Myanmar junta expels diplomat after Timor-Leste opens war crimes investigation

Asean bloc member becomes first to investigate criminal complaint against Myanmar’s generals

Myanmar’s junta has expelled Timor-Leste’s top diplomat after the Southeast Asian island accepted a legal case against the military regime for alleged war crimes.

Timor-Leste’s investigation represents the first time a member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) has initiated such action against a fellow member state.

It also marks a bold move by Asia's youngest nation, which gained independence from Indonesia in 2002 and joined the regional bloc in 2025.

Myanmar’s military-run government is already defending itself from prosecution at the International Court of Justice in The Hague over allegations of genocide against the mostly Muslim Rohingya minority, a case brought by The Gambia.

Myanmar's foreign ministry said it has informed Elisio do Rosario de Sousa, the charge d'affaires of Timor-Leste’s embassy in Yangon, to leave the country no later than 20 February.

The junta called the investigations against it a “great disappointment” and accused the country of violating Asean Charter articles that “underscore the importance of upholding respect for sovereignty and non-interference”.

Myanmar’s military, which seized power in a 2021 coup and overthrew the democratically elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, has for decades been accused of war crimes and rights abuses targeting the nation’s ethnic minorities.

Timor-Leste’s President Jose Ramos-Horta has been an outspoken critic of Myanmar’s military junta (AP)

The coup was met with massive nonviolent resistance, which has since grown into all-out civil war, with many militia groups now controlling parts of the country.

Timor-Leste opened its legal proceedings against the junta, including its leader Senior Gen Min Aung Hlaing, for both war crimes and crimes against humanity following a complaint by the Chin Human Rights Organization (CHRO), a body that represents Myanmar’s Chin ethnic minority.

CHRO said “a senior Timorese prosecutor has been appointed to look into the criminal file” presented by the organisation.

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.

Myanmar’s foreign ministry said Timor-Leste president José Ramos-Horta engaged with CHRO and accepted its criminal complaint against the junta despite it lodging a strong condemnation through diplomatic channels.

Mr Ramos-Horta, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, has been an outspoken critic of Myanmar’s military and a vocal supporter of the opposition.

Timor-Leste has long called for international accountability over alleged atrocities in Myanmar, and says that under its laws domestic courts have jurisdiction to investigate and prosecute serious international crimes regardless of where they were committed or by whom.

With a population of 1.4 million people, Timor-Leste, also known as East Timor, lies on the eastern half of the island of Timor, northwest of Australia, and shares a land border with Indonesia.

Myanmar’s military leadership earlier threatened to obstruct Timor-Leste’s bid to join Asean over what it views as interference in its internal affairs. Those efforts failed when, in October last year, Timor-Leste was named Asean’s 11th member.