Min Aung Hlaing, Myanmar’s de-facto military ruler, was the commander in chief during the 2017 Rohingya genocide. It was under his watch that Rohingya Muslims were subject to a horrific ethnic cleansing campaign that entailed rape, mass murder, and demolition of villages. Scores of children were beaten to death, and mosques were targeted.

Now, about seven years after the genocide took root, it is critical for one of its chief architects to get the treatment he deserves: be held for criminal responsibility for the crimes committed against humanity. To this end, the International Criminal Court (ICC)’s request for an arrest warrant is a much-needed reminder that military brutalities against innocent Rohingya will not be brushed aside.

The warrant matters for several reasons. First, consider the scale of atrocities committed against innocent Rohingya Muslims. These have gone unpunished for too long. The military has pursued gang rape, forced disappearances, and has also employed sexual slavery. The UN concluded in 2018 that crimes committed by Hlaing’s army “amounted to the gravest crimes under international law.” But since then, there has been a blatant disregard for the same international law that was supposed to hold Hlaing accountable for the blood and suffering of Rohingya Muslims. It shows in the calls by the UN Human Rights Council in 2018 to have Hlaing and other top generals prosecuted for genocide. The ICC warrant request should be seen as a small but critical step to realize those demands and help bring the chief architect of the 2017 genocide under the ambit of the law.

The suffering inflicted on Rohingyas for years also underscores the importance of the warrant. Legions of Rohingya – who escaped murder and witnessed widespread destruction in their native state – were forced to live as refugees in Bangladesh. This meant a life without dignity, equality, and a sense of security. Hlaing is directly to blame for the forced prostitution and sex trafficking faced by women in these overcrowded refugee camps. Meanwhile, Hlaing has strengthened political influence in Myanmar, put up a shield of impunity around his military, and welcomed more murders against Rohingya in the Rakhine state. Given the unspeakable brutality, condemnation, and injustices directed toward Rohingya Muslims, a warrant against Hlaing is a bare minimum of what ought to follow.

Look no further than the other Myanmar military personnel involved in the genocide. From Vice Senior-General Soe Win to Brigadier-General Than Oo, these figures have helped advance a campaign of systemic annihilation and ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya. For any semblance of accountability to prevail, a warrant against Hlaing – Commander-in-Chief of the military in 2017 – has to come through. “After an extensive, independent, and impartial investigation, my Office has concluded that there are reasonable grounds to believe that Senior General and Acting President Min Aung Hlaing, Commander-in-Chief of the Myanmar Defence Services, bears criminal responsibility for the crimes against humanity of deportation and persecution of the Rohingya, committed in Myanmar, and in part in Bangladesh,” said ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan recently.

It is clear that the genocidal military won’t stop at anything. Min Aung Hlaing is presently overseeing a rise in atrocities against Rohingya in Rakhine state and is willing to illegally leverage members of the community to facilitate a wider war in their homeland. What have regional powers, including the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), done to end Rohingyas’ constant suffering and bring this genocidal regime to account? Countries within the Southeast Asian bloc – of which Myanmar is a member – will likely argue that they are bound by principles of “noninterference” in a member state’s internal affairs. This argument could surface if the ICC warrant comes through, and speculation rises over countries’ willingness to arrest and hand Hlaing over. In short, ASEAN could use “noninterference” as an excuse to give the commander-in-chief of the Rohingya genocide a quick pass. 

But these will be glaring double standards from ASEAN. It pushed the limits of its “noninterference” principles in 2021 when it sought to end the bloodshed in Myanmar in the wake of a military coup. But when it concerns a genocide committed by the present head of an ASEAN state, action is virtually nonexistent. Hlaing and ASEAN as a whole deserve criticism for betraying the freedoms of the Rohingya Muslims. While the former spearheaded a murder campaign, ASEAN made no tangible effort to push for the repatriation and resettlement of Rohingya refugees. Where is Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim-majority country that has demonstrated solidarity with oppressed Muslims in the Middle East? Rather than forcing ASEAN to take a firm stance on the 2017 genocide and the ICC arrest warrant, Indonesia has chosen to take a lax approach. Very little can be expected of ASEAN when its most populous Muslim member-state has hosted only 1,500 Rohingya refugees and called on the UN to move more of them to ‘other countries.’

In light of ASEAN’s double standards and the extent of criminal conduct exercised under Min Aung Hlaing’s command, the ICC warrant is a critical step to put the Rohingyas’ struggle for justice and accountability back in the spotlight.