The Western Propaganda War on Myanmar

March 1, 2021 (Brian Berletic - LD) - In this video I discuss the propaganda war being waged by the Western media on Myanmar - how much of the media cited is funded by the US government via the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). 

I also describe how even media in Thailand is heavily influenced by Western propaganda - repeating conspiracy theories spun by “institutes” funded by Western weapons manufacturers trying to implicate China as being behind the new government - while ignoring documented evidence of US government support for opposition groups opposed to the new government. 

References: 

Thai PBS - Myanmar Journal: Local media defy orders to not use terms “military coup” or “military government”:
https://www.thaipbsworld.com/myanmar-journal-the-people-of-myanmar-have-bigger-things-to-worry-about/
The Strategist (The Australian Strategic Policy Institute) - What’s on the clandestine nightly flights between Myanmar and China?:
https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/whats-on-the-clandestine-nightly-flights-between-myanmar-and-china/
US National Endowment for Democracy - Burma (2020):
https://www.ned.org/region/asia/burma-2020/
The Grayzone - Reuters, BBC, and Bellingcat participated in covert UK Foreign Office-funded programs to “weaken Russia,” leaked docs reveal:
https://thegrayzone.com/2021/02/20/reuters-bbc-uk-foreign-office-russian-media/

Brian Berletic, formally known under the pen name "Tony Cartalucci" is a geopolitical researcher, writer, and video producer (YouTube here and BitChute here) based in Bangkok, Thailand. He is a regular contributor to New Eastern Outlook and more recently, 21st Century Wire. You can support his work via Patreon here. 

US Loses Myanmar to China

June 29, 2020 (Joseph Thomas - NEO) - For the Southeast Asian state of Myanmar, the decision to expand ties with China despite Western pressure was a no-brainer. Significant economic ties have been expanded and the prospect for several large-scale infrastructure projects have been firmed up.

Chinese President Xi Jinping's recent visit to Myanmar could be considered a victory lap of sorts; the cementing of long-standing and ever-expanding ties between Myanmar and China and the final displacement of significant US and British influence in the former British colony.

An op-ed on China's CGTN website titled, "Xi's New Year visit to Myanmar: A milestone in bilateral relations," would help frame the significance of President Xi's visit while comparing and contrasting Myanmar's ties with China and the US.

The op-ed would note that President Xi's trip to Myanmar was his first major trip abroad made during 2020. It is also the first major visit by a Chinese leader to Myanmar in nearly 20 years.

Even US Proxies Can't Deny America's Decline 

The op-ed also noted that Myanmar's State Counsellor, Aung San Suu Kyi, picked China for her first major visit abroad after her National League for Democracy party came to power in 2016.

To understand the significance of this it is important to understand that Suu Kyi and her rise to power was primarily driven by support from Washington.

She and her political party along with a large army of US government-funded fronts posing as nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) and US-funded media networks were selected and groomed for decades by Washington to seize power and serve as a vector for US special interests both in Myanmar itself and as a point of leverage versus Beijing.

However, despite America's expertise in political meddling, what it lacks is, as the op-ed calls it, any concrete economic pillars; something China does have on offer.

No matter how much covert or overt financial and political support any client regime in Myanmar may receive from Washington it does not address the genuine need for real development within Myanmar itself. Without such development and the financial and economic incentives it brings with it, enemies and allies of the client regime alike will turn towards those who can offer such incentives.

Xi's Visit Focused on Pragmatism, Not Politics 

The CGTN op-ed noted the focus of President Xi's visit which centred around major political issues plaguing Myanmar including the ongoing Rohingya crisis and border conflicts with neighbouring Bangladesh resulting from the crisis.

The focus was not on feigned concerns for human rights however, but rather on establishing stability since Myanmar and Bangladesh are both partners with Beijing and its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

The visit also focused on pushing forward stalled infrastructure projects that have been held up by US-funded fronts hiding behind human rights and environmental concerns.

Myanmar Turns to China's Huawei Despite US Pressure

October 8, 2019 (Joseph Thomas - NEO) - The Southeast Asian state of Myanmar, despite pressure from Washington, has decided to work with Chinese telecom company Huawei to develop its national 5G communication network. 

The move by Myanmar is just one among many by the entire region to build ties with China despite extensive efforts by the US and some Western European nations to encircle and isolate Beijing economically, politically and even militarily.

If ever there was an indicator of just how real the delcine of US primacy was particularly in Asia, it is this steady march of joint progress being made between the nations of Asia and China.

US State Department-funded media platform Voice of America (VOA) in its article deceptively titled, "Myanmar to Keep Huawei Despite Security Concerns," would complain:

Myanmar has decided to keep using Chinese technology company Huawei to develop its new mobile communications system. 

The decision comes despite national security concerns about Huawei by the United States and some other countries.

Huawei Technologies is currently working on building the next generation in wireless technology in countries around the world. The development of 5G has caused tensions between the United States and China. U.S. officials have long suspected the Chinese government could use Huawei network equipment to help carry out spying activities. Huawei has rejected such accusations. 

It is only well into the third paragraph that the VOA article begins to admit "security concerns" regarding Huawei are in reality simply accusations made up by the United States and based on nothing resembling evidence or documented impropriety.

VOA finally admits that beyond alleged concerns regarding "national security," the US has targeted Huawei because it conflicts with US "foreign policy interests."

In other words, Huawei is outcompeting US corporations abroad and rather than look inward at the shortcomings of American industry and fixing them, the US is instead attacking Huawei politically through accusations and economically through sanctions.

Spot the Difference: Real Spying vs. Accusations of Spying 

For those wondering what genuine concerns over security should be based on, the BBC in its 2014 article titled, "Edward Snowden: Leaks that exposed US spy programme," covers irrefutable, documented evidence of the US government abusing its monopoly over telecommunication networks to carry out unprecedented spying at home and abroad.

The scandal broke in early June 2013 when the Guardian newspaper reported that the US National Security Agency (NSA) was collecting the telephone records of tens of millions of Americans. 

The paper published the secret court order directing telecommunications company Verizon to hand over all its telephone data to the NSA on an "ongoing daily basis". 

That report was followed by revelations in both the Washington Post and Guardian that the NSA tapped directly into the servers of nine internet firms, including Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo, to track online communication in a surveillance programme known as Prism.

Of course, the revelations made public by Edward Snowden's whistleblowing went far deeper than Prism, involving invasive US spying efforts carried out with the help of not only telecommunication companies, but also software makers and even US-based hardware manufacturers.

