Al Mayadeen – September 7, 2024
By day 337 of Israeli genocide in Gaza: 40,939 killed, 94,616 injured
The Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza reports that Israeli occupation forces committed four massacres in 48 hours, killing 61 people and wounding 162 others.
The number of Palestinians killed in Gaza since the start of the Israeli war in October has risen to 40,939 and those injured 94,616, the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza said on Saturday as the genocide marked its 337th day.
In its daily report, the Ministry mentioned that Israeli occupation forces committed four massacres in Gaza, killing 61 people and wounding 162 others in 48 hours.
It also noted that many casualties remain trapped under the rubble and on the streets, with ambulances and civil defense teams unable to reach them.
Israeli genocide ongoing
A child was killed and several others were injured in a series of Israeli airstrikes across northern and central Gaza early this Saturday morning.
Al Mayadeen's correspondent reported that one of the airstrikes hit the residential apartment of the Awadallah family in the al-Gharbawi building, located in the al-Nasser neighborhood of northern Gaza City. The attack resulted in the killing of a child and injuries to several individuals, who were subsequently transported to the Baptist Hospital in Gaza City.
In central Gaza, strikes targeted a residential apartment in the al-Bureij refugee camp, killing four people and injuring ten others, including children. The injured were taken to the Al-Awda Hospital in the Nuseirat camp for treatment, as reported by Palestinian Red Crescent paramedics.
Our correspondent reported that several people were killed and wounded in a strike on tents housing displaced persons at the al-Halima al-Saadiya School in Jabalia al-Nazla, northern Gaza. Artillery shelling also targeted al-Dawa Street in the Nuseirat camp.
Furthermore, he confirmed that Israeli forces demolished multiple buildings, south of the al-Sabra neighborhood near an educational institution and opened fire from their vehicles in the al-Zaytoun neighborhood of southeastern Gaza City. Additionally, Beit Lahia came under Israeli artillery shelling this morning.
In a related development, our correspondent reported at least 61 fatalities due to the Israeli aggression in Gaza today.
He also reported injuries from Israeli shelling north of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.
Furthermore, an Israeli Quadcopter opened fire on Palestinians near the Salah al-Din Mosque in the al-Zaytoun neighborhood of southeastern Gaza City.
'Israel' strikes school shelter for displaced Palestinian
Israeli occupation forces have bombed another school sheltering forcible displaced Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, resulting in several casualties.
On Saturday morning, Israeli airstrikes targeted the al-Halimah al-Saadiyah school in Jabalia, northern Gaza, killing at least eight people mostly women and children while sleeping in tents.
In a separate incident, an Israeli bombing in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza claimed the lives of five people.
According to the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), the Israeli military has targeted 69 percent of school buildings used as shelters for forcibly displaced individuals in the Gaza Strip.
The agency noted, “69% of school buildings where displaced families were seeking shelter have been directly hit or damaged,” as reported by the Global Education Cluster, which coordinates humanitarian efforts in education during internal displacements.
“This blatant disregard of humanitarian law must stop. We need a ceasefire now,” the agency emphasized.
https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/by-day-337-of-israeli-genocide-in-gaza--40-939-killed--94-61
How Wars and Political Wickedness Destroy Humanity? The Case of Palestine
By Dr. Mahboob A. Khawaja
Politics of Wickedness Overshadows the Meaning of Peace, Humanity and Conflict Management
Political wickedness is not the cherished value of normal human character but embodies the characteristics of abnormal minds boasting clichés of power and affluence over others. Leaders and nations lacking rational thinking imply it to disguise cynicism and treachery for socio-economic and political domination. For the past 11 months, the US-Israel war on Gaza and Palestine goes unabated without an end in sight against the global humanity of consciousness of rights and wrongs in global affairs. The May 2024 Ceasefire proposal advanced by President Biden claimed to be the “Israeli Proposal” exposed a treacherous cons work to undo much expected halt to the insanity of war, destruction of habitats, issues of humanitarian aid and return to normalcy across Gaza and West Bank of Palestine. If it was an Israeli proposal, Secretary Blinken and President Biden both were wrong and misleading the global conscience of peace and conflict management. Rational choices speak the language of truth for an urgent ceasefire to restore trust in global undertaking but not the leaders of Israel and the US making any sense out of this quagmire of lies and deception to allow Israel a free hand to continue bombing a helpless 2.9 million entrenched population of Gaza. To date, 40, 939 people massacred, more than 90, 339 injured and still 16,000 or more children and women buried under the rubble. What a tragic landscape deformed by men of evil and political deception?
