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Original Research Reports
Aung San Suu Kyi’s Defensive Denial of the Rohingya Massacre: A Rhetorical
Analysis of Denial and Positive-Image Construction
Idhamsyah Eka Putra1,2, Hema Preya Selvanathan3, Ali Mashuri4, Cristina J. Montiel5
[1] Faculty of Psychology, Persada Indonesia University, Jakarta, Indonesia. [2] Division for Applied Social Psychology Research (DASPR), Jakarta, Indonesia.
[3] School of Psychology, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. [4] Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, University of Brawijaya, Malang,
Indonesia. [5] Department of Psychology, Ateneo de Manila University, Quezon City, Philippines.
Journal of Social and Political Psychology, 2021, Vol. 9(2), 353–369, https://doi.org/10.5964/jspp.7301
Received: 2020-04-09 • Accepted: 2021-06-16 • Published (VoR): 2021-08-26
Handling Editor: Johanna Vollhardt, Clark University, Worcester, MA, USA
Corresponding Author: Idhamsyah Eka Putra, Universitas Persada Indonesia, Jl. Diponegoro No. 74 Jakarta Pusat, Indonesia. E-mail: idhamsyah.eka@upi-
yai.ac.id
Supplementary Materials: Materials [see Index of Supplementary Materials]
Abstract
In December 2019, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) accused the Myanmar government of genocide against Rohingya Muslims.
Represented by Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar authorities denied such accusations. To understand how a
political leader can deny ingroup wrongdoings, we unpacked Suu Kyi’s ICJ speech and analyzed her defensive rhetorical style
through critical narrative analysis. We aimed to identify and describe the denial strategies Suu Kyi used as well as how she
maintained a positive ingroup image to support her position. Our indings showed that Suu Kyi engaged in interpretative denial of
genocide by arguing that genocide cannot occur when there is armed conlict, that there were victims and perpetrators on both sides,
and that misconducts by law enforcement had been addressed. To maintain the ingroup’s positive image, she portrayed Myanmar as
moral by emphasizing the government’s knowledge of ethical standards and laws, as well as their support for peace and justice. By
examining political discourse used by a national leader internationally renowned for supporting human rights, our indings shed light
on the dynamic, constructive nature of denial. Theoretical and applied contributions to understanding denial of ingroup wrongdoing
are discussed.
Keywords
denial, ingroup wrongdoing, genocide, mass violence, competitive victimhood, ingroup image, moral disengagement
Non-Technical Summary
Background
The Rohingya Muslims are a highly persecuted ethnic minority in Myanmar. In November 2019, The Gambia lodged a case in
the International Court of Justice (ICJ) accusing Myanmar of committing genocide against the Rohingya people. In December
2019, Aung San Suu Kyi, an international icon of democracy from Myanmar, represented her country at the ICJ and denied
accusations of genocide.
Why was this study done?
Our goal was to understand the arguments that Suu Kyi constructed to defend Myanmar against accusations of genocide.
Speciically, we focused on the denial strategies she used and the way she maintained a positive image of Myanmar to persuade
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons
Attribution 4.0 International License, CC BY 4.0, which permits unrestricted use,
distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited.
the audience at the ICJ to adopt her political position. By focusing on her linguistic style, we aimed to contribute to the
understanding of how perpetrators of mass violence psychologically defend themselves to avoid facing moral sanctions.
What did the researchers do and find?
We analysed Suu Kyi’s speech at the ICJ as the main data, and also examined her media interviews on the topic as
complimentary data. We focused on how and why the arguments are made, while also considering Suu Kyi’s role as a peace
activist. Our approach also critically considered the perspectives that were highlighted and those that were downplayed or
omitted to advance a particular argument. Our indings showed that Suu Kyi engaged in interpretive denial, a strategy where
perpetrators admit that some degree of wrongdoing was committed but they deny the implications of those actions. Her
arguments highlighted the idea that 1) the killings are not genocidal because there was armed conlict, 2) that the Rohingya
were not the only victims of the conlict, 3) the Rohingya were also perpetrators, and 3) misconducts by law enforcement had
been addressed. She likewise constructed a positive image of the Myanmar government by emphasizing that 1) they knew the
rule of law and the consequences for violating it, and 2) they were supporters of peace and justice.
What do these findings mean?
Our research shows how defensive strategies to deny ingroup atrocities are used by a leader renowned for peace activism. This
was done by using denial strategies that are in part supported by constructing a positive group image. This suggests that to
intervene and/or punish offenders of mass atrocities, there is a need to critically consider whether and how past moral
behaviors and group reputation should factor into these decisions. How the narrative is framed and told also can be used as a
persuasive approach of denial arguments and to boost positive image construction.
“When one-third of the Rohingya population had to flee the country, could
you find a better word to describe it?”
Antonio Guterres, UN Secretary General
At the International Court of Justice (hereafter ICJ) in December 2019, The Gambia and 57 other members of the
Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) accused the Myanmar government of committing genocide in its treatment
against Rohingya Muslims (Aljazeera, 2019). Myanmar denied the accusation. Although perpetrators of mass killings
usually deny their criminal acts (Leach, Zeineddine, & Čehajić-Clancy, 2013), Myanmar’s case stands out because the
alleged genocide was defended by Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. It is often the case that mass atrocities
such as genocide are heavily contested, which affects the victim group’s (Vollhardt, Mazur, & Lemahieu, 2014) and
bystander’s (Leidner, 2015) support for intergroup reconciliation in the aftermath of genocide.
Our study analyzes Suu Kyi’s rhetorical defense of her country’s contended genocide. In general, we are interested
in understanding the ways in which Suu Kyi addressed the accusation of genocide, the denial strategies she used, and
how she attempted to maintain a positive image of Myanmar. In addition, we examine whether her responses can be
connected to her identity as a peace activist and how this is similar or different to other accused cases of genocide. We
irst review the literature on rhetoric as politically performative, and why groups engage in denial of past wrongdoings.
We then describe the societal context of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar.
