MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 21st November, 2019) The "once bright" international standing of Myanmar's State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, who will be leading her country's defense at the International Court of Justice over allegations of genocide, will be of little help in making people turn a blind eye to Myanmar's well-documented atrocities against the Rohingya, Phil Robertson, deputy director of Human Rights Watch's Asia division, told Sputnik.
Earlier this month, the Gambia filed a lawsuit with the ICJ on behalf of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation claiming that Myanmar's atrocities against the Rohingya were intended to erase this minority Muslim population as a group and therefore classify as genocide. On Thursday, Aung San Suu Kyi's office said that she would personally lead the defense. Hearings are expected to begin on December 10.
"Get ready for Aung San Suu Kyi to continue playing her self-appointed role as leader of the Burmese cover-up of the Tatmadaw's atrocities against the Rohingya. But she is over her head politically, and she should realize that her once bright star on the international stage has dimmed greatly and few will give credence to denials just because she is the person issuing them. There is a huge volume of evidence of crimes against humanity and genocide and if she was smart about it, she would be helping international investigators identify and prosecute the military perpetrators responsible rather than siding with the military and helping hide their crimes," Robertson said.
He expressed hope for the court to immediately order Myanmar's government to stop the atrocities "as a first step," as requested by the Gambia in its petition.
In August 2017, the Myanmar authorities launched an unprecedented violence campaign against the Rohingya after militants, allegedly from this minority group, carried out attacks on police posts in the country's north-western state of Rakhine. Police and armed forces burned entire villages to the ground, gang-raped women, harassed and tortured civilians on top of killing, shooting and beating them. More than 700,000 Rohingya have fled the country as a result, mainly to neighboring Bangladesh. Various UN officials have already called the atrocities an "ethnic cleansing" and "genocide."
In 1991, Aung San Suu Kyi was awarded Nobel Peace prize for championing the "non-violent struggle for democracy and human rights" in Myanmar while being under house arrest at the time. The ruling military junta refused the general election results that would bring her National League for Democracy party (NLD) to power. After her release in 2015, the NLD won once again and Aung San Suu Kyi became Myanmar's State Council, equivalent to the prime minister's mandate.
