01-02-2017, 10:43 PM
*** 3-Jan-17 World View -- Syrian opposition groups suspend negotiations of peace talks
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
****
**** Video emerges from Burma (Myanmar) showing police beating Rohingya Muslims
****
![[Image: g170102b.jpg]](http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com/ww2010/g170102b.jpg)
Screen grab from video. Dozens of Rohingyas on the right are being forced to watch the beating
For months, Burma (Myanmar) police and soldiers have been committing
ethnic cleansing of Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine State by scorched
earth attacks, burning down their villages, and committing massacres,
rapes and other atrocities that have forced tens of thousands to flee
for their lives across the border into Bangladesh.
Burma has forbidden any journalists or humanitarian groups from
entering Rakhine State to investigate, which many people consider to
be an implied admission of guilt by Burma's government.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) has documented the ethnic cleansing through a
series of "before and after" satellite images. Burma's government
agrees that the satellite images show that Rohingya villages are being
burned down, but they make the laughable claim that the Rohingyas are
burning down the villages themselves in order to embarrass the
government. There have also been dozens of videos showing Burma's
police beating and raping Rohingya civilians, but Burma's government
claims that all of these videos are phony and have been fabricated.
So now a new video has emerged showing police beating and kicking a
civilian, and forcing dozens of other Rohingyas to watch as the
beating takes place. The video was taken by a policeman smoking a
cigarette. Other policemen obviously knew that he was taking the
video, suggesting that taking videos of policemen beating, killing and
raping Rohingyas is some kind of standard procedure.
The mystery is how this video became public. It's thought that some
dissident official with access to the video, and shocked by the
behavior of his fellow policeman, published the video on the internet
surreptitiously, where it has gone viral.
The second remarkable thing, beyond the fact of the video itself, is
that Burma's government is acknowledging that the video is portraying
a real event. The policemen appearing the video have been arrested,
and the government says that there will be an investigation for police
brutality.
Nobody seriously believes that anything will change. The
investigation may lead to the conviction of one or two policemen, but
the Buddhist xenophobic hatred of Muslims in Burma goes very deep.
The root of the violence is xenophobic attacks by Buddhists led by
Buddhist monk Ashin Wirathu and his "969 movement," against the
Rohingya Muslims, including rapes, torture and other atrocities
committed by Buddhists, targeting the Rohingyas. The Rohingyas have a
darker skin than Burmese, and they speak a Bengali dialect.
There are about a million Rohingyas living in Rakhine State, where
they have lived for generations, but Burma's government refuses to
recognize them as citizens. They are, for all practical purposes, a
stateless ethnic group, living on the Bangladesh-Burma border for
generations, but rejected by both countries. In fact, Burma refuses
to identify the Rohingya as a unique ethnic group, preferring to call
them Bengali, and referring to them as illegal immigrants from
Bangladesh. In the last few years, large mobs of Buddhists have
massacred entire neighborhoods of Muslims in various regions of the
country, mutilating, raping and killing hundreds, and displacing
thousands from their homes. We're used to hearing about atrocities
committed by Muslim jihadists in the Mideast, but in Burma the
situation is reversed -- it's the Buddhists who are committing the
atrocities, while the Muslims are, for the most part, innocent
victims. Russia Today and Bangkok Post and YouTube: Rohingya beating video
Related Articles
****
**** Syrian opposition groups suspend negotiations of peace talks
****
The Free Syrian Army (FSA), a coalition of "moderate" groups opposing
Syria's president Bashar al-Assad, have suspended peace talks because
of repeated ceasefire violations by al-Assad's warplanes and by
al-Assad's ally, the Iran-backed Lebanon militia Hezbollah.
The ceasefire was announced last week, brokered by Russia, Iran, and
Turkey, and was to lead to peace talks soon, taking place in Astana,
the capital city of Kazakhstan. The United States, the United
Nations, and the European Union were all excluded from negotiations
about the ceasefire and peace talks, which presumably was supposed to
make them more likely to succeed.