Rhetoric as Politically Performative
We situate our analytical lens at the crossroads of discourse, psychology, and politics, wherein spoken words or text
written by those in power aim to achieve their political goals (Souto-Manning, 2014). Political discourse is therefore
performative in the sense that rhetoric can be a social act (i.e., to do something in a social environment) driven
by particular goals, including justiications, denials, excuses, reproach, accusations, and rebuttals (Edwards, 1991; Le
Couteur & Augoustinos, 2001; Montiel, Umel, & de Leon, 2016). We posit that one overriding goal among politicians and
political leaders, especially in contested public spheres, is to win support from third party groups – who may not have
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a direct stake in the conlict but are nonetheless important to advance a political aim (see Simon & Klandermans, 2001).
This is why it is important to look at how political leaders deny ingroup wrongdoings in their public speeches.
Accordingly, we conceptualize Aung Suu Kyi’s speech at the ICJ as political rhetoric performed to win over the ICJ
decision-makers. We argue that Aung Suu Kyi’s rhetoric aimed to inluence the ICJ in favor of Myanmar, because the
ICJ were the judges in a court contestation lodged by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation against the Myanmar
government over the treatment of Rohingya Muslims in the country. To understand her rhetoric, we turn to how groups
may strategically deny their ingroup’s wrongdoing.
Denial of Ingroup Wrongdoing and its Rhetorical Arguments
One’s ingroup is a powerful source of moral guidance on how to live our lives and interact with others. Accordingly,
when faced with accusations of group-based wrongdoings such as mass killings or genocide, ingroup members may
defend their ingroup (e.g., Bilali, 2013; Brown, Zageka, González, Manzi, & Čehajić, 2008; Peetz, Gunn, & Wilson, 2010;
Putra, Wagner, Rufaedah, & Holtz, 2019). Denying the crimes committed by one’s ingroup helps prevent the group from
facing the punitive consequences and moral sanctions of their transgression. This is one of the strategies Bandura (1999)
describes as moral disengagement (see also Leidner, Castano, Zaiser, & Giner-Sorolla, 2010).
To understand the ways in which ingroup members deny or fail to admit ingroup wrongdoing, previous indings can
be conceptualized under the three types of denial strategies irst outlined by Cohen (2001). The irst denial strategy is
literal denial, which is when the accused group claims that the wrongdoing against outgroup members never happened.
For example, Holocaust deniers claim that the Nazi genocide of European Jews during World War II was a hoax despite
extensive evidence to the contrary (Shermer & Grobman, 2009). Literal denials are further exacerbated by rhetorical
counter accusations that call the victim’s claim a lie, slander, fraud, or hoax.
A second type of denial pertains to interpretative denial (Cohen, 2001). In such cases, accused perpetrators admit
ingroup wrongdoings, yet deny the impact or implications of those actions. Muslim massacres in Bosnia and Herzegovi
na between 1992 and 1995 exemplify this. Serbian leaders acknowledged that the killings indeed targeted Muslims in
Bosnia and Herzegovina, yet Serbs labeled such atrocities as tragedies and crimes, avoiding the word ‘genocide’ (Parent,
2016). Interpretative denial can also emerge when perpetrators position themselves as victims, as in the case of the
Austrian government that avoided acknowledging the Holocaust by pointing out that Austrians were considered victims
of the Nazis as well (Wodak, 2006). This is related to the phenomenon of competitive victimhood (Noor, Shnabel, Halabi,
& Nadler, 2012), whereby perpetrator groups attempt to establish that their ingroup suffered the most, which can trigger
an escalating spiral of counter accusations between groups.
Building on Cohen (2001)’s theorizing on interpretative denial, we consider the diffusion (or shifting) of responsibili
ty as another rhetorical strategy for interpretative denial (see Wodak, 1991). As Bandura (1999) describes, the accused
may use moral disengagement strategies to deny their own responsibility by claiming the incident was someone else’s
fault or was an order from someone more superior (e.g., a national leader). By inding ways to justify unethical and
inhumane conducts, they free themselves and their group from moral condemnation. A good illustration of this is the
confession of Adolf Eichman during his trial in 1961 when he was charged for the Holocaust and other war crimes.
Eichman admitted that he helped organize the Holocaust, but claimed he was just following orders and had no other
choice.
In a third type of denial called implicatory denial, accused perpetrators admit the acts, but do not acknowledge
such acts as wrong (Cohen, 2001). This form of denial was evident in Indonesia during the years 1965 to 1966, when
communists were socially constructed as evil and a threat to unity in the country. This line of thinking legitimized the
eradication of an estimated 500,000 to 1 million Indonesians accused as communists responsible for widespread violence
and hence deserving of their punishment (Putra et al., 2019).
Drawing on these distinctions, in the present research we examine the dynamic of Suu Kyi’s rhetorical denial of the
Rohingya massacre, speciically for whether there is evidence of literal, interpretative, and/or implicatory denial.
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Constructing a Positive Ingroup Image
In thinking about a leader’s denial strategies of ingroup wrongdoing, it is also important to consider the psychological
function that this strategy serves for the perpetrator group. Since people are motivated to perceive their ingroup in a
positive light, acknowledgements of ingroup wrongdoings could bring shame to the group, undermine ingroup dignity
or pride, and promote defensiveness (e.g., Brown et al., 2008; Peetz et al., 2010; Wohl, Branscombe, & Klar, 2006).
Along with the denial of wrongdoing, accused perpetrators may present themselves as tolerant, trustful, and kind
to maintain a positive image of their group. It is possible that both denial and positive image arguments are two
manifestations of the same motivation, and analyzing them in tandem can help us understand the interpretative power
of the speaker’s expressions. While denial arguments are a defensive strategy (e.g., “it was a hoax” or “it was an
accident”), the construction of the ingroup’s positive image is meant to persuade others of the denial arguments. Thus,
one way to understand the link between denial arguments and construction of a positive group image is that the former
provides a logical basis for the latter.
From the social identity perspective on leadership, we know that leaders are often viewed as prototypical group
members, such that the leader’s position and arguments most clearly differentiate the ingroup from relevant outgroups
(Haslam, Reicher, & Platow, 2011). To be effective, it is important for a leader to be seen as having the group’s best
interest at heart and viewed by ingroup members as “doing it for us” (Reicher, Haslam, & Hopkins, 2005). Leaders also
play a key role in shaping the outcomes of group-based conlicts: It is through the actions of leaders that an intergroup
conlict might end in reconciliation (Morselli & Passini, 2010) or mass killings (Wodak, de Cillia, Reisigl, & Liebhart,
2009).
