Aung San Suu Kyi Defends Myanmar on Rohingya Issue, denies genocide

Nobel Peace Prize winner and Myanmarese leader Aung San Suu Kyi has asked the International Court of Justice to drop the genocide case against Myanmar. Comments by Suu Kyi, seen as the de facto leader of Myanmar, has raised eyebrows as she had spent over a decade fighting against the Burmese military, which she is now defending.

Gambia brought the genocide case to the International Court, accusing Burma of trying 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.”

In Decemeber Suu Kyi appeared in person at the ICJ to dispute the charges and called the allegations of genocide against Rohingya Muslims “incomplete and misleading.” The Burmese military had conduted violent crackdown on the minority Rohingya muslims which killed housands of Rohingya and forced more than 700,000 to flee into neighboring Bangladesh in 2017. The crackdown left the Rohingya stateless people as Myanmar denied that the Rohingya are it's citizens. The official position of Myanmar is that the Rohingyas are intrudes and illegal immigrants from neighbouring countries like Bangladesh and India.

The plight of Rohingya attracted international attention as the mass exodus led countries like India taking decision to deport the refugees siting population pressure. The refugee crisis led the United Nations send a fact finding team under former UN chief Coffee Annan. The Rakhine Advisory Commission in its 63 page report stated that the Rakhine Muslim community, the Rohingya, had become vulnerable to human rights abuses due to a protracted conflict, statelessness and discrimination. The report also pointed out that about 10 percent of the world's stateless people live in Myanmar and that Rohingya make up the single largest stateless community in the world.

 Suu Kyi attending the hearing in person assumed significance even as many see her as the last hope to steer the country to democracy. Many commentators point to the fact that the leader has much restricted powers in the military-governed state.