It was PM Netanyahu and Israel not sure of a ceasefire and peace in the region. Thousands of concerned Israeli citizens march daily and hold continuous night vigils in Tel Aviv to demand peace, the resignation of Netanyahu and an immediate ceasefire for the safe return of 100 or so hostages. People-oriented and effective leaders are always open to listening and learning but not PM Netanyahu and his extremist cabinet plans to put a finished answer on the freedom of Palestine as a State and occupy Gaza for new Israeli settlements. If righteousness and wickedness cannot be combined in one human character, Biden and Netanyahu are affluent and powerful enough to dehumanize the culture of rational thinking and responsible democratic governance in world affairs. Imagine! What intrinsic human values do these political monsters gearing to control and manage conflict resolution, peace and global humanitarian consciousness? Do they think the rest of mankind is just numbers, dignits to be played with or just sheeps and goats to be butchered without any accountability? They are the wrong people, imbued with wrong thinking and doing the wrong things as did Pharoah, Hitler, Massoulin, Geroge W. Bush and Tony Blair and so many others aligned with these mentally sick egoistic characters. Have they not seen the mummy of Pharoah in Cairo’s museum? All monsters of history claimed good intentions and righteous ambitions but inflicted horrors, deaths and destruction on fellow human beings to achieve individualistic ambitions of power, triumph and glory.
The US and Israel Defy the Sanctity of Earth, Human Values and Sustainable Future
It is a presidential election year in America. Often oil exporting Arab leaders (Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar and others) have contributed millions of dollars to the US leadership campaigns without any favor. Western leaders view them as subservient puppets, ‘camal jockeys’ and nothing else.The Arab-Muslim leaders live in colonial ages, just puppets of the US. The Israeli military occupied the Rafah Crossing belonging to Egypt but General Sissi did nothing to free it from forcible adventure. This opens the path for greater Israel across the Arab world. The Egyptian, Saudi, Emirates and others maintain friendly ties with Israel and have invested in Israeli technological manufacturing industries to keep Netanyahu happy and safe.The US and Israel appear isolated and more a portrait of vices, deception and injustice to degrade humanity within the universe. They are afraid of the unknown future. The Earth is a Divine hub of human Life, Survival and a Trust, Those Bombing and Destroying it are mentally sick and defy the Divine Truth. It looks as if the US and Israeli leaders do not believe in life and death and final accountability. Nobody lived for ever on this Earth. Israeli ‘democracy’ has no Constitution of equal rights and obligations to swear in the name of God, but a US President taking oath in the Constitution makes reference to God in faith. One wonders, what kind of accountability of deeds after death would be waiting for the crimes of Israeli and American leaders once they face God? The earth is living and spins at 1670 km per hour and orbits the Sun at 107,000 km per hour. Imagine, if this spinning fails, what consequences could occur to the living beings on Earth. Think again, about the average distance of earth from moon is 93 million miles -the distance of Moon from Earth is currently 384,821 km equivalent to 0.002572 Astronomical Units. Earth is a“trust”to mankind for its existence, sustenance of life, survival, progress and future-making. Wherever there is a trust, there is accountability.The Divine warning (Chapter 7: 56: The Quran), warns: Do no mischief on the Earth after it hath been set in order, but call on God with fear and longing in hearts; For the Mercy of God is always near to those who do good.(44:38-39), the reminder is explicit: We created not the Heavens and the Earth; And all between them merely in idle sport. We created them not, Except for just ends. But most of them do not understand.
The same Divine message in repeated in Torah, Bible and Quran:(Quran:40:64),clarifies:
It is God Who made for you the Earth as a resting place and the sky as a canopy; And has given you shape and made your shapes beautiful, And has provided for your Sustenance, of things pure and good; Such is God your Lord. So Glory to God, The Lord of the Worlds.
