Myanmar’s powerful army chief said the UN had no right to interfere in the sovereignty of his country, a week after UN investigators called for him and other top generals to be prosecuted for “genocide” against the Rohingya.
The defiant response is the army chief’s first public reaction since a UN fact-finding mission urged the UN Security Council to refer Myanmar’s top military brass to the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Min Aung Hlaing also shrugged off demands from the UN for the army to get out of political life in Myanmar, where it remains hugely influential, despite a nominal transition to civilian rule in 2011.
Photo: AFP
No country, organization or group has the “right to interfere in and make decision over sovereignty of a country,” military-run newspaper Myawady reported Min Aung Hlaing telling troops in a speech on Sunday.
“Talks to meddle in internal affairs [cause] misunderstanding,” Min Aung Hlaing said.
The 444-page report, compiled over 18 months, outlined in meticulous and searing detail claims of atrocities against the Rohingya, who fled a violent military campaign that started in August last year.
Troops, sometimes aided by ethnic Rakhine mobs, committed murder, rape, arson and torture, using unfathomable levels of violence and with a total disregard for human life, investigators concluded.
More than 700,000 of the stateless Muslim minority took refuge in Bangladesh, where they remain, fearful of returning to Myanmar, despite a repatriation deal between the two countries.
The Burmese military has denied nearly all wrongdoing, justifying its crackdown as a legitimate means of rooting out Rohingya militants.
However, rights groups and the UN have said the operations were vastly disproportionate and that a troop build-up in the area occurred before insurgents attacked police posts in August last year.
In a further ratcheting up of pressure on Myanmar, the ICC independently ruled that it had jurisdiction to open a preliminary investigation, even though the country has not signed the treaty underpinning the court.
However, analysts have said that any road to prosecution would be long and fraught with political difficulties.
Last month, Facebook removed the pages of Min Aung Hlaing and other top generals, accusing them of sowing ethnic divisions in a country where the social media platform enjoys excessive influence.
Myanmar’s civilian government, led by Burmese State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, rejected the UN report’s finding as “one-sided” and “flawed” and dismissed the ICC’s authority.
Aung San Suu Kyi’s government shares power with the still-mighty army, which retains control over a quarter of parliamentary seats and three key ministries.
The UN team also criticized the Nobel laureate’s government for “acts and omissions” that had “contributed to the commission of atrocity crimes.”
In a rare, if understated, criticism of the military, Aung San Suu Kyi has said that the Rakhine crisis “could have been handled better.”
The army chief made it clear that the Tatmadaw, as the military is known locally, has no intention to extract itself from politics.
“Take a look at the democracy practices in the world, the countries exercise the democracy system suited to them,” he said, adding that the country needs to end armed conflict on its road to true multiparty democracy.
“The Tatmadaw will continue its efforts to achieve eternal peace,” he said.
The Rohingya languishing in refugee camps in Bangladesh refuse to return to a Myanmar that does not grant them citizenship.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of