THE HAGUE: The United Nation’s top court is conducting emergency legal proceedings to determine if military personnel committed genocide against Myanmar’s Rohingya minority in 2017. The African nation of Gambia, acting on behalf of a large group of Muslim countries, requested the International Court of Justice hearings and alleges that human rights violations against the Rohingya continue.
Lawyers seeking to halt what they allege is ongoing genocide in Myanmar have slammed leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s defense of her country’s armed forces, saying that the Nobel Peace Prize winner and former pro-democracy icon chose to ignore “unspeakable” crimes targeting Muslim civilians. 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 forced more than 700,000 Rohingya to flee to neighboring Bangladesh.
Gambia wants the U.N. court to take “all measures within its power to prevent all acts that amount to or contribute to the crime of genocide.” The U.N. court proceedings in The Hague produced the astonishing spectacle of Suu Kyi, who was awarded the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize for championing democracy and rights under Myanmar’s then-ruling junta, defending the army that kept her under house arrest for some 15 years.
Suu Kyi testified that the exodus of Rohyinga was a tragic consequence of hostilities initiated by insurgents. The allegations of genocide and other crimes by the army stemmed from “an internal armed conflict started by coordinated and comprehensive armed attacks ... to which Myanmar’s defense services responded,” she said. Suu Kyi also insisted that Gambia’s legal representatives had painted “an incomplete and misleading factual picture” of what happened in Myanmar’s northern Rakhine state in August 2017. Lawyer Paul Reicher argued otherwise, saying: “There is no reasonable conclusion to draw other than the inference of genocidal intent from the state’s pattern of conduct.”
Referring to a U.N. fact-finding mission’s report on military “clearance operations,” Reicher said: “Everyone was a target and no one was spared. Mothers, infants, pregnant women, the old and infirm. They all fell victim to this ruthless campaign.” He also refuted Myanmar’s claims that no mass graves were found. “To be sure, Myanmar has not made it easier to find them” by denying access to suspect sites, Reicher said. “Nevertheless, The Associated Press located at least five mass graves of Rohingyas.” The court will likely issue a decision on Gambia’s request for provisional measures relatively quickly, but the main case will probably take years to resolve.