One of the strategies group members use to maintain a positive group image is to convince others that good people
cannot engage in bad behaviors (Augoustinos & Every, 2007). Cases like this are often found when people engage
in prejudice denial, by claiming “we are not racist” or “our people are generous”. Such positive claims are typically
followed by conjunction words like “but” or “however”, to bridge an explanation of ingroup values that are under threat
(Augoustinos & Every, 2007; see also Chiang, 2010). Such rhetoric highlights the morality of the ingroup while at the
same time justifying discriminatory policies against outgroups to ensure the best interest of the ingroup is protected.
In the context of mass violence, an example of positive image construction occurred during the Cambodian Genocide
of the 1970s under Pol Pot’s government to turn the country into a socialist and communist state. The genocide took
the lives of around a fourth of the country’s population (Kiernan, 2003). Pol Pot, however, denied the genocide and
described himself as far from savage. Instead, he claimed that it is impossible for him to kill his own people as his
struggle was for the sake of the Cambodian people (Maguire, 2005). Taken together, positive image construction by a
national leader is an important method that is central to the denial of wrongdoings. Next, to contextualize our research
questions on denial and positive image-construction, we present a brief overview of the context in Myanmar.
Societal Context: Rohingya Muslims and Aung San Suu Kyi
Who Are the Rohingya?
In general, the Rohingya people refers to a Muslim ethnoreligious group from the northern Rakhine state of Western
Myanmar known as the Arakan state (Parnini, 2013). Rohingya are descendants of Arab, Moorish, Persians, Moghul,
Turks, Pathan, or Bengalis (Rahman, 2010). In contrast with the majority Buddhist Burmese and Rakhine who speak
Burmese or Rakhine, the Rohingya speak Bengali. Since February 1978, the Rohingya people were persecuted and
over two hundred thousand of them were forced to seek refuge, particularly in Bangladesh (Parnini, 2013). In 1982, a
citizenship law stripped the Rohingya of Myanmar citizenship, making them de jure stateless people (Haque, 2017). At
the time of writing, Rohingya continue to suffer human rights’ violations under the Myanmar government and many of
those living in refugee camps face protracted displacement (Xchange.org, 2019).
Aung San Suu Kyi and the Present Study
Aung San Suu Kyi1 is the daughter of independence hero General Aung San and Daw Khin Kyi. In September 1988,
Suu Kyi co-founded the National League for Democracy (NLD). Considered a threat by the then Myanmar leader of
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the newly formed military junta2, Suu Kyi was placed under house arrest from 1989 to 2010. It was during this time
that Suu Kyi received the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize for her non-violent struggle for democracy. Upon her release in 2010,
Suu Kyi led the oppositionist political movement. Given her role in Myanmar’s democratic transition, Suu Kyi became
internationally renowned for her activism. Since 2016, Suu Kyi has held key government positions such as Foreign
Minister and State Counselor of Myanmar.
However, political developments unravel rapidly in new democracies. The Myanmar military again effected a
successful power grab on 1 February 2021 (BBC, 2021). General Min Aung Hlaing, accused as the mastermind of the
Rohingya genocide in 2017 (UNHRC, 2018), led the coup in early February 2021. As of this writing, military general
Myint Swe serves as acting President; national leader Aung San Suu Kyi is in prison again.
Since the Rohingya crisis gained worldwide prominence in August 2017, Suu Kyi had been widely criticised for her
silence (Lee, 2014) on the state’s violent treatment of the Rohingya and for failing to condemn the violence. In December
2019, in her oficial government capacities, Suu Kyi delivered a speech to the ICJ to legally defend the Myanmar
government and military against genocidal accusations of the Rohingya Muslims. As far as we know, Suu Kyi was not
involved irst-hand in the killings, and neither was she accused of ordering the killings. In January 2020, the judges at
the ICJ ordered Myanmar to take emergency measures to protect the Rohingya from genocide.
Speciically, within the context of the Rohingya genocide in Myanmar, we irst investigated the denial strategies
that Suu Kyi, as a leader of Myanmar and a prominent peace activist, engaged in to defend her country against the
accusation of mass killings. Second, we explored the strategies that Suu Kyi used to defend and protect the ingroup’s
positive image. By analysing her rhetorical strategies, our approach adds to psychological literature on denial of
collective violence, which has largely taken a quantitative approach to examine the predictors and outcomes of denial
of ingroup wrongdoings (e.g., Bilali & Vollhardt, 2019; Wohl et al., 2006). We contribute to the dearth of qualitative
approaches on how denial arguments are constructed and expressed by groups.
Method
Data
Our primary data source was Suu Kyi’s speech in the ICJ on 12th December 2019, when she defended Myanmar from
accusations of mass killings, rape, and expulsion of the mostly Muslim Rohingya minority. The video of Suu Kyi’s ICJ
speech can be found on YouTube and the transcript in Al Jazeera.3 There were also interviews by BBC’s Fergal Keane
in April 2017 and BBC’ Mishal Husain in October 20134. We used these interviews as secondary data to check for the
consistency of Suu Kyi’s arguments on the Rohingya case. To differentiate Suu Kyi’s speech at the ICJ, we coded 2013
interview as “Suu Kyi, 2013” and 2017 interview as “Suu Kyi, 2017”.
Analytical Approach
There are many different approaches used to analyze discourses and rhetorical narratives (Gibson, 2013; Parker, 2013).
In the present study, we utilized critical narrative analysis (CNA; Souto-Manning, 2014) to understand how the narrative
is told, and to analyze the speaker critically as the representative of the country, by considering her position and
self-descriptions. This approach further questions the perspective that is presented or highlighted as well as the
perspectives that are omitted or underplayed.
1) The references of the irst two paragraphs for Suu Kyi’ background are wholly based on Popham (2012), Pletcher (2019) and Internet archives: http://
factsanddetails.com/southeast-asia/Myanmar/sub5_5b/entry-3015.html
2) The military was in power from 1962 to 2011 and was still considered a powerful faction in Myanmar during the ICJ inquiry.
