Muslim coalition sues Burma’s president for Rohingya ‘genocide’
Burmese President Thein Sein. Pic: AP.
By Kyle Lawrence Mullin Oct 06, 2015
Burmese President Thein Sein and several of his top officials have been accused of being complicent, if not active participants, in the genocide of their nation’s Rohingya Muslim minority.
The Guardian reported that the suit was filed by a coalition of Muslims in New York’s federal court on Thursday. Their complaint says Thein Sein’s administration has violated the U.S. Alien Tort statute, a policy that has previously been invoked by foreign citizens seeking compensation and relief from human rights violations outside of America’s borders.
The Muslim coalition also requests that New York Judge Debra Freeman issues summonses to the Burmese president, his Foreign Minister Wunna Maung Lwin and other upper echelon officials.
However, President Thein Sein seems unfazed by the civil suit. Yesterday one of his representatives said: “Myanmar [Burma] is not a vassal to America. There’s no reason why Myanmar would go and face the lawsuit of a federal court in America.”
The Burmese government’s dismissive response comes in spite of the suit’s strong wording which, according to Al Jazeera, accuses the Thein Sein administration of planning and instigating “hate crimes and discrimination amounting to genocide” of the Rohingya people. Specifically, the plaintiffs decried how that Muslim minority is being “subjected to genocide, torture, arbitrary detention, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment,” at the hands of the government.
President Thein Sein seems to have little to worry about in the immediate future. Judges require several months to decide if such cases can proceed, which may prove difficult in this case because of a 2013 U.S. Supreme Court decision that makes the protocol for such lawsuits more stringent, including a policy that such claims must “touch and concern” U.S. territory “with sufficient force” to “displace the presumption that the law does not cover non-U.S. conduct”.
Regardless of the suit’s viability in court, it has successfully attracted international media attention, which may be a key goal for activists ahead of Burma’s landmark election next month, a poll which the Rohingya people have been barred from voting in.
