My guess is that if you say "The Rohingya Genocide" then readers will assume it's a history lesson and skip the article. Whereas "Is This Genocide?" encourages readers to investigate on their own, hopefully educating more people in general
The USA ratified the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide_Convention. That makes Washington loath in using the word. So, the New York Times isn’t doubting this is genocide; it is asking Washington to acknowledge it and take action (http://www.economist.com/node/18772664: As Samantha Power, an author who works for President Barack Obama, has disclosed, a paper by a Pentagon official urged caution in using the G-word: “Be careful …Genocide finding could commit [the government] to actually do something.”)
I can’t find a reference, but I think there is a more recent, stronger statement by the USA that requires them to take action as soon as politics declares something as genocide anywhere in the world.
How do we pressure our governments to do something? The US and EU already ban weapons sales to Myanmar but other countries are happy to step in and profit in their place, e.g. Israel providing training and selling weapons and vehicles to the very troops carrying out this genocide.
Generally speaking, in cases like this, you have to actually physically intervene to stop the genocide. They're using machettes and other primitive means to do much of the killing, as in other genocide cases in very poor nations (like Rwanda or Cambodia). Sanctions are never enough against what are already extraordinarily poor nations (we've sanctioned North Korea for decades, as much as any nation can be, and they're proceeding apace with ICBM nukes).
The question of stopping this kind of genocide is primarily: who is going to militarily intervene and in what manner.
What many do not realize that this crisis, while regional, has the potential to fuel global conflicts in near future. There are roughly 5 million refugees in Bangladesh at present, a country which itself has poor infrastructure and struggling under the weight of its over population. A large number of these refugees are children and young adults, who saw their villages burned, family members raped and killed. They will be easy prey to Jihadist propaganda. They will be recruited by extremist groups, they will commit atrocities in the name of revenge/religion, which in turn will increase the anti-muslim sentiments around the world. Nationalists and ultra-right leaders will use this as a platform to rise to power.
That's incorrect. ISIS was created out of a power vacuum in the region, between the US being asked to leave Iraq and the Iraqi Government becoming strong enough to control its own security fully, and the Syrian civil war. Their creation had absolutely nothing to do with US military abuses of that sort (which is not the same thing as denying any such abuses took place), that's not even a very good attempt at scapegoating its creation.
ISIS is just another in a very long line of warlord-type regimes that exist out of opportunism to seize power. There's nothing special about it. It's extremely similar to the types of factions that have dominated countries like Afghanistan for a thousand years.
> Their creation had absolutely nothing to do with US military abuses of that sort (which is not the same thing as denying any such abuses took place), that's not even a very good attempt at scapegoating its creation.
Actually, almost all of the ISIS higher-ups were radicalised within a US-run prisoner camp[0][1][2][3][4]. Many of the ISIS milita are US-trained soldiers whose funding got pulled, so of course, they went to the nearest employer.
So yes, it absolutely is because of US abuses. If the US had run the camp correctly, there would have been no opportunity for the prisoners to radicalise one another. If the US had handled withdrawing properly, the militia wouldn't have gone to ISIS. Sure, it's not 100% the fault of the US, but to say that it has nothing to do with the US is just plain ignorant.
Guess you should acknowledge the US invasion as the initial trigger.
Then the fiasco that unfolded, with people like Wolfowitz, Bremer, etc making every single possible mistake there is. Dissolve the Iraqi army? Sure, why not?
Incomptence galore, back in full swing in the Trump admin.
My guess is that the West is trying to copy the East(China), and by that I mean that we are gonna see the rise of extremist governments that will pass as an answer to extremist groups but whose real interest
lies in the ultra-efficient "social"-capitalism that China perfected.
The tighter your grasp over people lives, the easier is is to have them buy stupid shit all the time and keep the wheels moving.
And there we go again, till everyone is repressed enough that innovation will once again be a luxury of crazy people.
Social and economical changes are usually the work of people that fail fast, move fast and break things.
"make something people want" would work if people actually knew what they wanted, but most people have no idea about what their priorities are, so "make something people will get addicted to" works a lot better.
>>Following independence in 1948, the newly formed union government of the predominantly-Buddhist country denied citizenship to the Rohingyas, subjecting them to extensive systematic discrimination in the country.
I think what is being talked about is this, or what happened, right nextdoor by essentially the same organisation, and therefore what could reasonably have been expected to happen if the revolution by muslims had succeeded:
So yes, this is a bit of a case of "A tried to commit genocide on B. B won and, as it turns out, is not happy with the attempt".
