(part of The Darkness Visible series)
In every pogrom there is a moment where the victimized community has to stop and ask themselves just how far this new wave of violence is going to go. Moments of terror crack like thunder in the hearts of those who wait to see if the violence will escalate further. These moments reverberate through the community in such a manner that one family's loss quickly becomes the sorrow of every household. As the blood continues to pour and the tragic losses continue to mount, the fear grows till it floods the hearts and souls of all those trapped by the violence.
At some point what starts as a one pogrom in one village or town tends to spread outward. With news of freshly spilled blood traveling faster today than ever before this tidal wave of terror rushes across the map. It breaks through every previous barrier that had once contained these outbreaks of savage violence. And the world now has no way of denying what we can all see so painfully clear.
Violence breeds more of itself. It feeds on the fear it creates within the communities it rips apart. With each outbreak it grows more brazen. Areas afflicted with genocide quickly become helpless to stop its spread as they buckle beneath it's weight. Unless those watching from the sidelines step in to break the cycle, this senseless violence will continue till it burns itself up and there is nothing left.
Rohingya Blogger has recently brought to light clear cases of pogroms that are rapidly spreading such terror across Maungdaw in the Arakan state of Myanmar. These incidents are brutal and savage cases of inhuman barbarism. They show the worst side of humanity as extreme elements of Burma's society work toward some of the darkest political and religious goals man could ever set. They show clear cases of genocidal intent to cleanse Burma of the Rohingya people through violent expulsion and/or outright slaughter.
On Monday (January 13th) Rohingya Blogger posted a piece by Democratic Voice of Burma that showed how the death of one man in Meikhtila had sparked "rumors that an outbreak of communal violence was imminent". Despite the police saying that this death was a family dispute and in no way connected to the racial divide within the community itself, there were concerns amongst some of Meikhtila's citizens. Only time, however, will tell if the spread of violence in other areas had anything to do with the spread of these rumors or if it is mere coincidence.
What we do know right now is that in the Arakan the thunder is rolling and the blood is spilling. There is no denying in these recent cases that the religious and ethnic divide is behind the new blood baths currently taking place. And despite Burma's best attempts to hide it's complete disregard to "restoring peace" the news of these pogroms is getting out. This is in part due to the diligence of dedicated screamers like those at Rohingya Blogger.
On January 13th Maungdaw once again felt the first drops of blood as the pogroms began.
Rohingya Blogger reported (here) that on the night of January 13th, around 11pm, a police sergeant along with three police officers, the village administer, and five Rakhinese men entered Eastern Duchiradan village. Upon their arrival the group appears to have set out to spread terror amongst the Rohingya citizens. Their offenses included rape, looting of Rohingya property, and ultimately the killing of three Rohingya (including the rape victim). All of which was clearly meant to show the Rohingya that such acts are protected and collaborated with by the police themselves. There will be no legal reprisals or protection here.
This report by Rohingya Blogger was rapidly followed by even more detailed accounts of the extent of the pogrom in Duchiradan village. Reporting (here) from Rohingya Blogger spells out the atrocities that continued to mount in this now abandoned village. From the accounts given the Rohingya of Duchiradan have suffered mass executions, rapes, mutilations, torture, and mass arrests. Bodies of the slain, in customary form for Myanmar's officials, were taken from public view and buried in unmarked locations.
Today Duchiradan village is reported to be abandoned. The Rohingya who survived the pogrom have left their homes and joined the ever growing numbers of internally displaced peoples (IDPs) of Myanmar's Arakan state. Forced from their homes, these Rohingya were by all definitions ethnically cleansed from their village as the Rakhine (supported by Burmese police) take control of the area. This act is by definition genocide.
However this is not the only pogrom in the Maungdaw region.
Rohingya Blogger reported (here) that on January 15th in Baggona village tract a group of about 50 Rakhine attack Rohingya farm plots. The ethnic violence there has been growing as Rakhine from Kaye Myaing village reportedly carry out attacks against the Rohingya village of Baggona without intervention by Burmese police. The attacks are growing from property damage to physical assaults and prolonged torture of Rohingya caught by Rakhine mobs.
Terror is a weapon in and of itself. In Baggona the attacks not only deprive Rohingya of food security but also create a situation in which Rohingya farmers are terrified of returning to their fields. This lack of defense means that any Rohingya who wants to eat must risk violent attack or even death as Rakhine assailants attack with impunity. The terror that is created spreads as Rohingya notice both their vulnerability and a shrinking food supply (already minimal).
Yet the pogroms don't end here... after all, violence only breeds more of itself...
In another report Rohingya Blogger shared (here) a press release by BROUK about a pogrom in Kiladaung village on January 13th. In this press release are detailed accounts of Burmese military and security forces actively participating in the slaughter of seven Rohingya (including women and children) and the mass arrests of 100 Rohingya. It shows clearly that government forces within the Arakan state are actively participating in a campaign of ethnic cleansing intended to ultimately end their genocidal ambitions.
It is clear that the violence against Rohingya in the Arakan is once again reaching a flash point like those seen during the summer and fall of last year. And just as before, these incidents of government backed ethnic cleansing will not end without the direct and deliberate action by the world community and/or United Nations. If no external governmental organization intervenes this thunder will only grow into a raging storm... a storm that threatens the existence of a people, a culture, and their heritage.
For all you screamers who are reading this we are once again asking that you raise your voice in any way you can. Tweet, use status updates on Facebook, Instagram if you got it, Tumblr if you still use it, and any other social media site you can get your voice heard on. Yet we also ask that once you have screamed on there that you take that passion and start harassing your representatives in your respective government. Take that passion and petition your churches, your mosque, your temples and get them involved with organizations like Partners Relief and Development (info here). Use your outrage and get creative... if there is somebody who will listen (or that you can force to listen) then get out there and scream so that they will know.
Your voice is a weapon far greater than that of the terror these perpetrators of genocide are using. This indignant sense of moral outrage can be yielded just as effectively as any weapon of war. All it takes is for you to find your outlet and start applying yourself. It isn't always easy, it isn't always comfortable, but it is absolutely vital.
Come scream with us on twitter to learn more...
Find us at: @alders_ledge and @AL_Staff
Notes:
Rohingya Blogger
http://www.rohingyablogger.com/2014/01/police-and-rakhines-loot-and-rape-3.html#
-
http://www.rohingyablogger.com/2014/01/rakhine-extremists-destroy-vegetable.html
-
http://www.rohingyablogger.com/2014/01/press-release-7-rohingyas-killed.html
-
http://www.rohingyablogger.com/2014/01/duchiradan-village-deserted-after.html
Partners Relief and Development
http://partnersworld.org/
Showing posts with label Ethnic Violence. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ethnic Violence. Show all posts
January 15, 2014
January 2, 2014
Savage Peace
Enduring Myanmar's "Ceasefire"
(part of The Darkness Visible series)
When every meal is a blessing, and never guaranteed, you don't take a single grain of rice for granted. Every morsel, every last bite, is a step toward survival for the Kachin people of Burma. Their way of life was stripped from them. Their homeland laid to waste as the military of Myanmar grabbed up land and expelled the people it belongs to. Their homes were burned as the hellish minions of Myanmar's leadership trampled their fields and slaughtered their livestock. Where children once played there are now landmines and men in uniform to who the laws of war do not apply.
When every day you get to breath air free of smoke and ash is a blessing you don't take the little things in life for granted. Holidays that were once sacred may come and go without notice for many, but for those who have nothing else, they never pass without the offering of some faint sense of hope. Christmas was once a time of blessings for the Kachin people. It was celebrated in their own unique way. Now it is cherished for it's sweet, if only momentary, release from the cruel monotony of war. Celebrations that may only mirror what they once were are now the moments that Kachin children, born to this hell on earth, will remember for a lifetime. And yet these bitter sweet memories will have to be stored alongside ones that leave scars that time may never fully heal.
Peace is a lofty idea for a nation that has been at war with itself for nearly six decades. It's almost like a carrot at the end of a stick. Persistently dangling just beyond the reach of the people these wars have oppressed for so long. It is a sign of hope that they would continue to look forward towards it. Yet it is a miserable reality that the nation holding that carrot just out reach is the very reason for their suffering in the first place.
The Kachin people seek only for themselves what any other nation of men have sought out throughout all of time. They want the right to self-determination as a people, the right to preserve their heritage and culture. They seek to be recognized as a distinct culture and not forced into assimilation into an amalgamation designed by politicians who detest them on an ethic basis. But more importantly, they seek a better life for their children and a future free from the threat of war and starvation.