And killing of innocent people is prohibited in theTen Commandments (Torah):
'Thou shalt not kill' (Exod. 20:13; also Deut. 5:17). Jewish law views the shedding of innocent blood very seriously, and lists murder as one of three sins (along with idolatry and sexual immorality), that fall under the category of yehareg ve'al ya'avor - meaning "One should let himself be killed rather than violate it.
Global Community is the net Victim of War of Economy and Sustainable Future Appears Disdained and Lost
To glance ahead it seems that the Western world failed to see a dreadful tragic history in the making of the end of time and loss of ingenuity to understand the consequences of naive egoism of Israeli leadership making war as an instrument of territorial expansion in the Arab Middle East. Rationally arguable conclusion to the war on Gaza was perceivable if there was a unified political-military challenge to the Israeli plans by the Arab-Muslim world. That landscape appears morally, intellectually and politically bankrupt as a scum floating on a torrent of naive puppets and dead-conscious leaders. They all live in palaces, not with people. For too long,the PLO leadership has followed foreign interest and has no responsible leader. The American-Israeli collaborative war on Gaza and its immediate consequences made the Western world and all of its institutions shamefully redundant and void in the 21st century global norms of civility, human rights, freedom, justice and safety of civilians- whereas crimes against humanity are captured in obscure impulses and indecision and deliberate inaction by the UN Security Council. The Western news media ignored coverage of Israeli ‘genocidal’ acts against the masses in Gaza and occupied West Bank. Some of the Western leaders remind Israel of “restraint” of its contiuning bloodbath across Gaza and West Bank – what a joke to human intellect – the global community wanted to stop the Israeli-American insanity of war and hold them accountbale for their crimes against humanity and alleged “genocide.”
If Israel is not stopped, soon the leading Arab states will fly Israeli-American flags for a change. The Israeli-American denial of crimes against humnaity,”genocide” in Gaza, forcible explusion of millions clearly represent ferocious conception of rigth and worng and how irrtaional the leadership tends to be in real world affairs. Political cynicism is endemic, the UNO, the EU and Western leaders appear mentally and morally lost without any accountability to the informed global community seeking an end to the war in the Middle East.What a shame, what a disgrace that Arab-Muslim countries have armies, resources but no responsible leadership and would not act to defend people’s freedom, rights, dignity, and sustainable future. Please see: “Israel Lost the War and America Betrayed Humanity in Gaza. https://www.uncommonthought.com/mtblog/archives/2024/05/15/israel-lost-the-war-and-america-betrayed-humanity-in-gaza.p”
Dr. Mahboob A. Khawaja specializes in international affairs-global security, peace and conflict resolution and has spent several academic years across the Russian-Ukrainian and Central Asian regions knowing the people, diverse cultures of thinking and political governance and a keen interest in Islamic-Western comparative cultures and civilizations, and author of several publications including: One Humanity and the Remaking of Global Peace, Security and Conflict Resolution, and a forthcoming book: Global Humanity and the Remaking of Peace, Security and Conflict Resolution beyond the Lens of Human Consciousness.
Informed Comment – September 7, 2024
US State Department declines to Condemn Israel for Shooting American Activist in the Head, Killing Her
By Juan Cole
Basil Maghrebi at the Israeli newspaper Arab 48 reports that on Friday, Israeli troops killed an American observer in the West Bank with a gunshot to her head, as she participated in a procession at Beita south of Nablus in the Palestinian West Bank. Aysenur Eygi, 26, a US citizen, was a recent graduate of the University of Washington in Seattle and was volunteering with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM). Beita residents are constantly harassed by illegal Israeli squatters who have stolen Palestinian land at nearby Eviatar for their squatter-settlement.
The occupation army said in a statement, “During activity of the security forces near the village of Beita today, the force responded with fire toward a principal instigator who was throwing stones toward the forces and constituted a danger to them. We are undertaking an investigation of reports of the death of a foreign national in the area, and the circumstances and details of her injury.”
(Cole: I call bullshit on this “statement.” It is illegal to fire live ammunition at unarmed protesters. Protesters do not pose a danger to heavily armed Israeli security forces. Eyewitnesses say that the real reason the Israeli troops opened fire was an attempt to stop the protest march, which of course is a war crime every which way from Sunday, or from Friday as the case may be.
