Aung San Suu Kyi is turning a blind eye to human rights in the name of politics

The Burmese politician’s visit to Australia will spark praise from politicians – an unhelpful distraction from the extremely serious abuses taking place against Muslims in her homeland

By Emanuel Stoakes, theguardian.com

Burmese politician and international celebrity Aung San Suu Kyi flew into Sydney yesterday to begin a brief tour of Australia, during which time she will meet the prime minister and other members of the government.

If her recent visits to Europe are anything to go by, the Nobel laureate’s arrival will be a triumphal affair involving inevitable cheering crowds, mutual congratulation and much rhetoric about shared values on display. Politicians will no doubt wish to associate themselves with her image and bask in her fading effulgence, while ordinary Australians will very probably receive the heroine of Burma’s democracy movement with open arms.

Yet for all the deserved plaudits she will receive from her hosts, the sheer spectacle of her visit may amount to an unhelpful distraction from extremely serious abuses taking place in her homeland; indeed it may even seem unwarranted, given that the smiling icon has betrayed some of her country’s most vulnerable people.

The Rohingya of west Burma are the most needy, despised and endangered ethnic group in the country. The Muslim minority is stateless (unwanted by both Burma and Bangladesh), impoverished and has been subjected to at least three brutal pogroms over the past 40 years, two of them directly at the hands of Burmese government forces. The latest bout of extreme anti-Rohingya persecution in the country’s restive Rakhine state, where the group is remains subjected to ethnic cleansing, endures to this day.

When asked about the plight of Muslims during her recent visit to the UK, Suu Kyi told BBC journalist Mishal Husain that there was “no ethnic cleansing” and equivocated about the suffering of both Buddhists and Muslims in a manner that at least one other writer found “chilling” to watch.

For the record, there is no parity. Muslims in general, and the Rohingya in particular, have suffered far more from inter-religious clashes over the past two years, during which time children in Meiktila, Central Burma, were burnt alive and well over 100,000 Rohingya have been confined to squalid camps where they are systematically denied aid and where disease is rife. There have been organised attacks on the minority that amounted to crimes against humanity committed by ethnic Rakhine Buddhists, whom Suu Kyi is keen to remind us are suffering too – from fear, not mass slaughter.

Read more » The Guardian
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/27/aung-san-suu-kyi-is-turning-a-blind-eye-to-human-rights-in-the-name-of-politics

Edward Snowden: Obama guilty of deceit over extradition

US president pledged to avoid ‘wheeling and dealing’ while bullying countries that might grant asylum, says whistleblower

By Dan Roberts in Washington and Rory Carroll in The Guardian, Tuesday 2 July 2013

Edward Snowden has accused Barack Obama of deception for promising in public to avoid diplomatic “wheeling and dealing” over his extradition, while privately pressuring countries to refuse his requests for asylum.

Snowden, the surveillance whistleblower who is thought to be trapped in the legal limbo of a transit zone at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport, used his first public comments since fleeing Hong Kong to attack the US for revoking his passport. He also accused his country of bullying nations that might grant him asylum.

“On Thursday, President Obama declared before the world that he would not permit any diplomatic ‘wheeling and dealing’ over my case,” Snowden said in a statement released by WikiLeaks.

“Yet now it is being reported that after promising not to do so, the president ordered his vice-president to pressure the leaders of nations from which I have requested protection to deny my asylum petitions. This kind of deception from a world leader is not justice, and neither is the extralegal penalty of exile. These are the old, bad tools of political aggression.”

Snowden’s increasingly desperate predicament became further apparent on Monday night with the leak of a letter he had written to Ecuador praising its “bravery” and expressing “deep respect and sincere thanks” for considering his request for political asylum.

Read more » Guardian.co.uk
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/02/edward-snowden-barack-obama-wikileaks

THE UNIQUE FIVE MILLIONS SINDHIS : WITHOUT A MILIMETER OF LAND … STATELESS!?

They were the people, Who were denied their ancient land 5000 years old Civilization. Moen Jo Daro. They paid supreme price for FREEDOM OF INDIA. They were the people, Who dwelled on the banks of river Sindhu, Where Rig Veda was evolved, Then Upanishads took shape, Who believed in peace and tranquility and in universal brotherhood. But in the year 1947, were forced to migrate. They came empty handed, many with only clothes on their back. Assigned in dilapidated barracks, leaking roofs and missing privacy and had to stand in line for free rations. But, instead of whining or moaning, they stood proud and erect. They took, not arms, but creative intelligence, they believed in knowledge and education and went forward.

Next 50 years, they traversed many lands and oceans by hard work and perseverance. They spread prosperity everywhere. They built new houses. They built new hospitals. They built new schools and colleges. Gave free aid and scholarships and advanced trade and industry.

The Original Unique five Million Sindhis of Sindhu-Sarswati Civilization, the peaceful people, the hospitable people, the generous people, the proud and independent people, the self-reliant people without a millimeter of their land. They survived, they are survivors,they are tough, they are SINDHIS LIVING IN INDIA.

SINDHIS HAVE BUILT MORE COLLEGES AND HOSPITALS IN INDIA AND HAVE ALWAYS BEEN PEACE LOVING & HARD WORKING COMMUNITY…  BELIEVE IN BROTHERHOOD IS STATELESS.

Courtesy: Sindi e-lists/ e-groups, Sat, September 11, 2010.