No people on the this planet will ever accept for their children a life worse than the one they have already endured. No mother would wish to remain silent as she watches her children waste away from hunger and disease. No father would want to live with the reality that his wife and daughters could be taken away and raped at any moment. And though these may not characterize the politics behind the war, these are the driving fears that fuel a society to resist the heavy hand of a brutal government. These are the sorts of fears that keep militias in the field and a savage military constantly beating at the door.
However despite the natural inclination of man to resist tyranny, Myanmar continues to push for more of it as they tell the world how wonderful this "ceasefire" is for the Kachin State and it's people. Behind the fog of war, which never really left, the military continues it's campaign of rape, pillage, and ruthless slaughter. The intent to intimidate what they view as the underdog is clear once the government's lies are stripped away. No amount of propaganda can hide the scars left upon the victims of this barbarism. Missing limbs and protruding ribs don't speak to peace. Children playing in squalid camps while parents wait for rations that never come doesn't indicate peace. Only the lies coming from Burma's leadership speak of this.
This is made evident when soldiers from Burma's military invade internally displaced peoples' camps (IDPs) and use what little resources these people have for their own profit.
Organizations like the Free Burma Rangers, a front line humanitarian group, have helped strip away the lies that Myanmar attempts to portray to the world. Their people on the ground record every movement the Burmese soldiers make against the Kachin civilians. Their atrocities are recorded in detail and accounts from the victims, whose voices would otherwise be silenced, are smuggled out of Myanmar. These records show where Myanmar's official party line and reality so dramatically separate from one another.
When Burma's military sets IDP camps to the torch the world is told that there are million reasons why these squalid camps go up in flames. Myanmar blames anything from a camp fire getting out of control to the refugees themselves. Yet when Nam Lim Pa went up in flames the Free Burma Rangers provided the world with photographic evidence of Myanmar's military's involvement. Unexploded mortar shells and spent rounds proved that the camp was savagely attacked and the refugees driven off as the Burmese soldiers approached in such a manner as to flush the camp entirely.
Civilians are not mentally prepared for combat in the way that soldiers are. Attacks like these are carried out to amplify the confusion and fear that sets in as the military takes camps by surprise. Though the goal is usually to simply drive off the refugees the military takes no measures to prevent casualties amongst civilians. It rather appears that the intent is to maximize the numbers of Kachin refugees killed so as to keep refugees from returning once the soldiers have moved out.
Once the attacks are over the Burmese military takes to exploiting Kachin civilians who can't escape their advance. Taking resources the Kachin people need to live, Myanmar's military deprives desperate refugees of their basic needs. In Nam Lim Pa the soldiers took rice from villagers before opening fire to drive the civilians back as the soldiers carried off their food. Helpless, the Kachin villagers had no way of hiding their rice or keeping it from troops that are still being resupplied from central Burma.
For the outside world these sorts of actions should indicate the end goal of Myanmar's war against the Kachin people. This is not a war to bring the Kachin people into the ranks of Burma's "culturally diverse" society. This is not a war to push the Kachin rebel factions into submission. This is a war to ethnically cleanse as much of the Kachin state as Myanmar possibly can before so called peace is established. The ceasefire is Burma's way of holding up a blank sheet of paper and proclaiming to the world "peace in our time".
There can be no peace with between a government and a people it wishes didn't exist. The carrot at the end of this stick is an illusion. For the actions of the Burmese military more directly reflect the intent of it's government than the words that fall from perverse lips back in Myanmar's capitol. Every drop of blood spilled on behalf of this savage peace speaks volumes to the reason the Kachin people still suffer.
Until the world is forced to realize that genocide needs not war or conflict to be effective then the peoples whose lives it claims can never be saved. The value of their existence amongst us is no more than that of the breath we exhale while proclaiming "never again". Our promise to uphold that vague proclamation falls more rapidly to the grave than the Kachin people themselves.
As a world community we must look past our hope that peace can be achieved without pain. We must realize that as long as there are men who would sacrifice entire races of men to their insanity there will always be a reason to fight. We must realize that those words, never again, so desperately need action to make them a reality.
Putting pressure upon your own government is just a start.
The most direct way to help those who need it most, the Kachin civilians who endure this tragedy, is to put your own resources into the fight. Time, money, and your voice go further than you might realize.
Two organizations to partner with in this fight for the Kachin peoples' future, and two organizations you should research for more info on this topic, are:
The Free Burma Rangers
And...
Partners Relief and Development
When every meal you eat is just another part of your day, you have it better than most of the rest of the world. When every dollar you spend doesn't make you decide between life and death, you have something to spare. And when every breath you breathe is free from fear, you have a voice that can be used to ease the fears of others.
We here at Alder's Ledge make regular donations to Partners Relief and Development. We will never ask that you do something that we ourselves would not. When we ask you to "scream" we will always be there to help amplify your voice in any way we can. When we ask you to donate we are pleading with you to join us in our effort to put our hard earned cash behind our voice. We know that everyone of us is working hard, and those dollars probably have been dogeared for something else, yet when we ask... we ask also that you give it thought (and prayer if need be) to decide what it is you could sacrifice so that those in need don't have to.
Source Documents
(note: not all listed)
Burma News International
http://www.bnionline.net/index.php/feature/kic/16604-burma-army-looting-intimidation-displacement-in-kachin-state.html
Myanmar Times
http://www.mmtimes.com/index.php/lifestyle/travel/9175-feeling-a-little-myopic-at-the-kachin-cultural-museum.html
Burma Free Rangers
http://www.freeburmarangers.org/2013/12/11/rangers-help-lead-villagers-to-safety-as-burma-army-enters-nam-lim-pa-idp-camp-takes-rice-rations-and-fires-at-villagers/
(part of The Darkness Visible series)
Praying for peace, praying to live.
When every meal is a blessing, and never guaranteed, you don't take a single grain of rice for granted. Every morsel, every last bite, is a step toward survival for the Kachin people of Burma. Their way of life was stripped from them. Their homeland laid to waste as the military of Myanmar grabbed up land and expelled the people it belongs to. Their homes were burned as the hellish minions of Myanmar's leadership trampled their fields and slaughtered their livestock. Where children once played there are now landmines and men in uniform to who the laws of war do not apply.
When every day you get to breath air free of smoke and ash is a blessing you don't take the little things in life for granted. Holidays that were once sacred may come and go without notice for many, but for those who have nothing else, they never pass without the offering of some faint sense of hope. Christmas was once a time of blessings for the Kachin people. It was celebrated in their own unique way. Now it is cherished for it's sweet, if only momentary, release from the cruel monotony of war. Celebrations that may only mirror what they once were are now the moments that Kachin children, born to this hell on earth, will remember for a lifetime. And yet these bitter sweet memories will have to be stored alongside ones that leave scars that time may never fully heal.
Peace is a lofty idea for a nation that has been at war with itself for nearly six decades. It's almost like a carrot at the end of a stick. Persistently dangling just beyond the reach of the people these wars have oppressed for so long. It is a sign of hope that they would continue to look forward towards it. Yet it is a miserable reality that the nation holding that carrot just out reach is the very reason for their suffering in the first place.
The Kachin people seek only for themselves what any other nation of men have sought out throughout all of time. They want the right to self-determination as a people, the right to preserve their heritage and culture. They seek to be recognized as a distinct culture and not forced into assimilation into an amalgamation designed by politicians who detest them on an ethic basis. But more importantly, they seek a better life for their children and a future free from the threat of war and starvation.
No people on the this planet will ever accept for their children a life worse than the one they have already endured. No mother would wish to remain silent as she watches her children waste away from hunger and disease. No father would want to live with the reality that his wife and daughters could be taken away and raped at any moment. And though these may not characterize the politics behind the war, these are the driving fears that fuel a society to resist the heavy hand of a brutal government. These are the sorts of fears that keep militias in the field and a savage military constantly beating at the door.
However despite the natural inclination of man to resist tyranny, Myanmar continues to push for more of it as they tell the world how wonderful this "ceasefire" is for the Kachin State and it's people. Behind the fog of war, which never really left, the military continues it's campaign of rape, pillage, and ruthless slaughter. The intent to intimidate what they view as the underdog is clear once the government's lies are stripped away. No amount of propaganda can hide the scars left upon the victims of this barbarism. Missing limbs and protruding ribs don't speak to peace. Children playing in squalid camps while parents wait for rations that never come doesn't indicate peace. Only the lies coming from Burma's leadership speak of this.
This is made evident when soldiers from Burma's military invade internally displaced peoples' camps (IDPs) and use what little resources these people have for their own profit.
