Australia has co-sponsored a UN resolution requesting investigations of crimes against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar.

That probably means many thousands of Rohingya Muslims will be coming Australia's way as refugees sponsored by the Australian government.

Australia has a big heart and a big wallet.

http://www.smh.com.au/national/turnbull-government-reverses-myanmar-stance-to-cosponsor-un-resolution-on-rohingya-muslims-20170324-gv69nv.html


Quote:

Turnbull government reverses Myanmar stance to co-sponsor UN resolution on Rohingya Muslims The Turnbull government has abruptly reversed its opposition to an international investigation into atrocities against Rohingya Muslims, including mass rapes, torture and the slaughter of babies. The government has co-sponsored a resolution at the United Nation's top human rights body in Geneva to send a fact-finding mission to Myanmar to investigate what the UN says could amount to ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. Myanmar monk gagged by authorities Myanmar's most senior monks impose a sermon ban on Wirathu, a radical monk who for years has fanned the flames of religious chauvinism in Myanmar. Human rights groups praised the 47-member forum for passing the resolution in Geneva on Friday without a vote and despite Myanmar saying it was "not acceptable." Australia's late turn-around came after human rights groups condemned Canberra for calling on Myanmar to conduct its own investigation with international help into the atrocities in the country's Rakhine state, home to more than one million Rohingya. RELATED CONTENT Australia slammed for refusing to back Rohingya investigation Australia must condemn atrocities in Myanmar Investigations already underway in the Buddhist-majority country are considered a white-wash as the government lead by Aung San Suu Kyi has repeatedly denied widespread atrocities have taken place. Earlier in March, Australia told the Human Rights Council that despite evidence of serious human rights abuses, Canberra "considers a collaborative approach is the best way to help Myanmar address its human rights challenges." The statement referred to the "scale and complexity of the transition that Myanmar is undergoing" and acknowledged "positive steps" taken by its government since taking office last year. Australia's stand at that time ignored a motion passed unanimously in the Senate on February 16 urging the Turnbull government to consider pushing for a UN commission of inquiry. Critics say Nobel Peace laureate Ms Suu Kyi has done little to stem the tide of suffering in Myanmar since taking over as de facto leader. Greens Senator Scott Ludlam was last week denied leave to pass a motion in the Senate urging Australia to co-sponsor the resolution brought in the UN council by the European Union. "The mass murder and forced displacement of the Rohingya people in Myanmar is beyond belief and needs urgent international intervention," Senator Ludlam said. "Instead the government even refused to contemplate a vote to this effect." Emily Howie, director of Legal Advocacy at Australia's Human Rights Law Centre, said that Australia, which is campaigning for a seat on the Human Rights Council, must show the world it has what it takes to protect victims of the world's most serious human rights abuses. "Support for international fact finding in Burma (Myanmar) is a step in the right direction," she said. "However, true leadership requires more than hopping on other states' resolutions at the last minute." A devastating UN report last month based on interviews with 220 Rohingya who have fled to Bangladesh said Myanmar's security forces carried out a "calculated policy of terror" under the guise of a military lock-down of villages after attacks on police posts last October. The report described how soldiers stomped on the stomach of a woman in labour and slit the throat of an eight-month-old baby when he started crying because he wanted be breast-fed while his mother was being gang-raped.  The Dalai Lama and Pope Francis were among world's leaders who called for Buddhists in Myanmar to end the violence. The council's motion calls for "ensuring full accountability for perpetrators and justice for victims." Australia's decision to co-sponsor the resolution is likely to deliver more support for its campaign for a two-year term on the council from 2018. "This decision is a credit to the Australian Government and sends a clear message that Australia can and will take a stand against human rights violations," said Marc Purcell, chief executive office of the Australian Council for International Development. Elaine Pearson, Australia director at Human Rights Watch, said establishing an independent, international fact finding mission was crucial for bringing justice and accountability for the protection of the Rohingya population, and could significantly contribute to preventing further atrocities. "If Australia wins a seat on the council it will be even more important that Australia shows leadership on countries in crisis...

