World court allows Rohingya inquiry

THE HAGUE, Netherlands — International Criminal Court judges on Thursday approved a request from prosecutors to open an investigation into crimes committed against Burma’s Rohingya Muslim minority.

There was no immediate public reaction from Burma’s government, though in previous statements it has rejected the court’s jurisdiction and said it would not cooperate with any proceeding.

The allegations stem from a campaign that Burma’s military began in August 2017 in response to an insurgent attack. More than 700,000 Rohingya fled to neighboring Bangladesh to escape what has been called an ethnic cleansing campaign involving mass rapes, killings and the torching of homes.

Burma is not a member of the global court, but Bangladesh is, and the court said that it has jurisdiction over crimes partially committed there.

The court said in a statement that a panel of judges that studied prosecutor Fatou Bensouda’s request to open an investigation concluded that there are grounds to believe widespread acts of violence were committed “that could qualify as the crimes against humanity of deportation across the Myanmar-Bangladesh border and persecution on grounds of ethnicity and/ or religion against the Rohingya population.”

Burma is often called Myanmar, a name that military authorities adopted in 1989. The United States and Britain have refused to adopt the name change.