MIT Technology Review in its article, "NSA’s Own Hardware Backdoors May Still Be a “Problem from Hell”," would reveal:

Revelations that the NSA has compromised hardware for surveillance highlights the vulnerability of computer systems to such attacks.

In 2011, General Michael Hayden, who had earlier been director of both the National Security Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency, described the idea of computer hardware with hidden “backdoors” planted by an enemy as “the problem from hell.” This month, news reports based on leaked documents said that the NSA itself has used that tactic, working with U.S. companies to insert secret backdoors into chips and other hardware to aid its surveillance efforts.

The US is thus guilty in reality of everything it is baselessly accusing Huawei of and serves as another example of the sort of "American exceptionalism" that has poisoned the globe's perception of America.

Dirty Tricks vs. Real Competition 

Myanmar's continued trajectory into China's economic and political orbit is particularly embarrassing for the United States.

The current government of Myanmar is headed by State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy political party. Suu Kyi and and her party are virtual creations of the US and British governments benefiting from decades of political support and untold millions in financial aid. Suu Kyi also serves as the figurehead of an extensive network of fronts funded out of Washington and London posing as nongovernmental organisations.

US NGO Teams Up with Gulf Terror Sponsor to Target Asia

January 4, 2019 (Joseph Thomas - NEO) - Fortify Rights is one of several fronts posing as nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) operating across Asia.

Such fronts are in actuality extensions of US and European "soft power." Fully funded by the US, British and various European governments as well as US and European corporate foundations like convicted financial criminal George Soros' Open Society, Fortify Rights positions itself as self-appointed arbiter regarding human rights, democracy and the rule of law at the heart of the sovereign internal political affairs of nations like Myanmar (still called Burma by many Western media organisations and politicians), Thailand, Bangladesh and Malaysia.

Human Rights Org Partners with State Sponsor of Terrorism... 

Recently, Fortify Rights' founder American Matthew Smith announced a new and "exciting" partnership with Doha Debates. Doha Debates is a project of the Qatar Foundation which in turn was founded by the Al Thani family, the unelected rulers of Qatar, a notorious Middle Eastern dictatorship, abuser of human rights and state sponsor of terrorism.

The "exciting" partnership between Fortify Rights (a supposed human rights advocacy group) and the Qatari front "Doha Debates" is particularly troubling considering the area of cooperation involves Myanmar's Muslim Rohingya minority.

On Doha Debates' website it describes its partnership with Fortify Rights:

Together, Fortify Rights and Doha Debates are training a group of Rohingya refugees on the basics of photography and Instagram, and we are equipping them with mobile phones to document their lives in refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, for an entire year. Through this partnership, Fortify Rights and Doha Debates hope to empower Rohingya refugees to share their stories with the world.

Despite the relatively benign stated nature of this partnership, it is troubling because it signals a possible vector through which money, training and even weapons can pass, behind a "human rights' façade, inflaming already tense ethnic troubles in Myanmar's western Rakhine state.

At the very least, influence operations by Fortify Rights and Qatar's "Doha Debates" could be used to further divide communities along ethnic lines while mounting pressure on Myanmar's government and military by exploiting the resulting chaos.

Fortify Rights founder Matthew Smith refused to respond to questions of how his supposed cause of advancing human rights is served by partnering with Doha Debates funded by a dictatorship and notorious state sponsor of terrorism. Smith regularly blocks critics on social media concerned with the nature of his organisation's activities, including many in Myanmar whom he claims he's "helping."

US "Investigates" Genocide in Myanmar, Commits Genocide in Yemen

October 3, 2018 (Joseph Thomas - NEO) - Rarely is US hypocrisy so cynical and overt as a recent US State Department investigation into ongoing violence in Myanmar, all while the US continues its full spectrum support of Saudi Arabia's genocidal war on Yemen.

In addition to Washington's role in Yemen, the US also occupies Afghanistan and Syria while carrying out drone strikes and covert military interventions in territory stretching from North Africa to Central Asia.

In Myanmar specifically, the US has openly and for decades funded and supported groups and individuals involved directly on both sides of ongoing ethnic violence. Now, it is leveraging that violence to single out obstacles to US influence in Southeast Asia and in Myanmar specifically.

Reuters in their article titled, "U.S. accuses Myanmar military of 'planned and coordinated' Rohingya atrocities," would claim:

A U.S. government investigation has found that Myanmar’s military waged a “well-planned and coordinated” campaign of mass killings, gang rapes and other atrocities against the Southeast Asian nation’s Rohingya Muslim minority. 

Reuters admits the US State Department's report, titled "Documentation of Atrocities in Northern Rakhine State," was in fact merely interviews conducted with alleged witnesses in neighbouring Bangladesh.

Was it Really an Investigation? 

Imagine a fight breaks out between two groups of people. The police are called in. But instead of arriving at the crime scene, the police instead interview only one group, and do so at their home before drawing their final conclusions. Would anyone honestly call this an "investigation?" The US State Department apparently would, because this is precisely what the State Department has done in regards to ongoing ethnic violence in Myanmar.

The full report, found here on the US State Department's website, would admit:

The Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), with funding support from the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (DRL), conducted a survey in spring 2018 of the firsthand experiences of 1,024 Rohingya refugees in Cox’s Bazar District, Bangladesh. The goal of the survey was to document atrocities committed against residents in Burma’s northern Rakhine State during the course of violence in the previous two years.

No physical evidence was collected or presented in the report, because investigators never stepped foot in Myanmar itself where the violence allegedly took place. The report also failed to interview other parties allegedly involved in the violence.

While the witness accounts in the US State Department's investigation were shocking, had investigators gone to Rakhine state and interviewed locals there, they would have heard similar stories told of Rohingya attacks on Buddhists and Hindus.

Both accounts require further and impartial investigation, however the US State Department, by exclusively interviewing only one party amid multiparty ethnic violence all but ensures nothing resembling a real, impartial investigation ever takes place. This, of course, assumes that the United States has any authority as arbiter in Myanmar's internal affairs in the first place. 

The US State Department investigation follows a similar UN report which mirrored and admittedly used similar claims made by US and European funded fronts posing as "nongovernmental organisations" (NGOs).

Together, these efforts represent a cycle of one-sided propaganda cynically aimed at leveraging ethnic violence within and along Myanmar's borders to pressure and coerce the government of Myanmar, particularly in regards to its growing ties with China. This is a fact that even Reuters in its article concedes to, albeit buried deep within the body of the text.

Reuters, after describing how the US could use the investigation's alleged findings to pressure Myanmar, would admit:

Any stiffer measures against Myanmar authorities could be tempered, though, by U.S. concerns about complicating relations between civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, and the powerful military which might push Myanmar closer to China.

