• Burma: Nobel Peace Laureate Suu Kyi denies in person and before international justice, the Rohingya genocide

The Nobel Peace Prize and Burmese leader Aung San Suu Kyi has presented himself in The Hague with a clear strategy: to underline that there is no way to prove that the Burmese Army has planned the mass murders, rapes and expulsions of the Rohingya since Arakan state. And it is that if there has been no premeditation, these crimes cannot legally qualify as "genocide." For her, Rohingya suffering is the result of a war "against terrorism."

The details offered during the hearing yesterday at the International Court of Justice (TIJ) in The Hague, based on a United Nations investigation report, "draw an incomplete and misleading picture about the real situation" in Arakán, in the opinion of this Burmese politics. They describe an army placing order and not the alleged genocide denounced by the Gambia, a Muslim-majority country that resorted to international justice to "protect" the Rohingya.

Suu Kyi has admitted that "in certain cases," the Burmese Army has been able to act "disproportionately" and have had difficulty differentiating between civilians and combatants, but that "is not a genocide." It is, he adds, part of an "internal armed conflict" characterized by being "very complex and difficult to understand." The intervention of the National Army in the province of Arakán began with attacks by Muslim insurgents in 2017, he says, but "tensions have existed for centuries" between groups in the area.

In addition, he said that if the local courts find evidence that there were possible war crimes or against humanity, "the perpetrators will be punished" by the Justice of Myanmar, because "human rights violations will not be tolerated" in that country. According to the UN, entire villages in Arakán were burned, women and girls raped, and up to 25,000 people were killed.

The Burmese, once an icon of democracy and a prisoner of conscience in Myanmar for 15 years, said the Burmese government is "trying to promote social harmony among communities" in Myanmar. According to her, she is working on the return of the displaced and birth certificates are being issued to children born in Arakán "regardless of religion" to guarantee access to education and nationality.

"How can there be a genocide under way in a country that is doing all this!" Suu Kyi wondered. However, these alleged efforts and this description of the bureaucratic situation in Arakan have been flatly rejected by members of the Rohingya community, who have been stripped of their citizenship, despite being born, both they and multiple generations of their family , in Myanmar.

Suu Kyi summarizes the displacements and murders that have taken place in the country since 2017 as a result of an "internal security problem" caused by tensions between the Rohinyá Salvation Army of Arakán (ARSA) and the National Army. He stressed that "Rohingya Muslims are not involved" in that conflict, but "may be victims" of it, since they reside in the region. "Imposing judicial measures can aggravate the security situation," the Burmese told the TIJ judge.

Since, in August 2017, the Army of former Burma began its offensive against the Rohingya ethnic minority in Arakan, more than 750,000 people have been forced to leave their homes and flee to neighboring countries. The majority ended up in refugee camps in Bangladesh, where they survive in extreme circumstances of poor hygiene, access to health, education and dealing with overpopulation.

For the Government of Mynamar, these military operations are a legitimate response to alleged "terrorist attacks" carried out against border and police checkpoints. However, the victims themselves, the Rohingya denounced these attacks as "ethnic cleansing" operations against their community, a version backed by a mission of UN officials, who considered them an "attempted genocide."

The complaint filed by the Gambia with the TIJ is the only opportunity for the Rohingya community to obtain international recognition of the alleged genocide they have been denouncing since 2017. A complicated task. Since the end of World War II, only three conflicts managed to be recognized as genocide: Cambodia (1970s), Rwanda (1994) and Srebrenica (1995).

In addition, this international tribunal is only responsible for disputes between States, somehow helping to interpret the law, but does not impose penalties or punishments on the individual perpetrators of the crimes, something that is charged by the International Criminal Court (ICC) . For that, the UN Security Council should agree, which is difficult in view of the constant veto by China , Mynamar's ally.

While awaiting the final decision of the TIJ on whether the Genocide Convention of 1948 was violated, something that may take years to arrive, The Gambia requested the taking - in the short term - of provisional measures to protect the Rohingya minority in Myanmar. The decisions of this court are binding, although their application depends on the will of the countries, so they are not always met.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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