Al-Assad has always been the most volatile of the participants in any
of these discussions. Al-Assad started the civil war in 2011, when
his bombers started targeting innocent women and children, including
Palestinians in a refugee camp near Latakia, which drew young
jihadists from around the world to Syria to fight al-Assad, resulting
in the formation of the so-called Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or
Daesh).
So the question that I've asked repeated for months and years is how
can any "peace deal" ever succeed in view of al-Assad's evident
determination to exterminate as many Sunni women and children as he
can?
The FSA has issued its statement suspending its participation in the
peace talks because his warplanes have been bombing civilian targets
in a region near Damascus in which the city's water supply is located.
Hezbollah and Syrian army troops are also headed for the same region.
According to the FSA, "Any (advance) on the ground goes against the
(ceasefire) agreement and if things don't return to how they were
before, the accord will be considered null and void."
It's been assumed that Russia and Iran would control al-Assad and
force him by any means necessary to honor the ceasefire, but it
appears that assumption is wrong. Unless Russia and Iran find a way
to control al-Assad, then the "ceasefire" will collapse completely
within a few days. France 24 and VOA
Related Articles
KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Burma, Myanmar, Rohingyas, Rakhine state, Bangladesh,
Syria, Damascus, Bashar al-Assad,
Russia, Iran, Hezbollah, Free Syrian Army, FSA, Latakia,
Islamic State / of Iraq and Syria/Sham/the Levant, IS, ISIS, ISIL, Daesh
Permanent web link to this article
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Contribute to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
John J. Xenakis
100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A
Cambridge, MA 02142
Phone: 617-864-0010
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
- Video emerges from Burma (Myanmar) showing police beating Rohingya Muslims
- Syrian opposition groups suspend negotiations of peace talks
****
**** Video emerges from Burma (Myanmar) showing police beating Rohingya Muslims
****
Screen grab from video. Dozens of Rohingyas on the right are being forced to watch the beating
For months, Burma (Myanmar) police and soldiers have been committing
ethnic cleansing of Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine State by scorched
earth attacks, burning down their villages, and committing massacres,
rapes and other atrocities that have forced tens of thousands to flee
for their lives across the border into Bangladesh.
Burma has forbidden any journalists or humanitarian groups from
entering Rakhine State to investigate, which many people consider to
be an implied admission of guilt by Burma's government.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) has documented the ethnic cleansing through a
series of "before and after" satellite images. Burma's government
agrees that the satellite images show that Rohingya villages are being
burned down, but they make the laughable claim that the Rohingyas are
burning down the villages themselves in order to embarrass the
government. There have also been dozens of videos showing Burma's
police beating and raping Rohingya civilians, but Burma's government
claims that all of these videos are phony and have been fabricated.
So now a new video has emerged showing police beating and kicking a
civilian, and forcing dozens of other Rohingyas to watch as the
beating takes place. The video was taken by a policeman smoking a
cigarette. Other policemen obviously knew that he was taking the
video, suggesting that taking videos of policemen beating, killing and
raping Rohingyas is some kind of standard procedure.
The mystery is how this video became public. It's thought that some
dissident official with access to the video, and shocked by the
behavior of his fellow policeman, published the video on the internet
surreptitiously, where it has gone viral.
The second remarkable thing, beyond the fact of the video itself, is
that Burma's government is acknowledging that the video is portraying
a real event. The policemen appearing the video have been arrested,
and the government says that there will be an investigation for police
brutality.
Nobody seriously believes that anything will change. The
investigation may lead to the conviction of one or two policemen, but
the Buddhist xenophobic hatred of Muslims in Burma goes very deep.
The root of the violence is xenophobic attacks by Buddhists led by
Buddhist monk Ashin Wirathu and his "969 movement," against the
Rohingya Muslims, including rapes, torture and other atrocities
committed by Buddhists, targeting the Rohingyas. The Rohingyas have a
darker skin than Burmese, and they speak a Bengali dialect.