Don't get too excited about U.N. investigations into genocide

History has shown that time and time again the U.N. is a toothless tiger  when it comes to genocide just read  up on Bosnia, Rwanda for a start, there are large numbers of other theatres of mindless genocide where the U.N. has stood by and allowed attrocities to be  carried out without getting their hands dirty

DO NOT expect a different outcome here

Places where the U.N. has earned a BIG FAIL


More than once is right. "The second half of the twentieth century didn't include cases of such large scale" as the Holocaust, says Dr. Ben Kiernan, director of the Yale Genocide Studies Program, "but there were more incidents." Some chalk up the failure of the world powers to stop the killing to the difficulties of defining genocide. Others cite the fact that exact rules for intervention aren't clear enough in international law. Whatever the reason, the world has repeatedly failed in its promise of 'never again.' While there is disagreement about which post-1945 massacres constitute genocide -- some experts say that there have been 37 incidents since 1945 -- there are several that everyone can universally agree upon.

Bangladesh, 1971

The war for liberation that broke out in March 1971 in Bangladesh stemmed from the election of the Awami League, which demanded independence for Bangladesh, in what was then East Pakistan. The genocidal "Operation Search Light" was carried out against Bengalis by the West Pakistan army as a response. The ten months of killing resulted in the deaths of an estimated 500,000 to 3 million people, mostly Hindus. "Kill three million of them," then-Pakistani President Yahya Khan reportedly said at the time, "and the rest will eat out of our hands." None of the Pakistani generals involved in the genocide has ever been brought to trial, and remain at large.

East Timor, 1975-1999


On December 7th, 1975, after the Portuguese left the island of East Timor in Indonesia following hundreds of years of colonial rule, the Indonesian army invaded, provoking a long war of independence. During the 25 years of struggle, 200,000 East Timorese, or about a third of the total population, are estimated to have been killed. After a referendum for independence was finally held in 1999, violence again broke out, resulting in thousands of deaths as UN peace-keepers stood by.

Cambodia, 1975-1979




Bones gathered from the Killing Fields.
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AFP

Bones gathered from the Killing Fields.
In April of 1975, Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge defeated the US-backed Lon Nol regime in Cambodia and took control of the city of Phnom Phen, and with it the country. Thus began a brutal campaign of mass murder that eventually took the lives of an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians. Once in power, the regime suspended all civil and political rights and began sending the entire urban population of Cambodia to the countryside to work in the failed agricultural experiment known as the "killing fields," where millions died through execution, forced labor and starvation. The Khmer Rouge rule ended in 1979 when the Vietnamese invaded Cambodia. A UN attempt to create an international court to try Khmer Rouge leaders for genocide failed in 2002 when the Cambodian government couldn't assure UN inspectors it could provide impartial trials.

Guatemala, 1981-1983

In the history of Guatemala's bloody 36 years of civil war from 1960 to 1996, the early 80s stand out as a period of particular viciousness. In what became known as "The Silent Holocaust," the Guatemalan army methodically worked its way through the country's Mayan communities, killing men, women and children. A total of 200,000 people died during the war, many thousands of them Mayan victims of genocide.

Bosnia, 1992-1995


A mass grave near Srebrenica.
In the nationalist soup that became the Balkans after communism fell, Bosnian Serbs fought against the Bosnian and Croatian Muslims seeking independence. Over 200,000 Muslim civilians were systematically murdered, and 2 million became refugees. In the spring of 1993, the UN "safe area" of Srebrenica became the site of Europe's worst massacre since World War II while the blue-helmeted troops of the UN peace keeping force stood by doing nothing. More than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were killed. It was during the war in Bosnia that the international community coined the euphemism "ethnic cleansing," thus avoiding the legal responsibilities the term genocide carries. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke called Bosnia "the greatest failure of the West since the 1930s."

