Myanmar Rejects Genocide Accusations Against Rohingya

Accusations are "flawed and unfounded"

The Minister for the President's Office in Myanmar, Ko Ko Hlaing, stated that international cases accusing the country of genocide against the Muslim Rohingya minority are "defective and unfounded." In a statement published by state media, Myanmar's military government criticized the case brought to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) by Gambia.

The Foreign Minister asserted that "the accusations made by Gambia are factually and legally unfounded" and that "biased reports based on unreliable evidence cannot replace the truth." The military government, which seized power in 2021, claimed to cooperate with the ICJ case "in good faith" out of respect for international law.

Gambia filed the complaint against Myanmar at the ICJ in 2019, two years after the country's military launched an offensive that forced approximately 750,000 Rohingya to flee their homes, mostly to Bangladesh. Survivors of this offensive reported mass killings, rapes, and arson.

Today, around 1.17 million Rohingya live in dire conditions in refugee camps in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh. On the first day of the trial, Gambian Justice Minister Dawda Jallow told the court that the Rohingya "were targeted for destruction" in Myanmar.

Myanmar's lawyers are set to begin their court response on Friday. This trial is the first genocide case that the ICJ has examined in detail in more than a decade, and its outcome could have repercussions for other cases, including South Africa's petition against Israel concerning the genocidal war in Gaza.

The hearings will last three weeks. The then-UN human rights chief described the attacks in Myanmar as a "classic example of ethnic cleansing," and a UN investigative mission concluded that the 2017 offensive included "acts of genocide." However, Myanmar's authorities rejected this report, claiming that the military's offensives were a legitimate campaign against terrorism.

Wednesday's statement from Myanmar's Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not use the term Rohingya but referred to "persons from Rakhine State." The Rohingya are not recognized as an official minority in Myanmar, which denies them citizenship despite many having roots in the country for centuries.

A final decision on the Rohingya genocide case could take months or even years, and although the ICJ lacks means to enforce its decisions, a ruling in favor of Gambia could exert additional political pressure on Myanmar. The Southeast Asian country is currently conducting staged elections criticized by the UN, some Western nations, and human rights groups as neither free nor fair.