and die. Those lucky to make it to Bangladesh are being turned back. Aside from few courageous journalists – indifferent to the country’s promise for ‘democracy’ and other fables – most are simply looking the other way. This tragic attitude must immediately change if human rights matter in the least.
http://www.internationalpolicydigest.or ... an-rights/
By Ramzy Baroud - July 17, 2012
The widespread killings of Rohingya Muslims in Burma – or Myanmar – have received only passing and dispassionate coverage in most media. What they actually warrant is widespread outrage and decisive efforts to bring further human rights abuses to an immediate halt.
“Burmese helicopter set fire to three boats carrying nearly 50 Muslim Rohingyas fleeing sectarian violence in western Burma in an attack that is believed to have killed everyone on board,” reported Radio Free Europe on July 12.
Why would anyone take such fatal risks? Refugees are attempting to escape imminent death, torture or arrest at the hands of the Ethnic Buddhist Rakhine majority, which has the full support of the Burmese government.
The relatively little media interest in Burma’s ‘ethnic clashes’ is by no means an indication of the significance of the story. The recent flaring of violence followed the raping and killing of a Rhakine woman on May 28, allegedly by three Rohingya men.
The incident ushered a rare movement of unity between many sectors of Burmese society, including the government, security forces and so-called pro-democracy activists and groups. The first order of business was the beating to death of ten innocent Muslims. The victims, who were dragged out of a bus and attacked by a mob of 300 strong Buddhist Rhakine, were not even Rohingyas, according to the Bangkok Post (June 22). Not all Muslims in Burma are from the Rohingya ethnic group. Some are descendants of Indian immigrants, some have Chinese ancestry, and some even have early Arab and Persian origins. Burma is a country with a population of an estimated 60 million, only 4 percent of whom are Muslim.
Regardless of numbers, the abuses are widespread and rioters are facing little or no repercussions for their actions. “The Rohingyas…face some of the worst discrimination in the world,” reported Reuters on July 4, citing rights groups. UK-based Equal Rights Trust indicated that the recent violence is not merely due to ethnic clashes, but actually involves active government participation. “From June 16 onwards, the military became more actively involved in committing acts of violence and other human rights abuses against the Rohingya including killings and mass-scale arrests of Rohingya men and boys in North Rakhine State.”
The ‘pro-democracy’ Burmese groups and individuals celebrated by Western governments for objecting to the country’s military junta are also taking part in the war against minorities. Writing in the Sydney Morning Herald on July 8, Hanna Hindstrom reported that one pro-democracy group stated on Twitter that “[t]he so-called Rohingya are liars,” while another social media user said, “We must kill all the kalar.” Kalar is a racist slur applied to dark-skinned people from the Indian subcontinent
Politically, Burma has a poor reputation. A protracted civil war has ravaged the country shortly after its independence from Britain in 1948. The colonial era was exceptionally destructive as the country was used as a battleground for great powers.
Many Burmese were slaughtered in a situation that was not of their making. As foreign powers divided the country according to their own purposes, an ensuing civil war was almost predictable. It supposedly ended when a military junta took over from 1962 to 2011, but many of the underlying problems remained unresolved.
Per western media coverage, Burma is defined by a few ‘iconic’ individuals’ quest for democracy, notwithstanding opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Since an election last year brought a civilian government to power, we have been led to believe that a happy ending is now in the making. “Burma opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi made her historic parliamentary debut on Monday (July 9), marking a new phase in her near quarter century struggle to bring democracy to her army-dominated homeland,” reported the British Telegraph.
But aside from mere ‘concerns’ over the ethnic violence, Aung San Suu Kyi is staying on the fence – as if the slaughter of the country’s ‘dark-skinned Indians’ is not as urgent as having a parliamentary representation for her party, the National League for Democracy in Burma. Secretary General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu called on ‘The Lady’ to do something, anything. “As a Nobel Peace Laureate, we are confident that the first step of your journey towards ensuring peace in the world would start from your own doorstep and that you would play a positive role in bringing an end to the violence that has afflicted Arakan State,” he wrote. However, “Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy continues to carefully sidestep the hot-button issue,” according to Foreign Policy.
The violent targeting of Burmese minorities arrived at an interesting time for the US and Britain. Their pro-democracy campaign was largely called off when the junta agreed to provide semi-democratic reforms. Eager to offset the near exclusive Chinese influence over the Burmese economy, Western companies jumped into Burma as if one of the most oppressive regimes in the world was suddenly resurrected into an oasis for democracy.
