International Court of Justice to Proceed Myanmar’s Genocide Case Over Military Brutal 2017 Crackdown

The U.N. Supreme Court ruled on Friday that Myanmar will stand trial on genocide charges against the country’s Rohingya minority. 

 The country’s military, which seized power in a coup last year, had asked the International Court of Justice to dismiss the case, claiming the court lacked jurisdiction. 

 But on Friday, the International Court of Justice has moved forward the lawsuit filed by the Gambia alleging that Myanmar’s military conducted a brutal “clearance operations” of the Rohingya in 2016 and 2017, forcing more than 700,000 people to flee to Bangladesh.  

 “Genocidal acts committed during these operations were intended to destroy the Rohingya as a group, in whole or in part, by the use of mass murder, rape and other forms of sexual violence, as well as the systematic destruction by fire of their villages, often with inhabitants locked inside burning houses,” says Gambia.

 U.N. human rights officials demanded action and issued a report in March saying the military showed a “flagrant disregard for human life,” and deliberately targeted civilians, which could amount to war crimes.  

 The U.N. high commissioner for human rights, Michelle Bachelet said “The appalling breadth and scale of violations of international law suffered by the people of Myanmar demand a firm, unified and resolute international response.”

 Several soldiers who involved in the massacre said in interviews that they were following orders to “torture, loot and kill innocent people.”

 “We were ordered to round up all the men and shoot them dead,” one of the soldiers said in an interview. “The saddest thing was we had to kill elderly people and a woman.”

 Another soldier who is currently staying in a safehouse, said they targeted “men, women and children indiscriminately.”