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It seems that during my latest blogging intermission, the Chinese government has perpetrated a massacre of peasants whose land was being taken for a new power plant. There are thirty-three dead and many injured in the village of Dongzhou. There are some graphic pictures of the victims here, at Gateway Pundit, and a video from the Washington Post. The Chinese police and party thugs cooperated- the police fired guns and tear gas while party toughs beat some of the protesters to death with farm implements (as you can see on the video).
With the death toll at thirty-three (six according to official Chinese figures), this is the worst repression since the infamous Tianamen Square Massacre of 1989. In my view, this demonstrates exactly what the People's Republic of China is- a totalitarian state that is willing to murder its own people with the utmost savagery in order to keep power. This will happen again and again to those who stand up for their natural rights. The current regime in China is not capable of pro-democratic change.
The shocking part of all this isn't that China was so brazen in murdering its dissidents- that's par for the course. What is truly shocking is the utter failure of "human rights organisations" to condemn the massacre. Of several such "organisations" that I visited to-day, I found only Amnesty International even mentioned the massacre, and issued a bland press release and condemnation, asking Chinese authorities (the ones responsible) to develop "effective channels for dispute resolution." I don't think the Chinese authorities have a problem with dispute resolution. Bringing a heavy farm implement down on a dissident or poking 5.8mm holes in him with a QBZ-95 are very effective channels for dispute resolution. The problem is with their egregious violations of natural rights that occur over and over again, not their infamous efficiency in ending debate. To their shame, I could not find a single statement about the massacre (let alone a condemnation) on the sites of either the sanctimonious European Union or the so-called Human Rights Watch. What I did find was a great deal of consternation about possible abuses that may have taken place by the US.
This is very telling. Tranzi-types such as the EU and Human Rights Watch are more than willing to give China a free hand to squelch internal dissent so long as they play along with the Tranzi programme (sign Kyoto, join the ICC, &c). The trouble comes when a nation refuses to join either of those two entities. The US gets hit more in the press releases of these organisations than any other, China included. This demonstrates not only a double standard (the fact that the US might have tortured someone is worse than routine beatdowns and torture of Chinese dissidents) but also a willingness to abandon Chinese dissidents for political concessions and trade deals. The same goes with abandoning Cuban dissidents for ideological considerations.
Human rights organisations are more than worthless. Their insistence on ignoring major human rights problems in certain countries while relentlessly targeting not-so-major problems elsewhere degrades their reputation. Ultimately we need independent organisations dedicated to defending man's natural rights. If they cry "wolf" while ignoring the real danger, they spend their most precious resource- credibility. Without that, they cannot function properly as watch-dogs for human rights.
With the death toll at thirty-three (six according to official Chinese figures), this is the worst repression since the infamous Tianamen Square Massacre of 1989. In my view, this demonstrates exactly what the People's Republic of China is- a totalitarian state that is willing to murder its own people with the utmost savagery in order to keep power. This will happen again and again to those who stand up for their natural rights. The current regime in China is not capable of pro-democratic change.
The shocking part of all this isn't that China was so brazen in murdering its dissidents- that's par for the course. What is truly shocking is the utter failure of "human rights organisations" to condemn the massacre. Of several such "organisations" that I visited to-day, I found only Amnesty International even mentioned the massacre, and issued a bland press release and condemnation, asking Chinese authorities (the ones responsible) to develop "effective channels for dispute resolution." I don't think the Chinese authorities have a problem with dispute resolution. Bringing a heavy farm implement down on a dissident or poking 5.8mm holes in him with a QBZ-95 are very effective channels for dispute resolution. The problem is with their egregious violations of natural rights that occur over and over again, not their infamous efficiency in ending debate. To their shame, I could not find a single statement about the massacre (let alone a condemnation) on the sites of either the sanctimonious European Union or the so-called Human Rights Watch. What I did find was a great deal of consternation about possible abuses that may have taken place by the US.
This is very telling. Tranzi-types such as the EU and Human Rights Watch are more than willing to give China a free hand to squelch internal dissent so long as they play along with the Tranzi programme (sign Kyoto, join the ICC, &c). The trouble comes when a nation refuses to join either of those two entities. The US gets hit more in the press releases of these organisations than any other, China included. This demonstrates not only a double standard (the fact that the US might have tortured someone is worse than routine beatdowns and torture of Chinese dissidents) but also a willingness to abandon Chinese dissidents for political concessions and trade deals. The same goes with abandoning Cuban dissidents for ideological considerations.
Human rights organisations are more than worthless. Their insistence on ignoring major human rights problems in certain countries while relentlessly targeting not-so-major problems elsewhere degrades their reputation. Ultimately we need independent organisations dedicated to defending man's natural rights. If they cry "wolf" while ignoring the real danger, they spend their most precious resource- credibility. Without that, they cannot function properly as watch-dogs for human rights.
posted by The Admiral at 9:24 AM
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