Housing Development on Ukraine Holocaust Site Draws Outrage

Antisemitism is rising on the continent! Is another Holocaust even possible?

By Nicholas Sakelaris

An Ultra-Orthodox Jew visits the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum on January 24 in Jerusalem, Israel.

File Photo by Debbie Hill /UPI | License Photo

(UPI) -- Jewish and advocacy groups are fighting plans for developers to build a housing property on the site of a mass grave from the Holocaust in Ukraine.

The World Jewish Congress "expressed its outrage at the prospect of construction being carried out on a plot ... containing mass graves of Jewish victims of the Holocaust."

Poltava was once home to 12,860 Jews before World War II. When the Nazis invaded Ukraine, they rounded up the Jews and put them into ghettos where they were killed in two operations in September and November of 1941. An estimated 5,000 Jews were killed, as were Russian prisoners and resistance fighters.

World Jewish Congress President Ronald Lauder called plans for the housing development at Pushkarivski Yar in Poltava "deeply troubling."

"It is critical in 2019, with rising nationalism and increasing attempts by some to whitewash history, that we work together to ensure that sites such as this one are preserved so they may serve as a reminder to the world of what can happen when hatred is permitted to thrive unchecked," Lauder said. "I am sure that, after further reflection, the Ukrainian government will act accordingly by honoring the memory of the victims and appropriately commemorating the atrocities that occurred on this hallowed ground."

The local community started a petition and presented it to the Poltava City Council to stop the construction. The issue made it to the Ministry of Culture in Kiev, which tried to intervene.

Israeli Ambassador to the Ukraine Joel Leon pleaded with councilors on behalf of all those who died in the town during the Holocaust.

"Our brother's blood cries out to me from the soil," Leon said, citing a line from the Book of Genesis.

Last year, a Holocaust memorial in Poltava was vandalized with graffiti on Nazi leader Adolf Hitler's birthday. The messages spray painted on the memorial included "Heil Hitler" and swastikas. The words "Death to Jews" was also spray painted near the memorial.

Antisemitism is still growing on the continent, and after the next elections, possibly becoming government in the UK. It is also growing in the Americas. Is the source of this growth from the Muslim diaspora? Or is it something else, perhaps something spiritual. Whatever it is, it is getting worse and will not end well for Israel or any other country. 

Acapulco's Entire Police Force Suspended in Corruption Probe as Crime Surges in Mexico

Corruption is Everywhere - and I mean Everywhere in Mexico

Jonathon Gatehouse · CBC News 

Mexican marines surround the Secretary of Public Security of Acapulco, Max Lorenzo Sedano, right, on Tuesday.

Mexican military forces arrested police officers and took control of the local Public Security Secretariat,

citing possible infiltration by organized crime. (Francisco Robles/AFP/Getty Images)

Surging crime in Mexico

Mexican authorities have disarmed and suspended Acapulco's entire municipal police force amidst a massive murder and corruption investigation.

Heavily armed soldiers and marines staged a daylight raid on the resort city's police headquarters yesterday, arresting two senior police commanders on homicide charges and seizing the guns, bulletproof vests and radios of the rest of the force.

Mexican Marines escort Acapulco municipal police officers who were disarmed and detained Tuesday

during an operation to check if they were colluding with organized crime. (Javier Verdin/Reuters)

The Guerrero state government issued a statement saying it will be taking over policing responsibilities in the city "because of suspicion that the force had probably been infiltrated by criminal groups" and "the complete inaction of the municipal police in fighting the crime wave."

The Pacific coast city of 800,000, once a playground for foreign tourists, is now known as Mexico's murder capital. The local murder rate is 103 homicides per 100,000 residents, one of the highest in the world.

Most of the killings are connected to the drug trade, with up to 50 gangs currently battling for supremacy.

Drug violence in Mexico has left more than 200,000 dead since 2006. Another 35,000 people have simply disappeared.

A relative of a missing person enters a site on Sept. 17 where a mass grave was found in El Arbolillo, Veracruz.

The region has been hit by bloody drug cartel turf wars, and scores of bodies have been found in

33 mass graves at El Arbolillo's 'narco-cemetery.' (Victoria Razo/AFP/Getty Images)

A 12-year federal government effort to smash the cartels using the country's army has only served to increase the mayhem, as larger organizations splinter into smaller groups scrapping for territory. 

