Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Wednesday rejected accusations of genocide committed against her country’s Muslim Rohingya minority as “incomplete and misleading”, and said the case should not be heard by the United Nation’s highest court.
The Nobel Peace laureate, speaking during three days of hearings at the International Court of Justice, challenged allegations in a lawsuit brought by Gambia last month accusing Myanmar of violating the 1948 Genocide Convention.
Suu Kyi, once feted in the West as a heroine of democracy, spoke for about 30 minutes at the courtroom in The Hague in defense of the actions of the Myanmar military that for years had kept her under house arrest.
She said a military-led “clearance operation” in western Rakhine State in August 2017 was a counterterrorism response to coordinated Rohingya militant attacks against dozens of police stations.
“Gambia has placed an incomplete and misleading picture of the factual situation in Rakhine state in Myanmar,” she said as she opened Myanmar’s defense.
While Suu Kyi conceded that disproportionate military force may have been used and civilians killed, she said the acts did not constitute genocide.
“Surely, under the circumstances, genocidal intent cannot be the only hypothesis,” she told the panel of 17 judges. “Can there be genocidal intent on the part of a state that actively investigates, prosecutes and punishes soldiers and officers that are accused of wrong doing?”
