Myanmar leader tells court in The Hague that civilian deaths were not genocide but part of a civil war

She might have been saving her best defence for the highest stage of all. But the arguments advanced by Aung San Suu Kyi at The Hague in response to allegations including genocide were much the same as the Burmese leader has been making for years. Most had been discredited long before she delivered her 20-minute address at the international court of justice on Wednesday morning.

There had undoubtedly been violence in the country’s restive northern Rakhine state, Aung San Suu Kyi told the judges. Armed groups had attacked the Burmese army, which had responded with force, sending more than 700,000 Rohingya fleeing to Bangladesh. But she challenged the idea that the military’s actions were carried out with genocidal intent – “to destroy the Rohingya as a group, in whole or in part”.