International desk – Myanmar’s de-facto leader Aung San Suu
Kyi has refuted allegations of genocide or genocidal intent as she defended her
country at the UN’s International Court of Justice where a petition was moved seeking
“senseless killings” of Rohingya Muslims.
“How can there be an ongoing genocide or genocidal intent as
concrete steps are being taken in Rakhine?,” Suu Kyi posed the question to the 17-member
panel of judges at the top UN court in Hague on Wednesday.
She said Rakhine state of Myanmar has been suffering an internal
armed conflict between the Buddhist Arakan Army and Myanmar military. “Muslims
are not part of this conflict,” she added.
Persecuted in Myanmar, these groups of Rohingya Muslims arrived in Bangladesh. Piles of smokes are seen on the horizon as their homes across the Naf river were burnt by the Burmese army –ICCO
Earlier on Tuesday, the first day of hearing on alleged
genocide in Myanmar, the Gambia asked the UN court to pass ruling for stopping
genocide in Myanmar, from where nearly 750,000 Rohingya Muslims fled to
Bangladesh in the face of a brutal military crackdown in 2017.
During her submission, Suu Kyi referred to the 2016 attacks on
Myanmar police post allegedly by Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) and said
that the security forces responded to attacks by the insurgents. She said the ARSA,
members of which are trained in Pakistan and Afghanistan, launched yet another
offensive on the early morning of August 25, 2017. Then the military launched a
clearance operation.
The Myanmar leader, however, admitted few thousands Muslim
civilians crossed into Bangladesh because of the affect of the conflict. She
also said Myanmar and Bangladesh signed agreement for dignified repatriation of
the Rohingya Muslims.
This Rohingya family arrived in Bangladesh in mid-November facing persecution in Myanmar took shelter in the makeshift home made of Bamboo shafts and polythene sheet – newsnextbd.com
Rejecting the allegations of genocide or genocidal intents,
Suu Kyi said if anyone of the armed forces is found guilty of crimes, they will
be tried in line with the constitution of Myanmar. She also put a few example of
soldiers’ trial in court-martial.
The Gambia, one behalf of the Organisaiton of Islamic
Cooperation (OIC), filed the litigation with the court in Hague more than two
years after the latest wave of violence carried out by the military and their
cohorts in August 2017.
This was the first international legal attempt to bring Myanmar
to justice over alleged mass killings of the Rohingya minorities. Gambia field
the litigation on November 11.
Suu Kyi criticised the Gambia for taking the issue to the
International Court of Justice. She said the allegations brought against her
country were incomplete.