Fellow protester Jonathan Pollack said, “It was quiet. There was nothing to justify the shot. The shot was taken to kill.”)
Moreover, The US State Department, which would have gone ballistic if Hamas or Putin had killed an American, issued mealy-mouthed pablum. They are going to “gather information.” But they didn’t act that way in other instances where a foreign military shot down an American in cold blood.
The Turkish foreign ministry said, “We condemn the crime of murder committed by the Netanyahu government.”
Maghrebi writes that medical sources revealed that Eygi was struck by Israeli live fire in the head, suffering a grave wound, during the occupation army’s attempt to suppress a weekly march at Beita protesting the Israeli colonization of the West Bank. Strenuous efforts were made to save her life, but she succumbed to her wounds.
The director of the hospital, the Rafidia Surgical Hospital in Nablus, Fuad Nafiah, announced the death of the American solidarity protester, Aysenur Ezgi Eygi. As she reached the hospital, there was brain tissue outside her cranium. The medical team provided her with cardiopulmonary resuscitation for a few minutes, but she died of her injuries.
In the same incident, An 18-year-old young man was also injured by Israeli bullet shrapnel in the thigh.
https://www.juancole.com/2024/09/department-declines-shooting.html
World Socialist Web Site – September 7, 2024
Erdoğan welcomes al-Sisi to Turkey for the first time in the shadow of the Gaza genocide
Barış Demir
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s visit to Turkey on Wednesday was the Butcher of Cairo’s first official trip to the country since his bloody 2013 coup. He and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan met for the first time in over a decade in February this year in Cairo.
Until recently, Erdoğan had condemned the coup that ousted Egypt’s elected president Mohamed Morsi, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, and refused to meet with al-Sisi. Morsi was ousted in July 2013 in a coup led by al-Sisi, who was then chief of general staff. Erdoğan, who had a close relationship with Morsi, was one of the leaders who reacted most strongly to the coup, and relations between Ankara and Cairo reached breaking point.
Now Erdoğan and al-Sisi are taking steps to strengthen their ties amid Israel’s US-NATO-backed genocide in Gaza, which is spreading to the West Bank, and preparations for war against Iran.
Erdoğan and al-Sisi discussed tensions over Gaza, Libya and energy resources in the eastern Mediterranean. Erdoğan said, “Turkey and Egypt have a common stance on the Palestinian issue. The termination of the genocide that has been going on for 11 months, the immediate establishment of a permanent ceasefire, and the unimpeded flow of humanitarian aid continue to be our priorities.”
He added, “We are determined to strengthen our consultations with Egypt, with which we hold similar approaches and goals on a wide range of issues. We will, inshallah, be in closer cooperation in the period ahead. We will enhance our multifaceted relations in a win-win manner.”
Al-Sisi stressed “the unity of Egypt and Türkiye’s positions regarding the demand for an immediate ceasefire, the rejection of the current Israeli escalation in the West Bank, and the call to start a path that achieves the aspirations of the Palestinian people to establish their independent state on the borders of 1967, with ‘East Jerusalem’ as its capital.”
In reality, despite their hypocritical rhetorical statements, the regimes of Turkey, a member of NATO, and Egypt, which has close military and strategic ties with US imperialism, are complicit in Israel’s genocidal war against the Palestinian people.
The Erdoğan government continues to mediate Azerbaijan’s supply of oil, which feeds Israel’s war machine, and to authorise the operation of US-NATO bases in Turkey, which provide Israel with intelligence.
Al-Sisi, who has close ties with Israel, is playing a crucial role in trapping the people of Gaza and depriving them of food, medical supplies, electricity, water and fuel by closing the Rafah border crossing.
However, there is also concern within the ruling class in both countries that their interests could be harmed by the spread of the genocidal war to the whole Middle East. At the same time, they are under pressure from the anti-imperialist and anti-Zionist sentiments that are widespread among the people in Turkey and Egypt.
Meanwhile, the USS Wasp (LHD-1), a United States amphibious assault ship, docked at the port of Izmir on Monday. The USS Wasp is one of two American amphibious assault ships sent to the region by the Biden administration to protect Israel. The ship has been in the eastern Mediterranean since June 1 and recently conducted joint transit training with Turkish naval vessels.
