Once a champion for human rights, she is now
expected to argue at The Hague that the world has been deceived by report after
report of atrocities against Rohingya Muslims.
By
Hannah Beech and Saw Nang
 |
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Daw Aung San Suu Kyi,
center, preparing to leave from Naypyidaw International
Airport in Naypyidaw, Myanmar, on
Monday. Credit Myanmar's State
Counsellor Office
|
BANGKOK
— She could have stayed
home.
Nobody is forcing Daw Aung San Suu Kyi — she
of the Nobel Peace Prize and fragrant flowers in her hair — to stride into the
International Court of Justice on Tuesday at The Hague, where she will lead
Myanmar’s defense against accusations of genocide.
After all, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi spent decades
battling the same military generals accused of perpetrating mass atrocities
against Myanmar’s minority Rohingya Muslims. Just a few years ago, the onetime
democracy activist, who serves as Myanmar’s foreign minister and de facto
civilian leader, visited the halls of power in Western Europe to preach the
virtues of nonviolent resistance against a military dictatorship.
This time, her mission is very different.
From Tuesday to Thursday, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi will represent Myanmar in public
hearings at the International Court of Justice, where the country is being
accused 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, as well as the
systematic destruction by fire of their villages, often with inhabitants locked
inside burning houses.”
The three days of public hearings at The
Hague, which opened on Tuesday, will not address the merits of the case, which
was brought by Gambia on behalf of the 57-nation Organization of Islamic
Cooperation.
Instead, the court proceedings are focused on
whether the court should issue urgent orders to protect the half a million
Rohingya still living in Myanmar. The court could issue such “provisional
measures” in a matter of days, long before the international legal system rules
on the charge of genocide, a process that could take years.
Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, dressed in black, sat
motionless in the front row on Tuesday, facing 17 judges of the United Nations’
highest court, as lawyers for Gambia began making their case that hundreds of
thousands of Rohingya still in Myanmar urgently needed protection.
Philippe Sands, a specialist in international
law who is a member of Gambia’s legal team, told the judges that the Rohingya
remained the targets of “ongoing genocide” and were vulnerable to more
atrocities to come.
“You are called upon to act now,” he said.
“This court is the ultimate guardian of the
Genocide Convention,” he told the court. “It is on you that the eyes of the
world are turned.”
For many outside Myanmar, Ms. Aung San Suu
Kyi’s evolution from imprisoned opposition leader to apologist for some of this
century’s worst ethnic pogroms is a cautionary tale of how power corrupts.
But her turn as the generals’ protector has
only cemented her popularity at home, where her party, the National League for
Democracy, faces elections next year.
“Daw Aung San Suu Kyi always handles problems
with love,” said U Saw Phoe Kwar, a well-known reggae singer and peace activist
in Myanmar. “Everyone should be united as she faces the problem at The Hague.”
For days, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s fans have
gathered across Myanmar for rallies of support.
To them, the expulsion of Rohingya Muslims
from Rakhine State in far western Myanmar, a campaign so vicious that United
Nations officials have said that it had genocidal intent, simply did not
happen.
“Western opinion seems to be against Myanmar
in the Rakhine case because the information they get from the international
news has led to a misunderstanding,” said U Myo Nyunt, a spokesman for the
National League for Democracy. “They need to know more about the real situation
on the ground and the history of the country.”
Mr. Myo Nyunt said no mass atrocities had
taken place against the Rohingya, apart from isolated bouts of killings in two
villages. Instead, he said that the international community has ignored the
deaths of dozens of Hindus in Rakhine State at the hands of what the Myanmar
authorities say were Rohingya insurgents.
International human rights groups estimate
that thousands of Rohingya have been massacred by the military and mobs of
Buddhist villagers since 2017.
“We are trying our best not to harm anyone in
the country just because of their religion,” Mr. Myo Nyunt said.
In Myanmar, the international effort to
punish those responsible is viewed by many as a plot by oil-rich sheikhs to
upend a peaceful Buddhist nation.
Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s supporters hope that
she, with her Oxford University pedigree and crisp English, can clear up any
confusion and persuade the judges at the International Court of Justice to
reject the case against Myanmar, just as she once rallied foreign resistance to
the country’s repressive military junta.
