Myanmar coup leader has open cause for genocide in Argentina

Burmese army chief General Min Aung Hlaing, who on Monday took full control of his country in a coup repudiated by a number of countries, said an open cause in Argentina, under the principle of universal jurisdiction, for crimes of genocide against the Rohingya Muslim minority.

“What is happening in Myanmar now is an element that should further convince the judge that it is very important to apply the universal principle for these atrocious events,” said Tomás Ojea Quintana, former UN rapporteur for Myanmar. , at the Telam agency. of those who drive the trial that entered the court of María Romilda Servini in November 2019.

Around this time, the Rohingya, human rights groups in Latin America and Argentina, including Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo and the Nobel Peace Prize winning organization Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, filed a lawsuit. in court invoking the principle of universal jurisdiction, which maintains that certain actions, such as war crimes and crimes against humanity are so appalling that they do not fall under the jurisdiction of a single nation and can be tried worldwide.

“Five women who were mass raped in a town in Rakhine state appeared before their sons and husbands who were later murdered,” said Ojea Quintana, an Argentinian human rights lawyer, who recalled that “murders and rapes were credited. in detail in a 2018 UN report. “

Such was the violence and helplessness of this Muslim minority in 2017 that in just a few months, more than 740,000 Rohingyas escaped with just their clothes on, crossed a river and even ran amid bursts of machine guns to reach the border and take refuge in neighboring Bangladesh. ., one of the poorest countries in the region, where they still live nestled in fields administered by the international community.

The trial, which fell in the hands of Servini and prosecutor Guillermo Marijuan, accused military leaders and commanders who acted in Rakhine state of being “directly responsible for the genocide” against the Rohingya community, and pointed to the political leaders of the government. , now detained and victims of the coup, for their “collusion” in these crimes against humanity.

Among them, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate and at the time the government’s highest political reference, Aung San Suu Kyi, who in the face of growing international pressure in 2017 and 2018 has repeatedly said that she is “in charge” of the country and that what is happening in Rakhine is “an internal conflict”.

The cause in Argentine justice has not yet advanced Because the judge and the prosecutor expressed doubts about the possibility that the defendants will be tried twice for the same cause, since the Rohingya and international organizations have also filed a complaint with the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague , Ojea said. Quintana in Telam.

However, this international court responded to the consultations at the end of 2020 and clarified that it was dealing with two different cases: “Argentina concerns the events committed in Myanmar, while those of the ICC took place officially in Bangladesh, since Myanmar has not signed the Rome Statute and therefore does not recognize the jurisdiction of the Hague tribunal, ”the Argentine lawyer explained.

It is now Servini’s turn to decide to open an investigation.

“We hope he will and therefore we can request arrests through Interpol and demand, for example, official letters from Facebook to report on how this network has been used to disseminate hateful and racist messages that have fueled the genocide, ”Ojea Quintana said.

“The goal is always to obtain a conviction, but also this type of case mobilizes the expectation of the affected community to be heard, the issue is kept alive in the press and the general public, and reminds officials that they are not forgotten, atrocities they have committed, ”he concluded.