9 Nov 2021
UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights Tom Andrews is pressing hard for UNSC consensus to block all arms sales and transfers in meetings this week.
There is very deep concern that the junta will unleash the full range of methods they used in Rakhine/Arakan State, in the other so called ethnic border areas causing the same kind of massive refugee influx into each of Burma’s neighbors. Burma borders Bangladesh, India China, Laos and Thailand. Additionally, seafaring refugees have already been landing throughout the island nations of SE Asia.
Particular attention is being paid to the massing of troops and firebombings already occurring in Chin State which has a large Christian population. Here’s a town in Chin State before and after the attacks of October 29th, 2021.
1st image from October 2020. 2nd image obtained Nov 6 2021.
The regime is saying “it wasn’t me” and that these people burned down their own village. I’m pretty sure they said this about the Rohingya too.
The regime exploits both ethnic and religious differences to divide and conquer. Expect future propaganda about missionized Chin representing a neo-colonial threat, consistent with the Tatmadaw rhetoric on anyone opposing it since 1962.
In their anti colonial language, as an activist from abroad I would be characterized as an “external destructive element” wielding in-country “internal destructive elements” like an “axe handle”.
English language billboards going back decades were aimed at the outside world.
Here is the softened version of that rhetoric from the state owned newspaper as they were moving toward the shared power “democracy” in 2011:
Another in this deeper dive on their paranoia by Burmese-American journalist Aye Min Thant:
This repeated “crush all those” line always reminds me of my dear friend Conan the Barbarian.
Addition. Almost forgot:
A longer quote reveals that Richardson was told by the State Dept. not to bring up the Danny Fenster case. So, particular to that case, we need answers, but perhaps not from Richardson.
I had, I’m glad to say I suppose, not shared a Mizzima article on the visit. They received a very strong rebuke for spouting Covid 19 falsities and took down a tweet then slightly overhauled the article but not the still-intact headline “…as pandemic subsides.” There is no reliable way to source ANY medical or mortality stats from Burma. Consider that the regime was removing bodies during funerals to do their own autopsies and change causes of death. What I do know is that there were 3,000 deaths from Covid in its first year, the coup occurring Feb 1, 2021. Since the coup, the official number shot up beyond 17,000 within about 6 months. People suspect it is much higher.
Finally (perhaps, as I keep adding to this), hell of a thread here on the democratic forces assassinations of coup regime administrators and informants (“Dalan” in Burmese).