“The gold rush for Burma has begun,” wrote Alex Spillius in the British Guardian. It was ushered in by US President Barak Obama’s recent lifting of the ban on American investment in the country. Britain immediately followed suit, as a UK trade office was hurriedly opened in Rangoon on July 11. “Its aim is to forge links with one of the last unexploited markets in Asia, a country blessed by ample resources of hydro-carbons, minerals, gems and timber, not to mention a cheap labour force, which thanks to years of isolation and sanctions is near virgin territory for foreign investors.” Since US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made her ‘historic’ visit to Burma in December 2011, a recurring media theme has been ‘Burma riches’ and the ‘race for Burma’. Little else is being discussed, and certainly not minority rights.
Recently, Clinton held a meeting with Burma’s President Thein Sein, who is now being branded as another success story for US diplomacy. On the agenda are US concerns regarding the “lack of transparency in Burma’s investment environment and the military’s role in the economy” (CNN, July 12). Thein Sein, however, is guilty of much greater sins, for he is providing a dangerous political discourse that could possibly lead to more killings, or even genocide. The ‘reformist’ president told the UN that “refugee camps or deportation is the solution for nearly a million Rohingya Muslims,” according to ABC Australia. He offered to send the Rohingyas away “if any third country would accept them.”
The Rohingyas are currently undergoing one of the most violent episodes of their history, and their suffering is one of the most pressing issues anywhere in the world.
Yet their plight is suspiciously absent from regional and international priorities, or is undercut by giddiness over the country’s “ample resources of hydro-carbons, minerals, gems and timber.”
Meanwhile, the stateless and defenseless Rohingyas continue to suffer and die. Those lucky to make it to Bangladesh are being turned back. Aside from few courageous journalists – indifferent to the country’s promise for ‘democracy’ and other fables – most are simply looking the other way. This tragic attitude must immediately change if human rights matter in the least.
http://www.internationalpolicydigest.or ... an-rights/
Fri Jul 20, 2012 3:04 am
Muslims genocide in Burma: Why the world is silent? (Sochta Pakistan, 19 July 2012)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... f5XvFfrsU#!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... f5XvFfrsU#!
Full Solidarity With The Muslim Brotherhood
Fri Jul 20, 2012 3:31 am
Unfortunately the role of Bangladesh is very disappointing.
Full Solidarity With The Muslim Brotherhood
Fri Jul 20, 2012 1:15 pm
Aftab, thanks. I listened to Sochta Pakistan with great care. Some things were excellent, others less so. We now know a bit more about Burma than we did only four days ago when you posted your first comment. I thought the way they talked about Syria, Libya or Iraq was very much to the point and translates my own understanding of the plight of those three battered countries. What I found detestable, on the other hand, was all that insistence on "human rights" which, as you yourself pointed out quoting SEM, is no more than a weapon, yet another, in the hands of the West. Detestable, too, that insistence on the massacres in Bosnia and Rwanda, and no mention at all of Iraq, Libya or Afghanistan, the three places where the greatest genocides have taken place. Oh, well. Pakistan apparently will never learn just how criminal west really is. One more point: one country, indeed, has raised its voice against what's happening with the Rohingyas, namely the Islamic Republic of Iran. No one thought to mention that for some reason.
Today Burma, tomorrow Thailand and the day after the Philippines. Or then we take a stand today. And that stand must be no less anti-West as anti the governments of the three countries I have just mentioned. The future of justice in the world will live or die by what happens next in Syria (I'm glad to say at least Pakistan found the courage to abstain from the third Chapter Seven resolution against that poor harried country), Iran, Burma, etc.
Today Burma, tomorrow Thailand and the day after the Philippines. Or then we take a stand today. And that stand must be no less anti-West as anti the governments of the three countries I have just mentioned. The future of justice in the world will live or die by what happens next in Syria (I'm glad to say at least Pakistan found the courage to abstain from the third Chapter Seven resolution against that poor harried country), Iran, Burma, etc.
Fri Jul 20, 2012 4:31 pm
ABOUT ARNO
Arakan Rohingya National Organisation (ARNO) is one of the representative organisations of the Rohingya people of Arakan, Burma, based in London, the United Kingdom. It is a broad based Organisation of the Rohingya People that emerged in 1998. It is one of the Founding member of Arakan Rohingya Union which was formed with the initiative of Euro-Burma
Office and Organisation of Islamic Co-operation (OIC)
THE AIMS AND OBJECTIVE, POLICES AND PROGRAMMES (ABRIDGED) OF THE ARNO ARE:
The right of ‘self-determination’ of the Rohingya people within the Burmese federation; preservation of their (Rohingya’s) history and cultural heritage without prejudice to the growth and preservation of other religious and indigenous culture in Arakan; condemnation of religious persecution by the military; repatriation of Rohingya refugees from their places of refuge; human resource development particularly in socio-cultural, economic, educational and technical fields; establishment of a welfare society based on equality, liberty, democracy, human rights and freedom for all peoples; “peaceful co-existence” with Rakhine community (Buddhist of Arakan) and among all other peoples in Arakan as well as in the whole of the country; joint struggle with the Burmese opposition and democratic forces; support to landmine ban treaty; support of the rights of Rohingya women and girls to education, health and economic empowerment; educating the youths of the dangers of drugs (including AIDS infection); protection of environment, including forests, rivers, wetland, Coastline Ocean and to save their land from unsustainable logging, killing of endangered species, all forms of pollution, and over fishing and to preserve a green haven for their children and the world; support for future sustainable, appropriate, clean, and beneficial development to the common people.”