While this development, which reveals the complicity of the Erdoğan government in the genocide, was causing anger among the people, on Monday, a US soldier in civilian clothing was confronted in Izmir. A group surrounded him and briefly put a sack over his head. Ten members of the Turkish Youth Union (TGB), which is affiliated to the Maoist, Turkish nationalist Vatan Party that de facto supports Erdoğan for his so-called “anti-imperialist” policies, were arrested for this action.
The scene was intended as revenge for an event that took place on July 4, 2003 in Sulaymaniyah, Iraq. On that day, American soldiers raided the headquarters of the Turkish Special Forces Command and took Turkish soldiers to Baghdad for interrogation. The incident took place after the Turkish parliament rejected the use of Turkish territory for the US invasion of Iraq.
Turkey and Egypt were also at odds over Libya and maritime borders in the eastern Mediterranean. They supported rival factions in the civil war that erupted after the imperialist offensive that toppled the regime of President Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, and finally came to the brink of direct military confrontation in 2020.
Ankara’s agreement with the Government of National Accord in Tripoli in 2019 played an important role in this. As the World Socialist Web Site explained at the time, “el-Sisi’s plans for Egypt to become an export hub for Europe, after signing an agreement with Cyprus in 2018 to construct a pipeline to its Aphrodite field, have been stymied by Turkey’s November 2019 agreement with the GNA in Tripoli. That agreement, in return for Ankara’s military support, demarcated the maritime borders between the two countries, vastly expanding Turkey’s territorial waters—also claimed by Greece and Cyprus—and denying the claims of Crete, Rhodes and other islands.”
The drive to advance the interests of the Turkish bourgeoisie in the oil and gas reserves of the eastern Mediterranean has forced Erdoğan to take steps towards normalising relations with Israel, which he has repeatedly described as a “terrorist state”, and with al-Sisi's Egypt, which he has strongly condemned. The October 7 uprising and the Israeli genocide in Gaza undermined this process to some extent, but efforts to improve relations between Egypt and Turkey have continued.
The Turkish and Egyptian regimes advocate a so-called “two-state solution” in Palestine based on the 1967 borders and regard the corrupt Palestinian Authority, led by the hated Mahmoud Abbas, as the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people.
The complicity of Ankara and Cairo, like other regimes in the region, in the Gaza genocide and their close collaboration with the US and NATO underlines that the struggle against imperialism and Zionism is only possible through the independent political mobilisation of the Middle Eastern and international working class on the basis of an anti-war socialist programme.
Bngladesh leader Has Read The Writing On The Wall
In an interview with the Indian news agency PTI, Dr Yunus also gave a message that the Iron Lady would be extradited to Bangladesh to face the music of justice for the deaths of more than nearly a thousand students and youths during the July massacre, the enforced disappearance, extrajudicial deaths of opponents and critics.
“She [Hasina] has to be brought back, or the people of Bangladesh won’t be at peace. The atrocities she has committed must be addressed through a trial here,” said the inventor of microcredit, the founder of Grameen Bank.
This was a slap on Delhi’s ‘Sarkar’, which India did not expect from the interim government – a big embarrassment for India.
Hasina hastily fled, when the students and protesters on August 5 marched to Gonobhaban, the official residence of the Bangladesh Prime Minister. Tens of thousands from east, west, north and south joined the rally, the Bangladesh Army responsible for her security, forcibly whisked her away to a military airfield, a kilometer away and air dashed her to an air force base, adjacent to Dhaka International Airport. She boarded a transport plane and flew to Delhi, sinking her party’s boat (election symbol). She also abandoned thousands of leaders and millions of members of her party, the Awami League.
In the absence of a backup plan, the dumbstruck leaders and members of the Awami League either went into hiding and many tried to leave the country. Few managed to fly away. Some paid a hefty price to human traffickers and crossed the porous international border to India.
At Hindon Air Base near Delhi, where the Bangladesh Air Force transport plane landed, there she is still living in a safe house for a month. After hectic negotiations with several “friendly” Western countries, one after another her requests were turned down.
A top Indian diplomat stationed in Dhaka said what India would do when all countries have refused her applications for refugee status (political asylum).
The United States promptly revoked her 10-year multiple visa. Bangladesh’s new regime invalidated her Red and Green passports. Hasina is a stateless person. Delhi is now in a fix!
