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Aung San Suu Kyi:Accusations of Genocide Against Myanmar 'Misleading'

Henry Ridgwell

   LONDON - Myanmar's de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi denied her country
   committed genocide against the country's Rohingya Muslims, telling the
   United Nations' top court Wednesday the mass exodus of the minority
   stemmed from "an internal conflict started by coordinated and
   comprehensive armed attacks."

   She told the International Court of Justice in The Hague that
   "Myanmar's defense services responded" to the attacks, creating an
   armed conflict "that led to the exodus of several hundred thousand
   Muslims."

   Appearing before the court in her official role as Myanmar's foreign
   minister, the Nobel Peace laureate reiterated her government's claim
   that the military was targeting Rohingya militants who had attacked
   security posts in western Rakhine state in August 2017.

   Myanmar's military launched a scorched earth campaign in response to
   the attacks, forcing more than 700,000 Rohingyas to flee into
   neighboring Bangladesh. A U.N. investigation concluded the campaign was
   carried out "with genocidal intent," based on interviews with survivors
   who gave numerous accounts of massacres, extrajudicial killings, gang
   rapes and the torching of entire villages.
   The case against Myanmar was brought to the IJC by the small West
   African nation Gambia on behalf of the 57-member Organization for
   Islamic Cooperation. Lawyers for Gambia recounted numerous acts of
   atrocities committed by Myanmar's military during the crackdown during
   Tuesday's opening session.

   Aung San Suu Kyi called the allegations made by Gambia "misleading"
   during her opening statement.

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