One might also point out that the treatment of non-muslims in the original country of these people (Bangladesh) is worse, in terms of legal rights, in terms of treatment by the security forces, in terms of destruction, in terms of death toll, ... and yet ... no complaints from the UN, and certainly no action by anyone.
So let's just stop joking here: these people are being attacked because they directly attacked the security forces. That sucks. But these people also constantly commit violence against minorities in their midst (in fact that's how this conflict started), so let's just not pretend otherwise : yes, Rohingya are losing here, and yet they're still the racists in this conflict, and do commit genocide. Such a thing is in fact possible.
This is largely ridiculous. Many of the Rohingya people fled to Myanmar during the 71' Bangladesh Genocide, which was largely committed by Pakistan. The group responsible for your recent unrest is upset because members of their group have faced war crime trials for their acts during the genocide. Bangladesh itself at least attempts to have religious freedom. And I have no clue what event you're trying to pin on the Rohingya to say they started this conflict.
I've read several well-reasoned comments of yours today that I agree with completely, but given that I don't want to become an expert on the Rohingya, it would be helpful if you all (i.e. in this entire subthread) were to lay out the specific facts upon which you are making these judgements.
Yes, everyone could read that entire Wikipedia page, look through its edit history, check the talk page, and check out the cited links. Most of us probably will not.
There are other well-reasoned arguments in this subthread and it seems like there is some disagreement on some fundamental facts.
I did. It doesn't support what you're saying about the Rohingya, and it doesn't support your claim that things are worse in Bangladesh without anyone caring. Calling the Rohingya "basically the same organization" as the one that took part in the 1971 Genocide is complete nonsense.
You're basically saying they deserve this state led treatment as other Muslims nearby did unrelated bad things to Hindus.
No, let's not. "These people" are women and children. No infant in her mother's arms, no 12 year old village girl ever attacked "security forces", which is a name no organization of armed people who facilitate mass rape and the murder of children deserves.
That you could even make the argument betrays something deeply warped about your understanding of not just this conflict, but of conflict in general.
I agree with you. Conflict is always seen abstractly to take place between two or more "forces". "Peoples" not "people". And indeed the groups in conflict see it as an issue of categories, and broadly direct revenge and attack against a conceived organization of people fitting some number of characteristics that are in some way attached to the original concept and reason for killing.
As a Westerner, to once again place blame on an abstract group for causing "themselves" to be raped and murdered is ludicrous, it is actually baffling. Women are being raped and children are being burned alive-- not only Women and Children, but this woman, and this child. They have names, they are not categories, although for one reason or another there are complicated threads and fabrics of history attached to their probabilistic genealogical history.
I don't know what can be done. This conflict makes me sick.
I have worked very closely with various Hindu and Buddhist groups and one Pakistani Muslim group.
After observing many issues I realized that Muslim world has heavily invested in US politics through various means. I have sympathies for all refugees but tales that NYT has been telling is extremely one sided. This sort of biased reporting comes because Saudi and Pakistan invest into cultivating the journalists and think tanks.
Sadly, activists on the ground can see this far too easily and they develop an adverse opinion about Muslims, even those who genuinely need our help.
SJW and keyboard warriors will read NYT piece and feel sad but most of the activists on the ground will see this and only cringe at NYT. Biased media reporting hurts the cause of these refugees.
I've never cried by reading a news story but this one pushed me over the edge. I'm a 37 year old cynical bastard and I'm crying like a baby. 2017. Oh dear lord, no, we don't have flying cars yet but the genocides are doing just fine, thank you. Fuck.
We are just arguing over semantics. It’s pure evil and needs to stop. I’m sure the US could intervene, but we’d need far more media coverage to generate outrage. Clinton was able to do it in the Balkans, but you’d need to convince the current administration to get a involved.
I don't know what this even means. Proof of what? Which argument are you making now? That it's all "fake genocide"? Or that these people deserve it because they're "jihadis"?
My comment is in reference to fake eyewitness testimony of atrocities which was used as justification to invade a country. Google 'babies in incubaters' and it should be clear.
None of the results for this search had anything to do with the Rohingya Genocide. Things aren't false just because you want them to be. Every sane person wants these stories to be false. They are not.
I have no idea why an American should care one iota about some abstruse ethnic conflict literally on the other side of the world. You are spectacularly unlikely to be able to figure out based on thirdhand reporting who is metaphysically in the right, if there is such a party, and almost anything you do is likely to make the situation worse.
We, as Americans, should employ more of a hands-off policy with the rest of the world. Playing "team America world police" is a drain on our resources and efforts - and above all absolutely needless. I don't care one whit what happens out there but from all 'boots on the ground' accounts, Myanmar is responding to long (years/decades) tolerated abuses by "refugees" by getting rid of them.