Myanmar, which borders China, seeks like the rest of Southeast Asia, closer ties to Beijing as the region collectively rises economically and politically on the global stage. Attempts by Western capitals to reassert and expand their former colonial influence has manifested itself in political meddling, subversion, the use of ethnic tensions to divide and weaken national unity and even terrorism.

It should be noted that the US and UK's leveraging of ethnic violence in modern day Myanmar is a continuation of ethnic divisions intentionally cultivated by the British Empire to divide and rule Myanmar when it was a British colony.

It is worth repeating that Channel 4, one of Britain's own public service broadcasters, in an article titled, "A Brief History of Burma," aptly described the very source of Myanmar's current ethnic divisions:

Throughout their Empire the British used a policy called 'divide and rule' where they played upon ethnic differences to establish their authority. This policy was applied rigorously in Burma. More than a million Indian and Chinese migrants were brought in to run the country's affairs and thousands of Indian troops were used to crush Burmese resistance. In addition, hill tribes which had no strong Burmese affiliation, such as the Karen in the south-east, were recruited into ethnic regiments of the colonial army.

The article also admitted:

The British 'divide and rule' policy left a legacy of problems for Burma when it regained independence.

Not only has the British "divide and rule" policy left a legacy of problems for Myanmar since gaining its independence, these are problems Washington is now cynically exploiting in its own interpretation of "divide and rule."   

Washington's Own Role in the Violence Goes Unreported 

Oft omitted in US-European media reports, Aung San Suu Kyi, defacto leader of Myanmar's government, is the product of decades of US and British political and financial backing. Virtually every aspect of Aung San Suu Kyi's government including high-level ministers, are the result of US-European training, funding and support.

The government's minister of information, for example, received US-funded training in neighbouring Thailand before working his way up Aung San Suu Kyi's US-backed opposition party.

Another aspect omitted by the US-European media is the fact that the most prominent so-called "pro-democracy" leaders supported by Washington, London and Brussels, have openly been involved in calling for, promoting and defending ethnic violence against Myanmar's Rohingya minority, violence now being leveraged by Washington to place pressure on Myanmar and foil growing ties with China.


This includes NED Democracy Awardee Min Ko Naing who denied the Rohingya as an ethnic group in Myanmar, suggesting they were merely illegal immigrants. It also includes Ko Ko Gyi who openly vowed to take up arms against the Rohingya whom he called "foreign invaders."

More telling of Washington's lack of convictions in protecting the Rohingya and instead cynically exploiting Myanmar's ethnic tensions is the fact that Ko Ko Gyi was invited to speak in Washington D.C. a year after pledging to take up arms against the Rohingya.

It should be pointed out that Ko Ko Gyi's pro-genocide remarks were made in a US National Endowment for Democracy (NED) funded publication, The Irrawaddy, and it was the US NED who would invit him to speak in Washington a year later, meaning that those in Washington were well aware of exactly who and what Ko Ko Gyi really was.

Founding member of Aung San Suu Kyi's political party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), U Win Tin, awarded "journalist of the year" by Reporters Without Borders in 2006, would suggest that the Rohingya be interned in camps.

It's clear that at the very least, it is more than just Myanmar's military involved in ethnic violence inside Myanmar. It is also clear that the US and its European partners and the virtual army of fronts posing as NGOs have selectively "investigated" and "reported" on Myanmar's ethnic violence to single out and undermine the military alone, while providing impunity to others involved in the violence including extremists among the Rohingya population itself, as well as anti-Rohingya extremists backed for years by the US government.

The very fact that the US has backed those involved in ethnic violence in Myanmar, and that their role continuously goes unreported in various US government and US-funded NGO investigations illustrates an additional and major crisis of credibility regarding Washington's self-appointed role as arbiter in Myanmar.

This US strategy of cultivating animosity on all sides, providing impunity to some while singling out others, ensures Myanmar remains divided and weak, while the US and its European partners can pick apart Myanmar's military and any civilian politicians who refuse to tilt Myanmar away from Beijing, and back toward Anglo-American influence. It is another example of the American-dominated international human rights racket advancing Western interests merely behind pro-human rights rhetoric, often at the cost of undermining real human rights.

While supposed NGOs funded by the US, UK and European nations pose as dedicated to human rights in Myanmar, they are in fact foreign fronts meddling in Myanmar's internal affairs, and because of the selective nature of their "investigations," they are in fact enabling those involved in atrocities who are currently in Washington's, London's and Brussels' good graces.

UN Report Cynically Spins Rohingya Genocide

September 12, 2018 (Joseph Thomas - NEO) - Media headlines claim an independent UN report is calling for genocide charges against Myanmar officials.

Qatari state media outfit Al Jazeera in its article, "UN report calls for genocide charges against Myanmar officials," claims:

Myanmar's senior military officials must be prosecuted for genocide and war crimes against the Rohingya and other ethnic minorities, a UN fact-finding mission has urged. 

The mission, which was established by the UN Human Rights Council in March 2017, found that Myanmar's armed forces had taken actions that "undoubtedly amount to the gravest crimes under international law".

Al Jazeera admits Myanmar's military has been singled out by the report. Suspiciously absent from both the accusations made in the report and the charges called for, is State Counsellor of Myanmar Aung San Suu Kyi, referred to throughout the Western media and the report itself as the "de facto" leader of Myanmar.

The leader of a nation is undoubtedly responsible for the actions of that nation's military and while some claim Suu Kyi has no power over Myanmar's military, Al Jazeera itself notes her silence in even condemning the ongoing violence.

Despite the obvious role Suu Kyi plays in enabling the violence even at face value through her silent complicity, the 20 page UN report (.pdf) mentions her name only one time and fails entirely to call for any form of accountability for this role. Suu Kyi's notoriously violent supporters are only briefly and ambiguously mentioned in the report:

Local authorities, militias, militant “civilian” groups, politicians and monks participated or assisted in violations, to varying degrees.

The report never qualifies or further discusses these "varying degrees."

The report admittedly is dependent primarily on interviews. While videos and photography are also supposedly among the evidence the report is based on, neither are specifically referenced in the actual report.

Many of the interviews were supposedly corroborated with likewise secondhand information obtained from what are referred to as "intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations, researchers, and diplomats." These individuals and organisations are conveniently left unnamed and are most likely individuals and organisations directly funded by the US, British and European governments.

In essence, it is US, British and European funded propaganda laundered through a UN report.

