Bruce E. Levine, a practicing clinical psychologist, writes and speaks about how society, culture, politics and psychology intersect. He is the author of Get Up, Stand Up: Uniting Populists, Energizing the Defeated, and Battling the Corporate Elite (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2011).
His latest article on American presidents can be viewed by clicking here.
Tuesday, July 4, 2017
Crimes against humanity in Myanmar
Here is an article on Myanmar's crimes by Dr. Ali Al-Ghamdi who is a former Saudi diplomat who specializes in Southeast Asian affairs.
Mob in western Myanmar kills Rohingya despite police guards
The disturbing news below is reported by the Washington Post.
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Mob in western Myanmar kills Rohingya despite police guards
July 4 at 12:15 PM
YANGON, Myanmar — A mob in Myanmar’s western Rakhine State killed a member of the Muslim Rohingya ethnic minority and injured six others who were on a police-guarded trip Tuesday from the displacement camp where they live to the city that many Rohingya were forced to flee five years ago.
The seven were given a ride by police to the dock area of Sittwe, the Rakhine capital, to purchase some boats. The Rohingya are normally confined to the camp, and police provide rides in a closed truck to both restrict and protect them.
A police officer and one of the men said the group was attacked by about 100 members of the Buddhist Rakhine ethnic group, whose violent assaults in 2012 drove most Rohingya residents from their Sittwe homes.
Communal tensions have not eased much since the 2012 violence, which killed hundreds and drove about 140,000 people — predominantly Rohingya — to camps for the internally displaced, where most remain. The Rohingya face severe discrimination in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, where they are widely regarded as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh stealing Myanmar land, although many have been settled in the country for generations.
Violence in recent years has been more widespread in northern Rakhine, where there is a bigger Rohingya population but spread across unguarded villages. Last October, the army launched counterinsurgency operations there after the killing of nine border guards. U.N. human rights investigators and independent rights organizations charge that soldiers and police killed and raped civilians and burned down more than 1,000 homes during the operations.
The camps near Sittwe are generally safer from attack but with unhealthy conditions and little chance to make a living. The Dar Paing camp from which Tuesday’s victims came houses about 8,000 people. A small group of Rohingya remain in Sittwe in a closed-off ghetto.
“As one of the Kalars got off from the truck and was talking to another guy, some of the Rakhine Buddhists started shouting ‘the Kalars are entering the city’ and attracted the mob,” police officer Phyo Wai Kyaw told The Associated Press. “Kalar” is a widely used derogatory term referring to Rohingya.
“The Rakhine started beating the Muslims up. One of the Kalars died on the spot and six were taken right away to the hospital. The two police guarding the Muslim guys couldn’t do anything as it was a big mob. The mob even followed the injured guys to the Sittwe hospital. The hospital gate needed to be shut because of the big mob.”
Abdu Alam, 65, one of the injured men, was hit in the head by a brick. His account of the attack was similar to the police officer’s.
He said that when one of the seven people in the police truck got out to talk with the boat seller, some Rakhine men saw him and started shouting, drawing others to attack them.
“They started stoning us. Some guys grabbed wooded sticks to beat us. Things happened so fast that we were stuck in the vehicle and the mob started attacking us,” said Abdu Alam, who was able to return to his camp later from the hospital.
“The policemen tried to stop them but there were too many of them and it was impossible to stop them. Finally we all got injured and taken to the hospital by the police.”
The seven were given a ride by police to the dock area of Sittwe, the Rakhine capital, to purchase some boats. The Rohingya are normally confined to the camp, and police provide rides in a closed truck to both restrict and protect them.
A police officer and one of the men said the group was attacked by about 100 members of the Buddhist Rakhine ethnic group, whose violent assaults in 2012 drove most Rohingya residents from their Sittwe homes.
Communal tensions have not eased much since the 2012 violence, which killed hundreds and drove about 140,000 people — predominantly Rohingya — to camps for the internally displaced, where most remain. The Rohingya face severe discrimination in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, where they are widely regarded as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh stealing Myanmar land, although many have been settled in the country for generations.
Violence in recent years has been more widespread in northern Rakhine, where there is a bigger Rohingya population but spread across unguarded villages. Last October, the army launched counterinsurgency operations there after the killing of nine border guards. U.N. human rights investigators and independent rights organizations charge that soldiers and police killed and raped civilians and burned down more than 1,000 homes during the operations.
“As one of the Kalars got off from the truck and was talking to another guy, some of the Rakhine Buddhists started shouting ‘the Kalars are entering the city’ and attracted the mob,” police officer Phyo Wai Kyaw told The Associated Press. “Kalar” is a widely used derogatory term referring to Rohingya.
Abdu Alam, 65, one of the injured men, was hit in the head by a brick. His account of the attack was similar to the police officer’s.