ARNO is working together with all parties and important civil society organisations of the Rohingya people at home and aboard and also with Burmese Organisations. It is working with British Foreign and Common Wealth Office and Parliamentary Committee on Burma and European Parliament. It maintains a close relation with Amnesty International, Asia Watch, Burma Campaign U.K and many other human rights and humanitarian organisations in Europe, USA and Asia. It is closely working together with Burma Democracy movement, ethnic nationalities forums and support groups. In addition ARNO is actively working together with Euro-Burma Office in Brussels (Belgium) and National Reconciliation Programme (NRP) of the Union of Burma. ARNO carries out various socio-cultural, economic and education uplift programmes and human resource development among the Rohingya people.
Full article at: http://www.rohingya.org/portal/index.ph ... e-are.html
Arakan Rohingya National Organisation (ARNO) is one of the representative organisations of the Rohingya people of Arakan, Burma, based in London, the United Kingdom. It is a broad based Organisation of the Rohingya People that emerged in 1998. It is one of the Founding member of Arakan Rohingya Union which was formed with the initiative of Euro-Burma
Office and Organisation of Islamic Co-operation (OIC)
THE AIMS AND OBJECTIVE, POLICES AND PROGRAMMES (ABRIDGED) OF THE ARNO ARE:
The right of ‘self-determination’ of the Rohingya people within the Burmese federation; preservation of their (Rohingya’s) history and cultural heritage without prejudice to the growth and preservation of other religious and indigenous culture in Arakan; condemnation of religious persecution by the military; repatriation of Rohingya refugees from their places of refuge; human resource development particularly in socio-cultural, economic, educational and technical fields; establishment of a welfare society based on equality, liberty, democracy, human rights and freedom for all peoples; “peaceful co-existence” with Rakhine community (Buddhist of Arakan) and among all other peoples in Arakan as well as in the whole of the country; joint struggle with the Burmese opposition and democratic forces; support to landmine ban treaty; support of the rights of Rohingya women and girls to education, health and economic empowerment; educating the youths of the dangers of drugs (including AIDS infection); protection of environment, including forests, rivers, wetland, Coastline Ocean and to save their land from unsustainable logging, killing of endangered species, all forms of pollution, and over fishing and to preserve a green haven for their children and the world; support for future sustainable, appropriate, clean, and beneficial development to the common people.”
ARNO is working together with all parties and important civil society organisations of the Rohingya people at home and aboard and also with Burmese Organisations. It is working with British Foreign and Common Wealth Office and Parliamentary Committee on Burma and European Parliament. It maintains a close relation with Amnesty International, Asia Watch, Burma Campaign U.K and many other human rights and humanitarian organisations in Europe, USA and Asia. It is closely working together with Burma Democracy movement, ethnic nationalities forums and support groups. In addition ARNO is actively working together with Euro-Burma Office in Brussels (Belgium) and National Reconciliation Programme (NRP) of the Union of Burma. ARNO carries out various socio-cultural, economic and education uplift programmes and human resource development among the Rohingya people.
Full article at: http://www.rohingya.org/portal/index.ph ... e-are.html
Fri Jul 20, 2012 4:38 pm
Muhammadiyah ready to help Rohingyas
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | National | Sun, February 01 2009, 9:28 PM
Muhammadiyah is urging Jakarta to take a “wise” approach when dealing with Muslim refugees from Myanmar, saying Indonesia’s second largest Islamic organization is ready to help them if the government fails to do so.
“Indonesia should deal with them properly. I hope the Rohingya refugees will be looked after until there is an appropriate solution based on humanitarian principles,” Muhammadiyah chairman Din Syamsuddin said Sunday.
“If Indonesia will not help, Muhammadiyah is ready to cooperate and assist the refugees with what they need,” he said in a text message from New York while attending a World Summit on Peace.
