In the International Court of Justice ... the leader of Myanmar admits to using "disproportionate" force against the Rohingya

Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi admitted today, Wednesday, that her country's army had used a disproportionate force in dealing with Rohingya Muslims, a day after the International Court of Justice in The Hague began hearing a complaint filed by The Gambia accusing Myanmar authorities of committing killings and genocide against the Rohingya minority.

While defending her country before the International Court, Aung San Suu Kyi refused to judge the operations of the Myanmar Army in Arakan (Rakhine) province against Rohingya Muslims as having been motivated by genocide, stressing that Muslims are not a party to the conflict there.

"I do not rule out the use of disproportionate force, but this does not amount to genocide," the Myanmar leader said.

Gambian criticism
San Suu Kyi added that the army avoided any air strikes in Arakan except in one case, and claimed that the region's militants were the cause of the crisis, not its country. It also criticized the Gambia, which filed the complaint mandated by the OIC Member States.

That complaint says that Myanmar violated the International Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, concluded in 1948.

Gambian criticism
The leader of Myanmar described the Gambia complaint as "providing an unrealistic, complete, and misleading picture of the situation in western Myanmar" and claimed that what is happening is part of an internal armed conflict.

During the trial sessions that started yesterday and will continue until tomorrow, The Gambia will ask the court to take interim measures to protect the Rohingya before the case is fully considered.

In the first session of the case, Suu Kyi warned the court of justice against taking any decision that might exacerbate the conflict in the country and harm peace and reconciliation efforts.

Background events
It is noteworthy that in August 2017, the Chinese army and Buddhist militia launched a military campaign against Rohingya, which resulted in the killing of thousands of civilians, according to identical local and international sources, as well as the asylum of nearly a million from the region to neighboring Bangladesh.

The Government considers that the Rohingya are irregular migrants from Bangladesh, and are therefore deprived of citizenship. While the United Nations describes this minority as the most persecuted in the world.

UN investigators accuse the Myanmar army of carrying out mass killings and other atrocities against the Rohingya "with the intent to annihilate" during 2017, and an independent fact-finding committee concluded that soldiers had collectively raped women and children, set fire to villages, and burned people in their homes, during an attack on Arakan. However, the army denies this and considers the entire investigation invalid.