He said that when one of the seven people in the police truck got out to talk with the boat seller, some Rakhine men saw him and started shouting, drawing others to attack them.
“They started stoning us. Some guys grabbed wooded sticks to beat us. Things happened so fast that we were stuck in the vehicle and the mob started attacking us,” said Abdu Alam, who was able to return to his camp later from the hospital.
“The policemen tried to stop them but there were too many of them and it was impossible to stop them. Finally we all got injured and taken to the hospital by the police.”
THOU SHALL NOT FEED THE MUSLIMS
Myanmar government has long been accused of genocidal practices against the Muslims living there. The government of Suu Kyi, of course, has denied such charges. But the facts can't be hidden, as is quite evident from the government memo, which Dr. Maung Zarni posted in his twitter account. Click here to view the government memo.
During the fasting month of Ramadan much donation including food supplies were sent by Muslim governments and international NGOs. But even such food donations were denied to Muslims.
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- THOU SHALL NOT FEED THE MUSLIMS - without approval from NLD-Gov (and police).All food supplies to Muslims in Meikhtila and Ramadan month food donations must be distributed - ONLY UNDER THE MONITORING MECHANISMS AND WITH THE PRIOR KNOWLEDGE of local authoritiesMandalay Division - run by the ex-political prisoner Dr Zaw Myint Maung - issued an order which was in turn passed on by Meikhtila Township Administration.Here is the local relay directive released by Meikhtila Township Office, dated 24 June 2017. quoting 22 June-directive issued by the Mandalay Division Chief Minister's Office, issued to all townships.(Meikhtila is the infamous site of Muslim Massacres in March 2013 - during which estimated 500 Muslims of all ages and sexes were killed in broad day light, under the eyes of Myanmar police, and other security units. The estimation was done by local activists who witnessed the pre-mediated slaughter and took stock of the deaths).ZARNI's REMARK: Dr Zaw Myint Maung is a highly respected former political prisoner who spent close to 20 years in prison under previous military governments, An MP elect from 1990 election. He was reelected in 2015 elections which propelled NLD into a gov with Suu Kyi as the de facto head of state. He is from a very well-educated liberal family in our city of Mandalay. Parents were professors at the medical school there. He is married to the oldest daughter of my grade school friend, a cardiologist who settled in London. The good people are compelled to adopt or conform with irrational, racist policies of Burma which have become the building blocks of social control - a divide and rule.
New allegations of Myanmar security forces raping Rohingya women
Myanmar security forces raped as many as 13 women during “clearance” operations following an explosion in May that was reportedly detonated by ethnic Rohingya insurgents, according to rights groups and witnesses.
Activists and witnesses tell IRIN that the assaults took place in Buthidaung Township in Rakhine, a western state where security forces are accused of abuses against minority ethnic Rohingya Muslims. The UN estimates that about 75,000 Rohingya fled to neighbouring Bangladesh after the military launched counterinsurgency operations following deadly attacks on border police posts last October by a new group calling itself the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army.
The state-run Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper reported that the bodies of five men were discovered after they were apparently killed on 5 May while trying to build improvised explosive devices. The bodies were found, along with bomb-making material, when “security forces conducted an area clearance”.
During those clearance operations, soldiers allegedly raped between five and 13 women on 9 and 10 May, according to Chris Lewa of the Arakan Project, an advocacy group with an extensive network of contacts in Rakhine State, where most of Myanmar’s approximately one million Rohingya live.
“Our sources say this occurred in north Buthidaung Township following an explosion, which was attributed to the insurgency,” she said. “It seems this was retaliatory.”
Andrew Dusek, a spokesman for the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, said the UN has received reports of this and several other “concerning allegations of such incidents” in Rakhine during the past few months.
“They have been brought to the attention of the government,” he said.
Activists and witnesses tell IRIN that the assaults took place in Buthidaung Township in Rakhine, a western state where security forces are accused of abuses against minority ethnic Rohingya Muslims. The UN estimates that about 75,000 Rohingya fled to neighbouring Bangladesh after the military launched counterinsurgency operations following deadly attacks on border police posts last October by a new group calling itself the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army.
The state-run Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper reported that the bodies of five men were discovered after they were apparently killed on 5 May while trying to build improvised explosive devices. The bodies were found, along with bomb-making material, when “security forces conducted an area clearance”.
During those clearance operations, soldiers allegedly raped between five and 13 women on 9 and 10 May, according to Chris Lewa of the Arakan Project, an advocacy group with an extensive network of contacts in Rakhine State, where most of Myanmar’s approximately one million Rohingya live.
“Our sources say this occurred in north Buthidaung Township following an explosion, which was attributed to the insurgency,” she said. “It seems this was retaliatory.”
