Myanmar expels East Timor's top diplomat over a criminal complaint alleging military abuses

BANGKOK — Myanmar 's military government ordered East Timor 's senior diplomat to leave the country after judicial authorities from the fellow Southeast Asian country accepted a criminal complaint against Myanmar's armed forces, state media said Monday.

The move sharply escalates tensions between the two countries and is a rare step between members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which East Timor joined only last year.

There was no immediate response from East Timor's government to efforts to contact it by phone and online for comment.

East Timor, also known as Timor Leste, is Asia's youngest nation. It gained independence from Indonesia in 2002.

A statement from Myanmar's Foreign Ministry, published in the state-run Myanma Alinn newspaper, said East Timor's President José Ramos-Horta engaged in mid-January with the members of the Chin Human Rights Organization, which documents alleged abuses especially in Myanmar's northwestern Chin state.

It said Ramos-Horta's government accepted a criminal complaint filed by the CHRO against senior members of Myanmar's military and appointed a senior prosecutor for the group to examine the case, despite what it described as strong condemnation conveyed through diplomatic channels.

Myanmar's Foreign Ministry on Friday informed Elisio do Rosario de Sousa, the charge d'affaires of East Timor's Embassy in Yangon, to leave the country no later than Feb. 20, the statement said.

The group said the case includes evidence of gang rape, the massacre of 10 people including a journalist, the deaths of Christian religious figures, and airstrikes on a hospital and religious buildings.

East Timor's stance toward Myanmar's military has been clear from sustained actions and prior positions, including backing accountability mechanisms for alleged atrocities in Myanmar, as well as from Ramos-Horta's January meeting with CHRO representatives.

East Timor's laws allow its domestic courts to investigate and potentially prosecute serious international crimes regardless of where they were committed or the nationality of those involved. The move marks the first time an ASEAN member has taken such a step against another member state.

Emails and calls to the CHRO and the law firm representing it in East Timor were not immediately answered.

Myanmar's military has been widely accused by rights groups and U.N. investigators of serious human rights violations since the army seized power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021. The takeover was met with massive nonviolent resistance, which has since become a widespread armed struggle.

Ramos-Horta, a Nobel Prize laureate, has been openly critical of Myanmar's military rulers and has expressed support for the opposition.

In August 2023, Myanmar's military government first expelled East Timor's charge d'affaires after Ramos-Horta held meetings with the country's shadow National Unity Government, which views itself as Myanmar's legitimate administration.

Tensions over East Timor's criticism of Myanmar and its willingness to engage with the opposition groups also prompted threats from Myanmar's military leadership to block the young country's membership bid for ASEAN, of which Myanmar is a member.

East Timor overcame that hurdle and was named the bloc's 11th member in October last year.

A day after becoming ASEAN's newest member, Ramos-Horta told The Associated Press in a wide-ranging interview in Malaysia that he would be willing to intercede personally to try and break the impasse in Myanmar's raging civil war.