If you're pissing off monks enough that they're moved to eradicate you from their lands, you've seriously screwed up.
The problem is that this 'genocide' hasn't been verified to be true. Survivors describe atrocities, yet none are verified by any sort of observer or independent source. The Rohingya have been waging jihad on Myanmar for 60 years, having initially tried to annex Rakhine state to join then East Pakistan, and have been involved in attacking Burmese civilians as well as police recently.
To start a large scale conflict and intervene in Myanmar, some sort of actual proof of genocide should be necessary, no? Every news outlet just plays a merry go round of citing unverified reports and then each other, and no one questions it?
Médecins Sans Frontières actually released a press release [1] two days ago reporting that more than 6,700 Rohingya have been killed in one month. That is their most conservative estimate. MSF does not use the word genocide, but their report points towards it IMO.
I find the fact that you're suggesting that the atrocities are being made up by the Rohingya tasteless. Thousands of innocent people are being killed, that can't just be brushed aside because other members of their community have been involved in insurrection.
A survey of those in refugee camps in Bangladesh and then extrapolating those survey results to cover the whole population isn't actually proof of anything. They literally did a survey of survivors, they don't have any bodies.
So questioning a lack of proof is tasteless, but it's ok to start a conflict or drum up widespread outrage because something might be true?
The only reason I question things is because the Rohingya have literally been waging an insurrection for this entire generation's lives, they have ample motive to lie.
Also, the MSF survey sample size was 2 thousand people, and they didn't verify any reports, just assumed they were true.
MSF are treating wounded refugees, so there is definitely proof of violence. There are 800,000 Rohingya refugees living in Bangladesh [1]. They must be running from something, right? I don't understand why you go to such an extent doubting the stories of these refugees.
It's political. For reasons I don't fully understand, part of the identity surface area for a certain (hard to articulate, but let's call it "Trump-sympathetic") political orientation has come to include "the Rohingya Genocide is manufactured".
It's difficult to understand why that would be a useful stance; it seems like pure malice, since neither side of this conflict is particularly germane to US partisan politics. But if you dig in, you're going to discover that Rohingya Truthism is a phenomenon of the performative branch of the right wing.
And part of left-wing identity is to ignore all evidence and history which would ever suggest a particular people or religion could commit atrocities themselves lest those left-wingers ever be accused of being racist.
There's actual history to the Rohingya conflict, it didn't come out of a vacuum and your comment just hand-waves all that away.
I highly recommend the 2017 Massey Lecture that deals with genocide and the history of human rights. It's called In Search of a Better World by human rights lawyer Payam Akhavan.
Listen to the whole thing for free[1] or check out the book[2].
To all the people saying the woman whose baby daughter was thrown in a fire was lying or the 14 year old girl who was raped by four soldiers was lying, fuck you.
> The attack on Tula Toli has been well documented by human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Fortify Rights, and it is substantiated by satellite photos showing the burned huts. In all, I spoke to seven people who said they were survivors from Tula Toli, and their stories meshed and cross-confirmed one another.
Ordinarily I'd say a comment like that is inappropriate but "fuck all of this" was the comment I wanted to write immediately after reading this story, so all I've got is sympathy for that position.
51 comments
[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 122 ms ] threadWhy isn't the article called, the "The Rohingya Genocide". Didn't we learn anything from Rwanda?
I can’t find a reference, but I think there is a more recent, stronger statement by the USA that requires them to take action as soon as politics declares something as genocide anywhere in the world.
The question of stopping this kind of genocide is primarily: who is going to militarily intervene and in what manner.
Otherwise, if you only want to vent your spleen onto the internet without consequence, I'm sure you know where /pol/ is.
ISIS is just another in a very long line of warlord-type regimes that exist out of opportunism to seize power. There's nothing special about it. It's extremely similar to the types of factions that have dominated countries like Afghanistan for a thousand years.
Actually, almost all of the ISIS higher-ups were radicalised within a US-run prisoner camp[0][1][2][3][4]. Many of the ISIS milita are US-trained soldiers whose funding got pulled, so of course, they went to the nearest employer.
So yes, it absolutely is because of US abuses. If the US had run the camp correctly, there would have been no opportunity for the prisoners to radicalise one another. If the US had handled withdrawing properly, the militia wouldn't have gone to ISIS. Sure, it's not 100% the fault of the US, but to say that it has nothing to do with the US is just plain ignorant.
[0]: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/11/-sp-isis-the-i...
[1]: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/camp-buc...
[2]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/11/0...
[3]: https://nypost.com/2015/05/30/how-the-us-created-the-camp-wh...
