Torture and Murder Ignored: Burma Falls Toward Ghastly Depravity
Extremely Graphic Photos
Just Like '09 Sri Lanka Genocide; U.S. stays slient as ethnic cleansing spikes.
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Muslim Kaman lady after being viciously attacked by Rakhines in front of her own family home in Myanmar's Arrakan state. More on this woman's story and fate below.
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(SACRAMENTO, CA) - Revelations conveyed by new photos accompanying this article and information about the government of Myanmar's ongoing torture programs being forwarded to the U.S. State Dept., could be real game changers for this poser democracy formerly known as Burma.
It's an apartheid state where death is handed out like hotcakes to those who aren't the right 'religion' (Buddhist).
These are some of the most strident developments we have reported in this burning struggle that started last July with the rape and murder of a Rakhine Buddhist woman.
I said it recently and believe it with all of my heart; the new 'mode' of ignoring screaming human rights violations (like the baby on the left who has been sliced and/or hacked to death), and ethnic cleansing, is to make sure the victims are so disfigured that the news can't air their images.
In fact in the latest batch I received today, photos of a boy or young man has been shot right above his penis and the bullet left a gaping hold in the boy's abdomen.
It is terrible to see such types of injuries.
And with regard to intervening politicians, the game plan is to give the politicians who look the other way as humans suffer, prestigious awards for things they did not do.
Background on Religious Violence
Remote Rakhine, along the Bangladesh border, is an area known for sectarian violence between the Buddhist residents and the Muslim minority. In February 2001, the then-ruling junta declared a curfew in Sittwe after violent clashes between the Muslims and the Buddhists broke out.
Buddhist monks widely distributed inflammatory anti-Muslim pamphlets inciting hatred, fueled by the destruction of Buddhist images in Bamiyan, Afghanistan, in March 2001, and the Sept. 11 attacks in New York and Washington, DC. About 200 Muslims were killed and 11 mosques and 400 buses were destroyed in a riot that broke out in Taungoo, Pegu division, May 15, 2001.
The Buddhists comprise 89 percent of Myanmar's population while the Muslims represent four percent. The Muslim minority consists of the Rohingya people and the descendents of Muslim immigrants from neighboring India, Bangladesh, China and early Arab and Persian settlers.
According to an Amnesty International report, the Rohingya have been subjected to various human rights violations under the junta rule since 1978.
"The Rohingyas' freedom of movement is severely restricted and the vast majority of them have effectively been denied Burma citizenship," Amnesty said in a report in 2004. "They are also subjected to various forms of extortion and arbitrary taxation; land confiscation; forced eviction and house destruction; and financial restrictions on marriage. Rohingyas continue to be used as forced laborers on roads and at military camps, although the amount of forced labor in northern Rakhine State has decreased over the last decade." [1]
TVARAJ brought another theory into the mix which leads to the possibility that the young woman's rape and murder were a set up from the word 'go':
We are faced with conflicting reports from all quarters.
According to “Voice of America,” the violence broke out in late May after three Muslim men were accused of raping and murdering a young Buddhist woman and 10 Muslims were killed in an apparent revenge attack.
However, according to Pakistan’s “The News,” Intikhab Alam Suri, President, Human Rights Network says that on May 28, a Buddhist girl embraced Islam and married a Muslim man. This infuriated the Buddhist community. They resorted to vengeance. They stopped a bus carrying Muslim pilgrims and killed some of them[2].
Rohingya man sliced with sword and severely tortured... to death,
by Rakhine Buddhists. His crime? Being Muslim
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This dual-phase process serves all who benefit and profit from government terrorism of this type; the corporations make money and the religions fundamentalist freaks get their way; it all could end if the media did not refuse to report the carnage. Salem-News.com can report it, but they can't?
This way everyone believes these leaders are on their game, when they are not, and in fact people are dying over their silence. This point can not be over-emphasized.
I am writing articles about this and carrying those of others every single day right now on Salem-News.com and only myself and a handful of others will even allow their names to be associated with their advocacy for the Rohingyas for fear of reprisal.