Upon closer examination, Suu Kyi and more importantly her political supporters, have played a much more direct role in violence aimed at Myanmar's Rohingya population. It is an intentional and systematic cover up by Western media organisations and foreign-sponsored human rights advocacy groups ongoing for years, one the UN report is a continuation of.

British Divide and Rule Re-imagined 

British public service broadcaster Channel 4 would explain in an article titled, "A Brief History of Burma," about the very source of Myanmar's current ethnic divisions:

Throughout their Empire the British used a policy called 'divide and rule' where they played upon ethnic differences to establish their authority. This policy was applied rigorously in Burma. More than a million Indian and Chinese migrants were brought in to run the country's affairs and thousands of Indian troops were used to crush Burmese resistance. In addition, hill tribes which had no strong Burmese affiliation, such as the Karen in the south-east, were recruited into ethnic regiments of the colonial army.

The article also admitted:

The British 'divide and rule' policy left a legacy of problems for Burma when it regained independence.

We can see the "legacy" of British and now US foreign policy in Southeast Asia still unfolding today, including in Myanmar's north where Kachin militants still battle against Myanmar's military and in the west, particularly in the state of Rakhine, where violence is ongoing between religious and nationalist fanatics and the Rohingya minority.

US-British Neo-Imperialism and its Modern Day 'Missionaries'

September 2, 2018 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - The worst sort of deception is that perpetrated by those who pose as defending the most vulnerable when in reality, are leveraging their circumstances, exploiting their suffering, and in many cases, playing a direct role in perpetuating both.

This is an apt description of Washington, London, and Brussels' global-spanning human rights racket - used repeatedly as a pretext for political meddling and even war.

An especially cynical example of this is playing out in Southeast Asia's nation of Myanmar.

With ties between Myanmar and China growing, the US and its European partners are working to pressure, co-opt, or even overthrow Myanmar's current political order which includes not only a powerful, independent military, but also a civilian government the US and UK played a direct role in placing into power.

The decades of US-UK support for Aung San Suu Kyi - Myanmar's current State Counsellor - now hang around her and her National League for Democracy (NLD) political party's necks like a millstone. The very foreign-sponsored networks they invited into Myanmar to assist them into power are now being leveraged against them to coerce Myanmar's domestic and foreign policy.

Another Dubious UN Report

A recent UN report on alleged atrocities being carried out against the Rohingya minority in Myanmar has been accompanied by a coordinated public relations campaign led by the Western media and US-UK and European Union-funded fronts posing as "nongovernmental" organizations (NGOs).

Part of this PR campaign has included calls to refer many of Myanmar's military leaders to the International Criminal Court (ICC) - an institution seen around the world as a continuation of Western colonization - especially in Africa. Pressure has also been placed on Myanmar's civilian government led by Aung San Suu Kyi and her NLD party.

The overall effect is the West's ability to leverage ethnic violence to place pressure on Myanmar allowing the West to exact concessions as well as impose sanctions on or remove from power any prominent political or military figures at will.

The primary foreign policy objective of the West is to severe Myanmar's ties with China, transform Myanmar into an obedient client state, and use success there to expand similar efforts across the rest of Southeast Asia.

The actual UN report officially titled, "Report of the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar" (PDF), reveals its methodology to have been interviews. It claims:

The Mission amassed a vast amount of primary information. It conducted 875 indepth interviews with victims and eyewitnesses, both targeted and randomly selected. It obtained satellite imagery and authenticated a range of documents, photographs and videos. It checked this information against secondary information assessed as credible and reliable, including organizations’ raw data or notes, expert interviews, submissions, and open source material.

The report also admits:

The Mission also held over 250 consultations with other stakeholders, including intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations, researchers, and diplomats – in person and remotely. It received written submissions, including through a public call.

It is this second point that is of particular concern.

It appears that much of what the UN report includes, is merely a repeat of information US, UK, and EU-funded supposed "NGOs" - central components of the West's human rights racket - have already reported in their own highly suspect publications.

Among these is Fortify Rights - funded by the US, UK, Canadian, and Dutch governments, as well as convicted financial criminal George Soros' Open Society Foundation. The UN report appears to be merely a short summary of Fortify Rights' report, "They Gave them Long Swords" (PDF).

US-UK Funded Modern Day "Missionaries"  

Fortify Rights discloses its funding in at least two annual reports from 2015 and 2016.

In 2015 (PDF), sponsors included the Dutch, Canadian, and US government via the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). It also included Open Society Foundations and Avaaz. In 2016 (PDF), the UK government was also included upon its donors list.

When confronted with questions regarding Fortify Rights' acceptance of money from governments currently engaged in human rights abuses around the globe - including weapon sales to Riyadh and assistance in Riyadh's war on Yemen - Fortify Rights founder, American Matthew Smith, attempted to deflect and downplay his organization's funding.

He claimed NED money did not constitute US government funding because US Congressional funds passed through NED before reaching him.

He also claimed that money his organization accepted from the UK was not used for work in Myanmar, claiming it went instead to a program his organization is running in Thailand - apparently in the belief that this explanation resolved the obvious conflict of interest his organization's activities and its funding represent.

Worst of all, Smith acknowledged the UK's role in Myanmar's current crisis. It was British colonialism that intentionally fomented and exploited the very ethnic tensions still playing out in Myanmar today. This includes virtually all of the ethnic groups Fortify Rights poses as a champion for.

Militants Threaten China's OBOR Initiative in Myanmar

Militants in northern Myanmar have once again put China's One Belt, One Road initiative on hold. It should come as no surprise that Anglo-American history played a direct role in their creation, and currently fund and back networks supporting them. 

July 3, 2018 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - The BBC has mounted a recent propaganda campaign aimed at once again placing pressure on Myanmar's military, within a wider effort to drive a wedge between Myanmar and China.

Amid an already ongoing and deceptive narrative surrounding the Rohingya crisis in Myanmar's southwest state of Rakhine, attention is now being focused on the nation's northern state of Kachin.

Nick Beake of the BBC produced a narrative aimed at intentionally preying on the emotions of viewers. The report revolved around alleged hardships suffered by Kachin villagers fleeing from a supposed government offensive. The report was absent of any context or evidence and was based entirely on hearsay from alleged villagers Beake claims to have interviewed.

Beake would conclude that his report represented the "first eyewitness accounts of the Burmese military targeting civilians in their latest offensive in Kachin State." And supposed eyewitness accounts were all Beake presented. At one point Beake's report even cited third-hand reports of torture and rape - stories fleeing villagers claimed they had only heard from others, but did not directly witness themselves.

