“A spectacular fall from Grace”: Aung San Suu Kyi denies Burmese genocide of Rohingya at The Hague

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Burma’s de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi has asked the U.N. International Court of Justice to drop the genocide case against Myanmar, formerly Burma. Suu Kyi is a Nobel Peace Prize winner who spent over a decade fighting against the Burmese military, which she is now defending. Last week, Suu Kyi appeared in person at the court to dispute the charges and called the allegations of genocide against Rohingya Muslims “incomplete and misleading.” The Burmese military killed and raped thousands of Rohingya and forced more than 700,000 to flee into neighboring Bangladesh in a brutal army crackdown in 2017. Gambia brought the genocide case to the International Court, accusing Burma of trying to “destroy the Rohingya as a group, in whole or in part, by the use of mass murder, rape and other forms of sexual violence.” In Barcelona, Spain, we speak with Reed Brody, a counsel and spokesperson for Human Rights Watch. He is also helping Gambian victims seeking to prosecute the former dictator Yahya Jammeh.

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now! I’m Amy Goodman, as we turn to The Hague, where Burma’s de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi has asked the U.N. International Court of Justice to drop the genocide case against her country. The Burmese military killed and raped thousands of Rohingya and forced more than 700,000 to flee into neighboring Bangladesh in a brutal army crackdown in 2017. International aid groups say thousands of Rohingya have been murdered, a quarter of a million have been forced to flee into Bangladesh. But Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace laureate who spent over a decade fighting against the Burmese military, is now defending it. Last week, she appeared in person at The Hague to dispute the charges and called the allegations of genocide against Rohingya Muslims “incomplete and misleading.”

AUNG SAN SUU KYI: Myanmar requests the court to remove the case from its list; in the alternative, to reject the request for the indication of provisional measures submitted by the Gambia. … Mr. President, it is vital for Myanmar’s present and future that our civilian and military criminal justice systems functions in accordance with the Constitution. Where a country has a military justice system, neutralizing the system by externalizing justice, in effect, surgically removes a critical limb from the body, the limb that helps armed forces to self-correct, to improve, to better perform their functions within the constitutional order.

AMY GOODMAN: During the International Court hearings, Aung San Suu Kyi repeatedly tried to deny the Burmese military has carried out genocide against the Muslim Rohingya, although she never once used that word, “Rohingya,” during her speeches. Gambia brought the genocide case to the International Court, accusing Burma of trying to, quote, “destroy the Rohingya as a group, in whole or in part, by the use of mass murder, rape and other forms of sexual violence,” unquote.

For more, we go to Barcelona, Spain, where we’re joined by Reed Brody, counsel and spokesperson for Human Rights Watch, also helping Gambian victims seeking to prosecute their former dictator Yahya Jammeh.

Welcome back to Democracy Now!, Reed. Can you talk about the significance of Aung San Suu Kyi, the de facto leader of Burma, saying that the genocide against the Rohingya — others call it the Rohingya — did not take place?

REED BRODY: Well, you know, this was a spectacular moment for international justice, with the eyes of the world live — the case live-streamed to Myanmar, to the Rohingyas, around the world. You had Gambia laying out the case that the government of Myanmar was committing genocide. And Aung San Suu Kyi, the de facto leader, was there listening and participating. Obviously, you know, she went there for domestic political reasons, to show that she was in solidarity with the military, who continue to rule, in many ways, the country, in solidarity with those majorities in the country who hate and despise the Rohingyas and have mistreated them, not just for the last couple of years, but for many years.

But, you know, it’s a spectacular fall from grace for a woman who was a Nobel Peace Prize winner, an icon of the human rights movement, now to be sitting there, standing there, forcefully defending her government, a government which, as you said, has displaced over a million Rohingyas, that has committed systematic rape and the destruction of villages. And to have this transmitted all over the world, again, I don’t think — you know, from an international point of view, this was a disaster for her. I mean, if somebody is accusing you of a crime — of genocide, no less — usually you want to run away from those charges, hide them. By going to The Hague for domestic reasons, she guaranteed that the world would be watching, that the cameras of the world would be focused on these very accusations.

AMY GOODMAN: So, Aung San Suu Kyi goes to The Hague. The case was brought by Gambia. Explain why Gambia.

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