It is understood that Hasina is apparently under house arrest. She is not allowed to venture out of the safe house to take a stroll around the place, nor allowed to buy essentials from a military super shop nearby.
Her daughter Saima Wazed, who is employed as Regional Director of the World Health Organisation (WHO) South-East Asia office in New Delhi, has not been able to meet her.
Saima in posts on Twitter (X) has given several excuses for her tight schedule and unable to hug her mother. Her elder brother in Washington DC had announced to visit Delhi and meet her mother. Unconfirmed news claims that Sajeeb Wazed Joy was asked not to arrive in Delhi, as he may not be able to meet her.
Many political observers say after Dr Yunus had a telephonic conversation with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Indian authorities decided to sever all communications with the outside world and stay away from her.
Phones in the safe house are disconnected and she is unable to contact her loved ones as well as her party central leaders, who have fled the country. Both her son and daughter are conspicuously silent over Hasina’s incommunicado in India.
Except for Indian national security advisor Ajit Doval, none of the Indian officials and opposition leaders has paid a courtesy call to their loyal guests. This gives a clear message that India is uncomfortable with the status of their guest.
Dr Yunus will have an opportunity to meet with Modi at the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) Summit in Bangkok this weekend. He will once again raise the issue of Hasina with Modi.
BIMSTEC links five countries from South Asia (Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, India and Sri Lanka) and two from South-East Asia (Myanmar and Thailand).
Earlier, he cautioned Indian media not to play the Hindu card and invited journalists from India to visit Bangladesh. Indian media was agog on the persecution of Hindus, vandalism of Hindu business establishments and desecration of Hindu temples in expressing anger after the downfall of Hasina.
In a clever decision, Dr Yunus urged foreign journalists, especially Indian journalists to visit Bangladesh. Indian media has stopped beating in the bush.
In several interviews, Dr Yunus has told the international media, that the elections will be held only after a series of reforms are made to block autocratic government from taking control of the state institutions, which has been politicized and exploited by the ruling parties.
The politicization of state institutions – especially the judiciary, bureaucracy, law enforcement agencies and state media – was nothing new. Both the Begums – Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina – kept the institutions on their lap to dominate and dictate terms with loyalists.
The interim government has entrusted a think tank and several pundits to the White Paper Committee, which is responsible for identifying the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
The White Paper Committee on the economy has sought public opinion through social media. They sought feedback on the accuracy and reliability of government statistics; current challenges in macroeconomics; review of GDP growth; inflation trends and their impacts; poverty, inequality and vulnerability; internal resource extraction; assessment of priorities in allocation of government expenditure; foreign exchange balance and credit capacity, evaluation of mega-projects, actual condition of the banking sector; energy and power sector situation; business environment and private investment; illegal money and money laundering; labor market dynamics and youth employment; foreign labor markets and migrant workers’ rights.
Plans are afoot to make the election commission an independent institution and reforms of the electioneering system would allow inclusivity and transparency.
Hasina during her tenure failed to hold free, fair, credible and inclusive elections in 2014, 2018 and 2024, which were all flawed.
She deliberately kept the opposition out of the electioneering and jailed 10,000 leaders and members of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and Jamaat-e-Islami – an Islamist party – accused of terrorism and attacks on government properties, which enabled the government to keep the opposition languish in prison for a long time.
The Yunus administration has repealed the ban on the Jamaat-e-Islami and its student wing Islami Chhatra Shibir, stressing that the organisations are not involved in terrorist activities. This decision has invited backlash from Mukti Bahini, the 1971 war veterans and secularists.
Dr Yunus, who is chief adviser of the interim government, in an address to the nation on September 5 in commemoration of a month of minus Hasina’s autocratic regime, said the biggest challenge now is to heal the wounds created by misrule and autocracy.
He appealed for unity and coordination. “We all pledge that, as a nation, we will not allow the blood of the martyrs and the sacrifices of our injured brothers and sisters to be in vain.”
He pledged, “I want to assure them that we will never betray the dreams of the martyrs.”