"The FBR (Free Burma Rangers) lists and dates the Burma Army took over a camp for displaced
people. On 21 November 2013, Burma Army soldiers – from Battalion 47,
56, 240, 276, and 319 – occupied Nam Lim Pa clinic, in Nam Lim Pa IDP
camp, using the building to store weapons and ammunition."
~ Burma News International 1-2-14
Organizations like the Free Burma Rangers, a front line humanitarian group, have helped strip away the lies that Myanmar attempts to portray to the world. Their people on the ground record every movement the Burmese soldiers make against the Kachin civilians. Their atrocities are recorded in detail and accounts from the victims, whose voices would otherwise be silenced, are smuggled out of Myanmar. These records show where Myanmar's official party line and reality so dramatically separate from one another.
When Burma's military sets IDP camps to the torch the world is told that there are million reasons why these squalid camps go up in flames. Myanmar blames anything from a camp fire getting out of control to the refugees themselves. Yet when Nam Lim Pa went up in flames the Free Burma Rangers provided the world with photographic evidence of Myanmar's military's involvement. Unexploded mortar shells and spent rounds proved that the camp was savagely attacked and the refugees driven off as the Burmese soldiers approached in such a manner as to flush the camp entirely.
Civilians are not mentally prepared for combat in the way that soldiers are. Attacks like these are carried out to amplify the confusion and fear that sets in as the military takes camps by surprise. Though the goal is usually to simply drive off the refugees the military takes no measures to prevent casualties amongst civilians. It rather appears that the intent is to maximize the numbers of Kachin refugees killed so as to keep refugees from returning once the soldiers have moved out.
Once the attacks are over the Burmese military takes to exploiting Kachin civilians who can't escape their advance. Taking resources the Kachin people need to live, Myanmar's military deprives desperate refugees of their basic needs. In Nam Lim Pa the soldiers took rice from villagers before opening fire to drive the civilians back as the soldiers carried off their food. Helpless, the Kachin villagers had no way of hiding their rice or keeping it from troops that are still being resupplied from central Burma.
For the outside world these sorts of actions should indicate the end goal of Myanmar's war against the Kachin people. This is not a war to bring the Kachin people into the ranks of Burma's "culturally diverse" society. This is not a war to push the Kachin rebel factions into submission. This is a war to ethnically cleanse as much of the Kachin state as Myanmar possibly can before so called peace is established. The ceasefire is Burma's way of holding up a blank sheet of paper and proclaiming to the world "peace in our time".
There can be no peace with between a government and a people it wishes didn't exist. The carrot at the end of this stick is an illusion. For the actions of the Burmese military more directly reflect the intent of it's government than the words that fall from perverse lips back in Myanmar's capitol. Every drop of blood spilled on behalf of this savage peace speaks volumes to the reason the Kachin people still suffer.
Until the world is forced to realize that genocide needs not war or conflict to be effective then the peoples whose lives it claims can never be saved. The value of their existence amongst us is no more than that of the breath we exhale while proclaiming "never again". Our promise to uphold that vague proclamation falls more rapidly to the grave than the Kachin people themselves.
As a world community we must look past our hope that peace can be achieved without pain. We must realize that as long as there are men who would sacrifice entire races of men to their insanity there will always be a reason to fight. We must realize that those words, never again, so desperately need action to make them a reality.
Putting pressure upon your own government is just a start.
The most direct way to help those who need it most, the Kachin civilians who endure this tragedy, is to put your own resources into the fight. Time, money, and your voice go further than you might realize.
Two organizations to partner with in this fight for the Kachin peoples' future, and two organizations you should research for more info on this topic, are:
The Free Burma Rangers
And...
Partners Relief and Development
When every meal you eat is just another part of your day, you have it better than most of the rest of the world. When every dollar you spend doesn't make you decide between life and death, you have something to spare. And when every breath you breathe is free from fear, you have a voice that can be used to ease the fears of others.
We here at Alder's Ledge make regular donations to Partners Relief and Development. We will never ask that you do something that we ourselves would not. When we ask you to "scream" we will always be there to help amplify your voice in any way we can. When we ask you to donate we are pleading with you to join us in our effort to put our hard earned cash behind our voice. We know that everyone of us is working hard, and those dollars probably have been dogeared for something else, yet when we ask... we ask also that you give it thought (and prayer if need be) to decide what it is you could sacrifice so that those in need don't have to.
On
22 November 2013, Burma Army soldiers from MOC 21 took 5 sacks of rice
from the IDP rations at Nam Lim Pa IDP camp. While Burma Army troops
were taking rice rations from IDPs, 23 villagers from Man Dau village
were walking to Nam Lim Pa IDP camp. When they encountered the Burma
Army troops in the area, Burma Army troops began shooting at the
villagers, causing the villagers to turn and run back to Man Dau. - See
more at:
http://www.freeburmarangers.org/2013/12/11/rangers-help-lead-villagers-to-safety-as-burma-army-enters-nam-lim-pa-idp-camp-takes-rice-rations-and-fires-at-villagers/#sthash.JT10Wp5h.dpuf
On
22 November 2013, Burma Army soldiers from MOC 21 took 5 sacks of rice
from the IDP rations at Nam Lim Pa IDP camp. While Burma Army troops
were taking rice rations from IDPs, 23 villagers from Man Dau village
were walking to Nam Lim Pa IDP camp. When they encountered the Burma
Army troops in the area, Burma Army troops began shooting at the
villagers, causing the villagers to turn and run back to Man Dau. - See
more at:
http://www.freeburmarangers.org/2013/12/11/rangers-help-lead-villagers-to-safety-as-burma-army-enters-nam-lim-pa-idp-camp-takes-rice-rations-and-fires-at-villagers/#sthash.JT10Wp5h.dpuf
Have questions for us?
Contact the author on Twitter - @alders_ledge
Contact a team member on Twitter - @AL_Staff
Source Documents
(note: not all listed)
Burma News International
http://www.bnionline.net/index.php/feature/kic/16604-burma-army-looting-intimidation-displacement-in-kachin-state.html
Myanmar Times
http://www.mmtimes.com/index.php/lifestyle/travel/9175-feeling-a-little-myopic-at-the-kachin-cultural-museum.html
Burma Free Rangers
http://www.freeburmarangers.org/2013/12/11/rangers-help-lead-villagers-to-safety-as-burma-army-enters-nam-lim-pa-idp-camp-takes-rice-rations-and-fires-at-villagers/
September 9, 2013
Leave Nothing Behind
Rape, Pillage, and Plunder
(Part of The Darkness Visible series)
In Myanmar's northern Kachin state there is a war that seems to never end. Generations of ethnic Kachin have come and gone as the war clouds continue to break up just enough to let a little hope in. Then just as the light of peace begins to shine down upon them, Burma's savage military darkens the sky with mortars and lights up the darkness with machine gun fire. For those who become trapped by the all encompassing hell that is this war the promise of peace is a faint memory now that the fighting has begun once more.
The level of brutality that the Kachin face as the Burmese military pushes them toward the border was once undocumented. It was intentionally kept from prying eyes as the Burmese pushed the Kachin refugees just within sight of the nation's borders. Yet today the barbarism that Myanmar has been practicing in the Kachin state can be hid no more.
The use of "black zones", established rape camps, mass executions, and slave labor have all been exposed as the most savage weapons that Myanmar has used against the Kachin people. These methodical tools of death have left the Kachin as a people without a homeland. When allowed to enter their lands they are treated as outsiders. In the few gaps of peace they have endured under Burma's regime the threat of these abuses has always lingered over their heads. Today these tools of war are back out and being used upon the killing fields that Thein Sein's military has prepared upon Kachin lands.
(Part of The Darkness Visible series)
(The Defiant Ones)
In Myanmar's northern Kachin state there is a war that seems to never end. Generations of ethnic Kachin have come and gone as the war clouds continue to break up just enough to let a little hope in. Then just as the light of peace begins to shine down upon them, Burma's savage military darkens the sky with mortars and lights up the darkness with machine gun fire. For those who become trapped by the all encompassing hell that is this war the promise of peace is a faint memory now that the fighting has begun once more.
The level of brutality that the Kachin face as the Burmese military pushes them toward the border was once undocumented. It was intentionally kept from prying eyes as the Burmese pushed the Kachin refugees just within sight of the nation's borders. Yet today the barbarism that Myanmar has been practicing in the Kachin state can be hid no more.