Andrew Dusek, a spokesman for the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, said the UN has received reports of this and several other “concerning allegations of such incidents” in Rakhine during the past few months.
“They have been brought to the attention of the government,” he said.
The government has in the past flatly denied that soldiers killed and abused Rohingya civilians, and it says it will not allow a UN fact-finding mission into the area to investigate. But Myanmar is facing increasing international pressure, and officials say that they are instead depending on the government’s own commission to assess the claims.
“We are not rejecting the allegations,” said Zaw Htay, a government spokesman. “But we need to collect data and information for the investigation commission, which is headed by Vice President U Myint Swe, which is doing the job of investigating human rights allegations and other media reports.”
One witness said she was “too shy to say” exactly what happened to a woman she saw severely sexually assaulted, but she provided more detail on attacks by security forces on two others.
“A woman’s blouse was removed and her chest was grabbed. They kicked her and injured her,” said the witness, adding that another woman “was stabbed with a knife and bled.”
A separate witness said her daughter was ripped from her arms by security forces.
“The police pulled at us and my daughter was taken away,” said the woman. “When I tried to prevent this, I was beaten.”
The witness said she watched another woman being severely assaulted after pleading with security officers to release her daughter-in-law.
“They beat her on the head with a gun and stabbed at her with a knife,” she said in the video testimony. “They cut and removed her clothes.”
SEE: Myanmar says Rohingya rape and abuse allegations “made up”, despite mounting evidence
Aung San Suu Kyi, who was awarded a Nobel Prize for her pro-democracy struggle against Myanmar’s military, condemned the practice in a 2011 video address to a Nobel Women’s Initiative conference just months after her release from house arrest
“Especially in the areas of the ethnic nationalities, rape is rife,” she said. “It is used as a weapon by armed forces to intimidate the ethnic nationalities and to divide our country.” [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOHEosj-M5U]
After 49 years in power, the military initiated sweeping political reforms in 2011, and Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party swept national elections in November 2015. Although the military-drafted constitution bars her from the presidency, she today serves as state counsellor, Myanmar’s de facto civilian leader.
In her new role, Aung San Suu Kyi has not only refused to speak out against sexual violence committed by security forces against Rohingya; her office has repeatedly issued statements denying such attacks. Her government says its commission has found no evidence of widespread violence, ethnic cleansing, or rape against Rohingya civilians.
The UN’s rights envoy to Myanmar, Yanghee Lee, told IRIN In February that the commission was incapable of carrying out a “credible” investigation. She spoke a week after the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights issued a report based on testimonies from 204 Rohingya in Bangladesh who said they fled as soldiers committed atrocities including killings and gang rapes, which likely constituted crimes against humanity.
In the wake of that report, and others by rights groups, and media, the UN Human Rights Council announced in March that it would dispatch a fact-finding mission. Myanmar’s Foreign Affairs Ministry immediately rejected the mission and said in a statement that it “would do more to inflame, rather than resolve the issues”.
But these new reports, provided exclusviely to IRIN, of the rape of as many as 13 more women this past May indicate that abuses of Rohingya civilians continue, despite the government’s claim in that statement that it is “fully committed to the promotion and protection of human rights”.
Testimonies of abuse
IRIN has obtained video testimonies from people who say they witnessed the assaults. Their names are being withheld for their protection.One witness said she was “too shy to say” exactly what happened to a woman she saw severely sexually assaulted, but she provided more detail on attacks by security forces on two others.
“A woman’s blouse was removed and her chest was grabbed. They kicked her and injured her,” said the witness, adding that another woman “was stabbed with a knife and bled.”
A separate witness said her daughter was ripped from her arms by security forces.
“The police pulled at us and my daughter was taken away,” said the woman. “When I tried to prevent this, I was beaten.”
The witness said she watched another woman being severely assaulted after pleading with security officers to release her daughter-in-law.
“They beat her on the head with a gun and stabbed at her with a knife,” she said in the video testimony. “They cut and removed her clothes.”
SEE: Myanmar says Rohingya rape and abuse allegations “made up”, despite mounting evidence
Mixed messages
Such allegations are impossible to verify, because the military refuses to allow journalists free access to much of Rakhine State. But the assaults would fit a pattern, documented over decades by rights groups, of sexual abuse perpetrated by the military in areas where it is fighting ethnic insurgents.Aung San Suu Kyi, who was awarded a Nobel Prize for her pro-democracy struggle against Myanmar’s military, condemned the practice in a 2011 video address to a Nobel Women’s Initiative conference just months after her release from house arrest
“Especially in the areas of the ethnic nationalities, rape is rife,” she said. “It is used as a weapon by armed forces to intimidate the ethnic nationalities and to divide our country.” [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOHEosj-M5U]
After 49 years in power, the military initiated sweeping political reforms in 2011, and Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party swept national elections in November 2015. Although the military-drafted constitution bars her from the presidency, she today serves as state counsellor, Myanmar’s de facto civilian leader.
