Aung Hlaing: Myanmar’s ambitious army chief

YANGON: After taking credit for restoring Myanmar’s democracy but then watching the military get smashed in elections, the country’s top general has seized power just months away from official retirement.

General Min Aung Hlaing is an international pariah who has been condemned for presiding over a brutal crackdown on the country’s stateless Rohingya population in 2017.

He has been banned from Facebook for stoking hate speech against the persecuted minority, and UN investigators have called on him and other top army leaders to be prosecuted for genocide.

But for years he has steadfastly denied nearly all allegations of human rights abuses and says the military operations, which drove around 750,000 Rohingya refugees into Bangladesh, were justified to root out insurgents.

The 64-year-old was tapped to head the country’s armed forces in 2011, just as a previous generation of military leaders were transitioning the country to a parliamentary system after decades of junta rule.