3) Suu Kyi’s speech in ICJ can be viewed through this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KI4L0bt0Kno, and the transcript through this link: https://
www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/12/transcript-aung-san-suu-kyi-speech-icj-full-191212085257384.html
4) 2017 interview can be viewed through this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFEEmdKbqBE, and 2013 interview through this link: https://
www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNVE_Ch_Q18
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CNA draws on both narrative analysis and critical discourse analysis (for a review, see Souto-Manning, 2014).
Narrative analysis (Murray, 2003) focuses on the ways stories are crafted by speaker(s) and how these stories are
used to understand phenomena or social events. Critical discourse analysis (Van Dijk, 1993) examines spoken or
written text by critically investigating the role of social power and ideology. Thus, it focuses more on the speaker’s
characteristics (e.g., socioeconomic background, social status) and the social context in which the text is delivered
(who is the recipient/audience, mode/method of communication, type of topics). By mixing the approaches of narrative
and critical discourse analysis, CNA “allows us to learn how people create their selves in constant social interactions
at both personal and institutional levels, and how institutional discourses inluence and are inluenced by personal
everyday narratives” (Souto-Manning, 2014, p. 163). Thus, through CNA, often the nuance of the analysis is (radically)
constructive (Madill, Jordan, & Shirley, 2000) by seeing how the data (i.e., speech) constructs its objects and subjects,
how it represents reality, and how it is related to the context. This is particularly important in political speeches or
statements in which leaders may incorporate personal or everyday narratives in their institutional discourse.
Particularly, we used CNA as an analytical framework to analyze why and how Suu Kyi denied Gambia’s accusation
of genocide in her speech at the ICJ. In CNA terms, we assume her speech uses narratives as rhetorical strategies
(Souto-Manning, 2014) to convince and persuade the audience to accept a particular political position. Accordingly,
we watched and/or read the data thoroughly and critically examined it to understand how Suu Kyi constructed her
reasoning, what she highlighted, and what she downplayed or did not clearly communicate. We likewise considered Suu
Kyi’s background, personal capacity, and social position. We noted how Suu Kyi’s speech was prepared as somewhat
connected to her as a person (i.e, her background, experience, values) and as part of her ingroup status as Myanmar’s
representative (i.e, group values, norms, history). Hence, we were also interested in Suu Kyi’s perspective and story
about Rohingya. Beyond what was spoken or expressed, we also attempted to understand possible hidden meanings of
her arguments.
In the irst step of analysis, the irst author selected statements related to categories on denial and/or positive
image construction. The categorized statements were then checked and evaluated by the third and fourth authors. After
the themes were considered to capture what is expressed by the data, the irst, third, and fourth authors inalized
the content of the themes. Any differences in interpretations were resolved through discussion. All authors were of
Southeast Asian descent from neighboring countries to Myanmar (i.e., from Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines).
We therefore had related cultural knowledge of the situation given the similarities and parallel histories between our
home countries and Myanmar. Our approach in deining the themes was inductive and followed a bottom-up process
(Howitt, 2010) in which we started by identifying the categories observed in the data that it our theoretical framework.
In the results section below, we present extracts selected as exemplars of key indings, and break down the indings into
two main themes: Suu Kyi’s denial of genocide and positive image construction.
Results
Suu Kyi’s Denial of Genocide
Our indings show how Suu Kyi used interpretative denial of genocide to defend Myanmar at the ICJ. She admitted the
existence of widespread killings of the Rohingyas and at the same time, implied that acts of genocide are indeed wrong.
Her primary rhetorical defense was in the interpretation of the mass killings as non-genocidal. In her speech, we found
four types of rhetorical denial arguments: 1) It is not genocide when there is armed conlict; 2) Both sides are victims; 3)
Both sides are perpetrators; 4) Misconducts by law enforcement have been addressed. We describe each in detail below.
“It Is Not Genocide When There Is Armed Conflict Causing Displacement”
In her speech, Suu Kyi deined genocide, with reference to UN’s 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment
of the Crime of Genocide in Article II5, as acts of whole or partial destructions against a national, ethnic, racial, or
religious group. She then argued that what happened in Rakhine was not genocide but armed conlict. According to
Suu Kyi, because of this armed conlict, people moved away from their homes to ind a safer place. She argued that
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such displacement could not be labeled as ‘genocide’, citing historical examples of cases classiied as genocide and
non-genocide:
Extract 16
[T]he 1948 Genocide Convention is a matter of utmost gravity […] and that my country whole
heartedly signed as early as December 30, 1949, and ratiied on March 14, 1956. Genocide is the
crime that the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda applied in response to the mass-killing
of [...] Tutsis in Rwanda. It is the crime that was not applied by the Tribunal for the former
Yugoslavia to the displacement of approximately one million residents of Kosovo in 1999. Neither
was it applied by that Tribunal nor by this Court when deciding upon the exodus of the Serb
population from Croatia in 1995. In both situations, international justice resisted the temptation to
use this strongest of legal classiications because the requisite speciic intent to physically destroy
the targeted group in whole or in part was not present.
In the statement, Suu Kyi showed that she was deeply knowledgeable about the UN 1948 Convention and the subse
quent cases. Further, she stated that people from Rakhine currently living in shelters or neighboring countries were not
the victims of systematic killing, but armed conlict:
Extract 2
The situation in Rakhine is complex and not easy to fathom. But one thing surely touches all of us
equally: the sufferings of the many innocent people whose lives were torn apart as a consequence
of the armed conlicts of 2016 and 2017, in particular, those who have had to lee their homes and
are now living in camps in Cox's Bazar.
Based on the extract above, Suu Kyi acknowledged that there were problems in Rakhine State, but denied that such
problems were part of systematic killing, as accused by The Gambia.
Such framing above was consistent with her later interviews by BBC in 2013 and 2017 that the victims were the
consequence of the armed conlict. Hence, she built an argument that the main impact of the conlict was displacement,
in that people were forced to become refugees to escape the conlict. Interestingly, in both interviews and in the quote
above, Suu Kyi did not mention the number of casualties. In other parts of her speech, she admitted that there were
victims, but refused to admit they were victims of systematic mass killings. With this, Suu Kyi’s strategy is related to
Cohen’s (2001) interpretative denial in terms of admitting there were victims, but denying the killings were genocidal.