“There is no one better than Aung San Suu Kyi
in terms of wisdom and experience,” said U So Bhi Ta, a Buddhist monk in the
city of Mandalay.
“I believe that she will bring the real news
to overcome the fake news from the Western media,” he added.
Since becoming the de facto civilian leader
of Myanmar after the 2015 elections, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi has avoided
criticizing the generals for an orchestrated campaign of violence that has
compelled more than three quarters of a million Rohingya to flee for
neighboring Bangladesh since 2017.
She has blamed Muslim “terrorists” and a
“huge iceberg of misinformation” for the Rohingya crisis. Her office’s social
media feeds have labeled the military’s sexual violence against Rohingya women
as “fake rape.”
The Rohingya are considered illegal
immigrants by most people in Myanmar, formerly called Burma. Most have been
rendered stateless, even though their homes are in Rakhine.
Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s surprise announcement
last month that she would lead the team of lawyers presenting Myanmar’s case at
The Hague unleashed a frenzy of public displays of support back home:
billboards urging her luck in Europe, contemporary art exhibits dedicated to
her heroism, blessings from Buddhist monks who see her as a defender of a faith
besieged by Islam.
Her boost in popularity is well timed for the
National League for Democracy, facing its first re-election campaign since its
landslide victory four years ago.
Economic overhauls have stalled. Fighting
with various ethnic groups has flared in the nation’s borderlands.
Representatives of the Shan ethnic group, which is battling Myanmar’s military
in the north, released a statement on Monday saying that they “strongly support
the international legal cases being brought against Burma’s military leaders,
who have authorized atrocities against the country’s ethnic peoples for decades
with impunity.”
“Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s trip to The Hague is
definitely related to the 2020 election,” said Khun Gamani, a social
researcher. “I think she is desperate to get the Burmese Army’s recognition and
deference.”
“This aggressive populism will render
sustainable peace and reconciliation inside Myanmar even more impossible,” said
Sawangwongse Yawnghwe, an artist and activist whose grandfather was the
country’s first president. “It’s all for short-term gain and winning next
year’s election, but the impact of what her government is doing now will be
felt for generations to come.”
Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s supporters said that
she was not necessarily walking in lock step with the nation’s military, known
as the Tatmadaw. Myanmar’s delicate power-sharing structure means that any
contrary move by the pro-democracy camp could push the military further out of
the barracks, they said.
“She is not going to The Hague because she is
on the same side as the Tatmadaw,” said Mr. Myo Nyunt, the National League for
Democracy spokesman. “It’s more like a parent taking responsibility for his or
her kid’s problems.”
But critics said that had Ms. Aung San Suu
Kyi used her moral eloquence to defend persecuted ethnic minorities, virulent
hatred of the Rohingya in Myanmar would not have become as acceptable as it now
is.
“The military and Aung San Suu Kyi’s denials
are not only crude attempts to cover up atrocities but the ugly rhetoric does
harm to survivors,” said Matthew Smith, a co-founder of Fortify Rights, an
advocacy group. “It contributes to the destruction as a group. This is all by
design.”
Most Rohingya remaining in Myanmar are
interned in camps or confined to their villages, without access to basic
services. In its court submissions, Gambia said this population faced “grave
danger of further genocidal acts.”
Elsewhere, the Rohingya who now live in the
largest refugee settlement in the world, a sprawl of mud and shacks in
Bangladesh, have been told that their encampments will soon be enclosed by
barbed-wire fencing. Internet access has slowed since local telecommunications
firms were ordered by the Bangladeshi government not to provide coverage to
those without proper papers.
In their flimsy shelters, the Rohingya
refugees in Bangladesh can do little but depend on judicial deliberations a
continent away.
“We are quite sure that Aung San Suu Kyi will
not tell the truth at the court and will try to protect herself and the military,”
said Alam Shah, a Rohingya refugee in Bangladesh. “We trust the international
lawyers and we hope they will not join hands with the perpetrators.”
Hannah Beech reported from Bangkok, and Saw
Nang from Mandalay, Myanmar. Marlise Simons contributed reporting from The
Hague.