Suu Kyi criticised for backing armed forces on genocide claim
LAWYERS seeking to halt what they allege is an ongoing genocide in Myanmar have criticised Aung San Suu Kyi’s defence of her country’s armed forces, saying she chose to ignore “unspeakable” acts committed against civilians.
Acting on behalf of a large group of Muslim nations, The Gambia requested emergency legal proceedings at the UN’S top court to recognise that Myanmar’s armed forces committed genocide against the Rohingya minority in 2017 and that violations continue.
With maps, satellite imagery and graphic photos, Myanmar’s accusers have detailed what they insist is a deliberate campaign of ethnic cleansing and genocide – including the killing of civilians, raping of women and torching of houses – that saw more than 700,000 Rohingya flee to neighbouring Bangladesh.
Myanmar has consistently denied human rights violations and says military operations in Rakhine state, from where most of the Rohingya fled, were justified in response to attacks by Rohingya insurgents.
The Gambia, however, wants the International Court of Justice to take “all measures within its power to prevent all acts that amount to or contribute to the crime of genocide”.
The hearings have seen the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize laureate defending the very army that ordered her kept under house arrest for some 15 years.
“There is no reasonable conclusion to draw other than the inference of genocidal intent from the state’s pattern of conduct,” lawyer Paul Reicher told the court, based in The Hague in the Netherlands.
“We heard nothing about sexual violence from Myanmar [Burma] yesterday, not a single word about it,” Mr Reicher said. “Because it is undeniable and unspeakable, they chose to ignore it completely.
“I can’t really blame them.
“I would hate having to be the one to defend it.”
On Wednesday Ms Suu Kyi said the allegations against the army stem from “an internal armed conflict started by co-ordinated and comprehensive armed attacks ... to which Myanmar’s [Burma’s] defence services responded.
“Tragically this armed conflict led to the exodus of several hundred thousand Muslims”.
She said that Gambia’s representatives had painted “an incomplete and misleading factual picture” of what happened in Burma’s northern Rakhine state in August 2017.