Feb 16 (Reuters) – Myanmar has ordered the head of East Timor’s diplomatic mission to leave the country within seven days, state media quoted the foreign ministry as saying on Monday, in an escalating row over a criminal complaint brought by a rights group against Myanmar’s armed forces.
Myanmar has been in turmoil since 2021, when the military ousted the elected government led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, sparking a wave of anti-junta protests that turned into a civil war across the country.
Myanmar’s Chin State Human Rights Organization (CHRO) last month filed a complaint with the justice department of East Timor, also known as Timor-Leste, alleging that the Myanmar junta had committed war crimes and crimes against humanity since the 2021 coup.
In January, CHRO officials also met with East Timor President Jose Ramos-Horta, who last year spearheaded the small Catholic nation’s accession to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), of which Myanmar is also a member.
CHRO filed the complaint in East Timor because it was looking for an ASEAN member with an independent judiciary as well as a country that would be sympathetic to the suffering of the majority Christian population of Chin State, the group’s Executive Director Salai Za Uk said.
“Such unconstructive engagement by a Head of State of one ASEAN Member State with an illegal organization that opposes another ASEAN Member State is totally unacceptable,” Myanmar’s state-run Global New Light told the foreign ministry.
A spokesman for Myanmar’s junta did not respond to calls seeking comment.
In early February, CHRO said East Timor’s judicial authorities had opened legal proceedings against the Myanmar junta, including its head Min Aung Hlaing, following the complaint filed by the rights group.
Myanmar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said East Timor’s acceptance of the case and the country’s appointment of a prosecutor to examine it resulted “in the establishment of an unprecedented practice, negative interpretation and escalation of (public) resentment.”
The East Timorese embassy in Myanmar did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.
The diplomatic row comes as Myanmar’s military faces international scrutiny for its role in an alleged genocide against the Rohingya Muslim minority in a case being heard at the International Court of Justice.
Myanmar has denied the accusation.
(Reporting by Reuters Staff, Editing by Devjyot Ghoshaland Raju Gopalakrishnan)