The place has been run by a military junta for decades while opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been kept under house arrest. Now she is finally sharing power but she is refusing to stick her neck out for the Rohingya Muslims and it is allowing them to be torn apart as ethnic cleansing remains rampant right now.
All I can say is that I can't stand the suffering and something has to give; my pleas are far from histrionics.
Severely tortured boy from Rohingya Fara
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It is all very maddening, nothing in the world matters if this is taking place, and it is taking place not just in Burma. However in Burma / Myanmar it is taking place openly and the killers are allowed to operate randomly and without fear of reprisal and they move systematically from village to villages leaving smoking ashes in their wake.
These elected and appointed leaders have chosen to allow a group of people to suffer and it is in my opinion, simply because they are Muslim.
It is possible only because Americans have never been given the real story about different Buddhist groups that are extremely violent and religiously territorial.
Again, just like Sri Lanka.
As one of the only American reporters who has written at great length about the 2009 period of Genocide against Sri Lankan Tamils, which left more than 160,000 people unaccounted for, I am quite shocked that it is happening again in Burma and nobody is saying anything[3].
Severely tortured Rohingya boy from Rohingya Fara.
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In Sri Lanka the victims were Hindus and Christians; in Burma they are Muslims and Christians; nobody in power in the United States cares, starting with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Today is not unlike most others, my contacts are sending horrific images to our newsroom of the slaughter of Rohingya Muslims. But the photos and video and the accounts are indeed getting more grotesque by the day right now I must say.
What is taking place in Myanmar is a bitter problem rooted in religious rivalry and the government, in spite of glowing reviews from American officials and media reports, is a humanitarian wasteland.
It is hard to consider that at one particular jail in Sittwe, prisoners who are Rohingya are dying from torture frequently; at least two cases we have disclosed this week alone involved men being tortured to death.
While this government sponsored mayhem continues, the bodies of the dead are according to reports, being disposed of by government officials in unmarked graves.
As Nurul Islam revealed in an article this week:
According to available reports from reliable sources, the jail authority kept the Rohingyas in a room bulit to hold 100 prisoners and the Rohingyas are living there 'squeezingly'.
Sittwe's Buthidaung jail
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The sources said, "unable to depict the story of police persecutions in jail and almost every day innocent Rohingyas are dying in jail. But the jail authority is not giving the dead bodies to their families and (they are) being buried in a secret place, near the jail where no one dare to go and see. The police did not show the list of arrestees and even dead list. The Rohingyas in jail are facing food and medicine crisis.
Every day morning the police reportedly take a group of Rohingyas to a dark room and torture them mercilessly for the whole day and in the evening bring them back to the jail room. Almost every day, Rohingyas are dying in jail. The jail authority is not allowing family members to supply food, medicine and cloths in jail. Most are dying due to lack of treatment and medicines.
Now, police additionally prepared another arrest warrant list of 850 more Rohingyas and raiding villages with the list of arrest warrant and using it as a contrivance of money extorting from innocent Rohingyas[4].
Severely wounded Kaman Muslim lady is helped by medical workers initially; later we see that the woman died from the brutal injuries she
received at the hands of Rakhines in front of her home, her child, clearly in total shock, is nearby
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Rohingya man shot in face but alive
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They are being killed and brutalized by the Rakhine Buddhists who, like the Sri Lankan Sinhalese Buddhists, are frequently violent and known for their mob-like mentalities and for raging on civilian populations.
Their primary weapons are machetes and fire.
However as this image shows, they use any manner of weapons including guns of course. The worst part is that so much of the carnage takes place when the attackers are in frenzied states and fail to show restraint.
This unfortunate man is alive after being shot in the side of his face, we do not have an update on his condition. One can only imagine how difficult his recovery will be if he is in fact allowed to have one.
He is one of so many victims whose sagas are unfolding without TV cameras and free press to document the truth. This is the weapon of the war criminal and their complicit deals keep those images; all but a few smuggled to our news agency, out of sight and thus, out of mind.
