From One Circle Of Hell To The Next

Sexual Abuse Of North Korea's Women
(Part One)

For many North Koreans the life they live and that which the outside world imagines are rather different realities. A small percentage of North Koreans can be considered privileged and have access to the luxuries their South Korean neighbors enjoy daily. These lucky few are able to flaunt their wealth behind closed doors as they pretend to be serving their country's goals of a worker's paradise. For most there is the reality that many outside North Korea first think of... death, starvation, oppression, and state sponsored terror.

In North Korea everything the common Korean does is watched and monitored. Secret police can make anyone, at anytime, simply disappear. The very appearance of being an individual in state that idolizes conformity can be a fatal flaw. There just isn't any room in North Korea for self expression or individual thought. These two things alone are perceived to be the worst threats the state faces even as it's citizens continue to starve to death.

Citizens who are unlucky enough to be deemed an "enemy of the state" find themselves crossing from their current circle in North Korea's hellish existence to the next. These unfortunate souls join an estimated 200 thousand North Koreans in gulags across the country. The "great leader" (and his offspring) have operated these concentration camps for nearly 12 times as long as the Nazis had operated theirs. Yet unlike the Nazi camps, these souls, damned by the state, know that the work they will be doing will not "set them free".

Three Generations

North Koreans who are deemed to be a threat to the tyrants in Pyongyang don't just risk having themselves sent to death camps, but also have their entire families rounded up. North Korea's state policy is that three generations must pay in blood for the accused person's supposed offense. This policy is meant to stamp out the "seed" of the state's enemy.

The three generations policy creates a paralyzing fear in a society that is driven by terror. It creates within the household (a founding base for all civilization) a paranoia that never dissipates. Citizens are encouraged by this fear to monitor their family members. The fear that their brothers', sisters', or parents' mistakes could land them in a prison camp is enough encourage the worst acts of betrayal. Fathers are thus encouraged by the system itself to walk out on their families. Parents who can't provide for their children are encouraged by the system to abandon their children. It is this sense of defeat that chips away at the building blocks upon which North Korea's tyranny is balancing.

In camps the three generation policy is emphasized by a perverse system of bartering with prisoners by camp guards. Family members are told that they can receive rewards for reporting their family members for any given offense. Even though it is well known that many of these such reports will inevitably lead to the public execution of their family members, the rewards are often just enough to break the prisoner. Bribes of food and other vital necessities are the most common rewards. Other times the rewards are just lies and false promises.

This sadistic policy is also applied to the children of prisoners who are born into the concentration camps. Little is provided for the inmates in the way of medical treatment and provisions for raising a newborn. So it is hard to tell just how many children born into these conditions ever actually grow up beyond infancy. The practice of "infant executions" also culls the number of children born into the system the death camps are meant to uphold. But for those who survive their childhood the reality of life behind barbed-wire is all they may possibly know as they are slowly worked to death.

Sexualized Violence 

Once in the death camps the women of North Korea face a reality that is as close to a living death as many will ever come. Every prisoner in North Korea's concentration camps is considered to be less than human in the eyes of the state. Prison guards are trained to view them as animals with whom they can do anything they wish. For the women of North Korea this means they are openly and regularly subjected to rape and sexual molestation. No matter where they are in the camp, at any time, they are expected to subject themselves willingly to rape in all it's forms. There are no exceptions. 

Women who cooperate are raped routinely till the guard or guards move onto their next victim. Yet for many, no matter how well they managed to remain silent during the attacks, this departure of their assailant can mean a sudden execution. For those who appear to have resisted in any way, real or perceived, these victims are often immediately executed. All of them will afflicted with physical, mental, and emotional torment before they are made to "disappear" or suffer in silence. 

Women who survive rape have an added concern if they become pregnant. It is common practice in North Korea's prison camps to force rape victims to have an abortion. These abortions are done without proper medical treatment and are rarely done by a trained doctor. If the woman survives the torment of a crudely performed abortion she must endure the added insult of being refused the right to clean herself afterward. Instead of being given even a shower, forced abortion survivors are left to worry about infection or complications of the procedure itself. 

There is no mercy shown to North Korea's female inmates. They are among the most common victims of public executions, public displays of punishment, and sexualized violence. Girls are targeted for rape from the moment they are old enough to satisfy the guards' lust for virgins and new victims. From that point on the rapes and molestations are a daily threat for female prisoners. 

Infanticide

Childhood in North Korea's concentration camps is almost unimaginable. Husbands and wives who are imprisoned together know that these camps are no place to get pregnant. Yet there is no access to prevention methods of any sort. And as mentioned above, victims of rape are not given access to preventatives either. So any child conceived is at risk from the moment of conception. 

Carrying a child to full term is near impossible. Expecting mothers have to endure severe malnutrition and starvation on a daily basis. Hard labor adds to the stresses of being pregnant in one of North Korea's death camps. Rape and barbaric molestation brings on even more trauma with which the pregnant mother must endure. Then there are the beatings guards use to cause miscarriages in pregnant women.

If a woman under these horrific conditions does manage to give birth to a living child they then face yet another form of perverse barbarism: infant executions.