“There Were Victims on Both Sides, Thus It Cannot Be Called Systematic Killing”
It has been argued that inclusive victim beliefs (i.e., claiming that everyone has suffered in similar ways in that context)
can also be used strategically as a way for perpetrator groups to avoid responsibility (McNeill & Vollhardt, 2020;
Vollhardt, 2015). For instance, one of the strategies used to deny the Armenian genocide involved Turks’ (the accused
perpetrator group) claims that Turks were also victims of the war at the time, along with Armenians (Bilali, 2013;
McNeill & Vollhardt, 2020). In the case of the Rohingyas’ suffering, Suu Kyi admitted that there were civilian victims
because of the armed conlicts, but she emphasized that the victims were not just the Rohingya. She therefore claimed
it could not be called genocide or ethnic cleansing because most residents were victims, regardless of religious or ethnic
background.
Speciically, she argued that to understand what happened in Rakhine, people need to consider the historical
situation, intergroup relations, and the occurrence of intergroup conlicts:
5) The ile can be accessed through this link https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/atrocity-crimes/Doc.1_Convention%20on%20the%20Pre
vention%20and%20Punishment%20of%20the%20Crime%20of%20Genocide.pdf
6) See the Supplementary Material for the full speech at the ICJ
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Extract 3
“[T]he troubles of Rakhine State and its population, whatever their background, go back into past
centuries and have been particularly severe over the last few years [of internal armed conlict].”
She further argued that the government’s social clashes were not just about Muslims. As seen in the following extracts,
Suu Kyi explained that there were also Buddhists forming paramilitary groups attacking civilians as well as the
Myanmar military. For example, she pointed to the Arakan Army (AA), which is one of the largest insurgent groups in
Myanmar, and made up of mostly Buddhists:
Extract 4
Currently, an internal armed conlict is going on there – between the Arakan Army, an organised
Buddhist armed group with more than 5,000 ighters, and the regular Myanmar Defence Services.
[…] The Arakan Army seeks autonomy or independence for Rakhine […] inding inspiration in the
memory of the historic Kingdom of Arakan. This conlict has led to the displacement of thousands
of civilians in Rakhine. Standard security restrictions – such as curfew and checkpoints – are in
place at present in the conlict zone and affect the situation of civilians there, regardless of their
background.
In the extract above, despite recognizing that the victims were civilians and military forces, Suu Kyi did not give
estimated numbers of victims disaggregated according to religious category – namely, how many were Buddhists and
how many were Muslims.7 Based on in-depth reports released by Human Rights Watch (2019) and BBC (2020), Muslim
victims were indeed higher in numbers. By omitting such important details, Suu Kyi downplayed the victimization of
Rohingya Muslims.
In the 2013 interview on BBC, the interviewer Mishal Husain explicitly asked Suu Kyi whether she would accept that
the majority of victims have been Muslims. Suu Kyi responded that she admitted Muslims had been targeted, but it was
also the case with Buddhists:
Extract 5
Yes Muslims have been targeted, but also Buddhists have been subjected to violence. But there is
fear on both sides and this is what is leading to all this trouble. (Suu Kyi, 2013)
When the interviewer pointed out that in terms of the scale of the suffering, Muslims had been suffering most, and
about hundreds of thousands of Muslims were displaced from their homes, Suu Kyi responded that many Buddhists had
also been displaced from their country and were currently living in camps:
Extract 6
I think there are many, many Buddhists who have also left the country […] and there are many
Buddhists who are in refugee camps for various reasons. You will ind them in Thailand, very many
of them, and you will ind them scattered all over the world. (Suu Kyi, 2013)
Here, instead of answering the question by agreeing or disagreeing, Suu Kyi used the argumentative strategy of selective
inclusive victimhood to strengthen the ingroup’s position in conlicts (Cohrs et al., 2015). Compared to competitive
victimhood (Noor et al., 2012), selective inclusive victimhood served as a strategy Suu Kyi used to convince third parties
that all religions were victims, thus avoiding Myanmar’s perpetrator responsibility against Rohingya Muslims.
“Many Parties Were Involved in the Conflict, Thus Every Group Is a Perpetrator”
In addition to inclusive victimhood Suu Kyi’s speech also implied inclusive perpetratorhood, emphasizing that many
parties were involved in the conlict. In doing so, Suu Kyi explained that a perpetrator likewise becomes a victim. She
7) Exceptionally to the cases where Myanmar security forces were the victims (ex. See Supplementary Materials Line 44, 56, and 79).
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further emphasized that conlict within north Myanmar has thrived for years, since Muslims asked for an independent
state, triggering a conlict between the Buddhists and Muslims:
Extract 7
It may aid the Court to briely consider the historical signiicance of Maungdaw. When Britain
made Burma a colonial entity separate from British India in 1937, the border between Burma
and India was drawn along the river Naf, where we ind today's border between Bangladesh and
Myanmar.
Many Muslims gave their lives in combat against the Japanese in Rakhine. The sacriices
made by Muslim ighters motivated a call for the creation of an autonomous Muslim space in
northern Rakhine, centred on Maungdaw. Whether or not this was encouraged by British oficers,
Britain rejected this call as soon as it had reoccupied Burma, before independence in 1948. The
Muslim-Buddhist intercommunal violence of 1942 recurred in 1948 and several times after that.
This cycle of violence has negatively affected life in northern Rakhine, making it the second
poorest state in Myanmar.
Suu Kyi emphasized that Muslims were also the perpetrators. Moreover, other than trying to explain that intercommu
nal conlict occurred since Myanmar’s independence, Suu Kyi argued that an external party, the British colonizers,
contributed to present-day conlicts. This argument relected outgroup blame, one form of moral disengagement
(Bandura, 1999) through which Suu Kyi asserted that the government’s infractions against the Rohingya Muslims were
excusable and maintained the government’s righteousness during the process of harmdoing.
According to Suu Kyi, the conlict became more complicated when Muslims in Rakhine formed an armed group
named the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) and launched multiple attacks in different locations.
Extract 8
The Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army – known as ARSA – launched simultaneous attacks […] in
northern Rakhine, near the border with Bangladesh. ARSA claimed responsibility for these attacks,
which led to the death of nine police oficers, more than 100 dead or missing civilians […] This
was the start of an internal armed conlict between ARSA and Myanmar's Defence Services which
lasted until late 2017. The selective factual propositions contained in The Gambia's Application
actually concern this conlict.
