By Phelim Kine
December 13, 2019
“Rohingya civilians.” That’s the phrase conspicuously absent from Myanmar State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi’s 3,500-word statement to the International Court of Justice on Wednesday. The omission is no accident.
Suu Kyi’s highly anticipated ICJ appearance was to answer to The Gambia’s official complaint of Myanmar’s violations of the United Nations’ 1948 Genocide Convention, linked to the extreme military abuses against Muslim Rohingya civilians. Yet her judicial defense strategy studiously avoided any mention of civilian suffering.