TRANSCRIPT
After an investigation that started five years ago, the International Criminal Court's chief prosecutor has applied for an arrest warrant for Myanmar's military leader.
"This is the first application for an arrest warrant against a high-level Myanmar government official that my office is filing. More will follow."
Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan says his office has been investigating alleged crimes committed during the 2016 and 2017 waves of violence in Rakhine State in Myanmar and the subsequent exodus of Rohingya from Myanmar into Bangladesh.
The attacks on the Rohingya started in 2017 after Rohingya militants attacked more than 30 police posts in Myanmar.
Mr Khan says after a careful review of the evidence collected, his office has reached this conclusion.
"There are reasonable grounds to believe that senior general and acting president Min Aung Hlaing commander in chief of the Myanmar defense services bears criminal responsibility for the crimes against humanity of deportation and persecution of the Rohingya committed in Myanmar, and in parts of Bangladesh between the 25th of August 2017 and the 31st of December 2017, by members of the Armed forces of Myanmar, the Tatmadaw, supported by the police, border guard police, as well as non-Rohingya civilians."
UN investigators have previously described these events as a textbook example of ethnic cleansing.
They allege soldiers, police, and Buddhist residents set fire to hundreds of villages in Myanmar's remote western Rakhine state, torturing residents , carrying out mass-killings and gang-rapes as almost a million fled.
A panel of three ICC judges must now rule on Karim Khan's request.
For years, it was thought unlikely a prosecution could occur because Myanmar is not a signatory to the International Criminal Court - and in an email to the Reuters news agency, Myanmar's military junta says it doesn't recognise the ICC's statements because it's not a member of the ICC.
The ministry of information adding Myanmar has a free and unbiased foreign policy and peacefully coexisted with other countries.
But prosecutors at the ICC reassessed the case and in 2018 decided that because some of the alleged crimes also occurred in Bangladesh-which is a signatory-there were grounds to mount a case.
Most of the refugees now live in squalor in camps in Bangladesh.
52-year-old Rohingya refugee Mohammed Alam welcomes the prospect of Myanmar's military leader being brought before the court.
"The Myanmar military chief, for whom (the ICC) wants to issue an arrest warrant, is the reason we, all the Rohingya refugees, had to come here to Bangladesh, leaving our native land and living under huts made out of tarps. We hope that we can return to our country upon his arrest. So, I am happy about that.”
So too does his relative and fellow refugee Shomsu Alam.
“It has been quite a while since the case was filed in the ICC, and we, as one of the most persecuted communities from Myanmar, could not console ourselves as to why justice has not been provided. We thought the ICC had given up on this case. After a very long time, today the ICC is working to provide justice for us against the military that committed genocide against us. We deeply appreciate the ICC for this—Alhamdulillah.”
Myanmar's military leader took power from the elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi in a coup in 2021.
It triggered intensified fighting with long-established armed militias organised by Myanmar’s ethnic minority groups in its border regions which have struggled for decades for more autonomy.
In 2022, the International Court of Justice, the United Nations’ highest court, advanced a separate case against Myanmar brought by Gambia alleging the Southeast Asian nation is responsible for genocide against the Rohingya.
Five European countries and Canada have asked the court to back Gambia in the proceedings.