It was the first time I had seen a newborn baby and I felt happy. But suddenly there were footsteps and a security guard came in and told the mother to turn the baby upside down into a bowl of water. The mother begged the guard to spare her, but he kept beating her. So the mother, her hands shaking, put the baby face down in the water. The crying stopped and a bubble rose up as it died,” 

~ 34 year-old Jee Heon-a.

This story is just one of the tales of such barbaric acts committed by North Korea's prison guards. Not only did this guard attack the mother but then forced the woman to kill her own child. This sort of sadistic hedonism is a long standing undertone to the tales of barbarism carried out by guards who are rewarded for their savagery. The more grotesque they behave, the greater status they achieve in the eyes of a government that values loyalty to it over the lives of it's own citizens.

Ethnic Cleansing 

(Culling Of "Racial Impurities")

Forced abortions are a common treatment in North Korea (both inside and outside prison camps) for the state's policy of riding it's society of "racial impurities". Women are detained upon even the most remote suspicion of having an "impure fetus". At times the forced abortion are ordered by doctors while at other times they are demanded by guards and other agents of the state. In every case they are painful and risk the death of the victimized woman. 

One account of this was given to the United States Human Rights Council and tells of women who were detained for the purpose of causing forced abortions:

"A drug that in diluted form is used to treat skin wounds was injected into pregnant women’s wombs, inducing labor within hours. As there had not been the normal widening of the hipbones during the advance stages of pregnancy to enlarge the birth canal, the labor pains were the same as when delivering a fully grown baby. When the women moaned or cried out in pain as they lay on wooden and cement cell floors, they were hit with wooden stoves and cursed as "bitches who got Chinese sperm and brought this on themselves."'

via Women Under Siege Project

The added insult in many cases is the brutal abuses committed against the victims while and after they are being forced to have brutal abortions. Physical assault is often applied along with verbal abuse as the women are being put through the agony of painful abortions. Yet at times physical assault is also the very tool used to cause the abortions themselves: 

"Mrs. Bang Mi-sun observed ten pregnant women in early 2002 taken to a hospital from the Musan An-jeon-bu detention facility for the purpose of aborting their "half-Chinese babies." Another seven-month pregnant woman adamantly refused to go to the hospital and guards compelled male prisoners to jump on her stomach until the woman aborted on the floor. The woman was then taken to the hospital where she died."

via Women Under Siege Project

The children who do manage to survive are not afforded the basic dignity that any human life merits. Instead of being treated as a human being, these newborn babies are wrapped up in newspaper or bags and tossed into the garbage to die. In a state that supposedly values the worker and all his potential, entire generations of potential lives are discarded callously by an authoritative state.

While officially the state does not recognize the procedure of forced abortions (like all other abuses it commits), North Korea's obsession with racial purity helps to propagate this atrocious act. It's desire to create a society in which an "ideal Korean" worker exists only serves as a prop for the barbarism of it's corrupt military and political upper-class. In the end it is the upon the backs of North Korea's women that the burden of these disillusions falls. And it is the mother and child that pay in blood for a government that lust after the unachievable. 

Survival Sex

The act of forcing women to have sex for supplies of basic nourishment is an act so perverse that it's name alone seems lacking in it's ability to crudely fit it... survival sex. 

Taking advantage of women who are desperate to provide for their families or find that ever illusive next meal is abhorrent. It would be inconceivable if it wasn't such a defining trait across the spectrum of similar events to that of North Korea's prison camps. Survival sex was present in Nazi death camps during the Holocaust. It showed up during the genocide in Bosnia. And has been seen in Sri Lanka's ethnic cleansing of the Tamils. So it is sadly of little surprise that survival sex can be found in the accounts of North Korean refugees. 

In camp inmates the use of survival sex is often applied when a woman or girl becomes the target of a guard's intent to rape. The victim knows that they have a greater chance at surviving if they cooperate with their assailant. Through not fighting back the victim hopes they will not be killed by their attacker. In addition there comes the hope that they will be shown some "mercy" and given access to food and/or clean water. It is a perverse "game" (as referred to by a camp survivor) that guards use to keep a rape victim under their control (since all rape is about violent domination more so than it is about sex).

The gaining of food or water through rape is not assured for North Korean rape victims. Survival sex for them is something that they don't always know they are being subjected to. Instead they are only treated to just enough resources to keep them alive as their assailants see fit. This highlights the brutality of their plight since it best demonstrates the absolute minimal value the state (and the guards themselves) place upon the lives of these female captives.

The Outer Circle Of Hell

In our next post on this subject we will be taking the journey out of North Korea's inner hell and venturing over the border into China. For many North Korean women this is a journey from one circle of hell to the next. It is plagued by human traffickers, forced marriages, and the ever constant threat of forcible repatriation to North Korea. Even with the hope of crossing over into a better life, many will find this journey a living hell as they are transformed into the walking dead.

