The chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court in The Hague (ICC) suspects Myanmar's military leader Min Aung Hlaing of human rights violations against the Rohingya minority group. The decision highlights the crisis the country has been in since the military coup in 2021.
- There are extensive reports of human rights violations such as torture, murder and rape, says Veronica Sällemark at the Olof Palme International Center.
ICC Prosecutor Karim AA Khan has requested that a arrest warrant against Myanmar military leader Min Aung Hlaing shall be issued. The criminal suspicions concern the military's displacement and persecution of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya, a Muslim ethnic minority group, in 2017.
Since Min Aung Hlaing was the highest military leader at the time, ICC prosecutor Karim AA Khan believes that the junta leader is responsible for the suspected crimes against humanity.
The military operation led to over 720 Rohingya, who had already been discriminated against by the authorities in Myanmar for a long time, was forced to flee to neighboring Bangladesh. At least 10 people were killed during the campaign of violence and UN High Commissioner for human rights has called the operation ethnic cleansing.
The decision from the ICC highlights the crisis Myanmar has been in for several years, Veronica Sällemark, program manager for Asia at the Olof Palme International Center, explains to Utvecklingsmagasinet.
The situation of the civilian population, including the Rohingya, remains dire since the military seized power in a coup d'état on 1 February 2021. The civilian government led by Aung San Suu Kyi was overthrown and General Min Aung Hlaing was appointed prime minister.
- Since then, the military has brutally tried to put down dissenters, which has led to thousands of deaths and a deepening humanitarian crisis, she says.
In connection with the military coup, large protests were triggered in the cities, and several different groups in the country, including young people, women, civilians, military and political, mobilized. The military's violent response to the protests led to a full-scale conflict between the regime and the armed ethnic groups, who formed military alliances together.
Since the military coup, the democracy movement has increasingly united in its fight to remove the junta. The ethnic armed groups and the so-called People's Defense Forces have also seen an increased application rate from civilians who want join the armed groups to get rid of the military junta, says Sällemark. Not least since the junta introduced forced conscription into the army for the country's young people in February 2024.
- The military junta forces them into the battlefield as human shields in order to advance. They use the air force to bomb the civilian population in the areas of the ethnic minority groups, says Veronica Sällemark.
She emphasizes that the situation for the Rohingya has not improved, as they still lack freedom of movement, the right to education and care. The military's repression of other ethnic minority groups, the opposition, civil society and journalists has increased.
Reports of human rights violations such as torture, murder and rape are extensive. The economy is in free fall and the military junta has control over large parts of the humanitarian aid to try to weaken the opposition, explains Veronica Sällemark.
Despite this, the opposition and the armed groups have managed to recapture large areas of land, and today they control it approximately 80 percent of the country's surface. If the ICC's request for an arrest warrant against junta leader Min Aung Hlaing is granted, powerful signals about international justice would have been sent out to the outside world, says Veronica Sällemark.
- It is important to meet the development in Myanmar, and it is important to maintain the international order.
If the arrest is carried out, international pressure on the regime would have increased and its domestic authority weakened. Veronica Sällemark also says that it had strengthened the democracy movement in the country, which has long worked to map the abuses in order to demand responsibility from the perpetrators.
- In other words, it is thanks to their solid work that these legal cases are pushed forward in our international courts.
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