The use of "black zones", established rape camps, mass executions, and slave labor have all been exposed as the most savage weapons that Myanmar has used against the Kachin people. These methodical tools of death have left the Kachin as a people without a homeland. When allowed to enter their lands they are treated as outsiders. In the few gaps of peace they have endured under Burma's regime the threat of these abuses has always lingered over their heads. Today these tools of war are back out and being used upon the killing fields that Thein Sein's military has prepared upon Kachin lands.
(Upon their backs, this war is fought. (Bodenham/AFP/Getty Images))
Black Zones
The killers in black zones aren't always walking around stalking the prey. In these "no man's land" areas the most prolific killer doesn't even carry a gun. Instead it is buried just beneath the surface. Weeds and flowers can often grow up around it covering and concealing it's location. Yet once stepped upon this grotesque mangler of men arises in a ghastly eruption of sheer violence.
Landmines kill and wound more civilians than any other form of explosive brought upon the battle field in the Burma's embattled northern states. These horrific weapons are the cornerstones of Burma's fatal grip upon lands where they have pushed ethnic minorities out. Through unrestricted placement the weapons make fields of death where crops once grew. Wherever they are placed they stay and wait to either be disarmed or detonated... there is nothing in-between the two.
Women and children who disperse at the sound of approaching soldiers are often the victims of these gruesome weapons. If they attempt to return to find anyone or anything the threat of military patrols, snipers, and the ever present landmine linger. Those who survive are left with scars, missing limbs, and trauma that plays itself out in their minds and dreams.
Those who cannot flee the violence are treated as combatants regardless of their age or sex. Women and girls are traded as sexual slaves amongst the Burmese military till they are either killed or discarded. Men and boys are used as slave laborers if they are not first killed or killed after. Yet for the most part Kachin are able to flee since the Burmese military is slow and noisy in attempts to scare potential enemies off.
Yet for all the Burmese military has to offer in these "conflict" (genocide) zones, the Kachin people also have to worry about rebel groups. Atrocities have been recorded on both sides of the battle lines. However for the most part the threat to Kachin civilians is not the gun or the bullet but once again the indiscriminate use of landmines by the rebel groups.
Had this one weapon of war not been used there would be more Kachin men, women, and children alive today. Had the two sides refrained from this one form of barbarism there would be more children growing up today with parents, with all their limbs, without the trauma of watching people explode. Without this tool of torment the lives of hundreds of thousands of Kachin civilians would be better today.
Of course the war would still be going on. The stubbornness of Myanmar's military regime and it's genocidal ambitions would not let the war end simply because mines were removed. Yet the ability of relief workers and aid agencies to reach the wounded would be drastically increased. Though the war would have continued to grind the Kachin peoples' hearts and souls the ability to provide hope would be much more available without the threat of landmines all across Northern Burma.
Without the landmine the "black zones" would had been far more difficult to sustain. Without the ability to maim their victims endlessly the Burmese military would have had to extend itself far wider than it has. The demoralizing factor of endless war would have been far more affective had the landmine not filled the role of sentry on the lonely battle field.
Yet all that is hard to prove and difficult to believe since we will never know for certain. All we know now is that Burma is continuing to use these black zones and supports them with continued placement of landmines across embattled regions. The silent killer that maims countless civilians remains upon the battlefield and new ones continue to join them there everyday.
(The Most Vulnerable Victims Of War (Credit AP))
The Weapon Of Sex
In the Kachin State last June there were 18 reported rapes (some resulting in murder of the victim) committed by Myanmar's military against Kachin women. This was initially reported as an "up tick" in such sexual violence during the surge of battle in the Kachin State. However, with the continued violence that initial report has proven to be the least amount of such sexual violence that the Kachin women and girls could expect for the remaining duration of this genocide.
Refugees across the region have reported either witnessing or being the victims of rape committed by the Burmese military. Their stories routinely indicate the use of gang rapes and organized rape camps by the Burmese soldiers. This form of torment, though at times ending in death, is meant to inflict generational scars upon the victims. And though the stories of survivors it is evident that the intent of the crime is not just effective but growing in the Kachin State.
Rape as a weapon was well documented in Bosnia. The effects of the crime have been shown to last well after the genocide has been completed. No matter what the remaining portion of the victims life might bring, the rape at the hands of an enemy is both a personal and communal offense. If the woman is able to block the pain from her own mind the community often cannot. And regardless of the time that passes, the shame associated with the rape itself appears to linger in such a way that it can often be passed onto the next generation.
In Bosnia rape was used to provide a cheap moral boost to the perverted ranks of the Serb militias. It offered the soldiers a chance to release their sexual desires while harnessing their aggression. The aggression came into the equation since rape is never simply about sex but also engages the desire of the attacker to dominate their victim. It then results into a barbaric display of sexualized violence that personalizes the entirety of the overall conflict and places the burden of the war upon the victim's flesh and spirit.
For the Burmese military the use of rape as a weapon has been no different in the Kachin than it was for the Serbs in Bosnia. The delusion of "diluting the blood" of the ethnic minority still persist in Burmese soldiers as they target Kachin women in particular. The desire to inflict a lasting pain upon the targeted community is then personalized in such a way that the Kachin woman will bare the weight of societies hatred alone. She becomes powerless in a way that Burma's government would wish to apply to the Kachin people at large.
The effects of rape upon the victim, their family, and community are the added bonus for the perverted society which perpetrates and harnesses this weapon. The scars that are affixed to the victim's flesh, spirit, and mind are the consequences that motivate generals to encourage the use of rape as a weapon of war. It is why the use of rape has been so prolific during broader acts of genocide.
The Anchor Leg
For over five decades the Kachin people have been running from these atrocities. Their parents, their grandparents, have run from these battles. Children have grown up and given birth to the next generation of battlefield children. Entire generations have grown up either displaced or continually running from battles imposed upon them by a government that was supposed to represent them.
This endless war has been the anchor leg for a people that simply want the right to self-determination. They do not want to have their culture, their people, and their way of life taken from them at gun point. The only offense they have ever committed has been to cling to the desire to live free... to live in the way their ancestors had... to live upon the lands that their ancestors had fought to preserve for them.
For five decades the world has looked away as the Kachin have struggled to cling to the fringes of Burmese society. For five decades the world has ignored the defiance in the voice of the Kachin people as they demand to be treated as humans and not the beasts of burden that Myanmar would make of them. Now they cling to existence as a supposedly reformed government commits the same sins against them that the last one did. Now they wait for the eyes of the world to turn to them, to open up our ears to listen to their cries, and see what they have suffered at the hands of tyrants.
Once we have seen what they have had to bare under the heel of Myanmar will we look away? Will their cries have fallen upon deaf ears? Or will our hearts open to these oppressed and weary people?
There are people who are working to bring relief to the Kachin people. Two of the organizations that most directly provide aid to the Kachin are Partners Relief and Development and The Free Burma Rangers. These two organizations provide for the Kachin people a sense of hope that shines through the dark clouds of war that continue to linger over the Kachin State.
Alder's Ledge as an organization (small as we might be) openly donates to Partners Relief and Development through the pocketbook of the main author here. We donate monthly to the Arakan Relief to aid the Rohingya people. However we urge anyone who is reading this to visit the Partner's website and do your research. Then search your soul and decide how and if you would like to donate to their efforts.
To donate directly to the Kachin you can select Partner's "Kachin Relief" in the donation tab.
Doing this will allow you to join the Kachin in their anchor leg. It allows you to partner with the Kachin people and help ease their burden more directly than simply sending your best wishes. It gives you the chance to come alongside the Kachin people and take up a portion of their burden. It allows you to give them comfort in a time when they need it most.
Want to do more?
Scream for the Kachin people. By lending your voice to their cause you can spread awareness and increase the possibility that even more people will partner with the Kachin people. Your voice can bring more people into the race to save Kachin lives and ease their pain and suffering.
All you have to do is share Partner's website and the stories you will find there. You can also share articles found here on Alder's Ledge on your social media outlets. This simple act can help you scream in such a way that those around you (and around the world) will have the chance to hear about the plight of the Kachin people.
Still want to do more?
Consider volunteering with Partners Relief and Development. By lending your skills, your talents, and your two hands to the cause you can help in ways that you might not imagine possible. It may very well get you into the race to help the Kachin people, literally.
Want to learn more about this issue or others covered by Alder's Ledge?
Follow us on Twitter: @alders_ledge
Follow us on Facebook: Alder's Ledge
Source Documents
(note: not all sources listed)
IRIN Asia
Burma News International
Radio Free Asia
Times Colonist
Kachin News
Free Burma Rangers
Asia Times
The Epoch Times
August 20, 2013
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.
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.
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
(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.
Want to learn how you can help?