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Source Documents
(note: not all sources listed)

A Safe World For Women
http://www.asafeworldforwomen.org/trafficking/ht-asia-pacific/ht-china/821-escaping-north-korea-to-slavery-in-china.html

Women Under Siege Project
http://www.womenundersiegeproject.org/conflicts/profile/north-korea
http://www.womenundersiegeproject.org/blog/entry/the-fine-line-between-obedience-and-rape-in-north-korea

Russian Times
http://rt.com/news/un-north-korea-torture-732/

Stealing Their Heritage

Myanmar's Slow Genocide
(The Darkness Visible series)

When a tyrant finds that they can no longer effectively kill off a targeted community the endgame scenario they often turn to is no less atrocious then the original sin. It is an option for genocidal regimes that has been a persistent fix all throughout the history of genocide. For the Germans it was the cattle car solution to the "Jewish Question". In Armenia it was defined by death marches into the wilderness where the victims were made to suffer a slow death if not immediately executed. And in Myanmar it is expressed clearly in the eyes of every "refugee" created through the government's barbarism.

Slow Genocide

"We will take responsibility for our ethnic people but it is impossible to accept the illegally entered Rohingyas, who are not our ethnicity," ~Thein Sein

Genocide is defined as the deliberate killing of members of an ethnic, religious, or national group with intent to destroy the group in part or in whole. It can include the imposing of living conditions meant to bring about the death or deterioration of the group in any capacity. This means that the deportations of members of the group can be interpreted as intent to impose living conditions that would destroy the group in part or in whole. For this reason the use of deportations on any scale is a tactic of savagery by a state that can legally be defined as genocide. However slow it might be... it is still genocide. 

In previous post we have explored the intent on Myanmar's part to create refugees of it's minority populations with intent of "ethnically cleansing" it's lands of said groups. Though there are arguments amongst some about the supposed difference between ethnic cleansing and outright genocide, it is the opinion of this blog that the two are the same crime regardless. For that reason the use of such tactics on the part of Myanmar constitute a history of genocide and the continuation of it when dealing with all it's minority groups. 

For the Rohingya this slow bleed has been up to this point has been a genocide characterized by pogroms designed to look like "flash point" events of ethnic unrest. These supposed spontaneous attacks have been accompanied by military action that rapidly follows up behind state supported Rakhine mobs. Where the civilian attackers cannot finish the job the Burmese military picks up the slack. This cooperation shows that despite the appearance of spontaneity, the attacks are often organized and carried out in the same military fashion Myanmar has displayed in the Shan and Kachin states. 

The initial blitz approach to genocide lost steam as the world turned it's eyes upon the newly "democratic" Myanmar. Feeling the pressure to maintain appearances, Burma turned away from outright slaughter and moved toward a slower version of death. Rohingya were rapidly placed into concentration camps without regard to living conditions for the Rohingya themselves. This aspect of organizing IDP camps that would bring about disease, starvation, and eventual death should had shown the intent of genocide on Myanmar's part. But the world looked the other way as Burma sealed off Rohingya villages and created the ghettos that Poland once endured. 

During this entire campaign of slowing down the death toll in the Arakan state the government of Burma expressed a desire to begin deportations. Under the Nasaka small scale deportations did exist. Yet with the old SA gone and the new SS building up it's numbers, the deportations have all but ended. Border security in Myanmar still utilizes human traffickers to deport the Rohingya in boats and along dangerous paths into neighboring countries. This turns a profit for the corrupt Myanmar regime while at the same time fulfilling the government's desire to ethnically cleanse the Arakan. 

Endgame

"We will send them away if any third country would accept them," Thein Sein. "This is what we are thinking is the solution to the issue."

When Hitler laid out his 'Final Solution' to the 'Jewish Question' he did so with the same vitriol that can be heard in Thein Sein's voice when talking about Myanmar's Rohingya question. The hatred that spewed forth in Mein Kamph can be read in every sentence that has come forth from Thein Sein when addressing the "issue" of Rohingya in Myanmar. It isn't enough that the man calls an entire ethnic group and "issue" but that he feels a need to find a "solution" to them. This is the nature of Burma's endgame.

It is not beyond reason to imagine that if Myanmar cannot deport enough Rohingya fast enough (before the next elections) that Thein Sein could look toward more "spontaneous" actions to reduce the Rohingya population. But for now the endgame solution that Burma has chosen to move forward with is that of deportations and concentration camps. The relationship between the two methods is vital to the endgame that Thein Sein's regime (note that Thein Sein is a puppet to a military backed government) has chosen for the genocide of the Rohingya people.

Deportations are a complex operation when carried out by the state. It has historically been shown that the leaders of such crimes feel a compulsion to document the events a dozen different ways. States compelled to expel ethnic groups in mass seems to need such documents to prove the enemy is really gone. But for whatever reason, the removal is always capable of being proven through the perpetrators' own accounts.

One way to organize these crimes has been to first create ghettos, concentration camps, or detention centers of some sort. These facilities, no matter how inhumanely constructed, are vital to the efforts by states to expel any portion of their population. It helps to confine the members of a targeted group so as to prevent people from escaping what they might rightfully perceive as a slow form of death. It also frees up land and property that was owned or occupied by the targeted group.

Once the ghettos are created the state can take an inventory of their victims. The Germans used tattooing to identify victims as they were deported to death camps outside the view of the rest of society. The Ottomans used decapitations and kill houses to count off the dead so as to keep track of how many Armenians they had removed from the empire. Yet in every case the use of some form of confinement has offered the state an opportunity to commit even more atrocities then before.

