Ahmed won the coveted prize last year largely for forging a complex and difficult peace with neighboring Eritrea.

In doing so he greatly assisted stability in the Horn of Africa, one of the most dangerous hotspots on the planet.

He has yet to match domestically what he has achieved regionally.

In that respect he’s like the 1991 peace prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.

She richly deserved the prize awarded for her doughty resistance to the brutal military regime in Myanmar.

Her star has faded of late because of her stubborn refusal to speak out against what is to all intents and purposes a genocide against the Rohingya people – a Muslim minority in a majority Buddhist country.

Ahmed has decided to show his muscle against the minority Tigray people.

Comprising only six percent of Ethiopia 110 million people they dominated business and politics until Ahmed from the majority  Oromo ethnic group took the helm.

The Tigrayan have a special place in Ethiopia’s history.

Legend has it their land bordering Eritrea was the home of the  Queen of Sheba.

A church in Tigray is said to house the Ark of the Covenant.

In 1991, the same year Aung San Suu Kyi won her Nobel Prize the Tigrayan led the fight to topple the cruel Derg regime in Ethiopia.

They have, of late become hugely angry at Ahmed reforms, claiming that they are becoming increasingly marginalized.

They are not the only ethnic group to oppose Ahmed’s reforms.

On November 4, Tigrayan rebels attacked a government military base.

There is no reliable indication of casualties.

Indeed the toll from three weeks of fighting is difficult to ascertain.

It is said to be hundreds, perhaps thousands.

The United Nations says if reports of attacks against civilians are true, it would amount to war crimes.

At least 40 000 Tigrayan have fled into neighboring Sudan to escape the fighting.

The Tigrayan have ratcheted up things with rocket attacks into Eritrea to the north and the Ethiopian province of Amhara to the South.

Ahmed’s assurance that the insurrection would not become a war has proved to be optimistic.

Fearful of a regional conflagration, the United Nations, European Union and African Union have all urgently called for an immediate ceasefire.

Ahmed is having none of it.

He says he will talk to the three AU envoys named to broker a peace.

Indeed he is open to negotiations with anyone except the Tigrayan leadership.

He has surrounded the Tigray capital of Mek’ele and warned residents to save themselves.

His uncompromising call to the Tigray leadership at the weekend was: “You have 72 hours to surrender.” 

He believes that Ethiopia will be pulled apart if he does not completely subdue Tigray. 

Angry and undoubtedly provoked, his bellicose language can be understood.

Nevertheless, it is not the behavior of an internationally acclaimed peacemaker.

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She been attacked by the Gambia, who is leveling the charge, for her silence about alleged atrocities against the Rohingya Muslim minority.

Speaking on the final day of hearings, Aung San Suu Kyi called the 2017 crackdown on on the Rohingya a clearance operation targeting  militants.

The Nobel Peace Prize winner is accused to ignoring widespread allegations of  mass murder, rape and forced deportation of Rohingya.

Thousands were killed and at least 700 000 forced to flee into neighboring Bangladesh.

The court now has to decide whether to impose legally binding measures to protect the Rohingya.

The post Genocide case undermines reconciliation in Myanmar, says Aung San Suu Kyi appeared first on Jean-Jacques Cornish.

She says the allegations from the West African state a re incomplete and misleading.

ends intro

Aung San Suu Kyi didn’t have to appear at the International Court of Justice.

Indeed she’s risking what remains of her reputation doing so.

She tells the court that Burmese soldiers might have used disproportionate force in dealing with the complex Rohingya crisis.

But she insists a regime that has investigated, prosecuted and punished soldiers and officers guilty of wrongdoing could not be guilty of genocide.

And she insists appropriate action will be taken against civilians guilty of violence.

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The statement today calls for an end to the human suffering experienced by the Rohingya people. 

South Africa’s consistently condemned human rights violations in Myanmar – most recently at the Indian Ocean Rim Association meeting held in Durban this month.
As South Africa approaches its third term as a rotating member of the United Nations Security Council, Minister of International Relations and Cooperation Lindiwe Sisulu has instructed her representatives at the world organization’s headquarters in New York and at its Human Rights Council in Geneva to reflect this concern in voting on any resolutions on Myanmar.

South Africa will avoid having its  votes used to engage in regime changes or  destabilizing  countries.

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Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein says the de facto Myanmar leader should have resigned rather than try to excuse the genocide of the Rohingya minority by Burmese  generals.

Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein was one of the millions of admirers of Aung San Suu Kyi for enduring imprisonment by the military clique running Myanmar.

How she’s become notorious as the woman who refused to speak out against the military campaign against the Muslim minority.

Hussein says she was in a position to do something. Rather than try to defend it, she could have  stayed quiet, he said. Better still she could have resigned.

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