Suu Kyi heads to Hague court for showdown

NOBEL peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi is set Tuesday to personally defend Myanmar in The Hague against accusations of genocide, in a remarkable fall from grace for the woman once hailed as a rights icon.

Myanmar’s civilian leader will appear at the International Court of Justice as the Buddhist state disputes claims that it tried to exterminate minority Rohingya Muslims in a 2017 military crackdown.

The west African state of Gambia has launched the first bid to bring Myanmar to international justice over the bloodshed, accusing the southeast Asian nation of breaching the 1948 Genocide Convention.

Protests by opponents and supporters are expected outside the UN’s top court for the arrival of Suu Kyi, who was once mentioned in the same breath as Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi.

The 74-year-old’s international reputation has been tarnished by her silence over the plight of the Rohingya, and her defence of the same generals who once kept her under house arrest.

The case will also be watched in Bangladesh, where around 740,000 Rohingya were forced to flee into sprawling camps by the bloody campaign in Myanmar’s northwestern Rakhine state.

“I demand justice from the world,” said Nur Karima, a Rohingya refugee whose brothers and grandparents were killed in a massacre in the village of Tula Toli in August 2017.