For the Rohingya the inhumane confinement of Burmese concentration camps and ghettoized villages has offered the state the chance to extort money, carry out sexualized violence, and other depravities. These crimes have all been forms of torment that have kept the Rohingya under living conditions that are meant to kill. And yet these forms of torture are not the endgame for the Rohingya as far as the Burmese regime is concerned.

In the camps there is a stalwart that the government of Myanmar cannot kill through starvation, with bullets, or through disease. It is the most basic refuge of what makes a human a human. It is the deeply planted seed of hope. It is the basic desire for life that keeps even the most anguish ridden soul alive beyond the point of rationality. In the camps there is this clinging to life that Burma's leaders have not yet been able to trample.

For this reason the government has turned to deportations. If they cannot outright kill the entire population with impunity, and death has not yet set in through mass neglect, the final solution comes in the form of removal. That is why Thein Sein, the puppet with whom the world is met, turns to propositioning the world to take the Rohingya away.

In the words of this tyrannical government rest a message that the world will be fullish to so passively overlook. In the offers to deport the Rohingya lay the warning of what awaits those who remain. Though there is no date given in those few words, there is the intent to end this slow genocide once and for all. If the Rohingya are not allowed to be removed they will face death one way or another.

This is an ultimatum that cannot be ignored. And yet it is the rational of an unsound mind that cannot be reasoned with. We cannot accept the deportations of a people and thus end a genocide through a slightly better means then death itself. Yet the leaders of Myanmar are hinting that they will find a way to force the worlds' hand.

Deportations are already underway. Rohingya are pushed out to sea every day. They are bought and sold like cattle and sent off to lives that barely can be called living. These small scale deportations are Burma's way of testing the waters (so to speak). Our tolerance of them only emboldens the perpetrators of these crimes. Our silence helps drive the nail into their coffins.

A Plea... A Scream.

I will close this post in a way that many of Alder's Ledge's contributors have heard time and time again. It is a story that has tainted post after post here on this blog. And though I don't talk about it near as often as some might want... it is a story that best sums up why Alder's Ledge has kept it's voice raised for so long.

I have said before that I can see the faces of my ancestors in the stories that come out of Burma. Time and time again I have faced a part of my own past in a land I knew nothing about just a couple years ago. It has bonded me to a people that I may never get the chance to meet in person. It has connected me to a struggle that many have never heard about. For this reason I scream.

When the Germans entered Croatia they stole from me something that I hadn't even been given yet, my heritage. The holocaust of my ancestors took from my family the will to identify with their past. It stole from them their name, their lineage, their history. For that reason I lost entire portions of a history that I have fought to restore my entire life. It is a battle that led to Alder's Ledge's creation in the first place. It is the heart and soul of why this blog exist. And it is the blood in our cracked voices as we scream for those suffering that same fate. 

I know that many who read this blog don't have that scar to keep them entangled in what can be easily written off as "someone else's fight". It isn't easy to deal with genocide no matter what you own history with it might be. And it certainly isn't a topic that we often think about bringing up, let alone as often as this blog does. 

But I would like to make this plea once again. 

When I look at Burma I see entire masses of people being forced into the struggle I have faced since my eyes were first opened. What is being stolen from them isn't something that they will ever be able to restore to the way it was prior to all this. Many of them are already a generation or two into this battle to hold onto their heritage. Their mothers, their fathers, and for some their grandparents... all watch as their children are robbed of their culture, their history, their family. 

There is no good way to describe the suffering that comes along with this. Anger, hatred... both taint the soul as a person fights to take back what they were denied so violently. For some, those emotions never succumb to the love for life that they feel was crushed beneath the heels of their assailants. 

For me this is just a little of why I fight. It is what motivates these post. And hopefully, the heart of this has been seen in every word. 

Now I would like to ask that those reading this put these post into their own words... with your own heart. Take everything you can from these articles and utilize them to get the message out. Don't let your voice be silent as the Rohingya people are robbed of their humanity. Scream with us. Join us. Fight with us.

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Some Sources Used:

AFP
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/myanmar-moots-camps-deportation-rohingya-solution-093554931.html

Bangkok Post
http://www.bangkokpost.com/lite/topstories/365525/human-rights-watch-opposes-border-camps-for-rohingya

HRW
http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/08/20/thailand-release-and-protect-rohingya-boat-people

Burma Preparing The Killing Fields

Nasaka Dictate New Rules For Rohingya Villages
(part of The Darkness Visible series)

As the radical Buddhists Rakhine continue to rally around propagandist monks the Arakan region of Burma grows even more unstable. Monks with political agendas replace those who had once taught the actual faith of Buddhism. Police with the power to kill back these very political ideals. And an army with the willingness to torture, torment, and slaughter provide the political base the muscle they need to crush all opposition.

During the summer of 2012 the world watched as the Rakhine took to the torch to remove Rohingya from villages and cities. Then when peace had been "restored" the gates of hell swung open once again in October of 2012. The calm of normality has still yet to return.

Now we watch as the radicals call for "action" once again. The blockades are being reinforced so as to keep the Rohingya within their villages and concentration camps. The police presence is being built up well beyond its original strength. Military presence is everywhere as the army of Thein Sein prepares to back the Rakhine pogrom looming over the horizon.

