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from the echoes-of-Bosnia,-Iraq-et-al dept.
Scores of Rohingya villagers in Myanmar have been massacred and buried in 5 mass graves, according to an exclusive investigation by the Associated Press news agency.
The report by the news agency on Thursday includes witness testimony from two dozen survivors and relatives of victims, as well as time-stamped mobile phone footage of the aftermath of the attack.
Estimates suggest 400 members of the persecuted minority were killed by Burmese troops.
In one massacre, a group of men were picking teams for a local football-like game called 'chinlone' in the village of Gu Dar Pyin, when soldiers began firing at them.
A survivor named Noor Kadir later found six of his friends buried in two separate mass graves. He said the bodies of the victims were only recogniseable through the colour of their shorts.
The mass killing is believed to have taken place on August 27 and survivors told the Associated Press that soldiers had tried to cover up evidence of the atrocity.
Video obtained by the agency indicates attempts at using acid to remove the bodies.
[...]
Widely regarded as one of the most persecuted minorities in the world, the mainly Muslim Rohingya people, are denied citizenship by the Burmese government, which claims they are not native to Myanmar.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by cubancigar11 on Saturday February 03 2018, @05:51AM (10 children)
Being familiar with that part of the world, the problem is slightly more complicated than "Mooslems" and "Buddhists".
Bangladesh is still having an internal power struggle between hardliner Muslims who think they are superior as they are descendants of original Muslims invaders, and the people who identify as native Muslims. The poor class has become basically a football that gets labeled as per convenience and kicked around everywhere. This has caused massive immigration to India over many decades that was tacitly supported by communist governments in neighboring Indian states, as well as Burma which was going through civil upheaval.
That upheaval has ended, though. Recently, India has gotten a new Prime Minister [youtube.com] who panders to the hardliner Hindus and is totally against Muslim immigration. Since India has always supported Aung San Suu Kyi [wikipedia.org] over military rule of Burma, together they are creating a stronger "nation" - and that means kicking out the "foreigners". So the poor Muslims who had run away from Bangladesh, and suddenly finding the "foreign" lands even more hostile.
TL;DR Religion is only very peripherally related to all this ethnic cleansing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 03 2018, @07:11AM (9 children)
Two bugbears driving this problem that neither mainstream media nor social media are willing to touch are overpopulation and climate change.
Climate change is not a big deal -- yet. However, Bangladesh will be washed away under water withing a few decades and everyone there will swarm into neighboring countries, not just the kicked-around underclass now known as Rohingya Brand (tm) moslems. I'm not sure of a sensible solution. The likely an primitive solution would be to move troops and ammo to the borders of India and set up towers with overlapping fields of fire.
Overpopulation is already a big deal here and now. Both the original, hard-liner moslem invaders and the kicked-around Rohingya Brand (tm) moslems have enormous numbers of children. It's one of the larger reasons why they are pressured out of Bangladesh and come into India and Myanmar as illegal squatters, armed insurgents, and violent militants. Bangladeshis have been illegally entering Myanmar for decades. Just because Bangladesh is completely unwilling to control its population growth does not give it any right whatsoever to annex Myanmar.
The news just barely mentions this, but has nevertheless has covered it for decades. Myanmar has every right to the integrity of its own borders. Social media does not want to touch that fact. However, once the insurgents became successfully rebranded in social media as Rohingya Brand (tm) moslems, the history and context are thrown out. You have to stop and think where that is coming from and who controls which narratives are approved on social media. Saudi, Qatar, and the others have been investing heavily in both mainstream media and social media. They have already been getting their money's worth by keeping discourse on-message...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 03 2018, @08:11AM (1 child)
No it won't. Real planet Earth is a bit more complicated than the oversimplification they use for scaremongering.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_of_Bengal#Rivers [wikipedia.org]
"The Padma–Meghna-Jamuna rivers deposit nearly 1000 million tons of sediment every year."
Which is about 700 cubic kilometers; enough to cover 18000 square km with a meter-thick layer. Or alternately, to raise the whole of Bangladeshi 147,610 sq.km 12 cm per year.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-bangladesh-clmate-land-idUSKCN0R90U220150909 [reuters.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 03 2018, @08:54AM
That billion tons is only about 0.3 cubic kilometres, and only 2 mm per year per the entirety of Bangladesh. Still, enough to raise the coastal areas faster than the ocean level rises.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by cubancigar11 on Saturday February 03 2018, @09:59AM
Overpopulation is a well studied problem. Government has got nothing to do with it. Of course, tyranny can achieve anything, but Bangladesh is not China, neither are India or Burma - all three are suffering from population control.
There is this problem people keep overlooking. Humans in all overpopulated areas of the world aren't suddenly having more than average children, you know! They are having exactly the same of number of children as allowed by biology over billions of years. There is no 'extra' fucking around going on, no matter what meme-lords say. And there is no reason why anyone can ask them to have less fucking than the rich people. Overpopulation happens because of decreasing death rate, which in turn happens due to advent of medicinal science, especially because of anti-biotics. Study says that it takes 3 generations from a decrease of death rate (which increases population) to self-regulated family control (which stabilizes population). That is the minimum.
Further complication is that family control is directly proportional to economic stability. So now you need to control both the doctors and businessmen to achieve a stable population. Guess what, it took The West 300 years to do that. China did that in decades because simply a very good planning and a will to achieve lofty goals at the cost of human life. India still doesn't have economy under control, but its population has been tapering lately.
So you are right in a way that Bangladeshi government is at fault, but it is not because of their unwillingness, but rather incompetence.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday February 03 2018, @12:37PM (5 children)
Bullshit [google.com]. Bangladesh's population growth rate has dropped to 1.1% which is actually below the global population growth rate right now. It used to be over 2.8% in the 1970s and 1980s.
What other excuses are you going to come up with for murdering innocent people?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 03 2018, @03:10PM (2 children)
Khallow, you're always the liar. Bangladesh's population is still growing [worldometers.info] and has been since record keeping started. Only the excessive birthrate has reduced. How far are you going to bend reality to advance the cause of illegal squatters, armed insurgents, and violent militants just to cause the deaths of innocent Burmese?
Burma has every right to the integrity of its own borders and nothing you can write gives Bangladesh any right to annex Burma.
What was done in the past to Bangladesh and Afghanistan is now happening to Burma. Except now social media is here to back the invaders.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 03 2018, @05:11PM
He just said the growth rate is 1.1%.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday February 03 2018, @09:11PM
As the AC replier noted, I didn't say any different. 1.1% is greater than 0%. I can't help but notice what passes for a thought process here. I said something you disagreed with, therefore I must be lying. Well truth is an absolute defense against bullshit accusations of lying, buttercup. Read the posts next time. Don't waste my time with your bullshit.
And that's what's important here. That great reduction in population growth addresses the very complaint of the previous AC poster. Bangladesh is well on track to reach 0% growth, perhaps in half a century, maybe less.
No, they don't. Murdering thousands of people crosses that line. And Bangladesh isn't trying to annex anyone.
These murders go the wrong way for your little fairy tale.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 03 2018, @03:20PM (1 child)
Rohingya Brand (tm) moslem squatters, insurgents, and militants have very large families sometimes up to 20 [aljazeera.com]. No matter how you slice it, that is part of the problem.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday February 03 2018, @09:15PM
Interesting how you can't just call them people. Anyway, let's draw your attention to this quote from your linked story:
Notice that Bangladesh manned up and introduced birth control technology and education to these refugees while Myanmar deliberately made the problem worse.