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Aung San Suu Kyi Appears in Hague to Defend Myanmar Against Genocide Charges

Henry Ridgwell

   LONDON -- Myanmar's state counsellor, the Nobel laureate Aung San Suu
   Kyi, appeared at the International Court of Justice in The Hague on
   Tuesday to defend her government against accusations of genocide.

   Myanmar's military is accused of conducting a campaign of mass
   killings, rape and torture against the country's Rohingya Muslim
   community in 2017, forcing more than 700,000 to flee to neighboring
   Bangladesh.

   Aung San Suu Kyi was held under house arrest for 15 years until 2010,
   but she is now defending the military that once imprisoned her. Almost
   28 years to the day since she won the Nobel Peace Prize, the state
   counsellor listened as lawyers for Gambia, which brought the case
   against Myanmar, began to detail the alleged acts of genocide.

   "One witness recounted, 'The soldiers killed the male members of my
   family. They shot them first and then slit their throats. The courtyard
   was full of blood,'" lawyer Andrew Loewenstein told the court. "'They
   killed my husband, my father-in-law and my two nephews of 15 and 8
   years old. They even killed the child in the same way.'"

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