Myanmar made lives of the Rohingyas a nightmare

Gambia yesterday told judges at the United Nations’ top court that Myanmar targeted minority Muslim Rohingyas for destruction and made their lives a nightmare in a landmark case accusing Myanmar of genocide.

It is the first genocide case the International Court of Justice (ICJ) is hearing in full in more than a decade. The outcome will have repercussions beyond Myanmar, likely affecting South Africa’s genocide case at the ICJ against Israel over the war in Gaza. 

Myanmar has denied genocide. In total, the hearings at the ICJ will span three weeks. Gambia’s Minister of Justice Dawda Jallow told ICJ judges the Rohingya were simple people with dreams of living in peace and dignity. “They have been targeted for destruction,” he said.

“Myanmar has denied them their dream, in fact it turned their lives into a nightmare subjecting them to the most horrific violence and destruction one could imagine,” according to Jallow.

The predominantly Muslim West African country of Gambia filed the case at the ICJ - also known as the World Court - in 2019, accusing Myanmar of committing genocide against the Rohingya, a mainly Muslim minority in the remote western Rakhine state.

Speaking in The Hague before the hearings, Rohingya victims said they want the long-awaited court case to deliver justice. 

Meanwhile, Myanmar’s main pro-military party yesterday claimed victory in the parliamentary seat of sidelined democratic leader Aung San Suu Kyi in elections being derided as a ploy to prolong junta rule.

The junta says the current month-long vote -- which has its final phase scheduled for January 25 -- will return power to the people.

With Suu Kyi still held in seclusion and her hugely popular party dissolved, democracy advocates say the vote has been rigged by a crackdown on dissent and a ballot stacked with military allies.

An official from the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), speaking anonymously because they were unauthorised to share results, said they “won in Kawhmu” -- Suu Kyi’s former seat in Yangon region.

“We won 15 lower house seats out of 16 places in Yangon region,” they added, after Kawhmu and dozens of other constituencies voted in the election’s second stage on Sunday.