A momentous legal confrontation will take place at the UN’s highest court this week when the Nobel peace prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi appears in person to defend Myanmar against accusations of genocide.
Once internationally feted as a human rights champion, Myanmar’s state counsellor is scheduled to lead a delegation to the international court of justice (ICJ) in The Hague.
The claim that Myanmar’s military carried out mass murder, rape and destruction of Rohingya Muslim communities has been brought by the Gambia, a west African state that belongs to the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation.
The contrast is repeatedly drawn between Aung San Suu Kyi’s 1991 peace prize win and 15 years spent under house arrest, and her present position as chief denier that any ethnic violence has been perpetrated against the Rohingya. Last year, the US Holocaust Memorial Museum revoked her Elie Wiesel award.
Security around the court is expected to be tight. There has been speculation that undisclosed arrest warrants may have been issued in relation to other legal proceedings against Myanmar. Aung San Suu Kyi, as effective head of government, is likely to be able to claim immunity from arrest.
Under the rules of the ICJ, member states can bring actions against fellow member states over disputes alleging breaches of international law – in this case, the 1948 convention on the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide.
It is not the first time the tribunal, also known as the world court, has considered genocide cases – it dealt with several from the Balkan wars of the 1990s – but it is the first case involving countries that are not neighbours.
The three-day hearing in the neo-Renaissance-style Peace Palace is what is known as a provisional measures procedure. The Gambia will urge the court to make an emergency declaration that Myanmar must halt a continuing genocide, and the court will consider whether it has jurisdiction and whether there is a plausible case to answer.
This preliminary phase of the claim will not involve personal testimony from any of the estimated 700,000 Rohingya who fled to Bangladesh after the start of what are alleged to have been military clearance operations.
The Gambia’s submission states: “The genocidal acts committed during these operations were intended to destroy the Rohingya as a group, in whole or in part, by the use of mass murder, rape and other forms of sexual violence, as well as the systematic destruction by fire of their villages, often with inhabitants locked inside burning houses.”
Its arguments rely on the findings of UN investigations that described “genocidal intent” in the crimes. The UN special rapporteur Yanghee Lee related first-hand accounts of “attacks in which homes were set ablaze by security forces, in many cases with people trapped inside, and entire villages razed to the ground”.
The Gambia’s case will be opened on Tuesday by Abubacarr Marie Tambadou, the country’s attorney general and justice minister, who studied law at Warwick University in England and later served with distinction as a special assistant to the prosecutor at the international criminal tribunal for Rwanda.
The hearing, which will be livestreamed, may attract a large international audience. It will be tempting for the Gambia’s lawyers, distracted by Aung San Suu Kyi’s presence, to personalise the accusations, but the focus will remain on the Rohingya victims.
In the run-up to the hearing, members of Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party held rallies in Myanmar’s largest city, Yangon. Among the country’s Buddhist majority, she retains overwhelming support.
The international criminal court (ICC), elsewhere in The Hague, has launched a separate investigation into alleged crimes against humanity committed by Myanmar’s leaders in forcibly deporting hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees to neighbouring Bangladesh.
by Owen Bowcott (Bowcott is a Legal affairs correspondent of The Guardian)
A column in “The Myanmar Times” asked readers to guess the author of a xenophobic comment: Donald Trump or Ashin Wirathu, the man known as “The Buddhist Bin Laden,” pictured above reading a “TIME” magazine article about himself. Photo by Lily and Maung Thin
YANGON, (Reuters) — 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.
Suu Kyi was awarded the Nobel peace prize while under house arrest in 1991, when she was an opposition figure in Myanmar. The Nobel committee cited her work to “establish a democraic society in which the country’s ethnic groups could cooperate in harmony,” according to its website.
After being freed, her party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), won a historic majority in 2015, which brought in the country’s first civilian government in decades.
But critics say her reputation as democracy icon was sullied by her failure to speak out about mass killings and displacement of the Rohingya.
In 2017, she claimed during a phone conversation with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that a “huge iceberg of misinformation” about the Rohingya crisis was being distributed to benefit “terrorists.”
According to a readout of the call, she said her government was fighting to ensure “terrorism” didn’t spread over the whole of Rakhine state.
CNN’s Ben Westcott and Rebecca Wright contributed to this report.
More than 730,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled to neighbouring 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.
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.
“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.
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.
A spokesman for Suu Kyi’s party, the National League for Democracy, said she had decided to take on the case herself.