In Maungdaw, Arakan state the Nasaka (border police) called upon all Rohingya villagers to attend lectures about the new laws they are supposedly there to impose. In these meetings with village leaders and Rohingya community leaders, the Nasaka gave even more harsh demands than before. Now Rohingya are banned from leaving their homes from 10pm to 6am. No Rohingya are allowed to go outside the limits of their villages. Farmers must ask permission to leave the villages to tend their fields. Visiting family members must be documented and reported to the Nasaka guards. And anyone caught violating these laws will be removed for punishment at the whims of the Nasaka guards.

More importantly, any demolished house that was not given an OK by the Nasaka will also be punished extremely by the military or police. This is important to note since the Nasaka do not care how the house was destroyed. They simply need excuses to use when attacking Rohingya and removing them to prisons and torture houses. It will not matter if the house was firebombed by Rakhine or not, the Rohingya will be the ones who pay the price.

It is also important to note that the new police presence is not in the area to protect the Rohingya but rather to defend the Rakhine. The harsh new laws do not apply to the Rakhine. They only are meant to keep Rohingya in one place where they can be easily attacked and killed when the Rakhine mobilize. This is a measured step in preparing the area of Maungdaw for the next wave of ethnic cleansing.

Now all we apparently can do is wait and see. More Rohingya die of starvation every day in Maungdaw. And these harsh rules will only help them die of hunger or die at the hands of the radical Rakhine militias. Whichever comes first. 

Blockades In Bangladesh

Racism Knows No Borders
(part of The Darkness Visible series)

(Always On The Outside Looking In)

For nearly a year now the Arakan has been under siege by Rakhine extremist who are determined to fulfill their campaign of ethnic cleansing. These fascist have created as system of oppression not seen by the West since the Bosnian Genocide. And much like the Serbian aggression, the Rakhine extremist began their siege of the Rohingya with a horrific purge. 

Many of Burma's Rohingya fled the initial wave of genocide in their homeland for the promise of security across the border in Bangladesh. These Rohingya had been led to believe that at the very least they would be spared the killing and barbarism that was spreading across the Arakan. The one thing they would never escape however was the racism that plagues the region in which they live. 

No border would stop the hatred the Bengali and Burmese communities hold for the Rohingya. It is a deep seeded hatred that can't be easily explained. And yet, in the same irony of the cheap excuses given for the Bosnian Genocide, it isn't a hatred that can be used to explain the violence. This was a hatred that has left the Rohingya as a people vulnerable, oppressed, and constantly on the run. 

In Bangladesh the local authorities fought against the establishment of any form of refugee camps. Recognized camps were just as dangerous as the purges across the border in Burma. So with the constant threat of violence, the Rohingya gathered in unregistered (and considered illegal) camps away from prying eyes. 

(Dreary And Miserable Camps)

Hostility against the Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh has been only getting worse. The Border Guards Bangladesh and the Repaid Action Battalion have been increasing their presence around the Rohingya camps. Along with their presence comes the threat of rape, robbery, extortion, and slavery. Let alone the violence associated with the security personnel.

This increase in military and security has also led to Rohingya being unable to seek jobs and income in the the surrounding area. The fact that these camps are unregistered with the UNHCR also means that they are unable to receive aid from the UN. And with the security the roads have been blocked and checkpoints erected, meaning that NGOs are unable to reach the camps. 

In Bangladesh there are four refugee camps. Two of which are not registered with the UNHCR. This leaves these two camps vulnerable and at the whims of the Bengali military.

In Kutupalong makeshift camp there are about 60,000 people and  15,000 in Lada makeshift camp. All of these Rohingya are on the verge of starvation. Without the ability to leave these camps and seek employment and food, these Rohingya will have to face a slow and painful death.

For many they will have to decide if they should stay in Bangladesh or risk death on the sea fleeing ethnic cleansing once again.

Arakan Still Smoldering

Is Next Wave Of Violence Lingering Over Horizon?
(part of The Darkness Visible series)

 (Camps are "more like prisons")

During the past week I have been seeing more and more tweeters sounding the alarm that the next wave of ethnic cleansing is about to strike in the Arakan. Almost a year ago I would have thought this was a tad bit overly dramatic. Today however it feels closer to reality than ever before. 

These days the Rohingya within Burma are living in a situation where they are waiting for the next boot to drop. Their lives are in constant danger as the radical Rakhine continue to rally Buddhists to their cause. All the while they are starved in camps that the UN says are "more like prisons". More of the Rohingya die daily of hunger and disease in villages that are locked down behind blockades the government has erected. 

For the Rohingya it always feels as though the next wave of violence is persistently lingering over the horizon. 

So what could the next wave of violence look like if it were to happen tomorrow?

After the last two outbreaks of ethnic cleansing in the Arakan the Rohingya were effectively disarmed and rounded up into camps or confined to their villages and ghettos. This has left the Rohingya unable to mount any effective form of defense against attacks from well organized Nasaka backed mobs or Rakhine nationalist that were not disarmed after the fighting. It is important to also note that Rohingya prior to the fighting had only been able to use agricultural tools and common household items to fight back. The Rakhine on the other hand have the support of modern weapons and vehicles to readily move their forces onto target. Thus the mere "fighting strength" of the two communities is already disproportionate. 

