Myanmar rejects ICJ ruling

Myanmar has responded defiantly to a ruling by the UN's top court ordering measures to prevent the genocide of Rohingya Muslims.

The country's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it presented a "distorted picture of the situation".

Thousands of Rohingya died and more than 700,000 fled to Bangladesh during an army crackdown in 2017.

The measures imposed by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) are binding and not subject to appeal. However the ICJ has no way of enforcing them.

The case was lodged by the African Muslim majority nation of The Gambia. The ruling warned that genocidal actions could recur.

Myanmar's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said its own commission, the Independent Commission of Enquiry, found that there had been no genocide in Rakhine state. However it did say that war crimes had occurred, and were being investigated and prosecuted by Myanmar's national criminal justice system.

It also blamed condemnation by "human rights actors" for affecting Myanmar's bilateral relations with some countries.

"This has hampered Myanmar's ability to lay the foundation for sustainable development in Rakhine," it added in a statement.

Myanmar, a predominantly Buddhist state, has always insisted that its military campaign was waged to tackle an extremist threat in Rakhine state.

During her defence statement at the court in The Hague, Myanmar's de-facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi described the violence as an "internal armed conflict" triggered by Rohingya militant attacks on government security posts.
The panel of 17 judges at the ICJ on Thursday voted unanimously to order Myanmar to take "all measures within its power" to prevent genocide, which they said the Rohingya remained at serious risk of.

These include the prevention of killing and "causing serious bodily or mental harm" to members of the group, as well as preserving evidence of possible genocide that has already occurred.

Source: BBC

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