[…]
There may have been several hundred casualties in some of the 12 locations. There was some
inter-communal violence. Buddhist and Hindu minority communities also feared for their security
after the original ARSA attacks and many led from their homes.
From this quote, Suu Kyi emphasized that there were armed groups (i.e., perpetrators) from all sides, for example the
Buddhists via AA (see Extract 4) and the Muslims via ARSA, therefore it was not clear who were the true victims. Going
a step further, Suu Kyi pointed out an intragroup conlict within the Muslim community. In her 2017 BBC interview,
she said that in Rakhine state, “it is Muslims killing Muslims as well”. In doing this, Suu Kyi created the rhetoric that
everybody was a perpetrator, as it was a case of internal conlict among Muslims.
Another instance where we can see how Suu Kyi denies ingroup wrongdoing is in how she responded to a question
about the actions of security forces targeting the Rohingya. In the BBC interview in 2017, Fergal Keane asked whether
security forces are free to rape, pillage, and torture when ighting breaks out. Suu Kyi responded that the army was “not
free to rape, pillage and torture. That they’re not free to do. They are free to go in and ight. That is in the constitution”.
In her response above, Suu Kyi’s argument strengthened the jurisprudence of the army that de jure they are not free to
commit torture and abuse, rather than arguing whether rape, pillage, and torture have, in fact, taken place. By doing so,
Suu Kyi did not provide a irm yes or no answer nor did she provide facts about whether sexual abuses and violence
occurred against the Rohingya.
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Nonetheless, Suu Kyi did not deny that security forces conducted the military operations in the contested area.
Instead of using phrases like “military operations”, “to battle” or “to attack”, Suu Kyi used “to go in” and “ight”,
words considered to be more decent and acceptable. Such euphemistic language is commonly found to justify morally
detrimental acts (Bandura, 1999).
“There Were Misconducts by Law Enforcement but They Have Been Addressed”
Suu Kyi also agreed that security forces committed wrongdoing against civilians. However, she claimed that the guilty
were punished by law. According to her, the state has put on trial the law enforcement oficers who had committed
atrocious acts. Hence, Myanmar cannot be accused of systematically killing a speciic group. Speciically, she stated:
Extract 9
It may be worth noting that the use of air power in military operations was avoided as far as
possible to minimise the risk of collateral damage. However, in one incident, in order to be able
to extract a unit surrounded by hundreds of ARSA ighters, the use of a helicopter was required.
There was shooting from the helicopter which resulted in fatalities, which may have included
noncombatants.
[…] There may also have been failures to prevent civilians from looting or destroying property
after ighting or in abandoned villages. But these are determinations to be made in the due course
of the criminal justice process, not by any individual in the Myanmar Government. […] Surely,
under the circumstances, genocidal intent cannot be the only hypothesis.
In the above statements, after acknowledging the mistakes of military personnel in harming civilians, Suu Kyi explained
that the government tried its best to minimize the number of non-combatant victims. However, she also admitted that
it was dificult to differentiate between rebels and “real” residents, thus she considered that civilians may have become
unintended victims. She therefore asked the audience in the ICJ to understand the complexity of the situation.
Although she admitted that there were errors in the government’s law enforcement, she also assured the audience
that those who committed such errors would be brought to trial. Suu Kyi provided evidence for this:
Extract 10
As part of the overall efforts of the Myanmar Government to provide justice, a court-martial found
that 10 Muslim men had been summarily executed in Inn Din village, one of the 12 locations of
serious incidents […] It sentenced four oficers and three soldiers each to ten years in prison with
hard labour. After serving a part of their sentences, they were given a military pardon. Many of us
in Myanmar were unhappy with this pardon.
Other cases are undertaken without controversy. In the Mansi case, for example, a court-martial
sat close to the location in Kachin State where three internally displaced civilians were killed. It
sentenced six soldiers, each to 10 years in prison, in January 2018. Relatives of the victims and local
civil society representatives were invited to the sentencing.
By presenting such evidence, she then asked the jurors in the ICJ whether it was correct to charge Myanmar of
genocidal acts:
Extract 11
Can there be genocidal intent on the part of a state that actively investigates, prosecutes and
punishes soldiers and oficers who are accused of wrongdoing? Although the focus here is on
members of the military, I can assure you that appropriate action will also be taken against civilian
offenders, in line with due process. There will be no tolerance of human rights violations in the
Rakhine, or elsewhere in Myanmar.
In the extract above, Suu Kyi pointed out that if there were misconducts among military oficers, these could not
be called genocide. It was also likely that Suu Kyi intended to show the audience a positive image of Myanmar
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(Augoustinos & Every, 2007) by presenting evidence that the government was, in fact, abiding by humanitarian laws
and would not hesitate to apply it indiscriminately, including to members of the ingroup – in this case, Myanmar
security forces. Suu Kyi claimed that if such misconducts indeed existed, they were violations of human rights and
“could be relevant under international humanitarian law or human rights conventions, but not under the 1948 Genocide
Convention.”
Positive Image Construction
Accompanying Suu Kyi’s denial of the Rohingya genocide, she likewise constructed a positive image of herself and
her government, particularly in showing Myanmar as a moral and righteous nation that is innocent. Her rhetorical
strategies emphasized two themes, namely: “we know the rule and know the consequence of the violation” and “as a
peace supporter and warrior”.
We Know the Rule and Know the Consequence of the Violation
Considering her experience at the UN, as well as in a nonviolent movement struggling for human rights and democracy
in Myanmar, Suu Kyi was expected to have extensive knowledge about UN conventions. She used this to her advantage,
as can be gleaned from the opening sentences of her speech, when she provided detailed information about the cases
of genocide considered by the UN in the past after the Genocide Convention. She then stated that she knew there were
Rohingya people living in shelters because of the conlicts and she argued such facts cannot be categorized as genocide
as it was complicated and “not easy to fathom” as described in Extract 2.
As Suu Kyi claimed to know what was right and wrong, and believed that her country did not do any wrongdoing,
her position and knowledge was used as a strategic tool to support the denial of genocide. Speciically, she implied: “We
know about the Genocide Convention, thus how can we do such horrible things?”