There are about a million Rohingyas living in Rakhine State, where
they have lived for generations, but Burma's government refuses to
recognize them as citizens. They are, for all practical purposes, a
stateless ethnic group, living on the Bangladesh-Burma border for
generations, but rejected by both countries. In fact, Burma refuses
to identify the Rohingya as a unique ethnic group, preferring to call
them Bengali, and referring to them as illegal immigrants from
Bangladesh. In the last few years, large mobs of Buddhists have
massacred entire neighborhoods of Muslims in various regions of the
country, mutilating, raping and killing hundreds, and displacing
thousands from their homes. We're used to hearing about atrocities
committed by Muslim jihadists in the Mideast, but in Burma the
situation is reversed -- it's the Buddhists who are committing the
atrocities, while the Muslims are, for the most part, innocent
victims. Russia Today and Bangkok Post and YouTube: Rohingya beating video
Related Articles
- Asian jihadists become radicalized by Burma's (Myanmar's) Rohingya slaughter (07-Dec-2016)
- UN: Burma (Myanmar) committing 'ethnic cleansing' of Rohingyas (29-Nov-2016)
- Meiktila, Burma, violence has echoes of Kristallnacht (05-Apr-2013)
****
**** Syrian opposition groups suspend negotiations of peace talks
****
The Free Syrian Army (FSA), a coalition of "moderate" groups opposing
Syria's president Bashar al-Assad, have suspended peace talks because
of repeated ceasefire violations by al-Assad's warplanes and by
al-Assad's ally, the Iran-backed Lebanon militia Hezbollah.
The ceasefire was announced last week, brokered by Russia, Iran, and
Turkey, and was to lead to peace talks soon, taking place in Astana,
the capital city of Kazakhstan. The United States, the United
Nations, and the European Union were all excluded from negotiations
about the ceasefire and peace talks, which presumably was supposed to
make them more likely to succeed.
Al-Assad has always been the most volatile of the participants in any
of these discussions. Al-Assad started the civil war in 2011, when
his bombers started targeting innocent women and children, including
Palestinians in a refugee camp near Latakia, which drew young
jihadists from around the world to Syria to fight al-Assad, resulting
in the formation of the so-called Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or
Daesh).
So the question that I've asked repeated for months and years is how
can any "peace deal" ever succeed in view of al-Assad's evident
determination to exterminate as many Sunni women and children as he
can?
The FSA has issued its statement suspending its participation in the
peace talks because his warplanes have been bombing civilian targets
in a region near Damascus in which the city's water supply is located.
Hezbollah and Syrian army troops are also headed for the same region.
According to the FSA, "Any (advance) on the ground goes against the
(ceasefire) agreement and if things don't return to how they were
before, the accord will be considered null and void."
It's been assumed that Russia and Iran would control al-Assad and
force him by any means necessary to honor the ceasefire, but it
appears that assumption is wrong. Unless Russia and Iran find a way
to control al-Assad, then the "ceasefire" will collapse completely
within a few days. France 24 and VOA
Related Articles
- Russia and Turkey announce a new ceasefire in Syria (30-Dec-2016)
- Syria's civilians fear worse violence from US-Russia 'ceasefire' agreement (11-Sep-2016)
- As Syria ceasefire begins, Bashar al-Assad quickly rejects it (13-Sep-2016)
- South Sudan increasingly parallels Syria in genocidal violence (24-Dec-2016)
KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Burma, Myanmar, Rohingyas, Rakhine state, Bangladesh,
Syria, Damascus, Bashar al-Assad,
Russia, Iran, Hezbollah, Free Syrian Army, FSA, Latakia,
Islamic State / of Iraq and Syria/Sham/the Levant, IS, ISIS, ISIL, Daesh
Permanent web link to this article
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Contribute to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
John J. Xenakis
100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A
Cambridge, MA 02142
Phone: 617-864-0010
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe
