Malaysia Warned Against Legitimizing War Criminal as Min Aung Hlaing Preps for Visit

Myanmar's putschist president is greeted by a guard of honor during his visit to Cambodia in early September. / Head of State

ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights (APHR) has condemned Malaysia’s decision to host Min Aung Hlaing, warning the invitation risks legitimizing the coup leader and his brutal regime.

The putschist president faces an international arrest warrant in Argentina for crimes against humanity targeting the Rohingya and faces mounting legal pressure in other jurisdictions for ongoing war crimes since the 2021 military coup.

He is scheduled to visit Malaysia this week for meetings with high-level officials including Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim. Anwar defended the invitation as payback for Myanmar’s agreement to take back over 1,400 of its nationals deported last week.

Malaysia will be the fifth member of ASEAN—after Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam—to receive the coup leader since Myanmar’s military-controlled elections in December and January. However, the rebranded regime remains barred from summits of the regional bloc, which has refused to recognize the vote.

APHR also warned that honoring him with an official visit tells the region that the 2021 coup and the military’s subsequent violence against Myanmar’s people are acceptable.

“Malaysia should not be receiving Min Aung Hlaing at all. Every red carpet rolled out for him tells the people of Myanmar, who live under airstrikes and forced conscription, that the region has made its peace with what is being done to them,” said Mercy Chriesty Barends, an Indonesian MP and APHR chairperson.

The group also urged Anwar and his government not to confer legitimacy on the regime by signing bilateral agreements or issuing joint statements.

Defying international protest, Malaysia deported the first batch in a phased repatriation of 50,000 Myanmar nationals on September 29.

The United Nations and international rights groups warned the deportations violated international rules banning the return of people to countries where they would face torture or violence, citing the Myanmar military’s ongoing atrocities and forced conscription of civilians snatched from homes and streets.

The mass repatriation came a day after 50 civilians were killed and 60 wounded in a regime airstrike on a busy market in Rakhine State’s Kyauktaw.

The ASEAN lawmakers noted the deportations bypassed the UN refugee agency and warned that conditions in war-torn Myanmar were not safe for returnees.

The group called on Kuala Lumpur to suspend repatriations until returnee safety could be guaranteed and conduct an independent assessment into whether those already returned had given consent.

“Malaysia has spoken powerfully for people displaced and dispossessed elsewhere in the world. The same principle must guide its response to the people of Myanmar,” the group stated.