In her new role, Aung San Suu Kyi has not only refused to speak out against sexual violence committed by security forces against Rohingya; her office has repeatedly issued statements denying such attacks. Her government says its commission has found no evidence of widespread violence, ethnic cleansing, or rape against Rohingya civilians.
The UN’s rights envoy to Myanmar, Yanghee Lee, told IRIN In February that the commission was incapable of carrying out a “credible” investigation. She spoke a week after the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights issued a report based on testimonies from 204 Rohingya in Bangladesh who said they fled as soldiers committed atrocities including killings and gang rapes, which likely constituted crimes against humanity.
In the wake of that report, and others by rights groups, and media, the UN Human Rights Council announced in March that it would dispatch a fact-finding mission. Myanmar’s Foreign Affairs Ministry immediately rejected the mission and said in a statement that it “would do more to inflame, rather than resolve the issues”.
But these new reports, provided exclusviely to IRIN, of the rape of as many as 13 more women this past May indicate that abuses of Rohingya civilians continue, despite the government’s claim in that statement that it is “fully committed to the promotion and protection of human rights”.
Monday, July 3, 2017
How Israeli/Saudi ‘Alliance’ Plays Trump
Alastair Crooke is a former British diplomat who was a senior figure in British intelligence and in European Union diplomacy. He is the founder and director of the Conflicts Forum.
Here is the link to a very interesting piece by him on Israeli-Saudi connection and how it is playing Trump.
France hit by terrorism: attack near a mosque
France: 8 injured in shooting near Avignon mosque, police rule out terrorism
Eight people including a girl were lightly wounded late Sunday in a shooting in front of a mosque in the southeast French city of Avignon, the prosecutor’s office said, ruling out terrorism.
According to initial accounts taken on the spot, at least two men got out of a car around 10:30 pm near the mosque and opened fire, including with a shotgun, the prosecutor’s office said.
None of the wounded had life-threatening injuries, it said.
“From what we know this evening, the mosque was not targeted. The fact that it happened in the street of the religious establishment was unconnected with it,” the prosecutor said, ruling out terrorism.
Witness accounts mentioned four men in the car, all hooded.
The criminal investigation department has taken charge of the case.
The shooting comes a few days after a man on Thursday attempted to drive his car into worshippers outside the Creteil mosque in southeast Paris.
The driver, a 43-year-old Armenian who suffered from schizophrenia, hit barriers and pillars outside the mosque with his 4x4 without causing any injuries before crashing into a traffic island.
According to a source close to the investigation, the suspect had made “confused remarks in relation” to a string of jihadist attacks that have struck France, killing 239 people since 2015.
Following a van attack against worshippers leaving Finsbury Park Mosque in London on June 19 which left one dead and 11 injured, France’s Muslim community has also felt threatened.
Some Muslim officials have described the Paris incident as an attack and called on the authorities to “strengthen protection of places of worship”.
Again here again is a clear case of double standards. If this crime was committed by a Muslim against a Christian church, it would surely would have been colored as a terrorist act, but surely not so when victims of such acts are Muslims!
Eight people including a girl were lightly wounded late Sunday in a shooting in front of a mosque in the southeast French city of Avignon, the prosecutor’s office said, ruling out terrorism.
According to initial accounts taken on the spot, at least two men got out of a car around 10:30 pm near the mosque and opened fire, including with a shotgun, the prosecutor’s office said.
None of the wounded had life-threatening injuries, it said.
“From what we know this evening, the mosque was not targeted. The fact that it happened in the street of the religious establishment was unconnected with it,” the prosecutor said, ruling out terrorism.
Witness accounts mentioned four men in the car, all hooded.
The criminal investigation department has taken charge of the case.
The shooting comes a few days after a man on Thursday attempted to drive his car into worshippers outside the Creteil mosque in southeast Paris.
The driver, a 43-year-old Armenian who suffered from schizophrenia, hit barriers and pillars outside the mosque with his 4x4 without causing any injuries before crashing into a traffic island.
According to a source close to the investigation, the suspect had made “confused remarks in relation” to a string of jihadist attacks that have struck France, killing 239 people since 2015.
Following a van attack against worshippers leaving Finsbury Park Mosque in London on June 19 which left one dead and 11 injured, France’s Muslim community has also felt threatened.
Some Muslim officials have described the Paris incident as an attack and called on the authorities to “strengthen protection of places of worship”.
Again here again is a clear case of double standards. If this crime was committed by a Muslim against a Christian church, it would surely would have been colored as a terrorist act, but surely not so when victims of such acts are Muslims!
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