Last year, Mexico recorded 31,174 murders, a 27 per cent increase from 2016, and the country's murder rate is now at its highest point since 1990. To date, 2018 is proving even more deadly, with almost 19,000 killings over the first eight months of the year, a 20 per cent jump from 2017.

Horrors have become commonplace.

This week, authorities in the Gulf state of Veracruz issued photos of clothing items found in a mass grave, including an infant's pants, toddler's sandals, and tiny T-shirts decorated with Pokemon and Tinkerbell. So far at least 174 skulls have been discovered in the massive pit and the excavation continues.

This undated photo from the Veracruz State Prosecutor's Office shows a piece of child's clothing found at the site of

a clandestine mass grave in the Gulf coast state of Veracruz, Mexico. Investigators have also found personal items,

ID cards and shoes belonging to men, women and children at the site. (Veracruz State Prosecutor's Office via AP)

The week before, local residents in a Guadalajara suburb — alerted by the stench of decomposing flesh — discovered a tractor trailer stuffed with more than 270 corpses. As it turned out, authorities knew all about the bodies. They had been using the truck as a mobile morgue for weeks because city facilities are overflowing with the dead.  

But Mexico's crime problems go even deeper.

Yesterday, the National Statistics Institute released the results of a country-wide survey on "common crime," which it defines as pretty much everything short of murder, drugs and migrant trafficking. It estimates that there were 33.6 million "lesser" crimes committed last year, 2.5 million more than the year before.

Muggings on the street or transit were the most-cited offences, accounting for 28 per cent of the total.

The Institute estimated that there were somewhere between 64,000 and 97,000 kidnappings in Mexico last year, most short-term affairs for relatively modest ransoms.

Police officers work at the site of a mass grave in Alvarado, Veracruz, on Sept. 7. Scores of bodies have been

discovered at the site since exhumations began on Aug. 8. (Victoria Razo/AFP/Getty Images)

The survey suggests that only 10 per cent of crimes in Mexico are currently reported to police.

Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the new president-elect who takes office on Dec. 1, made the crime epidemic a central focus of his campaign and has promised to take personal control of government efforts to halt the violence.

The rot is profound, however.

In Guerrero state alone, more than a dozen municipal police departments have been disbanded due to corruption over the past four years, including the force in the state capital of Chilpancingo, where dozens of teenagers turned up dead following run-ins with the cops.  

A pending auction of drilling rights in a rich oil and gas deposit in Tamaulipas state, near the Texas border, may end up being a bust because foreign firms are scared of violent drug and human trafficking gangs that roam the countryside.

And the spread of violence now threatens Mexico's tourism industry, which attracted some 40 million people last year and brought in $21.3 billion US.

A truck hauls away a trailer full of bodies on Sept. 15 that had been parked in Tlajomulco de Zuniga, Mexico,

as a temporary morgue. (Reuters)

The country's incoming tourism secretary is pledging to counteract the bad media with more advertising campaigns and promotional events.

But even the fantasy versions of Mexico seem to be bumping up against its worrying reality.

The $45 million US spent on a Cirque du Soleil show, Luzia: A Waking Dream of Mexico, has been declared a "bad investment" by the new government since it failed to increase visitor numbers.

Mass Hindu Graves Linked to Rohingya Islamist Rebels

Mainstream media (MSM) seem very reluctant to investigate

and report on the jihad that was happening in Rakhine State,

Myanmar when the Burmese military began to drive Muslims out.

This is an important concept to grasp because it could happen in

any country with a significant Muslim population.

BY RACHEL AVRAHAM Clarion Project

Hindu women in Myanmar cry over the dead bodies of family members slaughtered by Rohingya Islamist rebels and buried in a mass grave. (Photo: STR/AFP/Getty Images)

As the international community continues to condemn the “textbook example of ethnic cleansing” implemented by the Myanmar army in retaliation for an uprising initiated by Rohingya insurgents, not enough attention is being paid to the atrocities implemented by the Rohingya rebels and their ties to radical Islamist groups which threaten world peace and security.

Recently, a mass grave of Rohingya Hindus was unearthed by the Myanmar army. Twenty-eight bodies of mostly women and children were found, brutally mutilated and slaughtered.

The Myanmar forces have identified the victims and said that another 100 victims are still missing.  This news comes in the midst of reports that Hindus are increasingly being victimized by Rohingya Islamist groups.

In fact, numerous Hindu refugees who have fled to Bangladesh have reported that it was these Islamist groups that attacked them and not the Myanmar army.

So who are these Rohingya rebels that are massacring the Hindu community as well as fighting against the Myanmar army? And who stands behind these rebels?