Supporting human rights and moral values was also an important element of maintaining a positive group image
(Augoustinos & Every, 2007; Reicher et al., 2008). Towards the end of Suu Kyi’s speech, she noted that Myanmar (she
used the word “we”) adhered to principles of “non-violence, human rights, national reconciliation, and rule of law”. She
then closed her speech by stating: "We look to justice as a champion of the reconciliation and harmony that will assure
the security and rights of all people.” Even before her closing, she underscored her character as a supporter of human
rights. Thus, Suu Kyi was consistent in deining the norms and values of Myanmar society as moral. By positioning the
ingroup’s values in this way, she argued that genocide was not compatible with who “we” are. It seemed she wanted to
express the sentiment: “We know the rule and what is wrong or right, thus why are we accused?”
Such arguments describing the ingroup as peaceful or caring about the people are not unique—as evident in Pol
Pot’s example after the Cambodian Genocide described earlier (Maguire, 2005). Nonetheless, Suu Kyi’s statement was
not just a speculation like Pol Pot’s, but was supported by evidence. By providing such arguments and evidence, Suu
Kyi expressed her objection to the accusations that Myanmar’s government was responsible for mass killing and did not
know the rule of human rights. In this way, Suu Kyi denied the violation of human rights.
As a Peace Supporter and Warrior
Suu Kyi in her speech explained that Myanmar’s government was not silent and had been trying to solve a “humanitari
an” problem of horizontal conlicts between groups in vulnerable areas. As described in the analysis of denial strategies,
Suu Kyi explained that the government had ordered law enforcement to help tackle the problems in conlict areas:
“Myanmar's Defense Services responded [to] […] armed incidents in more than 60 locations”. As shown in Extract 9, she
stated “that the use of air power in military operations was avoided as far as possible to minimise the risk of collateral
damage.” Indirectly, it was meant to convey that accusing Myanmar of indifference about the problems had no basis.
Here, the arguments maintaining positive image questioned the accusation, as if saying: “We tried our best to mitigate
conlict and harm, so why are we being blamed?”
Moreover, she mentioned that the Myanmar government had put to trial people suspected of rights violations,
regardless of their background (see Extract 10). She emphasized this by conveying the following: "Under its 2008
Constitution, […] criminal cases against soldiers or oficers for possible war crimes committed in Rakhine must be
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investigated and prosecuted by that system.” Thus, she denied the accusation that the Myanmar government supported
systematic killing as stated in Extract 11. This rhetorical argument to maintain a positive group image is akin to saying:
“We have charged the ones who violated human rights law, so how can we be accused of planning systematic violence?”
Through the two ways of maintaining a positive image, “we tried our best to mitigate the conlict” and “we have
processed the ones who violated human rights law”, Suu Kyi’s speech portrayed the Myanmar government as both
supporting human rights and as a champion for justice. According to Suu Kyi, the government was not a silent witness
of human rights violations and was genuinely in their embodiment of justice. They were not killing people, but rather
protecting people. Through these arguments, Suu Kyi countered the issue of Myanmar’s incapacity to handle its internal
problems.
Discussion
The present research examined Suu Kyi’s primary rhetorical defense at the ICJ to defend Myanmar against accusations
of genocide targeting the Rohingya people. Through critical narrative analysis, our indings showed that Suu Kyi claim
ed that the Myanmar government’s widespread killings of the Rohingya was not genocidal because: (a) armed conlict
caused the mass displacements; (b) there were victims on both sides; (c) many parties were involved in the conlict so
every group is a perpetrator of violence; (d) misconducts by law enforcement have been addressed. By making such
arguments, Suu Kyi rhetorically constructs her own meaning of genocide – as entailing mass displacements and killings
outside the context of armed conlict, where only one group is victimized, and misconducts remain unpunished.
Our indings contribute to extant literature on how and why groups deny collective violence (Bandura, 1999; Cohen,
2001). We provide qualitative evidence of how language in a leader’s political speech reveals the dynamic way denial
arguments are rhetorically constructed to defend the ingroup’s wrongdoing and prevent receiving moral sanctions. By
analysing Suu Kyi’s speech at the ICJ, we contribute to the theoretical understanding of how denial arguments operate
in a naturalistic and highly consequential real-world context. In particular, even though Suu Kyi admitted some degree
of misconduct by Myanmar’s law enforcement, she also claimed that they had been put on trial and the civilian victims
were considered collateral damage, which its the idea of interpretative denial (Cohen, 2001). Suu Kyi further admitted
that there were people moving from their homes to ind a safer place. However, again, according to her the killings
cannot be called ‘genocide’. This framing of the situation attempts to minimize collective harmdoing, which is a moral
disengagement strategy coined by Bandura (1999).
Likewise, our indings suggest that Suu Kyi attempted to avoid acknowledging the evidence that there were in fact
systematic mass killings of the Rohingya. It is important to look at how Suu Kyi described the victims and perpetrators
and how this categorization is relevant to which side should carry the blame for the violence that ensued. On the
one hand, Suu Kyi claimed all parties – not just the Rohingya – were victims of harm doing, but on the other, Suu
Kyi also admitted that many parties were involved as perpetrators. What was conveyed by Suu Kyi then was not just
about inclusive victimhood (Cohrs et al., 2015; McNeill & Vollhardt, 2020), but also inclusive perpetratorhood. With this,
rather than diffusing the blame to a speciic subject (Wodak, 1991), Suu Kyi chose to convey that this was everybody’s
responsibility. By doing so, she then did not need to ind reasons to justify such killings (Bandura, 1999) or blame the
victims (Putra et al., 2018).
It is also worth noting that Suu Kyi highlighted the fact that the conlict is complicated and that the situation in
Myanmar is unique. She described the history of the conlict dating back to events before independence to explain
its complex underpinnings. This indicates that Suu Kyi positioned herself as an insider who knows more of what
happened in Rohingya and should therefore be trusted. In doing so, the accusers are considered outsiders and do not
know enough about the local situation. Thus Suu Kyi, as the representative of Myanmar people, claimed that others are
misunderstanding the situation because they lack the knowledge and understanding of the Rohingya situation, thereby
undermining their accusations of genocide.