Without question, medical help for this man and the others who survive their encounters with the Rakhine terrorists will be in short order.
Hope for the Living?
I know only a small handful of people who have had to spend time in a refugee camp or worse... wartime detention facility. We all know experiences like this leave huge emotional scars beyond the physical ones.
My neighbor had this experience leaving Vietnam in the mid-70's and he was forever traumatized by it as a young man. He was one of so many so-called 'boat people' who fled the communist takeover of South Viet Nam in total fear and panic. Many did not make it, and large numbers were the victims of pirates who raped girls and women and murdered and stole anything or anyone they pleased.
Although people do survive these unimaginable horrors, we are not designed to live with such intense fear and abnormally heightened senses of alarm.
Living in constant fear of rape and death and bribery; these are the conditions being imposed upon the Rohingya Muslims in an apartheid nation.
One thing is obvious; even if he had the desire to turn back the mobs, he probably could not do it; Thein Sein, President of Myanmar, heads a nation of religious zealots who somehow justify ethnic cleansing.
So as for the living, there appears to be little hope, though it is addressed below in more gut wrenching detail.
Rohinga man from Narzi village shot dead by police
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This video clip above was sent to our newsroom a few hours ago, shows an outdoor detention center and was recorded without the knowledge of the people in the camp that is set up in Myanmar for Rohingya Muslims.
There is much mystery associated with these places because for all intents and purposes, they are entirely shut off from the world.
This clip shows the conditions up close in all of their misery.
These are the deplorable conditions that the United States signs off on as being 'OK' and it soils the reputation of the American spirit every single time it sides with a government that allows this blatant mistreatment of its own citizens.
So let's just cut to the chase... the facilities are nothing less than concentration camps; short of food and medical supplies and treatment capabilities.
People are being treated like animals and the western leaders were fools to expect anything less than this after the horrific political history of this country.
The world needs to intervene by moving past Hillary Clinton, and forcing Burma to comply and stop playing games and handing out awards and removing sanctions.
One of my contacts wrote this today from Sittwe, where people are fearing for their very lives:
We appreciate your contribution and pray for you. May God reward you in both Worlds. We are in dire condition, most of our people are starving, Rakhine and Government block international aids, from Yangon Muslims organizations are helping us but it is not enough, especially we need international investigation commission, some of the Government's commission members came here, we explained them in detail but they can't do for us anything. Every day Rakhine monks, students, and commoners threaten to kill us. Recently they published an announcement in which they warned all the Buddhists to unite for the next attack, they blamed Al Qaeda and say Islamic terrorists help us, yet no one can come here without government permission, they opposed OIC and all INGOs, fortunately, we believe in Allah, otherwise most of us will suicide.
Please pray for us
We need your help
Earlier this week I was contacted by a doctor with Physicians for Human Rights, in regard to an article I wrote about a man who was "tortured to death" in a Burmese jail.
While it seemed clear to this non-expert that the man was tortured, this doctor has now confirmed these findings based upon visual evidence (I sent her the full size photos of the man's tortured body, eight in all)
...features multiple photos of a Rohingya man's body. I see winged scapulae, bilateral posterior shoulder swelling, right axilla ecchymoses cw muscle tear, probable right shoulder anterior dislocation and left wrist ligature pattern all highly consistent with "Palestinian-style" suspension torture. There are more findings. Tim and I are waiting for a response from his contact to our request for more information about this gentleman.
The contact led to another doctor who specializes in this work to write that they would, "...forward some of this information to key State Department officials who are in Burma now for the human rights roundtable."
So this seems like a good time to reveal these new torture images just received today; they are ghastly and terrible reminders of the unchecked violence taking place while the U.S. government remains motivated only toward 'normalizing' relations with a former pariah state that has not stopped being exactly that.
Murugapillai Navratnaswami
In the town that cradled Sri Lankan Tamil militancy and was the birthplace of its most ferocious exponent Velupillai Prabakaran, a legend of a different kind is now getting belated attention.
