The Burmese junta expressed its displeasure on Saturday after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) declared itself competent to judge the complaint against Burma for genocide against the Rohingyas.
“Burma is disappointed that its preliminary objections have been overruled,” the Burmese Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Facebook.
The military in power believe that Burma’s objections were solidly based on a legal plan and noted in passing that one of the judges had issued a dissenting opinion on one of the points raised.
On Friday, the ICJ, the highest judicial body of the United Nations, headquartered in The Hague in the Netherlands, announced that the proceedings initiated in 2019 against Burma would be able to follow their course. She rejected one by one the objections of the Burmese government which calls into question the admissibility of the action.
It is a West African country whose population is predominantly Muslim, Gambia, which is at the origin of the procedure.
The Burmese government is accused of violations of the United Nations Convention on Genocide of 1948 at the time of the tragic events of 2017, which occurred before the putsch of 2021 when the ex-leader Aung San Suu Kyi was in power.
That year, hundreds of thousands of Rohingya, members of a predominantly Muslim and persecuted minority in Burma, a predominantly Buddhist country, fled a bloody crackdown by the army and Buddhist militias.
Testimonies have reported murders, rapes and arson.
Around 850,000 Rohingya still languish in refugee camps in Bangladesh.
The ICJ having declared itself competent, it can now examine the case on the merits and organize hearings. However, several years could pass before having its final verdict.