Din also asked the Indonesian government to bring this issue to the ASEAN summit in Thailand later this month.
“This is the right time for the issue to be raised at a regional forum. We have so far been too lenient toward the military junta in Myanmar.”
Around 175 Rohingyas and 19 Bangladeshis were found in a boat off northern Sumatra on Jan. 7. They are now being kept at a naval base in Sabang, Aceh province.
They are believed to be the only remaining survivors from around 1,000 refugees, largely Rohingyas, who were allegedly abandoned at sea by the Thai military. Thailand denies the allegations. –JP
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2009 ... ngyas.html
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | National | Sun, February 01 2009, 9:28 PM
Muhammadiyah is urging Jakarta to take a “wise” approach when dealing with Muslim refugees from Myanmar, saying Indonesia’s second largest Islamic organization is ready to help them if the government fails to do so.
“Indonesia should deal with them properly. I hope the Rohingya refugees will be looked after until there is an appropriate solution based on humanitarian principles,” Muhammadiyah chairman Din Syamsuddin said Sunday.
“If Indonesia will not help, Muhammadiyah is ready to cooperate and assist the refugees with what they need,” he said in a text message from New York while attending a World Summit on Peace.
Din also asked the Indonesian government to bring this issue to the ASEAN summit in Thailand later this month.
“This is the right time for the issue to be raised at a regional forum. We have so far been too lenient toward the military junta in Myanmar.”
Around 175 Rohingyas and 19 Bangladeshis were found in a boat off northern Sumatra on Jan. 7. They are now being kept at a naval base in Sabang, Aceh province.
They are believed to be the only remaining survivors from around 1,000 refugees, largely Rohingyas, who were allegedly abandoned at sea by the Thai military. Thailand denies the allegations. –JP
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2009 ... ngyas.html
Fri Jul 20, 2012 5:18 pm
Many, many thanks, Patriot, for adding invaluable information to this thread. I don't know why we ended up in the Misc Forum, Latest News would have been a better place for it. But so be it.
If Indonesia, on a governmental level, or privately gives support to the Rohingyas, so much the better. I think Pakistan should be doing the same. Not because they can fall upon the untouched wealth of the Burmese and use it all up to save themselves from utter economic collapse. But because it is the duty of this country to help out any Muslims in danger of losing their lives.
Also, I wish to point out that it is all too easy, like in Pakistan, to blame everything on the army. During the army years the country was better governed than it is now under a so-called democratic rule. We know what we're talking about having just gone through over four years of our own "democratic" government. And, as I warned above, Burma today, Thailand tomorrow and the Philippines, the day after. What Burma and Thailand are doing has nothing whatsoever with Buddhism, which is the most peaceable of religions. Neither would majority Catholic Philippines kill its Muslims because of something required of them religiously. The orders to KILL THE MUSLIMS all derive from one source alone the name of which I needn't pronounce. So we must count the events in Burma as the latest chapter in the Muslim Wars now into its eleventh year.
If Indonesia, on a governmental level, or privately gives support to the Rohingyas, so much the better. I think Pakistan should be doing the same. Not because they can fall upon the untouched wealth of the Burmese and use it all up to save themselves from utter economic collapse. But because it is the duty of this country to help out any Muslims in danger of losing their lives.
Also, I wish to point out that it is all too easy, like in Pakistan, to blame everything on the army. During the army years the country was better governed than it is now under a so-called democratic rule. We know what we're talking about having just gone through over four years of our own "democratic" government. And, as I warned above, Burma today, Thailand tomorrow and the Philippines, the day after. What Burma and Thailand are doing has nothing whatsoever with Buddhism, which is the most peaceable of religions. Neither would majority Catholic Philippines kill its Muslims because of something required of them religiously. The orders to KILL THE MUSLIMS all derive from one source alone the name of which I needn't pronounce. So we must count the events in Burma as the latest chapter in the Muslim Wars now into its eleventh year.
Sat Jul 21, 2012 2:41 pm
There doesn't seem to be a sense of urgency, especially when so many people are dying. I agree with MG Saab that Pakistan should open it's doors if the regional countries don't or are unwilling. The crisis management of Muslim countries is too slow of a process and really needs orverhauling, so that they can move more rapidly in time of crisis.
P.S. Pakistan abstained because of China/Russia and probably wanted to provide them with some diplomatic support but not go completely against the Yanks and the Saudis by voting in favour of Syria. Playing both sides!
P.S. Pakistan abstained because of China/Russia and probably wanted to provide them with some diplomatic support but not go completely against the Yanks and the Saudis by voting in favour of Syria. Playing both sides!