Saleem Samad is an award-winning independent journalist based in Bangladesh. A media rights defender with the Reporters Without Borders (@RSF_inter). Recipient of Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award.
https://www.pressenza.com/2024/09/muhammad-yunus-has-read-the-writing-on-the-wall/
Rohingya Muslims risk losing homeland in Myanmar: Rights activist
Buddhist ethnic insurgent group Arakan Army’s efforts to control region led to continued displacement, mass killings, atrocities, human rights violations, co-founder of Free Rohingya Coalition laments.
Rohingya Muslims face the risk of losing their homeland if the international community fails to address the issue, according to one observer.
Rohingya rights activist and co-founder of the Free Rohingya Coalition, Nay San Lwin, said that following forced displacements in Rakhine State, there are approximately 600,000 Rohingya Muslims in the region, with estimates suggesting that 10,000 were forced to seek refuge in Bangladesh last week.
"If the international community fails to resolve this issue once again, we will lose our homeland. The most critical issue is impunity. The Myanmar army has been acting with impunity since 1978," he said in an interview with Anadolu, where he assessed the role of international organizations in addressing the issues faced by the Rohingya community.
Lwin noted that there are ongoing international court cases concerning the atrocities faced by the Rohingya community, but the duration of these cases remains uncertain.
He emphasised that a crucial step for the Rohingya Muslim community would be intervention by international organizations, a resolution by the UN Security Council, or the formation of an international coalition to assist the Rohingya.
If there is no intervention, the violence could escalate beyond the 2,000 to 2,500 deaths reported in the last three to four months, warned Lwin.
Continued displacement, mass killings
He added that half of the remaining Rohingya — 300,000 people in Buthidaung and Maungdaw — would be forced to flee to Bangladesh.
"If we lose these two towns, we will have no place to return to. Everything depends on the international community," he said. "It is up to them to decide how to protect the Rohingya and how to ensure their return to their homeland."
Since last November, the Myanmar Army and the Arakan Army, a Buddhist militant group, have used areas inhabited by Rohingya Muslims as conflict zones, Lwin noted.
He said the Arakan Army’s efforts to control the entire region have led to continued displacement, mass killings, atrocities, and human rights violations, leaving the population with no access to services such as humanitarian aid and health care.
Lwin noted that in 2017, the Myanmar Army burned 400 villages, sexually assaulted hundreds of women, and even burned and killed infants.
Detention centres
He said neither the Myanmar Army nor the Arakan Army shows any intention of improving conditions for the people, making international intervention the only hope for the community.
Lwin warned that if Bangladesh fails to achieve that goal, the Rohingya will be forced to remain in Bangladesh until the situation changes.
Lwin explained that the 600,000 Rohingya living in Myanmar are in two different conditions. About 130,000 are in camps, which he described as barbed-wire-enclosed, surveillance-tower-equipped detention centres.
He noted that the remaining Rohingya struggle to survive in conditions resembling open-air prisons, with the situation worsening, particularly in areas controlled by the Arakan Army.
Timeline: The persecution and exodus of Myanmar's Rohingya
The Rohingya refugee crisis is a complex and protracted humanitarian crisis that stems from decades of discrimination and violence against the Muslim Rohingya community in Myanmar.
The situation is characterised by frequent waves of displacement, failed repatriations and ongoing human rights concerns.
The 2017 exodus was a watershed moment, resulting in a massive influx of refugees into neighbouring Bangladesh and drawing global attention to the crisis.
These Rohingya, over 1.3 million according to the Bangladesh government data, are living in a precarious situation, with an uncertain future and limited prospects for a safe and dignified return to Myanmar.
Desperate to flee persecution, many Rohingya risked their lives on perilous journeys to Malaysia, Indonesia, India and Thailand. Tragically, their future remains uncertain and challenging.
Major timeline of Rohingya refugee crisis
1977 — Myanmar, then known as Burma, launches Operation Dragon King (Naga Min) in Rakhine state. The Rohingya ethnic minority is declared "illegal" and stripped of their citizenship, setting off a cycle of forced displacement.
1977-78 — During Operation Dragon King, mass arrests, persecution, and severe violence force approximately 200,000 Rohingya to flee to Bangladesh. In response, Bangladesh establishes refugee camps, but conditions within these camps are deplorable.
1979 — Most Rohingya refugees repatriate to Burma. Of those who remain in Bangladesh, around 10,000 people, predominantly children, die due to a reduction in food rations.