Contact @alders_ledge on Twitter
Or contact us on FaceBook: Alder's Ledge
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
August 13, 2013
These Violent Delights Have Violent Ends
"And In Their Triumph Die, Like Fire And Powder
Which, As They Kiss, Consume."
Innocent Blood
China has taken to a policy of exploitation and dehumanization of it's Uyghur Muslim population in the troubled Xinjiang province. Through the oppressive tactics of exploiting Uyghur as a supply of cheap labor through legislative processes the Chinese have locked the Uyghur people into the role of a permanent underclass. The government routinely looks the other ways as members of the Han majority ethnic group use mob violence to put Uyghur back beneath the heel of People's Republic. When Uyghur dare to fight back against savage attacks they are quickly put down by Chinese security forces.
This is exactly what happened as Uyghur Muslims gathered at the Peyshenbe Bazaar Mosque in Aykol, Xinjiang. According to the official state report the police were supposedly unarmed and simply attempting to arrest a couple worshipers who had been reported to have violated the strict religious laws of China. However if this is to be believed one would have to wonder how the incident quickly spiraled out of control leaving at least four dead and around 20 more wounded. Not a single security officer was injured.
Upon arrival at the Mosque the Chinese police did in fact begin their roundups of Uyghur men they claimed had violated laws restricting religious practices within China. But the security personnel were far from unarmed and simply acting out of legal precedent. The moment the Uyghur showed any resistance to the police officers' displays of force the Chinese security radioed in for backup and commenced to firing live ammunition in amongst the gathered Uyghur civilians. As the bullets began to fly the police's violent tendencies led to a violent tragedy.
Several reports vary on where and how severely Subhinur Memet, a four year old girl, was injured after being struck by police bullets. Some indicate that the little girl took a bullet to the chest while others say that she had been struck in the leg. On any account the young girl collapsed as the police continued to pour bullets into the area where she had fell. As of now the young girl is believed to be alive at least.
Everyone who has reported on the barbaric actions of the police in Aykol agree that tensions between the Uyghur and Chinese authorities flared immensely when the four year old girl was struck down. The Uyghur worshipers apparently ceased from fleeing the fight and turned to attack the police with sticks and stones. With this the police showed more force and more barbarism in their attack by firing even more rounds at closer range.
The result was devastating in a town where relations between the Uyghur population and the Chinese authorities were already strained. With four confirmed dead civilians (some indicate the casualties could be much higher) and a low estimate of at least 20 wounded the town was turned into a miniature police state. After the blood bath was over the Chinese flooded Aykol with every type of police unit they could find.
In response to the resistance that the Uyghur had shown at the Mosque the Chinese officials ordered raids upon Uyghur homes. List of Uyghurs who had been at the Mosque were checked off almost in order as Chinese police took to busting in doors and arresting any Uyghur man or boy who had been present earlier that day. At least three Uyghur women were also arrested by Chinese police as they cast a wide net over Aykol on the night of the Eid massacre.
Officially only 90 people have been arrested in connection to the violence instigated by Chinese police. However some estimate that the arrest could be well over one to two hundred people as Chinese police raided neighboring villages and towns from where some worshipers had traveled from. On the following day these suspicions were only stoked even more as Aykol citizens reported gunshots from Chinese police positions around the city.
So Why This Attack? Why On Eid?
China has long restricted the rights of it's Muslim minorities across the country. For the Uyghur this had been a sore spot in the relationship Xinjiang has had with Beijing. It was further stressed as Chinese authorities began to crackdown on prayer violations and religious gatherings amongst Uyghur Muslims. Local mosque have often been kept under police surveillance as the state continues to impose restrictions on prayer times and the length of religious observances. Ramadan has thus turned into a time of tribulation for the Uyghur as they struggle to observe the holy month under increased state sponsored oppression.
With increased violence, often instigated by Chinese Han and/or police, the Uyghur have found themselves facing travel restrictions that keep them confined in smaller and smaller areas. Farmers are often kept from selling their goods as they wish so that the state's low offer is the only income they can find. Workers are restricted to certain levels of employment and kept from any entrepreneurial ventures. Religious clothing and hair styles are treated as a threat by the state, thus Uyghurs are forced to dress and look like Han Chinese.
All of this state sponsored repression has led to an Uyghur population that is growing ever desperate for some small taste of freedom and the right to enjoy their own culture. Where they have sought compromise they have been told they must accept the Chinese customs and practices. Where they have attempted to make peace the state has only offered them suffering.
Uyghur youth who take advantage of educational opportunities often denied to their fellow Uyghur students are turned back once they are done with academia. As their Han classmates move onto careers that fit their level of education, the Uyghur are returned to manual labor for below sustainable incomes. This desire to keep the Uyghur below the Han majority has added yet more stress on the ethnic relations between the two groups.
So it is no surprise that with all this repression that harsh prayer restrictions and restrictions on religious gatherings would bring relations between Xinjiang and Beijing to a crashing halt. There is no more room for compromise on the Uyghur peoples' part. When it comes to the basic human rights (religion being one) they Uyghur cannot surrender to the will of the atheist state. And that is why incidents like this Eid massacre have taken place and will continue to occur.
These Are Not Polite Suggestions
If China is to maintain it's oppressive presence, at the very least, in Xinjiang it will have to either spill more and more blood or it will have to compromise it's communist and racial ideology. Xenophobic Beijing must learn to accept the ethnic diversity that comprises the rest of China. It will have to stop the importation of Han peasantry into Xinjiang and simply permit the wealth of China's economic growth to be granted to the Uyghurs as well. The ethnic cleansing taking place must be ended and the Uyghurs must be allowed to hold onto their homeland and their way of life.
Senseless slaughter of any ethnic minority in China must be stopped for China to avoid genocide. Uyghurs cannot be targeted due to their ethnicity to be "destroyed in part or in whole" so that China can benefit in any way from their demise. Their memory will live on, there are always survivors.
Therefore for China to move forward it must ease tensions by allowing religious observances to occur without police brutality, without police surveillance, and without a police presence. State dogs (officials) must be called off as Muslims, Hindus, Christians, and Jews observe their given holy days. Religious dress must be tolerated for a society to live in peace and pursue economic, social, and national progress. It is not a platitude for a state to tolerate religion but a necessity for the survival of the state itself.
Ethnic tolerance must be pursued and the bigotry that has been tolerated must be corroded through state and social policies. An education system based upon the ethnic background of the individual must be rejected and replaced with an educational system that seeks out the natural talents of each individual student. Talents and gifts are not distributed by nature, G-d, or what ever you believe in based upon ethnic heritage. China should ask itself where the world would be today if Hitler had been successful in killing off Albert Einstein and his legacy.
If China does not manage to move away from it's current policies of repression and ethnic cleansing it will face far more than stones down the road. A people who are oppressed in this manner have always shown throughout history that violence... the threat of extinction... is never sufficient at keeping them down forever. The Armenians rose up to meet the Young Turks and fought valiantly even as the Ottomans threatened to kill off every Armenian as a result. The Jewish partisans in Yugoslavia, Russia, Poland, and across Europe took to violent resistance as the threat of Nazism engulfed the world around them. Native Americans time and time again stood between death and the United States and yet they fought more fiercely than anyone could had imagined.
In the end China will have to remember the words of JFK as they continue to repress the Uyghur people.
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
~John F. Kennedy
This is not a "jihad" for the unlawful control of their country. This is not a war to take from China land, material wealth, or even souls. This isn't even a war at all in the aspect that one side has nothing with which to fight back. This is a struggle by the Uyghur people to keep their heritage alive, to keep their religious rights from being wiped away. This is the struggle of a people to maintain their cultural identity as the Chinese government attempts to take from them the last hallmarks of their culture... their religion.
Want to learn more about this issue or others covered by Alder's Ledge?
Follow us on Twitter: @Alders_Ledge
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Source Documents
(Note: not all sources listed)
Radio Free Asia
www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/clashes-08102013000244.html
http://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/shooting-08122013193025.html
The Epoch Times
http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/242294-china-police-break-up-uyghur-celebration-shooting-four-dead/
August 7, 2013
China's Hidden Jihad
The Atheist State's Unholy War On Uyghur Muslims
Repression is not defined by strict measurements. If a state is able to deny the basic rights of a people in any way it is crossing over into the realm of repression. If it attempts to limit the access of a people to their faith it is a repressive regime. If it blocks a people from the same rights that it assures to others within it's population the state is repressive by nature. It is an act of tyranny that though it may be hard to put to words it is always identifiable when you see it.
