Aung San Suu Kyi will
appear before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to contest a case filed
by Gambia accusing Myanmar of genocide against its Rohingya Muslim minority,
her government said on Wednesday.
More than 730,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled
to neighboring Bangladesh since a 2017 crackdown by Myanmar’s military, which
U.N. investigators say was carried out with “genocidal intent”. Buddhist
majority Myanmar denies accusations of genocide.
“The State Counselor, in her capacity as
Union Minister for Foreign Affairs, will lead a team to the Hague, Netherlands,
to defend the national interest of Myanmar at the ICJ,” it said, giving no
further details.
A spokesman for Suu Kyi’s party, the National
League for Democracy, said she had decided to take on the case herself.
“They accused Aung San Suu Kyi of failing to
speak out about human rights violations,” spokesman Myo Nyunt said. “She
decided to face the lawsuit by herself.”
Gambia, a tiny, mainly Muslim West African
state, lodged its lawsuit after winning the support of the 57-nation
Organisation for Islamic Cooperation (OIC). Only a state can file a case
against another state at the ICJ.
“Myanmar has retained prominent international
lawyers to contest the case submitted by Gambia,” the ministry for state
counselor Suu Kyi’s office said in a Facebook post.
Military spokesman Brigadier General Zaw Min
Tun told Reuters the decision was made after the army consulted with the
government. “We, the military, will fully cooperate with the government and we
will follow the instruction of the government,” he said.
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| Official Statement of Myanmar in 2 languages |
Both Gambia and Myanmar are signatories to
the 1948 Genocide Convention, which not only prohibits states from committing
genocide but also compels all signatory states to prevent and punish the crime
of genocide.
The ICJ has said it will hold the first
public hearings in the case on Dec. 10 to 12. The court has no means to enforce
any of its rulings.
NOBEL LAUREATE
Suu Kyi, a longtime democracy activist who
won the Nobel peace prize for her defiance of the military junta, swept to
power in Myanmar after a landslide election win in 2015 that ushered in the
country’s first fully civilian government in half a century.
But her reputation has been sullied by her
response to the plight of the Rohingya, a persecuted Muslim minority living in
the western Rakhine state.
While almost a million now live in squalor in
Bangladeshi refugee camps, several hundred thousand remain inside Myanmar,
confined to camps and villages in apartheid-like conditions.
She has publicly blamed the crisis on
Rohingya “terrorists”, referring to militants who attacked security posts in
August 2017, prompting the army crackdown, and has branded reports of
atrocities, including gang-rapes and mass killings, as fake news.
“Aung San Suu Kyi has continued to deny the
atrocities committed by the Myanmar government against the Rohingya,” said John
Quinley, human rights specialist at Fortify Rights.
“Rohingya globally, including refugees in
Bangladesh, support the case at the ICJ and want justice for their people.”
WAVE OF PRESSURE
The ICJ, established in 1946, settles
disputes between states, and individuals cannot sue or be sued there.
But Myanmar is facing a wave of international
pressure from courts across the world, and other cases involve individual
criminal responsibility.
Days after Gambia filed its case at the ICJ,
Rohingya and Latin American human rights groups submitted a lawsuit in
Argentina under “universal jurisdiction”, a legal premise that deems some
crimes as so horrific that they can be tried anywhere in the world.
Suu Kyi was named in that lawsuit, which
demands that top military and civilian leaders be sanctioned over the
“existential threat” faced by the Rohingya minority.
Separately, the International Criminal Court
has authorised a full investigation into crimes committed against the Rohingya
in neighboring Bangladesh. Myanmar does not recognize the ICC but Bangladesh
accepts its jurisdiction.
By Reuters
By Reuters