"It is a disgrace.
Each government is responding by pushing them
away from shore. Human rights are being abused.
They think there is votes in it." - Mark Gillespie
19 May 2015, Refugee Action Collective
The Rohingyan Muslim community face a crisis in Myanmar (Burma).
Victims of persecution and ethnic cleansings, thousands of refugees have been stranded in the Malacca Straits.
Rohingyan refugees drown at sea.
Governments are turning back boats showing no regard for human life.
“… it was eventually down to Acehnese fishermen to rescue the boat on Friday, towing it to shore in Langsa.” [‘They Hit us with hammers’ – The Guardian]
Is this a viable ‘regional non-punitive solution'(sic)?
Meanwhile this week Australia’s agriculture minister Barnaby Joyce touts for headlines by expelling Depp’s dogs.
It’s not funny. 4ZZZ journalist Martin Brown speaks with Sujauddin Karimuddin, from the Queensland Rohingyan Community.
4ZZZ journalist Martin Brown interviewed Mark Gillespie from the Refugee Action Collective Queensland, who is organising a rally in King George Square at 5pm on Friday, May 22nd to protest governments’ involvement in turning back the boats and allowing refugees to drown at sea or rot on land.
Like shooting an elephant
Parliament is a sideshow, any government that will call mothers ‘rorters’ and promote drowning at sea is discredited. Barnaby Joyce created a diversion to avoid any serious debate on the human crisis at our doorstep.
Aboriginal people made refugees in their own land.
In a job like that you see the dirty work of Empire at close quarters. The wretched prisoners huddling in the stinking cages of the lock-ups, the grey, cowed faces of the long-term convicts, the scarred buttocks of the men who had been Bogged with bamboos – all these oppressed me with an intolerable sense of guilt. But I could get nothing into perspective. ‘Shooting an elephant’ by George Orwell.
End the colonial state, give back the homelands, support the refugees.
Ian Curr
May 2015
Who forced the Royhingya’s into Burma?
Muslims have settled in Arakan (Northern Burma) since the 16th century, although the number of Muslim settlers before the British rule cannot be precisely estimated. After the first Anglo-Burmese War in 1826, British annexed Arakan and encouraged migrations from Bengal to work as farm laborers … http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rohingya_people
What kind of world have we created? This is an absolute horror. Our elected representatives should dispatch rescue vessels immediately, to bring all these human beings to safety and medical help here in Australia. Anything short of that is inhuman at best, politically motivated mass murder at worst. Please don’t let my children and grandchildren inherit a world of humans devoid of humanity. Our first duty is to care for each other, anything else comes a poor second, doesn’t it?
There is an empty facility that could immediately take the Rohingyas, it is called Christmas Island.
Instead of drowning at sea, the refugees could be brought immediately to safety.
There are many issues here that the government and media are not putting out there:
Com’on people we should vote with our feet boycott Myanmar.
Why is it that only aboriginal people in Australia understand what it is like to be a refugee?*
Ian Curr
May 2015
Reference
http://workersbushtelegraph.com.au/2015/05/20/somalian-refugee-abdi-aden-tells-his-story-of-survival/
Its a pity we can’t spend even a fraction of the money squandered by the military on improving living conditions in the countries of origin. Surely that would be infinitely more cost-effective than supporting yankee armament manufacturers.