In a country where the state has no prescribed religion and recognizes only the rights of the majority the line between normality and repression is often blurred. But it is there. And for the Uyghur people it is a reality that threatens to deny them their heritage, their faith, and their future. For in a state where the perverted desires of the few are put above the needs of the many it is always those left on the fringe that pay the most. In China's unstable Xingiang region the Uyghur people are the ones left on the fringe of society. They are the ones that bear the weight of a country's greed.
The weight of a nation can break the will of a people to fight... to resist. Yet when pushed too far that weight can create unity. A certain bond is formed in a people that are oppressed by brutal tyrants. It is a link to that once formed it is hard to break. All the degradation, all the humiliation, all the pain and suffering; they become reasons to push back. The tears that mothers have shed over children taken away by jackbooted thugs become the water that nurtures bitter seeds. The blood and sweat that fathers sacrifice for their families' sake only serve to feed the hunger for change. All of which are planted in the minds of the youth who watch as their parents backs' break under the heavy hands of authoritarian beasts.
Change that comes from this form is not something that waits patiently for the right time and place. Change that comes from this form is that which comes like fire. It razes the structure of society and puts siege to the cornerstone of a government that has held it down for far too long.
This is what China is struggling to contain as it tucks it's iron fists in a velvet glove. All the while the regime finds new ways to keep prying eyes out of the troubled region. For this reason the national propaganda is the only form of press allowed into areas where the security forces heighten their presence. China is once again attempting to blackout the region so that the rest of the world can't see what dirty deeds are being done behind closed doors.
The rage that China created in the hearts and minds of the Uyghur community has flared up time and time again. With each new riot came an opportunity to round up the men and boys. With each new stabbing or alleged attack came a new chance for China to open fire on Uyghur protesters. The most notable incident in recent memory was the July 5th 2009 violence in Urumqi. It was a riot in which the Han majority was rewarded for turning a peaceful protest violent. Their reward has been the persistent repression of their Uyghur neighbors every July since.
This past Ramadan the anniversary of the July violence was celebrated by the fascist state by placing hundreds of Uyghur students in detention centers where they were not allowed to observe the holy month. Uyghur children were bussed to state run schools where they were forced to hand over all electronic devices that could be used to contact the outside world. Once under arrest the children were daily subjected to state propaganda that was intended to help the reeducation process take root in the Uyghur community.
In addition the state supported increased police presence in Uyghur neighborhoods across the Xinjiang region. In Karamay the security forces were meant to enforce restrictions on Uyghur travel and to prevent visits to mosque and religious facilities. Those allowed to visit the mosque were ordered when they could be present in the mosque and for how long. A police officer was present at all times to assure the order was carried out to the letter of the law. Not a minute longer was allowed in the heavily restricted prayer times.
Then comes the French style ban on headscarves. Chinese authorities in many parts of Xinjiang have put out orders to prevent Uyghur women from wearing hijabs and other traditional head coverings. Most notably the area of Hotan has seen (mostly peaceful) demonstrations against such restrictive ordinances that violate the Uyghur peoples' religious rights.
This restriction on religious attire was highlighted on August 5th when a Uyghur man was stopped by two police officers and ordered to shave his beard. When the man refused the altercation became violent. As a result the police pulled their weapons and opened fire. In the end the Uyghur man was gunned down while using his knife to defend what dignity the state had left him with.
All of these are just examples of the barbarism with which the Uyghurs are forced to live. When local concerns are brought through the proper channels the state responds with vast sweeps of the community and even harsher laws. This sort of discrimination against the Uyghurs, who watch as the state ships in Han settlers, is the food for revolution. It cannot be ignored as China attempts to force economic advancement while segregating the minority population from the economic windfall.
With every exploitation that the Uyghur people suffer comes a new seed cast in a bitter field. And while only time will tell what will grow from this maltreatment it is only reasonable to assume that it will not be beneficial to the state. A government cannot sow the worst forms of abuse and expect to reap the best of a neglected population's efforts.
Let's start with the displacement of Uyghur people and the replacement by the state with ethnic Han Chinese.
The outbreak of violence in July of 2009 drastically changed the way that China approached the issue of "assimilation" and "economic adjustments" in the Xinjiang region. Where the government had been attempting to stifle religious practices gradually while simultaneously increasing manufacturing activity in Uyghur villages and cities they suddenly ramped up their approach.
By the end of July 2009 the capitol of Urumqi was blanketed with 20,000 new Chinese military personnel. Uyghur citizens were forced out of large sections of the city while the government bussed in Han citizens. Homes where Uyghur families had just recently raised their children were now being occupied by Chinese transported in from Eastern China. The jobs these displaced Uyghurs had held in local factories were then handed over by the state to the Han immigrants. Any Uyghur who dared to speak out was caught up in the dragnet that the security forces had cast over the city.
Official and unofficial detainment centers were created for the Uyghur citizens of Urumqi. Countless civilians who were detained after the riots were not heard from again. This helped China's official campaign of uprooting the Uyghur people. It allowed the Han immigrants to be left in place since nobody would be coming back to claim the "abandoned" homes in which the state had placed them.
If we fast forward a couple years the campaign of displacing Uyghurs has not stopped. It has instead grown and been added onto as China continues to "develop" the region by removing the native population. With one way the Uyghur population is being displaced is through the forcible relocation of young Uyghur girls.
In official propaganda the state tells Uyghur women that the process of moving to Eastern China to work in factories is both "enjoyable" and "rewarding". In reality the Uyghur women face absolutely no security as they are placed in areas without social networks to help them adjust to the abrupt deportation from their homeland. Girls who are relocated are given little to no education about where they are being sent to. Religious, social, and cultural concerns are not addressed once the Uyghur girls are shipped to factory jobs that pay them less than their Han counterparts.
Religious and ethnic prejudice against the Uyghur people in China is both an institutionalized and social mechanism.
While the state officially recognizes the Uyghur as "racially and culturally distinct" (thus making them a recognized minority) they do little to respect the culture of the Uyghur people. This is based in the constitution of China in the aspect that the official religious status of the state is that it is atheist. However, religious tolerance is achieved (minutely) through the lose wording which states that China has the right to regulate "normal religious activities". The wording is measured in such that it permits the state the right to dictate to a given faith what is "normal" and what is not. Therefore giving China permission to deny religious observances, practices, and organizations at any time for any reason.
The willingness on China's part to accept Islam as a "normal" part of Muslim culture has broadened over the past couple decades as China has grown in both its economy and materialistic needs. With exploitative relationships with Middle Eastern countries came the desire on China's part to show that it can tolerate Islam... to an extent. This allows China the ability to play it's hand with trading partners while at the same time telling Western nations that it is becoming more religiously tolerant.
In reality the religious tolerance that China shows toward Muslim minorities is limited only to what it views is beneficial to the state. When political pressure is mounted by the outside the Chinese either give a token of goodwill or simply block access to regions like Xinjiang all together. In the end the religious rights of the repressed minority never truly grow but are simply loaned for a time before being taken away again.
As for the cultural aspect of religious discrimination the nature of the problem arises through long held prejudices against Muslims in Western China. From the very moment that Islam arrived there have been distinctions made between the faith and its followers and the rest of Chinese society. One of the main reasons has been the fact that Islam first arrived by traveling up the "silk road".
The fact that Islam arrived in China through the mouths and books of merchants has damaged the relationship between Muslim minorities and the Han majority every since. This is in part due to the class system found in China at the time of Islam's arrival. It was a class system that placed merchants at the bottom of the totem pole for the fact that they were seen as "leeches". This meant that Chinese society viewed merchants as contributing the least to society while benefiting the most from it. Thus when Islam arrived in China through the economic trade with the West it was immediately viewed as barbaric.
The stigma that Muslim minorities face can still be traced back to the class system of the Han Dynasty. Today Muslim minorities are still traditionally portrayed as greedy, underhanded, manipulative, and as liars. These prejudices are often applied by the less educated masses of Western China and have shown no signs of leaving the society as education levels rise amongst the citizens of Xinjiang province. The fact that they are so interwoven with the social fabric of China's Han majority has proven to make these prejudices hard to displace.
Source Documents
(note: not all sources listed)
Radio Free Asia
http://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/attack-07292013171133.html
http://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/uchturpan-08052013173737.html
http://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/scholar-07312013173204.html
The Diplomat
http://thediplomat.com/2013/08/04/xinjiang-reassessing-the-recent-violence/2/
Washington Post
Repression is not defined by strict measurements. If a state is able to deny the basic rights of a people in any way it is crossing over into the realm of repression. If it attempts to limit the access of a people to their faith it is a repressive regime. If it blocks a people from the same rights that it assures to others within it's population the state is repressive by nature. It is an act of tyranny that though it may be hard to put to words it is always identifiable when you see it.