Rohingya refugees pray at a gathering mark the second anniversary of their exodus from Myanmar, at the Kutupalong camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, August 25, 2019. Suu Kyi had denied reports of mass killings and gang-rapes, dismissing them as ‘fake news.’Rafiqur Rahman / Reuters
“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.”
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.
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.”
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 authorized a full investigation into crimes committed against the Rohingya in neighbouring Bangladesh. Myanmar does not recognize the ICC but Bangladesh accepts its jurisdiction.
Democracy icon
Suu Kyi was awarded the Nobel peace prize while under house arrest in 1991, when she was an opposition figure in Myanmar. The Nobel committee cited her work to “establish a democratic society in which the country’s ethnic groups could cooperate in harmony,” according to its website.
After being freed, her party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), won a historic majority in 2015, which brought in the country’s first civilian government in decades.
But critics say her reputation as democracy icon was sullied by her failure to speak out about mass killings and displacement of the Rohingya.
In 2017, she claimed during a phone conversation with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that a “huge iceberg of misinformation” about the Rohingya crisis was being distributed to benefit “terrorists.”
According to a readout of the call, she said her government was fighting to ensure “terrorism” didn’t spread over the whole of Rakhine state.
CNN’s Ben Westcott and Rebecca Wright contributed to this report.
Myanmar’s anti-Islam monks see an ally in Donald Trump
A column in “The Myanmar Times” asked readers to guess the author of a xenophobic comment: Donald Trump or Ashin Wirathu, the man known as “The Buddhist Bin Laden,” pictured above reading a “TIME” magazine article about himself. Photo by Lily and Maung Thin
On Sunday, The Daily Beast reported on an upsurge of support for presidential hopeful Donald Trump from an unlikely place: Buddhist temples in Burma. The infamous organization known as Ma Ba Tha, a group of Islamophobic, sexist, violent monks, apparently likes Trump’s anti-Muslim rhetoric.
A 34-year-old youth group leader affiliated with Ma Ba Tha, named Win Ko Ko Latt, said, “I like Donald Trump because he understands the danger posed by Muslims. It shows that our struggle is a global one and that Islam isn’t just a threat to Myanmar but to the entire world.”
Myanmar’s anti-Muslim movement is led by Ashin Wirathu, the famous monk who TIME Magazine dubbed “The Face of Buddhist Terror.” Last month, The Myanmar Times ran a column titled, “Who said it: Trump or Wirathu?” The column asked readers to guess who said “There are people that shouldn’t be in our country. They flow in like water.” (That’s from Trump.)
Trump’s growing popularity is a serious worry for the Rohingya people, members of Burma’s persecuted Muslim minority group. One man, whose village was torched by a Buddhist mob in 2012, told The Daily Beast, “[Trump] talks about Muslims the same way as some of our government officials. This is something that makes me nervous because the international community is our only hope.”
Excerpts:
Myanmar’s anti-Islam monks see an ally in Donald Trump
A column in “The Myanmar Times” asked readers to guess the author of a xenophobic comment: Donald Trump or Ashin Wirathu, the man known as “The Buddhist Bin Laden,” pictured above reading a “TIME” magazine article about himself. Photo by Lily and Maung Thin
On Sunday, The Daily Beast reported on an upsurge of support for presidential hopeful Donald Trump from an unlikely place: Buddhist temples in Burma. The infamous organization known as Ma Ba Tha, a group of Islamophobic, sexist, violent monks, apparently likes Trump’s anti-Muslim rhetoric.
A 34-year-old youth group leader affiliated with Ma Ba Tha, named Win Ko Ko Latt, said, “I like Donald Trump because he understands the danger posed by Muslims. It shows that our struggle is a global one and that Islam isn’t just a threat to Myanmar but to the entire world.”
Myanmar’s anti-Muslim movement is led by Ashin Wirathu, the famous monk who TIME Magazine dubbed “The Face of Buddhist Terror.” Last month, The Myanmar Times ran a column titled, “Who said it: Trump or Wirathu?” The column asked readers to guess who said “There are people that shouldn’t be in our country. They flow in like water.” (That’s from Trump.)
Trump’s growing popularity is a serious worry for the Rohingya people, members of Burma’s persecuted Muslim minority group. One man, whose village was torched by a Buddhist mob in 2012, told The Daily Beast, “[Trump] talks about Muslims the same way as some of our government officials. This is something that makes me nervous because the international community is our only hope.”
A column in “The Myanmar Times” asked readers to guess the author of a xenophobic comment: Donald Trump or Ashin Wirathu, the man known as “The Buddhist Bin Laden,” pictured above reading a “TIME” magazine article about himself. Photo by 