STOPPING GENOCIDE
By Habib
Siddiqui
(This is the revised version of an earlier posted article - HS)
I
have repeatedly said that genocide never happens suddenly. It's planned over a
long period of time by perpetrators that require support top-down so that it
becomes a national project to eliminate the targeted group. Such sinister
initiative requires the support from evil intellectuals
(the likes of Julius Streicher
of the Nazi campaign in Germany) and financiers who must propagate with their
intellects and finances to create enthusiasm within the larger executing
community.
[Note:
Interested folks may like to read some of my old articles on this subject like
this one: Julius Streicher and his
relevance in today’s Burma, published
more than 12 years ago (see the link here: https://www.rohingya.org/julius-streicher-and-his-relevance-in-todays-burma/).]
As
far as the Rohingya genocide is concerned, the role of Julius Streicher, the
evil genius part, has long been performed by such guys like Aye Chan (who
teaches in Japan), Aye Kyaw (who died few years ago; taught at New York University
as a US naturalized citizen) and Khin Maung Soe (Saw)
- who lives in Germany. As to the financial side of the equation, there are
plenty of little evil ones to big ones, mostly living outside Myanmar who
contribute for their evil cause of elimination of the targeted group. Aye
Ne Win, the grandson of General Ne Win (who ruled the Buddhist
country almost unchallenged for nearly a quarter century), is widely known to
be one of the key financiers of the Buddhist fascist group known as the Ma Ba
Tha (led by terrorist monk Wirathu) that calls for the
genocide of the Rohingya.
Recently, two of my human
rights comrades (London-based)
Maung Zarni and (Germany-based) Nay San Lwin were targeted by Aye Ne Win. In a video
circulated on social media, Aye Ne Win, one of Myanmar's most well-known entrepreneurs, urged
Myanmar's intelligence service to launch an Israel-style operation to abduct
the two activists. He can be seen as saying: “Concerning Maung Zarni and Nay
San Lwin, it is high time for Myanmar military intelligence services to launch
an Israeli-style kidnap operation that captured Eichmann in South America… These
creatures should not dare to come to our country. They scream foul from abroad
but they need to be tried here [in Myanmar].”
Dr. Zarni told Anadolu Agency: “We are taking this very
seriously as it came from one of the richest and most racist men in Myanmar --
Aye Ne Win." (Ne Win has strong ties with the country's government, military and intelligence
services.) Zarni
stated that they have been targeted because he was “the whistleblower of
Rohingya genocide” and along with Lwin helped the UN Fact-Finding Mission on
the Rohingya genocide. “The [Myanmar’] military-intelligence-run proxy
news organizations have been running extremely vitriolic attacks on us - with
our pictures as 'enemies of the state',” he underlined.
“We are taking these latest developments very seriously…
Both of us are informing our respective government agencies, including local
police,” Zarni added.
"The
specific threats against Maung Zarni and Nay San Lwin are dangerous not just to
the personal security of these men and their families," Katherine
Southwick, international legal expert and visiting scholar at George Mason
University's School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, told Al Jazeera.
"These
threats also create a climate of fear and intimidation against any individual
or non-governmental group that might call for, support, or cooperate with
justice efforts like the ICJ (International Court of Justice ) case,"
she added.
Southwick
said attempts to intimidate the activists could undermine the search for
"accountability and justice that is so clearly needed in Myanmar".
Lwin and Zarni are expected to
attend the upcoming ICJ hearing on Dec. 10-12, 2019 in The Hague. The lawsuit was lodged by Gambia, a West African nation, after garnering
support from the OIC.
It should be noted that nearly a million Rohingya refugees,
mostly women and children, have fled Myanmar and crossed into Bangladesh after
Myanmar forces launched a genocidal crackdown on the minority Muslim community
in August 2017, pushing the number of world’s most persecuted people (i.e., the
Rohingya) in Bangladesh to above 1.2 million.
Since Aug. 25, 2017, nearly 24,000 Rohingya Muslims have
been killed by Myanmar’s state forces, according to a report by the Ontario International
Development Agency (OIDA).
More than 34,000 Rohingya were also thrown into fires, while
over 114,000 others were beaten, said the OIDA report, titled "Forced
Migration of Rohingya: The Untold Experience."
Some 18,000 Rohingya women and girls were raped by Myanmar’s
army and police and over 115,000 Rohingya homes were burned down and 113,000
others vandalized, it added.
Ne Win’s fervent
appeal to the intelligence unit of the murderous and rapist armed forces of
Myanmar to muzzle the voices of those who are brave enough to point out its
crimes of genocide against the most persecuted Rohingya is simply alarming. Because,
it says loud and clear that the promoters and executers of the Rohingya
genocidal program, let alone the on-going suffering and persecution of the
surviving Rohingya, are not satisfied with the outcome of their ‘final
solution’ to eliminate them entirely. Now they want to target the exiled human
rights activists living outside the ‘den of Buddhist intolerance’, called
Myanmar.
This threat to the
lives of human rights activists must be taken very seriously by the
international community, esp. the ICJ.
What is needed to bring
to an end such genocidal crimes is, however, a simple and a prudent one: arrest
such criminals who stoke genocidal violence, prosecute them and punish them for
their evil roles that have resulted in the suffering of so many. And this task
should be an easy one to apprehend evil geniuses like Aye
Chan (author
of the hate
literature - ‘Influx
Viruses: the illegal Muslims in Arakan” –
depicting the Rohingyas as legitimate targets for elimination, and many other
anti-Rohingya vitriolic
propaganda) and Khin
Maung Saw (Soe)
and financiers like Aye Ne Win (UK educated), who mostly live outside Myanmar.
Yet, the
international community and the hosting countries have repeatedly failed in
such tasks letting these criminals to sow violence in their native lands while
they live untouched and unscathed in places like Japan and Germany and
elsewhere. Why this deafening silence, why this criminal inaction from the countries
that are supposed to be role models for protecting human rights? I am simply
dumbfounded!
(This is the revised version of an earlier posted article - HS)
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