Full Solidarity With The Muslim Brotherhood
Tue Jul 24, 2012 1:50 pm
Aftab, even as we were discussing the plight of the Burmese Muslims, the Pak government had prepared this unpleasant surprise for us:
After 30 years, Pakistan rolls up welcome mat for Afghan refugees
ISLAMABAD — Pakistan plans to cancel refugee status at the end of this year for the 3 million Afghans who are living in the country, officials have told McClatchy, leaving the refugees facing possible forced resettlement in their homeland, a war-torn country that many of them barely know.
Pushing the refugees into Afghanistan probably would create a new crisis for that country, which already is struggling with an insurgency, an economy almost entirely dependent on the U.S-led foreign presence and the illicit drug trade, and the impending withdrawal of foreign combat troops by 2014.
Officials in Pakistan, which has hosted Afghan refugees for more than 30 years – one of the longest-running refugee problems in the world – say that “enough is enough” and are resisting entreaties by the United Nations and others to reconsider the decision. It comes as Islamabad’s relations with Western countries, particularly the United States, have soured over its policies in neighboring Afghanistan and the unannounced U.S. raid on Pakistani soil that killed Osama bin Laden last year.
Pakistan’s top administrator in charge of the Afghan refugee issue, Habibullah Khan, the secretary of the Ministry of States and Frontier Regions, said Islamabad wouldn’t change its decision. “The international community desires us to review this policy, but we are clear on this point. The refugees have become a threat to law and order, security, demography, economy and local culture,” Khan said in an interview. “Enough is enough.”
One such refugee is Rangeen, 28, who goes by only one name, as is common in Afghanistan. He’s lived in Pakistan since he was 12 and is a registered refugee. Three times he’s tried to move back to his native Kabul, the Afghan capital, but he’s found it too costly to live there.
“I couldn’t find work in Kabul, and it is very expensive there, so each time I was forced to come back” to Pakistan, Rangeen said. “I’m just a laborer. It is not possible to survive in Kabul on what you make as a laborer there.” Rangeen earns around 200 rupees a day, about $2, by working as a porter at a wholesale vegetable market just outside Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, pushing cartloads of produce around for buyers. His determination not to go to Afghanistan is all the more striking given the difficulties of life in his adopted home. None of his four children go to school, nor do any of the other children in Sorang Abadi, the makeshift village where he lives, a 15-minute drive south of the capital. Looking at his 7-year-old son, Noor Agha, Rangeen said: “He will suffer the same fate as me. All he’ll be able to do is push a cart.”
Villagers in Sorang Abadi pay about $15 a month in rent for just enough land to construct one ramshackle room, from baked mud, and keep a small yard. There’s no electricity or running water; they fetch water from a timber yard about 15 minutes’ walk away. They haven’t been able to find space at a semiofficial refugee camp that’s about four miles away.
Mukhtiar, a 40-year-old from Baghlan province in the north of Afghanistan, which is considered relatively safe, said he’d been in Pakistan for 30 years.
“We won’t go to Afghanistan. There is nothing but war,” he said. “After the Russians got out, the Americans came. Whatever we had back there has been taken over by others. There is no work, no property, nothing there except feuds. “It would be like throwing us into the sea.”
Afghan refugees started arriving in Pakistan in the 1980s, fleeing the Soviet invasion, and have continued to come here to escape the horrors of a civil war, Taliban rule and, most recently, the conflict triggered by the U.S.-led invasion in 2001. Whole generations have grown up in Pakistan and don’t know their homeland. There are 1.7 million Afghan refugees registered in Pakistan – more than half of them younger than 18 – of which 630,000 live in camps. A further 1 million are estimated to be living in the country unregistered and therefore illegally.
The international community and the Afghan government in Kabul have no strategy prepared to deal with any such influx of people. The anxiety over taking back the refugees seems to belie the claims of progress in Afghanistan that the U.S.-led international coalition makes regularly. “If the international community is so concerned, they should open the doors of their countries to these refugees,” Khan said. “Afghans will be more than happy to be absorbed by the developed countries, like Western Europe, the U.S., Canada, Australia.” Khan said that after Dec. 31, the Pakistani government didn’t plan to renew Afghan refugees’ registration cards, so those currently registered will lose their refugee status. He declined to spell out what would happen to the refugees after that, but if the policy sticks they’d be in the country illegally and liable to be deported.
Some Afghans have prospered in Pakistan – as seen by their near takeover of Hayatabad, an upscale suburb lined with villas outside Peshawar, a northwestern city close to the Afghan border – but the majority of them struggle. And as their numbers have grown, Pakistani officials suspect that the leadership of the Taliban and other Afghan insurgent groups is hiding among the refugees. The western Pakistani city of Quetta is home to the Quetta Shura, the Taliban’s leadership council, and it contains a sprawling Afghan refugee settlement that provides easy cover for militants.
