A report by Al Jazeera (Al Jazeera Investigates – Genocide Agenda) shows the Yale University Law School’s Lowenstein Clinic in conjunction with Fortify Rights finding “strong evidence” of genocide currently being committed against the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar.
It’s clear that preventive measures have failed, chiefly through the international community’s lack of awareness and concern. Nightslantern.ca called its initial genocide warnings for the Rohinghya in Myanmar, August 27, 2012 and October 29th, 2012 and November 2, 2012.
It’s possible that the historical persecution of Rohingya was advanced due to flooding in the south of Myanmar, threatening the nation ‘s food supply, possibly limiting the numbers of people the nation would be able to sustain. One is reminded of the effects of the U.S. B-52 bombing raids on Cambodia which intentionally destroyed Cambodia’s food resources, as the major contributory fact in the Cambodian genocide which followed – a kind of triage of Cambodia’s people allowing a majority to escape famine.
There is some parallel to a similar mechanism in the Ukraine’s Holodomur of 1932-33. This is a largely undiscussed aspect of the cause of genocides where genocide may be the result for minority groups when a country’s food supplies are endangered/destroyed.
The NATO press is reluctant to consider any causative link between the destruction of food resources and intentional destruction of a national group or its parts: this concept questions the legality of capitalism. In 2013 Nightslantern.ca posted several further genocide warnings since an organized, state-directed, killing was in motion without adequate international or domestic resistance. See 1 and 2.
In May 2013 Human Rights Watch issued a report on crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing of Rohingya; Physicians for Human Rights issued a similar report in August 2013; the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum noted the deteriorating situation and all these are currently mentioned on the Holocaust Museum’s web pages along with its own recent “eyewitness report”,They Want Us All to Go Away: Early Warning Signs of Genocide in Burma, of May 1, 2015. It is no longer early. The online report doesn’t carry a date, doesn’t credit its sources, and comes as a surprise, three years late amidst continuing U.S. support for the Thein Sein military government which is presiding over the crime. A U.S. refusal to note anything wrong with the start of the genocide in 2012 has powerful allies.
Finding herself unable to say anything to counter the program of criminal acts by her Buddhist supporters, the nobelist politician and presidential hopeful Aung San Suu Kyi received a Congressional gold medal in the U.S., September 2012, and an Amnesty International backed speaking tour. In this way the normal confrontation of a genocide is muted, back-burnered, and placed instead at the service of corporate and military tactical interests.
A new election due November 8th has been prepared by the disenfranchisement of possibly a 100,000 Rohingya voters. This affects Muslims primarily but also other minority groups such as the ethnic Kachins oppressed by current rule. In August 2015 Myanmar was devastated by flooding with 1.7 million people affected and 400,000 requiring UN food assistance. 89% of the rice crop was destroyed, half a million hectares of rice paddies were flooded. 250,000 livestock died. The military government facilitated international aid efforts. A genocide warning for Rohingya Muslims, extending as well to other minority groups in Myanmar, continues. In an election among parties where the genocide of Rohingya is not mentioned at all, the sanity or moral base of all the leaders is in question. In Myanmar the spirit of reason and freedom is kept alive by punk singers (some former prisoners) speaking out in performance to call the militarily primed Buddhist nationalist monks – “Buddhist Nazi skinheads.” For those who have any doubt that genocide is underway in Myanmar I recommend “Countdown to Annihilation: Genocide in Myanmar.”Penny Green, Thomas MacManus, Alicia de la Cour Venning, International State Crime Initiative.
Notes:
Partial sources online: Al Jazeera Investigates: Genocide Agenda Oct. 26, 2015, Al Jazeera/ YouTube [access: < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrQRYrpp2cI&feature=youtu.be >] “Is Genocide Underway in Myanmar?” Shawn W. Crispin, Oct. 30, 2015, The Diplomat; “Exclusive: ‘Strong evidence’ of genocide in Myanmar: Al Jazeera investigation reveals government triggered deadly communal violence for political gain,” Al Jazeera Investigative Unit, Oct. 28, 2015, Al; Jazeera; “Aung San Suu Kyi rally draws thousands in Myanmar: Nobel Laureate promises change ahead of landmark election marred by claims minorities have been left out of the vote,” Nov. 1, 2015, Al Jazeera; “UN food relief now reaching more than 400,000 flood victims in Myanmar,” Aug. 26, 2015, United Nations News Centre; “Myanmar needs urgent help with livestock and rice losses after floods – U.N.,” Thomson Reuters Foundation, Oct. 20, 2015. Thomson Reuters Foundation; “Myanmar’s punk rockers challenge anti-Muslim rhetoric Ahead of crucial election, musicians rail against government-sanctioned repression of persecuted Rohingya minority,” Hanna Hindstrom, Nov. 3, 2015, Al Jazeera.
