Voter Disenfranchisement: Prelude To Genocide
by tristero
Myanmar has stripped the minority Rohingya of their right to vote. The details are complex but essentially, Buddhist extremists (yes, even Buddhism has its Tea Party/Trump faction) have decided to to take the disenfranchisement of the Muslim minority to genuinely alarming lengths:
As an elected lawmaker and member of Myanmar’s governing party, U Shwe Maung attended dinners with the president and made speeches from the floor of Parliament. But this weekend, the country’s election commission ruled that despite more than four years in office, he was not a citizen and thus was ineligible to run for re-election in landmark voting in November.
“I was approved and considered a full citizen in 2010,” he said in an interview on Saturday. “Now, after five years, how could I not be eligible?”
Mr. Shwe Maung’s plight is but one example of what appears to be the mass disenfranchisement of the Rohingya, a persecuted Muslim minority who number around one million in Myanmar.
Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya who cast votes in elections five years ago have been struck from the electoral rolls, election commission officials have confirmed, although without providing a precise number.
Disgracefully, “Even Aung San Suu Kyi, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize and champion of democracy, has been largely silent about the plight of the Rohingya.” The Nation continues:
Myanmar’s appalling treatment of the Rohingya constitutes an early warning sign of genocide. The second-class status, government-built camps, – plans to curb movement, plus social mobility and basic well-being of the Rohingya are already in the pipeline.
Any American who has any doubt about the pernicious nature of voter suppression efforts in our country should be closely following this truly ominous story. It is not going to end well.