London, Dec 11 (UNI) Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi on Wednesday defended Myanmar against allegations of genocide at the UN International Court of Justice (ICJ) at the Hague.
Responding to claims that Myanmar government committed atrocities against Muslim Rohingyas, she at the UN International Court of Justice (ICJ), she called the allegations against her country an “incomplete and misleading factual picture of the situation in Rakhine state”.
She said troubles in Rakhine, where many Rohingya lived, go back centuries.
Suu Kyi maintained that the violence an "internal armed conflict" triggered by Rohingya militant attacks on government security posts.
Thousands of Rohingya were killed and more than 700,000 fled to neighbouring Bangladesh during an army crackdown in Buddhist-majority Myanmar in 2017.
Gambia, a small Muslim-majority west African nation, brought the case to the ICJ on behalf of dozens of other Muslim countries.
Conceding that Myanmar's military may have used disproportionate force at times, she said that if soldiers had committed war crimes "they will be prosecuted".
She told the court her country was committed to the safe repatriation of people displaced from Rakhine, and urged the court to avoid any action that could aggravate the conflict.
UNI SRJ