In a country where the state has no prescribed religion and recognizes only the rights of the majority the line between normality and repression is often blurred. But it is there. And for the Uyghur people it is a reality that threatens to deny them their heritage, their faith, and their future. For in a state where the perverted desires of the few are put above the needs of the many it is always those left on the fringe that pay the most. In China's unstable Xingiang region the Uyghur people are the ones left on the fringe of society. They are the ones that bear the weight of a country's greed.
The weight of a nation can break the will of a people to fight... to resist. Yet when pushed too far that weight can create unity. A certain bond is formed in a people that are oppressed by brutal tyrants. It is a link to that once formed it is hard to break. All the degradation, all the humiliation, all the pain and suffering; they become reasons to push back. The tears that mothers have shed over children taken away by jackbooted thugs become the water that nurtures bitter seeds. The blood and sweat that fathers sacrifice for their families' sake only serve to feed the hunger for change. All of which are planted in the minds of the youth who watch as their parents backs' break under the heavy hands of authoritarian beasts.
Change that comes from this form is not something that waits patiently for the right time and place. Change that comes from this form is that which comes like fire. It razes the structure of society and puts siege to the cornerstone of a government that has held it down for far too long.
This is what China is struggling to contain as it tucks it's iron fists in a velvet glove. All the while the regime finds new ways to keep prying eyes out of the troubled region. For this reason the national propaganda is the only form of press allowed into areas where the security forces heighten their presence. China is once again attempting to blackout the region so that the rest of the world can't see what dirty deeds are being done behind closed doors.
The rage that China created in the hearts and minds of the Uyghur community has flared up time and time again. With each new riot came an opportunity to round up the men and boys. With each new stabbing or alleged attack came a new chance for China to open fire on Uyghur protesters. The most notable incident in recent memory was the July 5th 2009 violence in Urumqi. It was a riot in which the Han majority was rewarded for turning a peaceful protest violent. Their reward has been the persistent repression of their Uyghur neighbors every July since.
This past Ramadan the anniversary of the July violence was celebrated by the fascist state by placing hundreds of Uyghur students in detention centers where they were not allowed to observe the holy month. Uyghur children were bussed to state run schools where they were forced to hand over all electronic devices that could be used to contact the outside world. Once under arrest the children were daily subjected to state propaganda that was intended to help the reeducation process take root in the Uyghur community.
"Due to Ramadan, places of worship will be forbidden from holding all sorts of religious teaching activity. If there are violations, the places will be sealed."
~ Posted Chinese Order in Karamay
In addition the state supported increased police presence in Uyghur neighborhoods across the Xinjiang region. In Karamay the security forces were meant to enforce restrictions on Uyghur travel and to prevent visits to mosque and religious facilities. Those allowed to visit the mosque were ordered when they could be present in the mosque and for how long. A police officer was present at all times to assure the order was carried out to the letter of the law. Not a minute longer was allowed in the heavily restricted prayer times.
Then comes the French style ban on headscarves. Chinese authorities in many parts of Xinjiang have put out orders to prevent Uyghur women from wearing hijabs and other traditional head coverings. Most notably the area of Hotan has seen (mostly peaceful) demonstrations against such restrictive ordinances that violate the Uyghur peoples' religious rights.
"We have a policy of going and checking bearded and strangely clothed people, according to orders from the top,” Uchturpan public security department’s intelligence unit.
This restriction on religious attire was highlighted on August 5th when a Uyghur man was stopped by two police officers and ordered to shave his beard. When the man refused the altercation became violent. As a result the police pulled their weapons and opened fire. In the end the Uyghur man was gunned down while using his knife to defend what dignity the state had left him with.
All of these are just examples of the barbarism with which the Uyghurs are forced to live. When local concerns are brought through the proper channels the state responds with vast sweeps of the community and even harsher laws. This sort of discrimination against the Uyghurs, who watch as the state ships in Han settlers, is the food for revolution. It cannot be ignored as China attempts to force economic advancement while segregating the minority population from the economic windfall.
With every exploitation that the Uyghur people suffer comes a new seed cast in a bitter field. And while only time will tell what will grow from this maltreatment it is only reasonable to assume that it will not be beneficial to the state. A government cannot sow the worst forms of abuse and expect to reap the best of a neglected population's efforts.
So what exactly are the seeds that China is planting?
Displacement and Replacement
Let's start with the displacement of Uyghur people and the replacement by the state with ethnic Han Chinese.
The outbreak of violence in July of 2009 drastically changed the way that China approached the issue of "assimilation" and "economic adjustments" in the Xinjiang region. Where the government had been attempting to stifle religious practices gradually while simultaneously increasing manufacturing activity in Uyghur villages and cities they suddenly ramped up their approach.
By the end of July 2009 the capitol of Urumqi was blanketed with 20,000 new Chinese military personnel. Uyghur citizens were forced out of large sections of the city while the government bussed in Han citizens. Homes where Uyghur families had just recently raised their children were now being occupied by Chinese transported in from Eastern China. The jobs these displaced Uyghurs had held in local factories were then handed over by the state to the Han immigrants. Any Uyghur who dared to speak out was caught up in the dragnet that the security forces had cast over the city.
Official and unofficial detainment centers were created for the Uyghur citizens of Urumqi. Countless civilians who were detained after the riots were not heard from again. This helped China's official campaign of uprooting the Uyghur people. It allowed the Han immigrants to be left in place since nobody would be coming back to claim the "abandoned" homes in which the state had placed them.
If we fast forward a couple years the campaign of displacing Uyghurs has not stopped. It has instead grown and been added onto as China continues to "develop" the region by removing the native population. With one way the Uyghur population is being displaced is through the forcible relocation of young Uyghur girls.
In official propaganda the state tells Uyghur women that the process of moving to Eastern China to work in factories is both "enjoyable" and "rewarding". In reality the Uyghur women face absolutely no security as they are placed in areas without social networks to help them adjust to the abrupt deportation from their homeland. Girls who are relocated are given little to no education about where they are being sent to. Religious, social, and cultural concerns are not addressed once the Uyghur girls are shipped to factory jobs that pay them less than their Han counterparts.
Wage Disparity
While income in the West is dictated by the relationship between the employer and the employee the income for the Uyghur is dictated by the relationship between the ethnic group and the state. This is most painfully obvious when we look at the Uyghur people who are subjected to inhumane working conditions in Chinese factories. While employment is relative to their ethnicity in areas more directly state controlled economic regions those who do find employment are restricted to jobs the state finds suitable for their "ethnic class".
In studies done in 2008 researchers found that the "informal economy" of Xinjiang was segmented not by what a person could achieve or their level of education in a field but rather their given ethnicity. This showed that ethnic Han were given the highest paying jobs while Uyghur workers were only permitted to perform menial task and lower levels of employment. There was not one single career field shown that could prove this given rule of employment in Xinjiang wrong. Across the board Uyghur workers were being forced to work beneath Han (who at times had less education and/or training).
These economic studies showed that despite any apparent equality that China claimed existed in their schools that Uyghur were limited in their own "autonomous region". No matter how hard a Uyghur student tried they would not be permitted by the current economic system to advance to the top of their career field simply due to their ethnicity.
For the Uyghur who worked at the top level permitted to them in this bias system there was the added reality that income was slanted in favor of Han workers. The same studies showed that Uyghur who held the same job and did the same work as a Han citizen earned considerably less. This once again served the Chinese goal of repression in both economic and social standings for the Uyghur community.
Social Inequality
Religious and ethnic prejudice against the Uyghur people in China is both an institutionalized and social mechanism.
Religious
While the state officially recognizes the Uyghur as "racially and culturally distinct" (thus making them a recognized minority) they do little to respect the culture of the Uyghur people. This is based in the constitution of China in the aspect that the official religious status of the state is that it is atheist. However, religious tolerance is achieved (minutely) through the lose wording which states that China has the right to regulate "normal religious activities". The wording is measured in such that it permits the state the right to dictate to a given faith what is "normal" and what is not. Therefore giving China permission to deny religious observances, practices, and organizations at any time for any reason.
The willingness on China's part to accept Islam as a "normal" part of Muslim culture has broadened over the past couple decades as China has grown in both its economy and materialistic needs. With exploitative relationships with Middle Eastern countries came the desire on China's part to show that it can tolerate Islam... to an extent. This allows China the ability to play it's hand with trading partners while at the same time telling Western nations that it is becoming more religiously tolerant.
