 |
| Two girls sit on a bench by a lake in Rangoon at sunrise on Saturday. (Reuters Photo) |
Related
articles
- Clinton Highlights Democracy on Final Day of Burma Trip
- Clinton Lays Down a Reform Challenge for Burma
- Clinton Challenges Burma to Expand Reforms
- Burmese Regime Doesn’t Need More Time to End Human Rights Abuses
- Clinton Tests Reforms on Historic Visit to Burma
Bangkok.
Authorities in Burma have reached a preliminary cease-fire deal with a major
armed ethnic militia, reports said Saturday, in the latest sign the regime is
reaching out to its opponents.
The truce
was signed Friday between the Shan State Army South and local authorities in
the northeastern state, the editor of the Thailand-based Shan Herald Agency for
News, Khuensai Jaiyen, told AFP, citing rebel contacts.
The was no
immediate confirmation from the Burmese government or the Shan State Army, but
the Irrawaddy news Web site, run by journalists in exile, said the agreement in
the Shan State capital of Taunggyi also included government assurances of
economic development and joint efforts against drugs.
It said the
next step would be negotiations with the central government.
The country
made a series of reformist moves in the past year -- freeing democracy leader
Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest, holding dialogue with the opposition and
freeing some political prisoners.
Elections
last year brought a nominally civilian government to power, but it retains
close links with the army.
Civil war
has wracked parts of the country since its independence in 1948, and an end to
the conflicts, as well as alleged human rights abuses involving government
troops, is a key demand of the international community.
Burma’s
leaders last month held peace talks near the Thai-Burma border with several
ethnic groups fighting a long-running struggle for autonomy and rights,
according to people involved.
Most
insurgent groups have agreed cease-fires with the government, and the Shan
State Army South has been one of the biggest rebel forces still fighting, with
thousands of troops mostly stationed near the border with Thailand.
The mainly
Buddhist Shan are the country’s second-biggest ethnic group, accounting for
about nine percent of the population, and Shan State covers a vast area of
northeastern Burma.
In eastern
Karen State, armed rebels have been waging Burma’s longest-running insurgency,
battling the government since 1949, while fighting has also raged since June in
northern Kachin State near the Chinese border.
Burma state
media reported on Thursday that peace talks had been held between the
government and the Kachin Independence Organization, and the two sides had
agreed to continue dialogue.
US
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton welcomed what she said were efforts by the
regime to resolve ethnic conflicts, after historic talks with the country’s
rulers in the capital Naypyidaw on Thursday.
“But as
long as the terrible violence continues in some of the world’s longest-running
internal conflicts, it will be difficult to begin a new chapter,” she said.
Agence France-Presse
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.