The only specific death Beake cited was of a man of military age he claims was killed during the supposed fighting. Beake avoided mentioning whether the victim was a Kachin fighter or a civilian caught in crossfire.

The BBC's Nick Beake makes little mention of the actual conflict and no mention at all that Kachin militants are among the most heavily armed and well organized in the divided nation of Myanmar.

And while the BBC report briefly claims that Kachin militants "have been fighting for independence for decades," it never mentions the central role the British government itself played in creating Kachin militant groups during World War II to protect their colony, how Kachin militants played a role in resisting Myanmar's bid for independence, and the role these militants have played in preventing Myanmar's progress forward as a unified nation ever since.

Manufacturing Crisis, Foiling Chinese Interests 

The BBC report and an uptick of sudden concern over Kachin State come at a time when Beijing has been working to foster peace deals to end the chaos unfolding along its border with Myanmar.

An April 2017 article in Foreign Policy titled, "China Is Playing Peacemaker in Myanmar, but with an Ulterior Motive," would include a revealing subtitle:

Beijing is trying to end the long-running conflicts along its border with Myanmar — but only because it can't exploit the region's resources at will anymore.

While Foreign Policy attempts to cast doubts on China's motivations, it inadvertently reveals that Kachin militants and their conflict with Myanmar's military are impeding Chinese interests, providing an essential clue as to who the fighting benefits and who is likely encouraging and enabling it.

Foreign Policy makes mention of Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy coming to power and and the role that Suu Kyi herself played in protesting and obstructing Chinese-led infrastructure projects - including dams, roadways, ports, and pipelines - in Myanmar. Foreign Policy fails to mention the decades of US-UK funding that created and propelled Suu Kyi's government into power.

Western Media Consumed by Myanmar Monster of Own Creation

December 23, 2017 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - Years ago, those confronting and questioning the Western media's "pro-democracy" narrative regarding Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, her National League for Democracy (NLD) political party and her supporters including saffron-clad supposed "Buddhist monks," were ridiculed and dismissed.

Warnings that Suu Kyi's political movement was nothing more than a foreign-funded attempt to co-opt the people and resources of the Southeast Asian state of Myanmar - a former colony of the British Empire still referred to widely in the West by its colonial nomenclature, "Burma" - were dismissed as mere conspiracy theories.

Meanwhile, concerns that violence targeting Myanmar's Rohingya minority was in fact being bolstered by Suu Kyi's rise to power were intentionally and concertedly sidestepped by the Western media who attempted to conceal the true nature of Suu Kyi's political party and the core "values" of her support base and shift blame onto the ruling military-led government.

It was inevitable that upon taking power, Suu Kyi and the NLD - enabled by decades of US-UK-EU financial, political, and material support - the progressive veneer applied to this "democracy icon" would begin to peel, and the true nature of her and her followers would reveal itself.

Consumed by a Monster of Their Own Creation 

In an immense amount of irony, prominent Western media organizations like Reuters now find themselves decrying the very government they themselves spent decades helping into power, as the government cracks down on reporting over the ongoing Rohingya crisis.

Two Reuters employees - Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo - were reportedly arrested after illegally obtaining documents from Myanmar police. Reuters and the myriad of faux-human rights advocates that conspired with the US, British, and European governments to put Suu Kyi into power are now calling on the Myanmar government - though not Suu Kyi by name - to release their colleagues.

Reuters employee Andrew Marshall has recently flooded his social media accounts with desperate pleas for his colleagues' release, citing US "demands" that Myanmar release them, and alluding to the debt Suu Kyi and the NLD owed the foreign press for their role in bringing them to power.

Shifting Blame as US Agenda Unfolds in Myanmar

October 25, 2017 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - As violence continues to unfold in Myanmar's western Rakhine state against the nation's Rohingya ethnic minority, the agenda driving the conflict is likewise unfolding in a more transparent and direct manner. 

As was predicted - the US is shifting blame away from the US-backed client regime headed by Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League of Democracy (NLD) party the US installed into power in 2015 - and toward Myanmar's independent institutions, including the nation's still powerful military. 

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in a recent talk before the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington D.C. (PDF) laid the blame squarely on Myanmar's military, claiming: 

...we’re extraordinarily concerned by what’s happening with the Rohingya in Burma. I’ve been in contact with Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of the civilian side of the government. As you know, this is a power-sharing government that has – that has emerged in Burma. We really hold the military leadership accountable for what’s happening with the Rakhine area.

Reuters in an article titled, "Lawmakers urge U.S. to craft targeted sanctions on Myanmar military," would report: 

More than 40 lawmakers urged the Trump administration on Wednesday to reimpose U.S. travel bans on Myanmar’s military leaders and prepare targeted sanctions against those responsible for a crackdown on the country’s Rohingya Muslim minority.

And Freedom House - a subsidiary of the US government and corporate-funded National Endowment for Democracy (NED) - would also publish a piece titled, "Does Democracy’s Toehold in Myanmar Outweigh the Lives of the Rohingya?," shifting the blame away from the very regime it worked for decades to put in power, and target Myanmar's military.

It claimed:

In less than two months, more than half a million Rohingya have fled to neighboring Bangladesh to escape the destruction of entire settlements, systematic rape, and the mass slaughter of men, women, and children. This horrendous violence is perpetrated by the military, with assistance from elements of the local Rakhine Buddhist population.

It is clear that the confined nature of Myanmar's ongoing Rohingya crisis will not lead to the same type of nationwide militancy observed in Syria. It is also clear that the United States is likewise confining its condemnation for the violence not to the ultra-violent elements that it cultivated under Suu Kyi's political movement for decades, but on the military who often stood between Rohingya communities and violent onslaughts. 

The pressuring and weakening first, then either co-opting or overthrowing of Myanmar's current military leadership under the pretext of the current crisis will invite a larger and expanding US and European role in Myanmar's internal affairs. Secretary Tillerson alluded to precisely that in his recent remarks, claiming: 

And so we have been asking for access to the region. We’ve been able to get a couple of our people from our embassy into the region so we can begin to get our own firsthand account of what is occurring. We’re encouraging access for the aid agencies – the Red Cross, the Red Crescent – U.N. agencies to – so we can at least address some of the most pressing humanitarian needs, but more importantly so we can get a full understanding of what is going on. 

Someone – if these reports are true, someone is going to be held to account for that. And it’s up to the military leadership of Burma to decide what direction do they want to play in the future of Burma, because we see Burma as an important emerging democracy, but this is a real test.