Rohingya Rebels Linked to International Terror Groups

According to Indian intelligence reports, the Rohingya rebels are linked to Al Qaeda, ISIS and Lashkar e-Toiba, the very same Pakistani terror group that was responsible for a series of terror attacks in Mumbai, India in 2008 that resulted in the massacre of 166 people.

Furthermore, the BBC reported that Bangladesh claims that the group is linked to Jamaat u-Mujadeen Bangladesh, which was held responsible for the terror attack in a Dhaka café in which 20 hostages were killed.

Rebels Reportedly Also Backed by Pakistan’s Intelligence Agency and Bangladesh Government

In addition, an article in the Dhaka Tribune backs up the Indian intelligence reports that the Rohingya insurgents are in fact linked to Lashkar e-Toiba and adds that they are also backed by the Pakistani ISI (Pakistan’s intelligence services).

According to Shipan Kumar Basu, the head of the Hindu Struggle Committee, the Rohingya insurgents have received the backing of not only the ISI but the ruling Awami League government in Bangladesh, whom he alleges uses the present situation in Myanmar in order to attack Hindus.

“Awami League MP Meher Afroj Chumki has recently said that she will kick out all the Hindus of Bangladesh as Myanmar has done to the Rohingya Muslims,” Basu said. “The Bangladeshi Awami League party is busy dividing the Hindus within the country.  They have been fueling and funding a new party with some Hindu puppets and are preparing to launch a new party that can be controlled by them.”

The Bangladeshi government confirmed that the ISI is backing the insurgency but does not mention their own involvement. As Bangladeshi political advisor Hossein Tofique Imam, who works for the Sheikh Hasina government, proclaimed, “ISI has backed Rohingya separatism since 1969 when I was a civil servant in undivided Pakistan and was serving in Chittagong and the hill tracts nearby.

“They are again playing the same tricks to create a new theatre of jihad in a strategic region wedged between South and Southeast Asia, so as to create a crisis on the Myanmar-Bangladesh border. ARSA … is part of an emerging jihadi alliance in our part of the world.”

Who Are the Leaders of the Muslim Insurgency in Myanmar?

ARSA, who is presently leading the Muslim insurgency in Myanmar, was initially known as Harakah al-Yaqin or “the faith movement.” The name of the insurgent group has clear religious connotations.

The name ARSA was only used starting last year in order to brand the group as an ethnic liberation organization rather than an Islamist terror group.   However, even though ARSA denies they are linked to both Al Qaeda and ISIS, experts interviewed by the Asia Times are not convinced.

“According to intelligence analysts, its mentor is Abdus Qadoos Burmi.  He has appeared in videos spread on social media calling for jihad in Myanmar. Abdus Qadoos has well-documented links to Lashkar-Toiba,” the Asia Times reported.

“The group was founded in 1987 in Afghanistan with funding from now-deceased Al Qaeda founder Osama Bin Ladin. Abdus Qadoos even appeared in meetings together with Lashkar e-Toiba’s Hafiz Mohammed Syed,” they added.

Furthermore, the Japanese media documented that Ata Mullah — the man who stands behind the ARSA insurgency — received fighters, guns and training from other jihadist groups. Given this, the Islamist links to the Rohingya insurgency do indeed exist.

ISIS and Al Qaeda Taking Advantage in Asia

Indeed, following major ISIS losses in Iraq and Syria, the murderous terror group as well as Al Qaeda are increasingly looking to Asia in order to find a new safe haven for their terror activities. The Myanmar conflict provides the Islamist group with a useful opportunity in order to expand into Asia.

Already, ISIS has expanded into some countries like the Philippines, Thailand and Malaysia.  But the war in Myanmar and the images of Muslims suffering in Rakhine state offer jihadist terror groups additional opportunities to radicalize the population and to make inroads further east.

ISIS is also recruiting Malaysians in order to wage a holy war in Rohingya and is utilizing the present crisis in Rohingya in order to recruit new members.

Al Qaeda has proclaimed, “We call upon all mujahid brothers in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and the Philippines to set out for Burma [Myanmar] to help our Muslim brothers, and to make the necessary preparations—training and the like—to resist the oppression.”

According to Basu, it is these jihadist groups together with the local Muslim insurgents who stand behind the wave of attacks upon the Hindu community in Myanmar.

