Aung San Suu Kyi, a nobel peace laureate and the leader of Myanmar rejected allegations of genocide against Myanmar in the United Nations court on Wednesday.
The nobel peace prize laureate did admit that the Myanmar army used excessive tactics against the Rohingya Muslims but denied that a genocide took place. Suu Kyi claimed that the allegations of genocide by The Gambia were ‘misleading and incomplete’. The allegations are that a 2017 military operation in the region had aimed to wipe out the Rohingya, claimed a state leader in a rare address to the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Suu Kyi was once lauded as a human rights icon for her defiance of the same generals she is now defending. The leader further warned the Hague-based court that its involvement in the case risked ‘feeding the flames of extreme polarisation’. Nearly three million Rohingya Muslims have been forced to flee Myanmar and seek refuge in neighbouring countries, primarily Bangladesh, after the Myanmar military launched a massive attack on them under the guise of it being a response to attacks by local militants. At the UN address, Suu Kyi decked in a traditional Burmese dress and flowers in her hair said, ‘Regrettably, The Gambia has placed before the court a misleading and incomplete factual picture of the situation in the Rakhine state’. The 74-year-old civilian leader was quick to brush off criticisms from the international sphere claiming that the Buddhist-majority Myanmar was in the midst of an ‘internal armed conflict’ and that troubles in the region trace back centuries. She explained, ‘Please bear in mind this complex situation and the challenge to sovereignty and security in our country’. She further added, ‘Surely under the circumstances genocidal intent cannot be the only hypothesis’. Lawyers on the Myanmar defence have also stated that for this to be defined as genocide, international law requires concrete proof of the intention to destroy a race of people. ICJ judges have only historically once ruled a human rights atrocity as genocide, that being the 1995 Srebrenica massacre in Bosnia. Keep up to date with more news at ProperGaanda: Pictures: Reliving the terror of the lawyers’ riot at PIC