With regards to the issue about civilian victims, Suu Kyi explained that the Myanmar government avoided the use
of air attacks to avoid harming civilians. She admitted that there might be victims who were civilians, however she
considered them collateral damage. This use of sanitizing language (see Bandura, 1999) is commonly found among
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deniers of wrongdoing (Bilali, Iqbal, & Freel, 2019; Parent, 2016) to explain that they had done the right thing despite
civilian fatalities. These arguments support the idea that since security forces had already tried to minimize the harm to
civilians, any such casualties were simply an unintended yet understandable consequence of the conlict (Roblyer, 2005).
What is interesting to note is that, in her speech, Suu Kyi did not provide any speciic details about the victims
of conlict, such as the number of victims that were Rohingya. This raises the question why did Suu Kyi appear
so knowledgeable about how the conlict caused many victims regardless of their background, but was in fact less
informative about the speciic number of victims on both sides? It is possible that Suu Kyi wanted to lead the audience
to pay attention to other aspects of the conlict, especially the framing that everyone, regardless of one’s ethnoreligious
background, was a victim of the conlict. Blurring the facts and alluding to other frames or narratives are not new
occurrences in cases of denial of ingroup wrongdoing. For instance, in history books used for school students in
Indonesia, there is typically no explanation of the 1965-66 massacres of people accused of afiliating with communism
(Putra et al., 2019). Instead, textbooks highlight that communists were barbaric, evil, or cold-blooded killers. Similar
narratives were also found in history books in Turkey denying the Armenian genocide (Bilali, 2013).
In tandem with defensive denial arguments, our research shows how constructing a positive ingroup image can
serve to reiterate or enhance the persuasive power of denial. Previous studies (see Augoustinos & Every, 2007; Chiang,
2010) have shown that presenting a positive group image is useful to convince people that the accused are not violating
a moral standard. Highlighting groups norms of ethical and just behaviors mean that the group can avoid moral
sanctions (Bandura, 1999; Putra, 2016). Extrapolating from our indings, people who know about humanitarian law
and human rights issues may be more sophisticated and even effective in using their strategies of denying ingroup
wrongdoing. Thus, for organisations like the ICJ, it is important to consider whether and how a nation’s positive image
and reputation should factor into decisions to intervene and/or punish offenders of mass atrocities.
It is interesting to compare the ICJ case surrounding the Rohingya genocide to the Indonesian mass killings of
the 1965-66 where there was a tribunal held in the Netherlands in 2015 (i.e., the International People’s Tribunal or
IPT 1965). During this event, Indonesian authorities asked other countries not to intervene in Indonesia’s internal
problems, as such problems can be solved by themselves (Berita Satu, 2015). Instead of using confrontational arguments
like what was used by Indonesian authorities, Suu Kyi showed evidence that the Myanmar government could solve
their domestic problems. More often, confrontational arguments can backire, and Suu Kyi might have predicted such
an impact, therefore avoiding such claims in her speech. Rather, she used evidence to support her arguments that
Myanmar’s government did enforce justice indiscriminately in attempting to address the killings. Such a rhetorical
strategy presented Myanmar as trustful and moral, a description far from features of genocide perpetrators.
Limitations and Future Directions
Finally, we consider the limitations of our study and suggestions for future research. First, despite Suu Kyi’s presence
at the ICJ as Myanmar’s representative, she does not represent all voices and political factions of the Myanmar people
(e.g., Muslims, political oppositions, other minority groups). More research is therefore needed to examine the narrative
discourse of the Rohingya crisis among Myanmar’s majority and minority groups. Further, as the present study focused
on denial of mass violence through Suu Kyi’s speeches at the ICJ in December 2019, it is important for future research to
examine whether denial tactics changed since the ICJ ordered Myanmar to prevent genocidal acts against the Rohingya
Muslims in January 2020. After all, the Rohingya crisis is one of the biggest humanitarian crises of our generation.
The ways in which Myanmar oficials discuss mass killings against the Rohingyas may have important implications for
how this conlict will unfold in the future. In addition, while the present research sheds light on the denial strategies
evident in Suu Kyi’s speech, further work is needed to understand the extent to which these tactics were effective, and
for whom. Perhaps these denial strategies were persuasive to the majority group in Myanmar who see Suu Kyi as their
leader, but not to third parties or international observers of the conlict.
Further research is needed to understand the implications of the denial strategies identiied in this research. In
particular, we argue that inclusive perpetratorhood (together with inclusive victimhood), in which many parties are
said to be involved in harm doing, may lead people to be less empathic toward those who suffered the most. This
needs further empirical testing to examine whether the more people see others as part of a perpetrator group, the less
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empathetic they are towards the group’s suffering as victims. In other words, applying the label of both victims and
perpetrators to a particular group may reduce the extent to which third parties may want to intervene to help the
group. It is also important to further examine whether the framing of victims as “ighting back” in self-defense may
evoke the perpetrator label. Similar labeling arose in relation to Tamils who have mobilized to ight for an independent
state against the Singhalese government of Sri Lanka, Palestinians who resisted Israelis' occupation of their land, and
Armenians who resisted the genocide committed by the Ottoman Empire (Bilali, 2013), it is possible that collectively
resisting and committing violence for self-defense may reduce bystanders’ empathy when these victimized groups are
constructed as perpetrators.
To conclude, the present study has shown the dynamic arguments of denial and the construction of a positive group
image in response to accusations of ingroup harmdoing. Our analysis reveals the multiple ways in which Suu Kyi as
a leader of Myanmar denied the accusation of the Rohingya genocide. For each of her denial arguments, Suu Kyi also
attempted to show evidence of her claims. In doing so, she constructed a positive image of Myanmar and utilized her
background as a human rights activist to help conjure this narrative.
Funding: The authors have no funding to report.
Acknowledgments: The authors have no support to report.
Competing Interests: Idhamsyah Eka Putra and Hema Preya Selvanathan are Associate Editors of JSPP but played no editorial role in this particular article
or intervened in any form in the peer review process.
Supplementary Materials
The Supplementary Material is a transcription of Aung San Suu Kyi’s full speech at the International Court of Justice in December
2019 (for access see Index of Supplementary Materials below).
Index of Supplementary Materials
Putra, I. E., Selvanathan, H. P., Mashuri, A., & Montiel, C. J. (2021). Supplementary materials to "Aung San Suu Kyi’s defensive denial of
the Rohingya massacre: A rhetorical analysis of denial and positive-image construction" [Additional information]. PsychOpen
GOLD. https://doi.org/10.23668/psycharchives.5058
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