With US ally Saudi Arabia fueling a militancy under the guise of a Rohingya "resistance," the US will also be able to justify military aid, joint-operations, and even permanent US military facilities - however meager - that will present a serious obstacle to Chinese influence in the nation and in the region. It will also be an obstacle that once erected, will be difficult to dismantle as America's enduring and unwanted military presence in the Philippines is proving to be.  

US Meddling Across Southeast Asia

October 17, 2017 (Joseph Thomas - NEO) - At a time when US political leaders decry with little evidence what they claim is a pandemic of "Russian interference" in Western political affairs from Western Europe to North America, years of documented evidence exist of this very same interference in the domestic affairs of other nations around the world, funded and directed not by Moscow, but by Washington D.C.

Across Southeast Asia alone is an interlocked, deeply rooted and heavily financed network of American-backed agitators and propagandists, operating behind the cloaks of journalism and rights advocacy, working to upend local, independent political institutions and replace them with a system created by and serving exclusively the interests in Washington that created them.

Shedding Light on US Interference in the Philippines

The Manila Times in a recent article titled, "CIA conduit funding anti-Duterte media outfits," would shed light on US government money being channelled into the Philippines for the explicit purpose of manipulating public perception, particularly regarding politics.

The article cites the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), and its grantees, the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ), the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR), and the Vera Files.

The article outlines the funding, stating:

NED documents show that for 2015—the earliest year for which data is available—2016 and 2017, it gave the PCIJ $106,900; Vera Files $70,000, and CMFR, $278,000. (Another funder of Vera Files is Reporters without Borders, which is also recipient of NED funds.)

Even if NED wasn’t a CIA conduit, it is an institution funded by the US government, and therefore advances US interests. Shouldn’t we be outraged that the US government is funding anti-Duterte media outfits here?

It also points out that this US interference in Filipino politics fits into a much larger, global pattern of political interference engaged in by the US government. The article cites US interference in Ukraine in particular, noting that it was US backing that eventually led to the overthrow of the elected government there between 2013 and 2014.

The article's author, Rigoberto Tiglao, attempted to contact several of the Filipino US NED grantees, only to be confronted or evaded, a response typical of US NED grantees worldwide when questioned about their foreign funding, the dangerous conflicts of interests they are indulging in and the contradictions of posing as independent media organisations entirely dependent on foreign government funding.

Pressure on the Philippines through US-funded media is only one of several fronts the US is using to transform, direct and determine the future of the Philippines as a nation. It has placed direct political pressure on Manila to cooperate in confronting Beijing over the South China Sea. It has also attempted to use Saudi-funded terrorism in the Philippines' south as a vector to reintroduce a significant and expanding US military presence across the archipelago nation.

How the West is Trying to Recreate Myanmar's Crisis in Thailand

October 13, 2017 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - Media platforms either directly funded by the United States government or by their political proxies in Thailand, including US-funded Prachatai and Khao Sod English, have begun investing increasing amounts of energy into fueling a currently non-existent sectarian divide in Thai society.

They are concentrating their efforts in promoting the activities of a small anti-Muslim movement in Thailand's northeast region often referred to as Issan. Issan - it is no coincidence - is also the epicenter of previous US efforts to divide and overthrow the political order of Thailand via their proxy Thaksin Shinawatra, his Pheu Thai Party, and his ultra-violent street front, the United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship (UDD or "red shirts"). Shinawatra and his political proxies were ousted from power in 2014 by a swift and peaceful military coup.

Today, temples affiliated with Shinawatra's political network are turning from a tried and tired, primarily class-based narrative, to one targeting Thailand's second largest religion - Islam, in hopes of dividing and destroying Thai society along sectarian lines.

From northern cities like Chiang Mai to the northeast in provinces like Khon Kaen, suspiciously identical movements, with identical tactics, organized across social media platforms like Facebook are protesting Mosques, calling for specific acts of violence against Muslims, and using the same sort of factual and intellectually dishonest rhetoric peddled by veteran Western Islamophobes used to fuel the West's global campaign of divide, destroy, and conquer everywhere from the US and Europe itself, to Libya, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and more recently, Myanmar and the Philippines in Southeast Asia.

Tools of Empire: Divide and Conquer 

Myanmar, which borders Thailand, currently finds itself at the apex of nationalist and racist-driven violence targeting its primarily Muslim Rohingya ethnic minority. Groups of supposed "Buddhists" who form a more deeply rooted version of what the US and its proxies are trying to create in Thailand, were used to both create a deep sectarian divide where once there was coexistence, and to help put the US and European-funded political network of Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD) party into power.

Image: Aung San Suu Kyi, sectarian extremists posing as "Buddhist monks," and the US National Endowment for Democracy (NED) together in Washington D.C. 

The humanitarian crisis created in Myanmar serves several functions for the US and its European partners who have meticulously cultivated it over the course of several decades.

Analysis by Analogy: Myanmar is not Syria

September 27, 2017 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - Many geopolitical analysts and commentators have noted many worthwhile similarities between the Syrian crisis and the one now unfolding in the Southeast Asian state of Myanmar. However, what is different about these two crises is just as important as what is the same.

The Similarities 

Particular focus has been placed on evidence emerging that US-ally Saudi Arabia is serving as an intermediary fueling militancy in Myanmar's western Rakhine state. The militants, however, consist of a foreign armed, funded, and led cadre, constituting a numerically negligible minority of the Rohingya population they claim to represent, and are in fact no more representative of the Rohingya people than militants of Al Qaeda and the so-called "Islamic State" are representative of Syria or Iraq's Sunni Muslim populations.

While it is crucial to point out the foreign-funded nature of a militancy attempting to co-opt the Rohingya minority in Myanmar, it is equally important to understand precisely where this militancy fits into Saudi Arabia's and ultimately its American sponsors' larger plans.

Another similarity pointed out by analysts is the use of US and European-funded fronts posing as nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). These include larger organizations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, as well as organizations on the ground in Myanmar funded by the US National Endowment for Democracy (NED), its various subsidiaries including the International Republican Institute (IRI), the National Democratic Institute (NDI), Freedom House, USAID, and Open Society.

These organizations are intentionally seeking to control the narrative, inflame rather than smooth over tensions, and create a pretext for wider and more direct intervention in Myanmar's expanding crisis by Western nations.

Analysts and commentators, however, cannot stop here. They must commit to equal due diligence in unraveling what stands behind Myanmar's government - who it was that assisted them into power during the relatively recent 2016 elections, who built up their political networks across the country over the course of several decades, and what role their actions play in Western designs for the nation's near and intermediate future.

The Differences 

Syria's government is the creation and perpetuation of localized special interests - backed by various alliances ranging from the former Soviet Union in the past, to Russia, Iran, and to a lesser degree China in present day.