[4]: https://www.unilad.co.uk/news/how-a-u-s-prison-camp-in-iraq-...
Then the fiasco that unfolded, with people like Wolfowitz, Bremer, etc making every single possible mistake there is. Dissolve the Iraqi army? Sure, why not?
Incomptence galore, back in full swing in the Trump admin.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rohingya_insurgency_in_Weste...
From the Wikipedia article you posted.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Bangladesh_anti-Hindu_vio...
So yes, this is a bit of a case of "A tried to commit genocide on B. B won and, as it turns out, is not happy with the attempt".
One might also point out that the treatment of non-muslims in the original country of these people (Bangladesh) is worse, in terms of legal rights, in terms of treatment by the security forces, in terms of destruction, in terms of death toll, ... and yet ... no complaints from the UN, and certainly no action by anyone.
So let's just stop joking here: these people are being attacked because they directly attacked the security forces. That sucks. But these people also constantly commit violence against minorities in their midst (in fact that's how this conflict started), so let's just not pretend otherwise : yes, Rohingya are losing here, and yet they're still the racists in this conflict, and do commit genocide. Such a thing is in fact possible.
Yes, everyone could read that entire Wikipedia page, look through its edit history, check the talk page, and check out the cited links. Most of us probably will not.
There are other well-reasoned arguments in this subthread and it seems like there is some disagreement on some fundamental facts.
You're basically saying they deserve this state led treatment as other Muslims nearby did unrelated bad things to Hindus.
That you could even make the argument betrays something deeply warped about your understanding of not just this conflict, but of conflict in general.
As a Westerner, to once again place blame on an abstract group for causing "themselves" to be raped and murdered is ludicrous, it is actually baffling. Women are being raped and children are being burned alive-- not only Women and Children, but this woman, and this child. They have names, they are not categories, although for one reason or another there are complicated threads and fabrics of history attached to their probabilistic genealogical history.
I don't know what can be done. This conflict makes me sick.
After observing many issues I realized that Muslim world has heavily invested in US politics through various means. I have sympathies for all refugees but tales that NYT has been telling is extremely one sided. This sort of biased reporting comes because Saudi and Pakistan invest into cultivating the journalists and think tanks.
Sadly, activists on the ground can see this far too easily and they develop an adverse opinion about Muslims, even those who genuinely need our help.
SJW and keyboard warriors will read NYT piece and feel sad but most of the activists on the ground will see this and only cringe at NYT. Biased media reporting hurts the cause of these refugees.
If you're pissing off monks enough that they're moved to eradicate you from their lands, you've seriously screwed up.
To start a large scale conflict and intervene in Myanmar, some sort of actual proof of genocide should be necessary, no? Every news outlet just plays a merry go round of citing unverified reports and then each other, and no one questions it?
Edit - also, the Rohingya have absolutely no motive to lie, right? Not like they've been involved in a jihad and insurrection for 60 years, right? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rohingya_insurgency_in_Weste...
I find the fact that you're suggesting that the atrocities are being made up by the Rohingya tasteless. Thousands of innocent people are being killed, that can't just be brushed aside because other members of their community have been involved in insurrection.
[1]. http://www.msf.org/en/article/myanmarbangladesh-msf-surveys-...
So questioning a lack of proof is tasteless, but it's ok to start a conflict or drum up widespread outrage because something might be true?
The only reason I question things is because the Rohingya have literally been waging an insurrection for this entire generation's lives, they have ample motive to lie.
Also, the MSF survey sample size was 2 thousand people, and they didn't verify any reports, just assumed they were true.
[1]. http://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/rngs/MYANMAR-ROHINGYA/0...
It's difficult to understand why that would be a useful stance; it seems like pure malice, since neither side of this conflict is particularly germane to US partisan politics. But if you dig in, you're going to discover that Rohingya Truthism is a phenomenon of the performative branch of the right wing.
There's actual history to the Rohingya conflict, it didn't come out of a vacuum and your comment just hand-waves all that away.
Listen to the whole thing for free[1] or check out the book[2].
[1] http://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/lecture-1-in-search-of-a-bette...
[2] https://houseofanansi.com/products/in-search-of-a-better-wor...
Has to be the most heart wrenching article I’ve read in 2017! Babies and children slaughtered by hand, houses set on fire, in such large scale.
The evil that exists in the world is just crazy. I kinda wish I didn’t read the article.
> The attack on Tula Toli has been well documented by human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Fortify Rights, and it is substantiated by satellite photos showing the burned huts. In all, I spoke to seven people who said they were survivors from Tula Toli, and their stories meshed and cross-confirmed one another.