YANGON (AFP): A hundreds-strong crowd in Myanmar rallied on Tuesday against the country's prosecution for genocide, a rare public protest permitted by military authorities accused of the atrocities against the Rohingya minority.
Myanmar is defending itself at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) from allegations its crackdown on the mostly Muslim minority starting in 2017 breached the United Nations' genocide convention.
Dancing to drums in downtown Yangon, the crowd of nationalist activists and saffron-robed monks twirled miniature national flags and toted banners denying accusations of ethnic cleansing being levelled at The Hague.
"We gather today for the dignity of our country, the truth for our country and for justice for our country," ultra-nationalist activist Win Ko Ko Latt told AFP before taking the stage.
"Myanmar is a land where loving kindness flourishes. There is no such thing as genocide."
Myanmar's leaders insist the Rohingya are descendants of immigrants from Bangladesh, and that their crackdown targeted a militant uprising.
Executions, rape and torture by the army and Buddhist militias forced an exodus of more than one million Rohingya, who now live across the border in Bangladesh, in the world's largest refugee settlement.
The ICJ hearings against Myanmar began on January 12 and are due to conclude on Thursday, but a ruling could take months or even years.
While the UN court has no means of enforcing its decisions, a guilty verdict would heap more pressure on Myanmar, already considered a pariah state by many nations after the military snatched power in a 2021 coup.
Some countries, including the United States, already deem the military crackdown a genocide, and junta chief Min Aung Hlaing has been sanctioned over the armed forces' actions.
Other genocide cases are also open at the International Criminal Court and in Argentina under the principle of universal jurisdiction.
While Myanmar has a long history of military rule, the campaign began in a democratic interlude when the country was led by Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who in 2019 appeared at The Hague to defend her country's generals against genocide allegations.
That defence did not spare Suu Kyi, 80, from military detention, where she has languished since the military coup five years ago. -- AFP