In reality the religious tolerance that China shows toward Muslim minorities is limited only to what it views is beneficial to the state. When political pressure is mounted by the outside the Chinese either give a token of goodwill or simply block access to regions like Xinjiang all together. In the end the religious rights of the repressed minority never truly grow but are simply loaned for a time before being taken away again.
As for the cultural aspect of religious discrimination the nature of the problem arises through long held prejudices against Muslims in Western China. From the very moment that Islam arrived there have been distinctions made between the faith and its followers and the rest of Chinese society. One of the main reasons has been the fact that Islam first arrived by traveling up the "silk road".
The fact that Islam arrived in China through the mouths and books of merchants has damaged the relationship between Muslim minorities and the Han majority every since. This is in part due to the class system found in China at the time of Islam's arrival. It was a class system that placed merchants at the bottom of the totem pole for the fact that they were seen as "leeches". This meant that Chinese society viewed merchants as contributing the least to society while benefiting the most from it. Thus when Islam arrived in China through the economic trade with the West it was immediately viewed as barbaric.
The stigma that Muslim minorities face can still be traced back to the class system of the Han Dynasty. Today Muslim minorities are still traditionally portrayed as greedy, underhanded, manipulative, and as liars. These prejudices are often applied by the less educated masses of Western China and have shown no signs of leaving the society as education levels rise amongst the citizens of Xinjiang province. The fact that they are so interwoven with the social fabric of China's Han majority has proven to make these prejudices hard to displace.
Ethnic
Ethnic differences in China are difficult to navigate around. While it is at times seen as beneficial to be classified as an ethnic minority it has proven more often than not damning for the Uyghur people. From the moment they are born the Uyghur people are subjected to discrimination due to the given ethnicity they were born as. It is not a far leap for us to suggest that large portions of the opportunities in their lives are shut out by the state simply based upon ethnic classification.
The government of China is structured so rigidly on ethnic lines that Uyghur children face their first encounter with ethnic discrimination from their first day of school. Even in schools that flaunt their "mixed" ethnic student body the Uyghur children can face both physical and mental abuse by their Han classmates and teachers. This is only amplified as Uyghur children work their way from lower levels of education to higher levels.
Once out of the government's schools the Uyghur youth are barraged by social standards that reiterate the supposed superiority of the Han ethnicity to that of their own. Employment, communal participation, and social standings are all regulated by one form of ethnic discrimination or another. Even in an "autonomous" region, where government is supposed to reflect the given ethnic group, those in charge are chosen by their loyalty to the Han majority.
This persistent reminder of a person's lack of supposed value shows the willingness of the Chinese state to subjugate it's own citizens. Of course after a certain point it would be arguable that given the perception of the state, and the way it views it's own people, that China does not see the Uyghur people as Chinese citizens.
For this reason the Chinese government can look forward to the harvest of these vile seeds it has sown. No people should have to live with this sort of barbaric heathenism shown by the Beijing. No people, if history is the best indicator of future behavior, will forever bear this sort of abuse.
(Note: The use of "jihad" in the title is in response to China's misuse of the word when reporting on ethnic violence committed in Xinjiang. We here at Alder's Ledge would like to clarify that jihad is a word that, though misunderstood due to misuse, has a rather beautiful meaning. The word jihad can best be defined as to strive to live a life pleasing to G-d (Allah). This means that it is a term which encourages the believer to strive for a life or morality and greater understanding of their duty to serve the L-rd. However, through it's misuse and misunderstanding over time the term has been associated with "holy war". This misuse of the word was not intended by Alder's Ledge in the aspect that it would further perpetrate this misunderstanding.)
Want to learn more about the Uyghur people and their plight?
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Source Documents
(note: not all sources listed)
Radio Free Asia
http://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/attack-07292013171133.html
http://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/uchturpan-08052013173737.html
http://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/scholar-07312013173204.html
The Diplomat
http://thediplomat.com/2013/08/04/xinjiang-reassessing-the-recent-violence/2/
Washington Post
Forced Migration
University of Washington Tacoma
Other Sources
July 24, 2013
Don't Drink The Tea
China's Response To Uyghur Dissidents
(Image via The Diplomat)
In a nation that represses even the most basic of human
rights what can we honestly define an activist as? Is it not somebody who seeks
the liberties that social media and television flaunt before them every day? Is
it not a person who asks of his/her government why they cannot say or write
what they wish to express to the world at large? Is it not a person who seeks
the freedom to pursue their own happiness over that of the “greater good”…
especially in a nation that dictates just what the greater good is?
For the supporters from both the Uyghur community in China
and those from the outside the definition is unclear. It isn’t until a
government official ask them to “drink tea” that they realize that they are
considered activist by Chinese standards. But by that time it is too late. The
government has already cast its judgment. False charges are already being drawn
up and indefinite detention is already a reality. For the supporters of the
Uyghur in China the mere appearance of activism is a crime.
After the ethnic violence in Xinjiang over the past two
months the government of China has been increasing it’s military presence in
the region. Paramilitary units meant to reinforce the police state have been
deployed in Uyghur neighborhoods to create a permanent police presence. Curfews
are imposed in areas where China’s police have deployed riot vehicles and stockpiled
tear gas. This drastic response to 35 deaths in June would indicate at very
least a tinge of fear on China’s part. It most certainly would instill fear on
the targeted community, the Uyghurs of Western China.
This response is the largest such response in four years
since the 2009 riots in Urumqi. It was in that massive riot that 200 plus
citizens were killed, hundreds were arrested, and an untold number were found
to be missing after China deployed it’s dragnet approach to policing it’s
citizens. After the Urumqi tragedy the state cut off Internet for an entire
year. In addition the Uyghur, blamed by the state for the violence imposed
against them, were left with a police state where constant surveillance and
police harassment became the new normal.
This latest round of ethnic violence in the region shows
that at least on some level the Uyghur people have grown tired of being forced
to work for China’s “greater good”. While the Eastern portion of China has
prospered off the sweat of Uyghur youths’ brows the Uyghur people themselves
have been left out of the economic growth. Their villages, their cities, and
their “autonomous region” has watched as the natural resources they posses have
been shipped eastward. Uyghur parents have watched as their children have been
forcibly stripped of their culture and ethnic heritage. All that has been left
for the Uyghur community living in China’s shadows is resentment.
Now as the youth of the Uyghur community show an interest in
advancing their own prosperity the state has shown it’s willingness to utilize
it’s iron fist. Students who have spoken out in the most moderate of fashions
have been told by Beijing’s agents in Xinjiang to go with them to “drink tea”.
This is an informal way of arresting the student and forcing them to go along
with the state agent. What happens next can vary in many ways. At times the
student arrested can end up in official jails to be detained for crimes they
clearly did not commit. At other times the state can make these “dissidents”
disappear by taking arrested Uyghur “activist” to black prisons. All connection
to the outside world is cut off and the student is not heard from again till
the state decides to release it’s victim. For Mutellip Imin this is
exactly what happened on July 15th. Imin, 24 years of age, has not
been heard from yet. His cellphone has been shut off and the last message
received from him was “SOS”.
This strategy is just one more way
China has followed the West in an unholy war on terror. For the past decade
China has been labeling Uyghur groups and individuals as “jihadist” to excuse
the excesses of government officials and police agents. When China overreaches
and, if for a moment, the media begins to pick up on the state’s abuses the
magic word “terrorism” appears. It is China’s new method of spreading Beijing’s
authority further westward as economic growth fuels ethnic cleansing.
In the past four years China’s iron
fist has shown the Uyghur that if they will not work as slaves for the greater
good they will be expected to leave the country all together. Any that stay in
their homeland are expected to accept the religious and ethnic discrimination imposed
by Beijing. Those who stay are expected to work themselves to death for a
country that views them as permanent outsiders.
As for the West, the reality of what
the Uyghur community in China faces has been covered up by the obsession with a
romanticized “Arab Spring”. In our attempts to view the Middle East as “coming
over to our side” or “becoming more secular” we have ignored the plight of
ethnic minorities across the globe. While Egypt fights to determine it’s own
fate the Uyghur people struggle to throw off a fate imposed upon them by a
nation that has rejected them. While Iran toys with the notion of moderating
the role of religion over the state the Uyghur have their religion banned by a
state that touts it’s authority over them. And yet for the past four years we
have heard little to nothing about the Uyghur people who are fighting for their
dignity, their culture, and their heritage.
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Source Documents
(note: not all sources listed)
The Diplomat
Epoch Times
Alder's Ledge
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