When you factor in the length of time that the Rohingya have been starved and deprived of communication with family and friends the ability to organize is depleted as well. With no ability to openly communicate with neighboring villages or camps the Rohingya are isolated. They are for lack of better words the proverbial sitting ducks in this situation. 

In addition there is no reason for the Rakhine to wait for an excuse to attack either. 

The initial violence was blamed on an alleged rape and murder of a "Rakhine" Buddhist woman. The result was an untold number of Rohingya arrested, raped, murdered, and made homeless. Of course there were a handful of Rohingya that fought back to save their homes and loved ones and these were killed or arrested while their attackers went free. But the fact remains that the initial campaign of ethnic cleansing was a result of a planned campaign in which a rape was exploited and rolled into a larger crime. 

After the campaign began the Rohingya were sent off to concentration camps or had their homes turned to ghettos. This was intended and has been carried out to further isolate the targeted community. It leaves the victims vulnerable to further exploitation and potential extermination. It was the same method used in Poland with the Jews in Warsaw. It was the same method used in Bosnia by the Serbs to exterminate Muslims. 

All of this leaves one to guess that if the "ethnic violence" returns it will be targeted at a community already living under siege. If or when the next stage of this campaign of ethnic cleansing begins it has the possibility of being the Rakhine extremists' version of Hitler's "Final Solution".

If it begins as early as March (an estimate given by tweeters following the genocide) then we are almost guaranteed to see Burmese police clearing out ghettos and emptying the camps. Mass executions could be possible as Rakhine extremist find that they have no ability to deport or drive out the thousands of Rohingya caught in their ghetto liquidations. Rohingya attempting to flee would face Nasaka forces ready and willing to shoot first and ask questions after the killing is finished.

Now by this point many people reading this probably think that I'm jumping directly to the worst possible scenario. For many the thought of this sort of thing happening in our time is uncompromisable. We are supposed to be living in a modern age of civility and tolerance. Burma however lives in an age and culture of ethnocentrism and Junta law. And this sort of tragedy is already taking place on a daily basis in the Arakan region of Myanmar whether our Western press and media like it or not.

Rohingya within Burma are living a day to day life as they wait to see if their government will kill them all or just let this latest outburst of violence build upon a long history of oppression and discrimination. For them, it is not a question of if the next wave of violence will happen... it is when it will begin.

Source Documents

(note not all sources are listed)

Democratic Voice of Burma

http://www.dvb.no/news/burma-army-torture-kachin-rebel-suspects-un/26440

Eleven Myanmar 

http://elevenmyanmar.com/politics/2475-un-envoy-says-bengali-meets-with-activists

http://elevenmyanmar.com/politics/2482-human-rights-envoy-quintana-visits-rakhine-state

The Irrawaddy 

http://www.irrawaddy.org/archives/27020

Mizzima News

http://www.mizzima.com/news/inside-burma/8920-rohingya-camps-more-like-prisons-says-un-envoy.html

Life Under Siege

What the Blockades in Burma Look Like
(part of The Darkness Visible series)

(Rohingya Camp Being Kept Under Blockade By Myanmar)

In previous post Alder's Ledge has told you what life under blockade was like in Myanmar. We explained what it was like to be starved to death slowly by a government that seeks to destroy an entire ethnic group. We explained how and why the radical Rakhine movement in Burma is carrying out their campaign of ethnic cleansing. Yet nothing compares to seeing the destruction yourself. That is why we are bringing you these images (first provided by @jamiliahanan on Twitter).

This Rohingya woman has a skin condition that has been left untreated due to lack of medical aid being allowed through the blockade. The skin condition has left painful blisters on her feet making it hard to walk. There is currently no relief in site due to the endless blockades being maintained by the Burmese government. 

This Rohingya child has the hallmark sign of malnourishment, a swollen stomach protruding from under rigid ribs. During the Holodomor in the Ukraine (part of Stalin's Forced Famines) children became swollen like this from eating thatch roofing materials. It is hard to say what has caused this child's condition. But it is clear from history's lessons that this condition is fatal if left untreated. 

This Rohingya boy has grown rail thin as starvation slowly claims him. Hips, ribs, and joints show through his thin tight draping of skin. This form of death is a cruel form of torture in Burma. It could easily be prevented. If food was allowed to enter the camp this boy would not be in the condition he is in now. If water was allowed, at the least, his strength would not be so rapidly depleted as his organs begin to shut down.

This Rohingya man is emaciated as his body uses up its own muscles to fuel itself on just a few more days. Just as with other Rohingya starving to death, this man is suffering with each passing day. His body is growing rigid as it looses the ability to move limbs. He is basically suffering from the symptoms of death long before death ever claims him. 

Another swollen stomach, another sad face. This Rohingya boy is rail thin everywhere except his stomach. In previous genocides where starvation was used to kill large numbers of people the children were described as "little fat men" due to this symptom. It was a cruel way of describing the children on their last leg before death set in. 