US to Fight US-Saudi Sponsored Terrorism in Asia

September 8, 2017 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - With the recent attack on police in Myanmar by terrorists described by Reuters as "Muslim insurgents," and ongoing terrorism plaguing the Philippines where forces are engaged with militants from the so-called "Islamic State," it would appear that terrorism has spread into Southeast Asia with no signs of waning. 

However, the sudden uptick in violence comes at a time when America's so-called "pivot to Asia" has ground to a complete halt, providing the United States with an all-too-convenient pretext to reengage and establish itself across the region in a much more insidious manner. 

US Sought Military Presence in Southeast Asia for Decades but Lacked a Pretext, Until Now 

The United States has openly conspired to establish and expand a permanent military presence in Southeast Asia as a means to confront, encircle, and contain China for decades.

As early as the Vietnam War, with the so-called "Pentagon Papers" released in 1969, it was revealed that the conflict was simply one part of a greater strategy aimed at containing and controlling China.

Three important quotes from these papers reveal this strategy. It states first that: 

“...the February decision to bomb North Vietnam and the July approval of Phase I deployments make sense only if they are in support of a long-run United States policy to contain China.”

It also claims:

“China—like Germany in 1917, like Germany in the West and Japan in the East in the late 30′s, and like the USSR in 1947—looms as a major power threatening to undercut our importance and effectiveness in the world and, more remotely but more menacingly, to organize all of Asia against us.” 

Finally, it outlines the immense regional theater the US was engaged in against China at the time by stating: 

“there are three fronts to a long-run effort to contain China (realizing that the USSR “contains” China on the north and northwest): (a) the Japan-Korea front; (b) the India-Pakistan front; and (c) the Southeast Asia front.” 

While the US would ultimately lose the Vietnam War and any chance of using the Vietnamese as a proxy force against Beijing, the long war against Beijing would continue elsewhere. 

More recently, an American policy think tank, the Project for a New American Century (PNAC) in a 2000 paper titled "Rebuilding America's Defenses" (PDF) would unabashedly declare its intentions to establish a wider, permanent military presence in Southeast Asia.

The report would state explicitly that: 

...it is time to increase the presence of American forces in Southeast Asia.

It would elaborate in detail, stating:

In Southeast Asia, American forces are too sparse to adequately address rising security requirements. Since its withdrawal from the Philippines in 1992, the United States has not had a significant permanent military presence in Southeast Asia. Nor can U.S. forces in Northeast Asia easily operate in or rapidly deploy to Southeast Asia – and certainly not without placing their commitments in Korea at risk. Except for routine patrols by naval and Marine forces, the security of this strategically significant and increasingly tumultuous region has suffered from American neglect. 

Noting the difficultly of placing US troops where they are not wanted, the PNAC paper notes: 

This will be a difficult task requiring sensitivity to diverse national sentiments, but it is made all the more compelling by the emergence of new democratic governments in the region. By guaranteeing the security of our current allies and newly democratic nations in East Asia, the United States can help ensure that the rise of China is a peaceful one. Indeed, in time, American and allied power in the region may provide a spur to the process of democratization inside China itself.

It should be noted that the paper's reference to "the emergence of new democratic governments in the region" is a reference to client states created by the United States on behalf of its own interests and in no way constituted actual "democratic governments" which would otherwise infer they represented the interests of the very people possessing the "national sentiments" that opposed US military presence in the region in the first place.

Myanmar Mass Murder Made in America

January 31, 2017 (Joseph Thomas - NEO) - The Southeast Asian state of Myanmar has recently become the epicentre of an expanding humanitarian crisis. But because the current government of Myanmar is headed by a regime favoured by American and European interests, little attention and even less action has been given to the conflict. 

A January 10, 2017 Guardian article titled, "65,000 Rohingya flee from Myanmar to Bangladesh following crackdown: UN," reports that:

At least 65,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh from Myanmar – a third of them over the past week – since the army launched a crackdown in the north of Rakhine state. 

The figure, released by the UN, marks a sharp escalation in the numbers fleeing a military campaign which rights groups say has been marred by abuses so severe they could amount to crimes against humanity.

The same article claims:

The stories have cast a pall over the young government of Aung San Suu Kyi, with mainly Muslim Malaysia being especially critical. 

Myanmar’s government has said the claims of abuse are fabricated and launched a special commission to investigate the allegations.

However, anyone at all familiar with Myanmar's recent history and the nature of the current government's support base knows that the unfolding tragedy among the Rohingya minority was not only predictable, but with Aung San Suu Kyi coming to power, inevitable.

The fact that Suu Kyi's political party came to power on a decades-long tsunami of US and European cash and political support, despite US-European knowledge of Suu Kyi's supporters harbouring racist, even genocidal intentions toward the Rohingya, makes the West at the very least partially responsible for the current crisis.

The Warning Signs Were There For Years 

The Guardian would also link the violence against the Rohingya to what it calls, "hardline Buddhist monk Wirathu," in the very last paragraph of its article, giving readers little explanation as to just how prominent a role both Wirathu and his saffron-clad followers have played both in bringing Suu Kyi to power and persecuting the Rohingya with genocidal violence.

Such lies of omission are common throughout the Western media indicating a systematic attempt to conceal the true nature of Suu Kyi and her followers. In fact, so contradictory is the image the Western media has built up for Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, and the reality of her political movement's violence, that many are unable to accept the truth even when evidence finally becomes widely known.

In 2007, the Western media eagerly reported on what it dubbed the "Saffron Revolution," a political protest led by Suu Kyi's political allies, including thousands of monks wearing their saffron-coloured robes.

But these same activist groups, including various monk "associations" have systematically been involved in the persecution of and violence against Myanmar's Rohingya minority.

Occasional articles like the UK Independent's 2012 report titled, "Burma's monks call for Muslim community to be shunned," reveal both Myanmar's "hardline Buddhists" and even activist groups celebrated in the West for "promoting democracy" are involved in persecuting the Rohingya.

The report would state:

Monks who played a vital role in Burma's recent struggle for democracy have been accused of fuelling ethnic tensions in the country by calling on people to shun a Muslim community that has suffered decades of abuse. 

In a move that has shocked many observers, some monks' organisations have issued pamphlets telling people not to associate with the Rohingya community, and have blocked humanitarian assistance from reaching them. One leaflet described the Rohingya as "cruel by nature" and claimed it had "plans to exterminate" other ethnic groups.