A U.N. voluntary repatriation program is making slow progress. So far this year it’s been able to entice only 41,000 people to return to Afghanistan, a slight increase over the 35,000 who returned in the first half of last year. Since 2002, the U.N. has repatriated 3.7 million Afghans to the country, but the rate stalled in recent years as the war intensified. It’s also likely that many of the returnees have slipped back into Pakistan, given that there are almost as many Afghan refugees in Pakistan today as there were in 2002. Earlier this year, Valerie Amos, the U.N. humanitarian affairs chief, visited a camp in Kabul and said its conditions for returning refugees appalled her. Once they reach Afghanistan, returnees are entitled to a one-time payment of $150 per person from the U.N.
Neill Wright, the Pakistan representative of the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, said the U.N. would still recognize the registered Afghans in Pakistan as refugees after this year under international law “until a durable solution can be found.” “We hope that the government of Pakistan will continue to recognize them as refugees,” Wright said. “Returning them to Afghanistan could destabilize the country further at a time when it is already experiencing instability from the drawdown of international forces.”
Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/07/23/1 ... rylink=cpy
After 30 years, Pakistan rolls up welcome mat for Afghan refugees
ISLAMABAD — Pakistan plans to cancel refugee status at the end of this year for the 3 million Afghans who are living in the country, officials have told McClatchy, leaving the refugees facing possible forced resettlement in their homeland, a war-torn country that many of them barely know.
Pushing the refugees into Afghanistan probably would create a new crisis for that country, which already is struggling with an insurgency, an economy almost entirely dependent on the U.S-led foreign presence and the illicit drug trade, and the impending withdrawal of foreign combat troops by 2014.
Officials in Pakistan, which has hosted Afghan refugees for more than 30 years – one of the longest-running refugee problems in the world – say that “enough is enough” and are resisting entreaties by the United Nations and others to reconsider the decision. It comes as Islamabad’s relations with Western countries, particularly the United States, have soured over its policies in neighboring Afghanistan and the unannounced U.S. raid on Pakistani soil that killed Osama bin Laden last year.
Pakistan’s top administrator in charge of the Afghan refugee issue, Habibullah Khan, the secretary of the Ministry of States and Frontier Regions, said Islamabad wouldn’t change its decision. “The international community desires us to review this policy, but we are clear on this point. The refugees have become a threat to law and order, security, demography, economy and local culture,” Khan said in an interview. “Enough is enough.”
One such refugee is Rangeen, 28, who goes by only one name, as is common in Afghanistan. He’s lived in Pakistan since he was 12 and is a registered refugee. Three times he’s tried to move back to his native Kabul, the Afghan capital, but he’s found it too costly to live there.
“I couldn’t find work in Kabul, and it is very expensive there, so each time I was forced to come back” to Pakistan, Rangeen said. “I’m just a laborer. It is not possible to survive in Kabul on what you make as a laborer there.” Rangeen earns around 200 rupees a day, about $2, by working as a porter at a wholesale vegetable market just outside Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, pushing cartloads of produce around for buyers. His determination not to go to Afghanistan is all the more striking given the difficulties of life in his adopted home. None of his four children go to school, nor do any of the other children in Sorang Abadi, the makeshift village where he lives, a 15-minute drive south of the capital. Looking at his 7-year-old son, Noor Agha, Rangeen said: “He will suffer the same fate as me. All he’ll be able to do is push a cart.”
Villagers in Sorang Abadi pay about $15 a month in rent for just enough land to construct one ramshackle room, from baked mud, and keep a small yard. There’s no electricity or running water; they fetch water from a timber yard about 15 minutes’ walk away. They haven’t been able to find space at a semiofficial refugee camp that’s about four miles away.
Mukhtiar, a 40-year-old from Baghlan province in the north of Afghanistan, which is considered relatively safe, said he’d been in Pakistan for 30 years.
“We won’t go to Afghanistan. There is nothing but war,” he said. “After the Russians got out, the Americans came. Whatever we had back there has been taken over by others. There is no work, no property, nothing there except feuds. “It would be like throwing us into the sea.”
Afghan refugees started arriving in Pakistan in the 1980s, fleeing the Soviet invasion, and have continued to come here to escape the horrors of a civil war, Taliban rule and, most recently, the conflict triggered by the U.S.-led invasion in 2001. Whole generations have grown up in Pakistan and don’t know their homeland. There are 1.7 million Afghan refugees registered in Pakistan – more than half of them younger than 18 – of which 630,000 live in camps. A further 1 million are estimated to be living in the country unregistered and therefore illegally.