This is a typical home in the Rohingya concentration camps. In the dry season it may be almost bearable. In the wet season there is little between the Rohingya and the heavy rains. What was dirt beneath their beds quickly becomes mud. There is nowhere to flee from the dirt and mud due to the blockades that keep them in and the food and medicine out. 

A beautiful Rohingya girl, starved and hunched over in her tent. Her bones peak through her flesh as she looks away from the camera. Most Americans would have a hard time distinguishing her from any other Burmese or Bangladeshi individual. Yet the Burmese and Bengalis both hate her and her people. They refer to her as "Kalar".

Another symptom of malnutrition, this child's hair is falling out. It is a painful thing to watch as a child waste away right before your eyes. Yet for the Rohingya in Burma this is what life has been reduced to. A long and painful walk from degradation to death. 

This Rohingya man finds it hard to walk as starvation claims his body's muscles. He is frail and thin at a time in his life when he should be living rather than dieing. Instead of enjoying life, this Rohingya man has to watch his family, friends, and community die before his eyes. 

Another child, another swollen stomach. This Rohingya child does not deserve to live like this. He had done nothing but simply be unfortunate enough to be born Rohingya in Burma. That should not be a death sentence. And yet here he is, starved and homeless. 

Sunken eyes, protruding ribs, and thin limbs. These are the hallmarks of Burma's own forced famine. This is what it is like to live under constant siege by a government that is hellbent upon the destruction of the Rohingya people. This is what it is like to be starved to death slowly by a government that is carrying out a campaign of genocide. 

These images came out of Burma so that the world may see the faces of genocide in Myanmar. Now that we have seen them it is our duty to act. It is our duty as human beings to stand as one and fight this inhumanity. We can not remain silent as more and more Rohingya die daily. 

Scream for the Rohingya. Your voice goes much further than you could ever imagine.

Welcome To The Ghetto

Banished To The Slums
(Part of The Darkness Visible series) 

Myanmar Government Now Establishing Ghettos For Rohingya

In Sittwe, Myanmar the Burmese government has now established a policy of forced segregation in which the Rohingya are being forced into ghettos. The Rakhine Buddhist are now the only ones allowed to enter the market areas in Sittwe and other cities and larger villages in the Rakhine region of Myanmar. Rohingya who had their own businesses in this region are now banned from working. Rohingya who had homes in Sittwe are now homeless and forced to walk the alleyways of the ghettos. Not one Rohingya dares leave the ghettos in fear that they will be attacked. Sittwe is now in a full fledged stage of ethnic cleansing.

In 1992 the Serbian militias set up concentration camps and ghettos where the Bosniaks were forced to live in constant fear. These sorts of open air prisons are meant to force the prisoners to live like animals. For the oppressors on the outside these camps are designed to give the image that the prisoners are not human. And for the community as a whole... this sort of segregation will leave scars that even time can not truly heal.

For my ancestors the ghettos were a way of life that still lives in the backs of our minds. To a degree the memory of these places still lives on even in generations who never knew what the ghettos were actually like. This is how time fails to wipe the slate clean. This is why the ghetto is such an effective tool of war.

Myanmar police and military have been known to use these ghettos to round up Rohingya women to gang rape or use as sexual slaves. Once again this mirrors how the Serbian militias used this tactic. It shows how the Junta is creating a step by step version of ethnic cleansing. This is exactly the style of genocide that appeared in Bosnia. It is the method the Nazis used in Eastern Europe. And it is how the Russians exercised their segregation and pogroms before the Holocaust.

Food and Clean Water are Scarce in the Ghetto

Death has a way of lingering in camps like these. Frail bodies haunt the shadows as helplessness creeps around every corner. A sense of timelessness falls over a person who lives in these conditions. There is nothing to mark the passing of time anyhow. There are no meals to speak of. There are no jobs to get up in the morning and go off to do. There is no reason to go to bed when your stomach is aching and your body is hurting. And there is no way of quenching your thirst without inviting death from disease or infection. 

No human being should ever have to live like this. Nobody should ever have to wait for death to come for them as they live with the fading hope of having a life worth living. Yet this is what the world has left for the Rohingya. This is the life Myanmar has cursed an entire ethnicity with. 

For those who make it to UN sponsored camps life isn't much better. They have already passed through the hell of war. They have been hunted like a dog as they ran through the flames. And now they must live in a ghetto full of pale canvas tents and meager rations. 

So how can you help end this ethnic cleansing campaign? How can you do anything that might end the United States support for Myanmar's genocidal campaign against the Rohingya?

The easiest way to take action is to first contact your Representative in Congress. All you have to do is search by zip code on the following page:

http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/

Once you have found your Representative you can go to their web page and email them. In your own words you can express how you have read about the ethnic cleansing in Myanmar and you want the United States to come out on the world stage and condemn it. Tell your Representative that you want the United States to take any actions necessary to force Myanmar to end the ethnic cleansing and stop the genocide of the Rohingya Muslims. 

If you do not want to take this action you can "Scream" with us. To do this you can simply press the "share" button down below. By posting these articles on your FaceBook and Twitter you raise your voice with us and help spread the word about this horrific tragedy. And that alone is a simple step you can take that honestly and rapidly helps end the silence surrounding this genocide.

