– Click here for full text of her speech delivered 11 Dec 2019.
– Click here for her speech 12 Dec 2019
THE HAGUE (Reuters) – At the opening of her country’s defense at the World Court on an accusation of genocide, Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi challenged whether events in Rakhine could fit that description. Beginning her address, Suu Kyi noted that several mass expulsions of people during the Balkan wars of the 1990s were not genocide. “International justice resisted the temptation to use this legal classification because the specific intent to destroy the targeted group in whole or in part was not present,” she told judges. She said that the troubles in Myanmar’s Rakhine state, home to its Muslim Rohingya minority, “go back centuries” and Gambia, which brought the suit against Myanmar, had “painted an incomplete and misleading picture of the factual situation in Rakhine.”
Excerpts:
“There will be no tolerance of human rights violations in Rakhine or elsewhere in Myanmar,” she said.“No stone has been left unturned to make domestic accountability work … We are dealing with an internal conflict started by ARSA to which Myanmar responds.”
“…it cannot be ruled out that disproportionate force was used by members of the Defence Services in some cases in disregard of international humanitarian law, or that they did not distinguish clearly enough between ARSA fighters and civilians.”
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One of the lawyers representing Myanmar, Prof William Schabas of Middlesex University, said the Gambia had not addressed an intent to conduct genocide or stated the number of victims. He said a figure of 10,000 used by some commentators was an “exaggeration” but even if true, the suggestion that 10,000 deaths out of a total of more than one million Rohingya residents could not constitute an attempt to “completely destroy this [ethnic] group”.
Phoebe Okawa, professor of international rights at Queen Mary University in London who is also representing Myanmar, told the court that the fact that the UN’s refugee agency, UNHCR, was meeting with Myanmar to prepare for return of Rohingya people meant that they could not be facing a risk of genocide.
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Click below to replay partial speech delivered by the State Counsellor:
https://www.youtube.com/embed/9Zl9vkynJWo
Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (The Gambia v. Myanmar) – Public hearings on the request for the indication of provisional measures submitted by The Gambia
“There will be no tolerance of human rights violations in Rakhine or elsewhere in Myanmar,” she said.“No stone has been left unturned to make domestic accountability work … We are dealing with an internal conflict started by ARSA to which Myanmar responds.” State Counsellor of Myanmar. One of the lawyers representing Myanmar, Prof William Schabas of Middlesex University, said the Gambia had not addressed an intent to conduct genocide or stated the number of victims. He said a figure of 10,000 used by some commentators was an “exaggeration” but even if true, the suggestion that 10,000 deaths out of a total of more than one million Rohingya residents could not constitute an attempt to “completely destroy this [ethnic] group”. Phoebe Okawa, professor of international rights at Queen Mary University in London who is also representing Myanmar, told the court that the fact that the UN’s refugee agency, UNHCR, was meeting with Myanmar to prepare for return of Rohingya people meant that they could not be facing a risk of genocide.