Rwanda, 1994

After Rwandan President Habyarimana's plane was shot down on April 6, 1994, Hutus in Rwanda began a mobilized campaign of massacre against Tutsis and moderate Hutus that last 100 days and killed 800,000 people. The nation-wide massacres were organized in part by broadcasts like those of Radio Television Libre des Mille Collines, which originally announced the president's death and in the ensuing days called on Hutus to "get to work" ridding Rwanda of its Tutsi population. News of the slaughters caught the world's attention, but again the international community failed to prevent many innocent deaths. Despite the fact that the UN had troops on the ground when the killing began, it refused Commander Roméo Dallaire's request for reinforcements and, in fact, ordered him and his force to withdraw.

Darfur, Sudan, 2004 - ????


Refugees in Sudan.
While testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in September 2004, Colin Powell concluded that "genocide has been committed in Darfur, and that the government of Sudan and the Janjaweed bear responsibility, and that genocide may still be occurring." Despite this, both the US and the UN have done little to intervene

red baron wrote on Mar 26^th, 2017 at 3:03pm:

... Places where the U.N. has earned a BIG FAIL...

Where the UN has failed it is mostly because USA has not wanted UN to act. USA exerts the most power and has vetoed resolutions more times than any other permanent member. UK and France usually vote with USA or abstain if USA tells them to.

UN permanent members are:

China, France, Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

The USA's CIA participated in the killing of 200,000 Chinese by Indonesia.

The slaughter of Timorese happened because the USA did not act to prevent it. The slaughter did not stop until USA gave the command after all left wing leaders had been killed.

U.N. Troops were deployed to most of the places stated and they stood by whilst attrocities were carried out

It is total bullsh.t just like the U.N. and their toothless Blue berets who couldn't control a food fight as the local chicken shop

Who can forget Belgium troops in Bosnia handing over people they were supposed to be protecting only to see them butchered

red baron wrote on Mar 26^th, 2017 at 3:40pm:

U.N. Troops were deployed to most of the paces stated and they stood by whilst attrocities were carried out It is total bullsh.t just like the U.N. and their toothless Blue berets who couldn't control a food fight as the local chicken shop Who can forget Belgium troops in Bosnia handing over people they were supposed to be protecting only to see them butchered

UN forces are usually peacekeepers with limited arms for self-protection. Uncle Sam's orders.

USA never denied it hobbled the UN forces. Israel killed UN peacekeepers in Syria and Lebanon and USA shielded Israeli perpetrators from prosecution.

Unforgiven wrote on Mar 26^th, 2017 at 3:21pm:

red baron wrote on Mar 26th, 2017 at 3:03pm: ... Places where the U.N. has earned a BIG FAIL... Where the UN has failed it is mostly because USA has not wanted UN to act. USA exerts the most power and has vetoed resolutions more times than any other permanent member. UK and France usually vote with USA or abstain if USA tells them to. UN permanent members are: China, France, Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The USA's CIA participated in the killing of 200,000 Chinese by Indonesia. The slaughter of Timorese happened because the USA did not act to prevent it. The slaughter did not stop until USA gave the command after all left wing leaders had been killed.

dont you get sick of blaming the USA for everything...?

any wonder they are pizzzzzzed off with giving a helping hand.. they are wrong if they do and dead if they dont..

until you all get your righteous heads out of the sand and stop pointing the finger at those opposite   

then expect nothing to change...

you guys are still blaming the other side 10 years on...the only thing thats changed.. is the situation...


Iraq lets blame the yanks....if Hussein was still killing by the thousands  it would be the yanks fault...

hes dead and its the yanks fault..

and so it goes it on...

I agree the UN is useless got nothing to do with the Yanks they are not the only members of the UN.... >:( >:(....it does nothing!!!! it stops nothing....

passing resolutions 

  does nothing for those living in hell.

another bloody INQUIRY I am sure those suffering injustice.. are thrilled.. >:(

cods wrote on Mar 26^th, 2017 at 4:19pm:

dont you get sick of blaming the USA for everything...?

It would be nice if Uncle Sam spent more money helping people than killing people.

No more Muslims please. ::)