Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim: Why compromise your principled leadership for the genocidal Min Aung Hlaing?
Guest contributor
Khin Ohmar
Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, you have announced that you will invite Min Aung Hlaing, Myanmar’s illegal, criminal junta leader and self-appointed “president,” to Malaysia to negotiate the repatriation of Rohingya refugees.
This offer is being made at a politically critically sensitive moment for the people of Myanmar who are, in the face of Min Aung Hlaing and his military’s daily violence, sacrificing everything in their efforts to end military tyranny and regain their freedom, democracy, and dignity.
Freedom, democracy, and dignity—ideals you fought for and that anchored you for decades throughout the bumpy political path you navigated.
Don’t betray your principled past
As a long-time Burmese democracy and human rights advocate, I remember joining solidarity campaigns for your freedom during those moments in history when you were incarcerated.
When you were elected Prime Minister of Malaysia and spoke at the General Debate of the 78th session of the United Nations General Assembly in September 2023, you condemned the Myanmar military’s violence and atrocities and emphasized the need for continued international pressure to end the military’s brutality against the people.
I really appreciated seeing a regional leader standing firm for human rights, democracy, and human security. You even said, “The support of the international community, including the United Nations, is crucial to urge continuously and maintain the necessary pressure on the military authorities to reverse their course.”
Reflecting on those past campaigns for your freedom, I am inspired to see you continue your pursuit of democracy and lead your country. I am also deeply moved that you have not forgotten the Myanmar people’s struggle for democracy and that you continue to stand with us.
However, your recently announced plans to deport Rohingya refugees and welcome Min Aung Hlaing are a shocking betrayal.
Why will you help a criminal military cartel to whitewash its genocide against the Rohingya and its war crimes and crimes against humanity against the people of Myanmar? While being complicit in the junta’s atrocities, you tell the world that this is all for “peace and stability in Myanmar.” Clearly, it is not.
The Rohingya refugee crisis won’t be solved by its architects
In July, the illegal junta agreed to accept 5,000 Rohingya refugees, beginning with approximately 1,500 people in September. But the U.N. Secretary-General’s report published earlier this month determined that the “conditions for their voluntary, safe, dignified and sustainable return do not currently exist.”
Min Aung Hlaing is the very man who commanded and oversaw the Myanmar military’s genocidal campaign against the Rohingya in 2017.
As the Myanmar military chief, it was under his command that the military launched its “clearance operations” in Rakhine State. More than 700,000 Rohingya were driven into Bangladesh in August 2017.
The subsequent U.N. Fact-Finding Mission found evidence of “genocidal intent,” including widespread and systematic killings and rape.
That same conduct is now before the International Court of Justice, where The Gambia’s genocide case against Myanmar concluded hearings earlier this year, with a ruling expected within months.
The Myanmar military’s violence and atrocities are ongoing
The military’s violence in Myanmar continues, and the atrocities against this particularly vulnerable Rohingya community did not end in 2017.
Following his self-appointment as “Myanmar’s president,” Min Aung Hlaing’s military cartel has intensified its aerial bombardments of religious sanctuaries, displacement shelters, clinics, and schools.
In August alone, Min Aung Hlaing’s junta carried out 530 aerial attacks that killed at least 139 civilians. Nearly four million people have been internally displaced due to the military’s violence. Worse still, the junta has blocked international aid to these populations.
More than 22,000 political prisoners remain arbitrarily detained under life-threatening conditions, including Aung San Suu Kyi and approximately 2,900 other leaders and members of her party, National League for Democracy (NLD).
The junta has committed widespread torture and extrajudicial killings. Many political prisoners and former political prisoners have died from torture and ill treatment.
Forcibly returning vulnerable refugees to their abusers exposes them to forced conscription, torture, and death, which will only worsen this humanitarian crisis.
Civil society organizations have raised severe alarms, expressing deep skepticism that these individuals will ever be permitted to return to their homes once handed over.
Returnees face forced conscription and grave abuse
Their concern is well founded. The military junta is carrying out an aggressive campaign of predatory forced conscription of tens of thousands of young men and women, including abduction of children.
The junta uses these forced conscripts as porters and human shields to reinforce its depleted front lines in its relentless campaign to crush democratic resistance.
A recent case was documented on 23 August 2026, when military junta troops at the Sagaing bridge checkpoint dragged 18 young men off a passenger vehicle, beating and abducting them directly into forced military service.
At least 20 other forced recruitments were reported in Mandalay within the same week. Numerous other documented cases demonstrate the immediate danger facing people who are returned to Myanmar, particularly young people.
You must recognize that these documented abuses reflect a calculated strategy by the military junta to weaponize terror against civilians and deepen a climate of lawlessness and impunity.
Is it, or is it not, ‘the hour for moral leadership’?
Under your leadership, Malaysia played an important role in keeping Myanmar’s crisis and the Rohingya persecution on the regional agenda prior to and during its 2025 ASEAN chairship.
Malaysia has also spoken forcefully for Palestinian rights and accountability for violations in Gaza. Just last year, you called for arms embargoes and told the world this is “the hour for moral leadership.”
How can the same leader of the same government that holds Israel to the Genocide Convention now roll out a red carpet for the head of an illegal, criminal military junta facing that same convention’s charges over the Rohingya?
The principle does not change depending on the geography of the victims.
Now is not the moment to barter away democratic rights
You spent years fighting for your own political rights and democratic rights in Malaysia. You were imprisoned twice. You know what it means to challenge a system that denies people their rights. That history is why I believed you understood what real accountability requires.
Why compromise your credibility now by legitimizing this inhumanly violent and repressive junta that is waging a campaign of terror against the people of Myanmar?
You should recognize that the domestic challenges arising from the spillover effects of the Myanmar crisis cannot be resolved by simply returning refugees and undocumented people.
The crisis created by Min Aung Hlaing and his criminal cartel has forced these individuals to flee war, violence, and torture.
I urge you to halt all forced deportations to Myanmar and rescind your decision to invite junta leader Min Aung Hlaing to Malaysia—unless you intend to arrest him.
I urge you to protect the Rohingya. Their suffering must not be used as a bargaining chip for diplomatic engagement with the very military responsible for the genocide against them.
I urge you to continue to show your moral leadership in the region by upholding international obligations, including the principle of non-refoulement. This is the least you can do to help save people’s lives in your neighboring country.
Khin Ohmar is a Myanmar human rights activist who was involved in organizing the ‘8888’ nationwide pro-democracy uprising. She is also the founder and chairperson of Progressive Voice, a Myanmar human rights organization. She developed the Women Peacebuilding Program for Women’s League of Burma and served as program coordinator from 2000 to 2006.
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