The international community and the Afghan government in Kabul have no strategy prepared to deal with any such influx of people. The anxiety over taking back the refugees seems to belie the claims of progress in Afghanistan that the U.S.-led international coalition makes regularly. “If the international community is so concerned, they should open the doors of their countries to these refugees,” Khan said. “Afghans will be more than happy to be absorbed by the developed countries, like Western Europe, the U.S., Canada, Australia.” Khan said that after Dec. 31, the Pakistani government didn’t plan to renew Afghan refugees’ registration cards, so those currently registered will lose their refugee status. He declined to spell out what would happen to the refugees after that, but if the policy sticks they’d be in the country illegally and liable to be deported.
Some Afghans have prospered in Pakistan – as seen by their near takeover of Hayatabad, an upscale suburb lined with villas outside Peshawar, a northwestern city close to the Afghan border – but the majority of them struggle. And as their numbers have grown, Pakistani officials suspect that the leadership of the Taliban and other Afghan insurgent groups is hiding among the refugees. The western Pakistani city of Quetta is home to the Quetta Shura, the Taliban’s leadership council, and it contains a sprawling Afghan refugee settlement that provides easy cover for militants.
A U.N. voluntary repatriation program is making slow progress. So far this year it’s been able to entice only 41,000 people to return to Afghanistan, a slight increase over the 35,000 who returned in the first half of last year. Since 2002, the U.N. has repatriated 3.7 million Afghans to the country, but the rate stalled in recent years as the war intensified. It’s also likely that many of the returnees have slipped back into Pakistan, given that there are almost as many Afghan refugees in Pakistan today as there were in 2002. Earlier this year, Valerie Amos, the U.N. humanitarian affairs chief, visited a camp in Kabul and said its conditions for returning refugees appalled her. Once they reach Afghanistan, returnees are entitled to a one-time payment of $150 per person from the U.N.
Neill Wright, the Pakistan representative of the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, said the U.N. would still recognize the registered Afghans in Pakistan as refugees after this year under international law “until a durable solution can be found.” “We hope that the government of Pakistan will continue to recognize them as refugees,” Wright said. “Returning them to Afghanistan could destabilize the country further at a time when it is already experiencing instability from the drawdown of international forces.”
Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/07/23/1 ... rylink=cpy
Thu Jul 26, 2012 10:45 am
July 26, 2012 - TTP threaten Myanmar over killings
Islamabad: The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has threatened to attack Myanmar to avenge crimes against the Muslim Rohingya, unless Pakistan halts all relations with the government and shuts its embassy in Islamabad.
In a rare statement focused on the plight of Muslims abroad, the umbrella TTP group sought to present itself as a defender of Muslim men and women in Myanmar, saying “we will take revenge of your blood”.
Spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan demanded that the Pakistani government halt all relations with Myanmar and close down its embassy in Islamabad.
“Otherwise we will not only attack Burmese interests anywhere but will also attack the Pakistani fellows of Burma one by one,” he said in a statement.
The Myanmar embassy in Islamabad was not immediately reachable for comment.
The TTP frequently claims attacks on security forces in Pakistan but its ability to wage violence in countries further afield has been questioned.
But US officials say there is evidence the group was behind a failed 2010 attempt to bomb Times Square in New York, for which Pakistani-American Faisal Shahzad was jailed for life.
TTP leader Hakimullah Mehsud has also been charged in the United States over the killings of seven CIA agents who died when a Jordanian al Qaeda double agent blew himself up at a US base in Afghanistan in December 2009.
Recent clashes in western Myanmar between Buddhist ethnic Rakhine and Muslim Rohingya have left dozens dead and tens of thousands homeless.
Last week, Amnesty International said hundreds of people, mostly men and boys, have been detained in sweeps of areas heavily populated by the Rohingya, with almost all held incommunicado and some ill-treated.
Most arrests appear to have been “arbitrary and discriminatory” and Amnesty said there were “credible reports” of abuses – including rape, destruction of property and unlawful killings – by both Rakhine Buddhists and the security forces.
Decades of discrimination have left the Rohingya stateless, and they are viewed by the United Nations as one of the world’s most persecuted minorities. (AFP)
http://www.saach.tv/2012/07/26/ttp-thre ... -rohingya/
Islamabad: The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has threatened to attack Myanmar to avenge crimes against the Muslim Rohingya, unless Pakistan halts all relations with the government and shuts its embassy in Islamabad.
In a rare statement focused on the plight of Muslims abroad, the umbrella TTP group sought to present itself as a defender of Muslim men and women in Myanmar, saying “we will take revenge of your blood”.
Spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan demanded that the Pakistani government halt all relations with Myanmar and close down its embassy in Islamabad.
“Otherwise we will not only attack Burmese interests anywhere but will also attack the Pakistani fellows of Burma one by one,” he said in a statement.
The Myanmar embassy in Islamabad was not immediately reachable for comment.
The TTP frequently claims attacks on security forces in Pakistan but its ability to wage violence in countries further afield has been questioned.
But US officials say there is evidence the group was behind a failed 2010 attempt to bomb Times Square in New York, for which Pakistani-American Faisal Shahzad was jailed for life.
TTP leader Hakimullah Mehsud has also been charged in the United States over the killings of seven CIA agents who died when a Jordanian al Qaeda double agent blew himself up at a US base in Afghanistan in December 2009.
Recent clashes in western Myanmar between Buddhist ethnic Rakhine and Muslim Rohingya have left dozens dead and tens of thousands homeless.
Last week, Amnesty International said hundreds of people, mostly men and boys, have been detained in sweeps of areas heavily populated by the Rohingya, with almost all held incommunicado and some ill-treated.
Most arrests appear to have been “arbitrary and discriminatory” and Amnesty said there were “credible reports” of abuses – including rape, destruction of property and unlawful killings – by both Rakhine Buddhists and the security forces.
Decades of discrimination have left the Rohingya stateless, and they are viewed by the United Nations as one of the world’s most persecuted minorities. (AFP)
http://www.saach.tv/2012/07/26/ttp-thre ... -rohingya/
Thu Jul 26, 2012 10:50 am
Although I doubt that it will, it would be simply great if this were to happen. One of the west's weapons turning against them would make life so much simpler for the rest of us. But actually I think TTP will not be going to Burma anytime soon. Those of them not in Syria already will all be off to Tajikistan in coming days.
Sat Jul 28, 2012 3:58 am
Just found this post which says that it is true about killings in Burma but the pictures shared on social media of the killings are fake
http://blogs.tribune.com.pk/story/12867 ... cleansing/
http://blogs.tribune.com.pk/story/12867 ... cleansing/
Greed, the root of all curse, root of all evil.
Sat Jul 28, 2012 4:26 am
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... bR4gb0kRU#!
@MG
I don't know why we want to lose the goodwill of all these people. Afghanistan is in no state to take so much people back. It's so much of an upheaval for people who have lived here for decades now! The problem with our rulers is that they won't put in a hard shift at the office and try to find a solution but try to look for an easy route out, not thinking about the long term consequences of their decisions.
@MG
I don't know why we want to lose the goodwill of all these people. Afghanistan is in no state to take so much people back. It's so much of an upheaval for people who have lived here for decades now! The problem with our rulers is that they won't put in a hard shift at the office and try to find a solution but try to look for an easy route out, not thinking about the long term consequences of their decisions.
Full Solidarity With The Muslim Brotherhood
Sat Jul 28, 2012 8:43 pm
@Aftab, Rest assured no Afghan will be expelled anytime soon. The Pakistani military/Government is attempting to use this as a pressure tactic to milk more money from the UN.
Sat Jul 28, 2012 8:59 pm
We at thepakpolitics extend a heartiest welcome to you brother Saif. InshaAllah we will have many a meaningful discussions. You are absolutely right when you say that expulsion of Afghan refugees is a government gimick to milk more USDs. Actually this is not possible now since the refugees are in Pakistan from a very long time. Most have settled here, have families as well as businesses.
Sat Jul 28, 2012 9:30 pm
Saif al-Adel (to whom I also wish to extend a very warm welcome here), Patriot, Thank you so much for your reassuring comments. My trouble is at times that I have so little trust in the present government that I often do not see the wood for the trees. Both of you are no doubt right that this just another ploy on our part to get some money out of the UN. And actually, I have no quarrel with that. We looked after millions of Afghans for years and years and got very little financial help from international ources for what we were doing. But what we did manage to do was accumulate human capital for the time when Afghanistan will regain its freedome. Then we'll really be paid dividends on that older investment of ours.
Sat Jul 28, 2012 9:42 pm
Mirza Sahib. Well said that Afghans are our brothers. We should reverse the damage done by Pakistani participation in American false flag operatons by refusing any further war fought on behalf of US. Americans are desperate to save face and blame Pakistan for all their wrong doings in Afghanistan. Haqqani drama is one such plan that will draw Pakistan into another bloddy war with the Afghans (Muslims vs Muslims).
And look at Suchi! Not a single word from this recent neocon recruit who stands exposed as for now.
And look at Suchi! Not a single word from this recent neocon recruit who stands exposed as for now.
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