1989 — Burma is renamed Myanmar following a military crackdown that suppresses a popular uprising.
The State Law and Order Restoration Council increases its military presence in northern Rakhine state, prompting reports of forced labour, relocation, rape, summary executions and torture among Rohingya. Around 250,000 Rohingya flee to Bangladesh.
1992 — In the spring, Bangladesh closes its camps to new arrivals, and repatriation of Rohingya refugees to Myanmar begins in the fall, despite international protests. In the subsequent years, hundreds of thousands of Rohingya are returned to Myanmar, while new refugees seeking to enter Bangladesh are turned away.
2003 — Of the 20 camps established in Bangladesh during the early 1990s, only two remain operational: Nayapara camp near Teknaf and Kutupalong camp near Ukhia. Living conditions are still harsh, with a study revealing that 58 percent of children and 53 percent of adults are chronically malnourished.
2017 — A shadowy Rohingya militant group known as the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) attacks police posts in Rakhine state, resulting in the deaths of at least a dozen officers. In response, the Myanmar military claims to have killed 400 armed fighters, though critics argue that most of those killed are civilians.
The violence triggers the largest mass displacement in the crisis to date, with Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) documenting over 6,700 violent deaths among Rohingya. Many global leaders accuse Myanmar of ethnic cleansing.
Bangladesh and Myanmar agree to begin repatriating refugees, but the UN High Commissioner for Refugees reports that conditions are not yet suitable for their safe return, causing the process to be halted.
UN human rights chief Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein warns of potential "elements of genocide" and calls for an international investigation.
2018 — Thousands of Rohingya refugees hold protests to mark the first anniversary of their exodus. UN investigators call for the prosecution of Myanmar's army chief and five other high-ranking military commanders for genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. An attempt to repatriate 2,260 Rohingya refugees fails as they refuse to return without assurances of safety.
2019 — The US imposes sanctions on Myanmar's army chief and three other high-ranking officers. Although around 3,500 Rohingya refugees are approved for return, no one shows up to make the journey on August 22.
Gambia files a lawsuit at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) accusing Myanmar of genocide. The International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague authorises a full investigation into the persecution of the Rohingya. Additionally, rights groups file a third case in Argentina un der the principle of universal jurisdiction.
Aung San Suu Kyi represents Myanmar at the ICJ, denying allegations of genocide but acknowledging that the army may have used excessive force.
2020 — The ICJ orders Myanmar to take urgent measures to prevent further alleged genocide and requires the country to report back within four months.
2021 — The Myanmar military seizes power, placing Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest and subsequently sentencing her to 17 years in prison.
2022 — The US officially designates the 2017 violence against the Rohingya as genocide, citing clear evidence of an attempt to "destroy" the Rohingya population. The ICJ rules that Gambia's case can move forward.
2023 — As clashes between the Arakan Army and the Myanmar military escalate, thousands of Rohingya flee Myanmar in a desperate attempt to escape. Nearly 2,000 Rohingya arrive in Indonesia, triggering a new refugee crisis there.
2024 — With the fall of Sheikh Hasina's government in Bangladesh and the unprotected borders following the flight of the Bangladesh Border Guard (BGB) due to fears of retribution, over 2,000 new Rohingya refugees cross into Bangladesh. Simultaneously, more than 200 refugees are killed in a reported drone attack and bombing while attempting to cross the Naf River.
Sunday marks the seventh anniversary of the Rohingya exodus, a day which the refugees in the camps of southern Bangladesh observe as "Rohingya Genocide Day".
The overcrowded refugee camps in Cox's Bazar, already strained to their limits, struggled to cope with the influx of new arrivals.
Makeshift shelters sprang up, adding to the already sprawling settlements. Aid organisations worked tirelessly to provide food, water, and medical assistance, but the scale of the crisis threatened to overwhelm their capabilities.
The international community responded with a mixture of condemnation and calls for action. However, the military junta in Myanmar remained defiant, denying any wrongdoing and obstructing humanitarian access to Rakhine state.
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The Journal of America Team:
Editor in chief:
Abdus Sattar Ghazali
Senior Editor:
Prof. Arthur Scott
Special Correspondent
Maryam Turab