The Independent would also admit that:

Ko Ko Gyi, a democracy activist with the 88 Generation Students group and a former political prisoner, said: "The Rohingya are not a Burmese ethnic group. The root cause of the violence… comes from across the border."

It is difficult to discern what then, the Western media means by "democracy activist" when such "activists" openly display racism, bigotry, discrimination, and support a growing conflict that involves both calls for genocide, and violence aimed at carrying out genocide. The 88 Generation Students group has for years repeatedly weighed in on the Rohingya conflict, backing calls to deny them citizenship, voting rights and even basic human rights.

Is the US Positioning Itself for Military Presence in Myanmar?

January 12, 2017 (Joseph Thomas - NEO) - The governments of the United States and United Kingdom have spent decades and millions of dollars creating the political opposition fronts that constitute support for Myanmar's new (and first ever) State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi. This support includes backing Suu Kyi's saffron-clad street fronts who make up a nationwide network of "monk" alliances and associations.

And it is these alliances and associations that have served at the forefront of persecution against Myanmar's Rohingya minority.

Also for years, this violent persecution has unfolded in what was otherwise a media blackout across North America and Europe. When violence reaches fevered pitches, American and European media organisations intentionally introduce ambiguity as to who precisely is leading anti-Rohingya violence.

The conflict carries with it all the hallmarks of an intentional strategy of tension; used within Myanmar to galvanise Suu Kyi's otherwise morally and politically bankrupt opposition fronts and now, it appears to be ready for use within Washington's wider strategy of "pivoting to Asia."

Myanmar's "New Rohingya Insurgency" 

The International Crisis Group (ICG), a Brussels-based foreign policy think tank funded by some of the largest corporations on the planet, poses as a conflict management organisation. In reality, it introduces manufactured narratives that are then picked up and eagerly promoted across American and European media outlets, to shift public perception and pave the way for shifts in Western geopolitical aspirations.



Their most recent manufactured narrative involves what it calls a "Rohingya insurgency." Their narrative is already circulating across American and European media, including the Wall Street Journal whose article, "Asia’s New Insurgency Burma’s abuse of the Rohingya Muslims creates violent backlash." claims (our emphasis):

Now this immoral policy has created a violent backlash. The world’s newest Muslim insurgency pits Saudi-backed Rohingya militants against Burmese security forces. As government troops take revenge on civilians, they risk inspiring more Rohingya to join the fight.

The article also admits:

Called Harakah al-Yaqin, Arabic for “the Faith Movement,” the group answers to a committee of Rohingya emigres in Mecca and a cadre of local commanders with experience fighting as guerrillas overseas. Its recent campaign—which continued into November with IED attacks and raids that killed several more security agents—has been endorsed by fatwas from clerics in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, the Emirates and elsewhere. 

Rohingyas have “never been a radicalized population,” ICG notes, “and the majority of the community, its elders and religious leaders have previously eschewed violence as counterproductive.” But that is changing fast. Harakah al-Yaqin was established in 2012 after ethnic riots in Rakhine killed some 200 Rohingyas and is now estimated to have hundreds of trained fighters.

The Wall Street Journal and ICG both apparently expect readers to believe that Saudi Arabia is backing armed militants in Myanmar simply to "fight back" against Aung San Suu Kyi, her government and her followers' collective brutality against the Rohingya.

In reality, Saudi Arabia and its sponsors in Washington, London and Brussels, only intervene when geopolitically advantageous. Just as Saudi Arabia is backing armed militants everywhere from Yemen to Syria to advance a joint US-European-Gulf campaign to reassert primacy across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), Saudi Arabia's support of supposed militants in Myanmar is driven by similar hegemonic ambitions.

Myanmar: Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi Oversees Genocide

December 14, 2016 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - Reading commentary, analysis, and even alleged "reports" from the Southeast Asian state of Myanmar, it would appear that Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi - poster child of American and European "democracy promotion" - is helpless to avert what is quickly expanding into wholesale genocide against the nation's Rohingya minority.

In reality, Suu Kyi's political coalition has for decades been bolstered by highly politicized sectarian factions, including saffron-clad "monks" who have regularly employed street violence in support of Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD) party. These same factions - also for decades - have pursued a policy of racially and religiously charged, politically-motivated violence against Myanmar's Rohingya population. 

Myanmar's Rohingya - many of whom have lived in the nation for generations - had at one point coexisted with Myanmar's majority ethnic groups. It was only relatively recently that enterprising political factions decided to use racial and religious tensions as a means of galvanizing and radicalizing opposition aimed at undermining the then military-led government and bringing Suu Kyi to power.

It was warned years before Suu Kyi came to power that should her party win elections, free reign would be granted to her supporters to fully and openly pursue their genocidal agenda. The NLD has won the elections, and that genocidal agenda is now unfolding.

Covering Up Suu Kyi's Ties to Sectarian Extremists... for Years    

This fact is omitted across the Western media's current reports, in an effort to exonerate Suu Kyi from any responsibility for the ongoing violence.

CNBC News, for example, in an article titled, "Myanmar's Aung San Suu Kyi under fire as Rohingya crisis escalates in Rakhine," claims (emphasis added):

A year after becoming Myanmar's de-facto leader, Nobel Peace Prize recipient Aung San Suu Kyi is coming under a barrage of international criticism for her failure to end alleged military crimes in the country's northwest.

About 1.1 million people in the state of Rakhine identify themselves as Rohingya Muslims, an ethnic minority that has long suffered persecution in the Buddhist-majority nation. The group's origins in Myanmar can be traced back to the fifteenth century, according to the Council of Foreign Relations, but Rohingyas have yet to be granted citizenship and remain unable to vote.

Strategically omitted from CNBC's coverage is the fact that it was Suu Kyi, her NLD, and street demonstrations led by her "saffron" supporters that protested the previous government's attempts to grant the Rohingya provisional citizenship and voting rights ahead of the elections that saw Suu Kyi's NLD come to power.

Australia’s ABC News would report in a 2015 article titled, “Myanmar scraps temporary ID cards amid protests targeting ethnic minorities without citizenship,” that (emphasis added):

Myanmar’s government says identity cards for people without full citizenship, including Muslim Rohingya, will expire within weeks.

The scrapping of ID cards snatches away voting rights handed to them just a day earlier (Tuesday), after Myanmar nationalists protested against the move.

The Rohingya, along with hundreds of thousands of people in mainly ethnic minority border areas, who hold the documents ostensibly as part of a process of applying for citizenship, will see their ID cards expire at the end of March, according to a statement from the office of president Thein Sein.

The "nationalists" were of course, Suu Kyi's "saffron" supporters.