“Day by day, the crisis is taking on enormous proportions,” he stated. “There have been recent reports of 10 Hindu Rohingya being kidnapped by Rohingya Muslims. The Rohingya Hindus that were kidnapped from the camps were found in the hospital and one Hindu body was mutilated. Eight relatives of one woman were killed, and she saved herself by saying she would embrace Islam. She was transferred to Bangladesh in traditional Muslim dress. Later, UN rescue workers saved her from the camp and transferred her to the Hindu camp again.”

“In addition, it was reported that a Rohingya Muslim refugee killed a Hindu refugee in Bangladesh over a loan dispute in Myanmar,” Basu noted. “Other Hindu refugees suffered from bruises and scars due to violence inflicted upon them by Rohingya Muslim refugees.  In some cases, Rohingya Muslims tried to forcefully marry Hindu women and girls.”

Basu’s organization recently sent $2,000 in donations to help the Hindu refugees from Myanmar who are presently residing in Bangladesh.  He calls upon the international community to stop treating these insurgents with kid gloves and to start exposing them for their crimes against the Hindu community as well as others in Myanmar.

Rakhine State, Myanmar

72 ISIS Mass Graves Containing up to 15,000 Discovered in Iraq & Syria

A Yazidi mass grave in Sinjar, in Iraq© Ari Jalal / Reuters

As Islamic State retreats the true scale of its atrocities is becoming apparent. Associated Press collated existing documents and testimonies to produce the fullest picture yet – but activists say that thousands more victims buried in shallow mass graves are yet to be discovered.

The agency says it has pinpointed the exact location of 72 Islamic State mass graves – 17 of those in Syria, the rest in Iraq – which contain anything from at least 5,200 to over 15,000 victims.

The information came from AllSource, a satellite intelligence firm that has matched photos from space with eyewitness accounts, aid groups such as Yazda, which are recording the systematic slaughter, and often IS itself, which has boasted about killing hundreds of 'infidels' and 'traitors' in its own regularly-broadcast videos.

"They are beheading them, shooting them, running them over in cars, all kinds of killing techniques, and they don't even try to hide it," said Sirwan Jalal, who has been appointed by Iraqi Kurds to investigate the mass burials.


Bones, suspected to belong to members of Iraq's Yazidi community, are seen in a mass grave on the outskirts of the town of Sinjar, November 30, 2015 © Ari Jalal / Reuters

The biggest documented massacre was committed in Camp Speicher in Tikrit in June 2014, when Islamic State gunned down between 1,000 and 1,700 unarmed Shiite Iraqi Air Force recruits, forcing them to shout slogans as they lay down, waiting to be executed.

Thirty-six of the perpetrators were hanged for the war crime earlier this month.

But while that location was well known, another massacre happened near Ramadi just two days earlier. AllSource looked for images of disturbed earth in the city in the northwest of Iraq – big enough to be noticeable from a satellite image – that tallied with accounts given by survivors to Human Rights Watch.

This was a testimony by a man only known as A.S., who was singled out for being a Shiite and put in a line in which each man had to shout out his number: "I was number 43. I heard them say '615,' and then one ISIS guy said, 'We're going to eat well tonight.' A man behind us asked, 'Are you ready?' Another person answered 'Yes,' and began shooting at us with a machine-gun."

A.S. told HRW that he escaped by playing dead and then sneaking out at night, among about 15 others, a common tactic among the few survivors of such large-scale massacres.

With war still ongoing, in places such as Hardan, a Kurdish area, the authorities have merely roped off the mass graves, and say there are currently no resources to excavate and document the dead.

As the bodies continue to decay, and the wind blows away the earth, revealing the still-clothed bones, locals are served a daily reminder of the horrors.

"I have lots of people I know there. Mostly friends and neighbors," Arkan Qassem, who lives in a village outside Hardan, told AP. "It's very difficult to look at them every day."

With IS counting different sects – such as Shias and Yazidis – different ethnicities – such as Kurds – and even Sunni tribes as their enemies, there are estimated to be “hundreds” of mass graves that will take years to be fully mapped, and their victims to be given a proper burial.

“This is a drop in an ocean of mass graves expected to be discovered in the future in Syria,” said Ziad Awad, from The Eye of the City, a publication in Syria’s Deir ez-Zor, which is cataloguing the IS massacres.

Meanwhile, Algeria is spending $1.5bn on a spectacular mosque dedicated to the same god that ISIS worships. Oh, the insanity of it all. They don't even know they are worshiping Satan and his messenger.


The Djamaa el Djazair, or Great Mosque of Algiers