Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, head of the military council, inspects officers during a parade to commemorate the 78th Myanmar Armed Forces Day in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, on March 27, 2023. (Aung Shine Oo/AP)

THE HAGUE — The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court asked judges Wednesday to issue an arrest warrant for the head of Myanmar’s military regime for crimes against the country’s Rohingya Muslim minority.

Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, who took power from elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi in 2021, is accused of crimes against humanity for the deportation and persecution of the Rohingya.

Nearly a million people have been forced into neighboring Bangladesh to escape what has been called a campaign of ethnic cleansing involving mass rape, murder and house burning.

From a refugee camp in Bangladesh, the court’s senior prosecutor, Karim Khan, said in a statement that he plans to seek more warrants for Myanmar’s leaders soon.

“In doing so, we will demonstrate with all our partners that the Rohingya have not been forgotten. That they, like all people around the world, are entitled to the protection of the law,” said the British lawyer.

The charges stem from a counterinsurgency campaign that Myanmar’s military began in August 2017 in response to an insurgent attack. Hlaing, who heads Myanmar’s Defense Services, is said to have directed Myanmar’s armed forces, known as the Tatmadaw, as well as the national police to attack Rohingya civilians.

Khan was in Bangladesh where he met with members of the displaced Rohingya population. About 1 million of the predominantly Muslim Rohingya live in Bangladesh as refugees from Myanmar, including about 740,000 who fled in 2017.

Rohingyas face widespread discrimination in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, with most being denied citizenship. The Myanmar government refuses to recognize the Rohingya as one of the country’s 135 legal ethnic minorities, instead calling them Bengalis, implying that their homeland is in Bangladesh and that they are illegally settled in Myanmar.

Human rights groups applauded the decision to seek a warrant. The dire situation of the Rohingya has received less attention as the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza have grabbed the headlines. “The ICC prosecutor’s decision to seek a warrant against General Sr. Min Aung Hlaing comes amid renewed atrocities against Rohingya civilians, echoing those suffered seven years ago. The ICC’s action is an important step toward breaking the cycle of abuses and impunity,” said Maria Elena Vignoli, Senior Advisor for International Justice at Human Rights Watch.

Zin Mar Aung, the foreign minister for Myanmar’s opposition Government of National Unity, formed by elected lawmakers barred from taking their seats in 2021, told X that the ICC judges should “quickly vacate their mandate” and that governments should “act and enforce this mandate to maintain. justice and international law.” She posted that the ICC’s action “represents a critical moment in Myanmar’s history.”

Myanmar’s military regime issued a brief statement rejecting the proceedings, saying it was not a party to the ICC and insisting the country’s leadership practiced a policy of “peaceful coexistence”.

Khan’s request now goes to a three-judge panel that will weigh the evidence provided and determine whether a warrant should be issued. There is no deadline for a decision. Requesting an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin took less than three weeks in 2023. However, warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his former defense minister and Hamas military chief took more than six months to obtain. be issued.

Rohingya refugees in sprawling camps in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar district welcomed the news.

“We all Rohingya are very excited and personally I am very happy to hear about the application sent to the judges because the Myanmar military government has been torturing us for about 75 years, forcing us to leave our homeland — Arakan,” he said Zahid Hossain, 53 years old.

Yahiya Khan, a 32-year-old human rights activist, was also optimistic: “The army has been persecuting us for decades. Thousands of women were raped, thousands of people were killed, children were thrown into the fire by the brutal military regime. So, as Rohingya, we are happy to hear that the ICC chief (prosecutor) has asked the judges to issue arrest warrants.”

Myanmar does not belong to the global court, but Bangladesh does. In 2018, judges at the court ruled that the prosecutor could investigate crimes that were “finished” on the territory of a member state, such as forced deportation.

In 2019, Khan’s predecessor, Fatou Bensouda, formally called for an investigation into the situation, and judges gave the go-ahead for investigations into “any crime, including any future crime” committed at least in part in Bangladesh or another member state of the court and related to the Rohingya.

The move paved the way for Khan to pursue crimes beyond forcing men, women and children across borders and into refugee camps.

The request comes days after a powerful rebel group seized a key trading city in northeastern Myanmar on the border with China, seizing control of a lucrative rare earth mining center in another setback for the government-led of armies.

The military seized power from Aung San Suu Kyi’s government in February 2021, sparking intense fighting with long-standing armed militias organized by Myanmar’s ethnic minority groups in its border regions, which have fought 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 The Gambia, alleging that the Southeast Asian nation is responsible for the genocide against the Rohingya. Five European countries and Canada asked the court to support The Gambia in the proceedings.

Associated Press reporters David Rising in Bangkok, Raf Casert in Brussels and Shafiqur Rahman in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh contributed to this report.