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Myanmar government and Kachin discuss peace on the Chinese border
Posted by: PNA
Post Date: 4 Feb 2013
Peace talks between the Myanmar government and Kachin
Independence Organization (KIO) were held in the Chinese border town of Ruili
in southwest Yunnan province on Monday. The two sides pledged to address
ceasefire monitoring in their next round of talks, which will be held in the
coming weeks.
The talks are in response to escalated fighting amongst the defense wing of the KIO - the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) ,and
Myanmar military. Starting in December, Myanmar’s military used air power and
heavy artillery to strike at rebel positions close to KIA headquarters in
Laiza, near the Sino-Myanmar border.
Nearly 100,000 villagers have been displaced since the
fragile 17-year ceasefire between the two disintegrated in mid-2011. The KIA is fighting for autonomy of Kachin state within
Myanmar; a proposal that has long been rejected by the Myanmar government
Chinese representatives and leaders of two other ethnic
groups, the Karen National Union (KNU) and the Shan State Restoration Council
(SSRC), were active in brokering the talks between the Myanmar government and
the KIO.
Both the Karen and
Shan ethnic groups signed peace agreements with the Myanmar government
last year and have good relations with the Kachin.
The two sides met for
seven hours in Ruili, just inside Chinese territory, at the Jingcheng Grand Hotel. Afterwards, they
issued a joint statement that said further talks would be held in the next few
weeks, aimed at setting up better communication and to enforce a ceasefire
"as soon as possible".
Monday’s talks were led by the government’s top peace
negotiator U Aung Min, a former general, and General Gun Maw, second-in-command
of the KIA. Also present were Chinese officials, KNU chairman General Mutu Say
Poe and SSRC leader Sai Yu.
Myanmar military officials were not present at the talks – a
decision that the talk’s facilitators claimed as deliberate, in order to ensure a productive and uncontentious
session.
Government-KIA talks
have been held on 11 previous occasions, without progress. Previous attempts
were initiated to quell conflicts that began after fighting restarted in June
2011 - following the dissolution of a nearly two-decade long ceasefire
agreement.
The talks happened on the same day government troops
confiscated KIA battalion no.6 in Pukwan township in at 10:30 am.
According to second Lieutenant Colonel Enn Kun Zaw, KIA
battalion commander, KIA forces had “already abandoned the area, but the
government troops confiscated the camp, anyway,” he said.
Although
President Thein Sein called for a ceasefire in January, it has been virtually
ignored by the Myanmar military.
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