"Hell, No Better Word Can Describe It..."

The Liberation of Dachau.

"Lieber Gott, mach mich dumm, damit ich nicht nach Dachau kumm"

Dear God, make me dumb, that I may not to Dachau come. That was the short little song that many German children were taught. They seemed willing to forget that this camp was meant for the "enemies of the Reich... the Jews.

It is a known fact that common Germans, not of Jewish or Roma decent, were also sent to Dachau. They went their for reasons that the song above hints at. They knew too much, they talked too much, they didn't give the Hitler salute just right... for whatever reason they could end up in Dachau. They could die with the Jews.

The purpose for building Dachau is also a well known fact. To prepare the first true death camp. To make the model for all others that would follow. It was a prototype in many ways. In other ways it was its own unique corner of Hell itself.

The prisoners sent to Dachau could expect to be forced into hard labour, work designed to bring about a slow death, and then in the end be forced to push their predecessors' corpses into the camp's furnaces. By the time this camp was liberated by the United States Army on April 29Th of 1945 the permanent smell of death lingered in the air about it. The scent of burnt human hair and singed flesh seemed to permeate the very bricks that built the camp crematoriums.



In March of 1933 the Dachau furnaces were ignited and would not be extinguished till the camps liberation. In the beginning of the camp's existence it was mainly political opponents of the Nazi party that would be sacrificed to the fires of Dachau. This changed as the Nazis began their drive to exterminate the Jewish population of Germany and the newly occupied territories. By the end of the camp's existence there would be a larger number of Poles being fed to Dachau's fires than any other ethnic group.

Officially there were around 200 sub camps that reported to and supported the operations of Dachau. Most were camps where weapons and ammunition were constructed with the use of slave labour. Others were sites where the overflow of dead were burnt. All however were linked to the main camp through the use of trails or "Green Toms" (trucks used to gas prisoners on their way to the crematoriums).

As the war drew to an end more and more prisoners were being transported from outlying camps of the crumbling Third Reich. In late April of 1945 the last train from the soon to be liberated camp of Buchenwald arrived. Of the 4,800 prisoners on the train only 800 were received alive. The corpses of those who had died or been shot in transit were left on or around the train till the 5Th Army of the United States arrived.

On April 28Th the head of the camp, Camp Commandant Martin Gottfried Weiss abandoned his post and fled as the United States Army approached. History is kinder than I am to this cowardice Nazi. It is clear to me that Martin Gottfried Weiss did not simply fear capture but had left the SS Totenkopfverbande (Death's Head Unit) to destroy the camp and its prisoners as he and his loyal camp guards fled for Berlin. His orders were clear... kill them all.


(7Th Army Soldiers force Hitler Youth boys to examine the trains they helped to deliver to Dachau)

Late in the day the SS Commander Heinrich Wicker finally surrendered Dachau to the United States Army. From the report that was issued it is clear that Heinrich Wicker believed that the United States would pick up where the Nazis had left off. This is why he left his SS soldier with guns facing in on the remaining prisoners of Dachau.

"As we moved down along the west side of the concentration camp and approached the southwest corner, three people approached down the road under a flag of truce. We met these people about 75 yards north of the southwest entrance to the camp. These three people were a Swiss Red Cross representative and two SS troopers who said they were the camp commander and assistant camp commander and that they had come into the camp on the night of the 28Th to take over from the regular camp personnel for the purpose of turning the camp over to the advancing Americans. The Swiss Red Cross representative acted as interpreter and stated that there were about 100 SS guards in the camp who had their arms stacked except for the people in the tower. He said he had given instructions that there would be no shots fired and it would take about 50 men to relieve the guards, as there were 42,000 half-crazed prisoners of war in the camp, many of them typhus infected. He asked if I were an officer of the American army, to which I replied, "Yes, I am Assistant Division Commander of the 42ND Division and will accept the surrender of the camp in the name of the Rainbow Division for the American army."

Officially it is noted that the Seventh United States Army had liberated the death camp of Dachau. However it is commonly believed that units of the Fifth United States Army had been the first to enter Dachau and its outlying camps. In either case the camp's operations were put to an end and the Nazi SS soldiers were lined against the walls of Dachau and shot. No trial was needed for these dogs. No need for forgiveness for these worthless soulless monsters.


Army records report that only about fifty SS soldiers were shot that day. Other reports show that the number could have been 120 to 520 SS soldiers. These numbers are hard to accept since their was fewer than 300 SS soldiers manning Dachau and its surrounding camps when it was surrendered. In any case they should all have been shot as they knelt before their former prisoners. May their souls rot in Hell.

Trials of those who remained after the days that followed the surrender of the camp began in November of 1945. The coward SS Commander Martin Gottfried Weiss was hung as a result of these trials.

Today we should remember the heroic acts of our boys in arms. We should recall their bravery in coming face to face with the greatest evil our nation has faced in its history. And we should be proud of their reaction to it... the bloodying of evil men.

May we also keep in mind the fates of those who perished at Dachau and its supporting camps. We should never forget what was done as the world turned its eyes away from the suffering of innocent men and women. We should honestly and without exception finally be able to say "Never Again".