One of the main ethnic rebel groups battling Myanmar’s government signed a preliminary ceasefire on Friday, Web sites operated by exiled journalists reported.
The reported agreement comes as Myanmar’s army-backed but elected government is seeking international legitimacy through democratic reforms after years of military repression.
US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton just concluded a visit to the country that was intended to encourage those reforms.
The Shan State Army-South rebel group was one of the biggest not to previously sign a ceasefire with the government.
The Thailand-based Irrawaddy Web site reported that the rebels signed an agreement with Myanmar’s official Shan State Government. India-based Mizzima News and the Shan Herald Agency for News, a Web site close to the guerrillas, reported similar news.
During her visit that ended on Friday, Clinton offered modest incentives to the new government, while calling on it to end brutal campaigns against ethnic minorities, free all political prisoners and break military ties with North Korea.
Myanmar has for decades been at odds with the ethnic groups who seek greater autonomy, but a military junta that took power in 1988 signed ceasefire agreements with many. Some of those pacts were strained as the central government sought to consolidate power, and combat resumed.
Neither the government nor the rebel group would immediately confirm the new ceasefire, but the Shan Herald Agency’s report cited Shan rebel leader Lieutenant-General Yawdserk as saying an agreement was reached on a ceasefire, political negotiations, development and cooperation against drugs.
It was not clear when or if the Shan group would sign a ceasefire agreement with the central government.
Myanmar’s government in recent weeks has held high-level but low-profile talks with rebel groups with which it has never signed ceasefires, or had ceasefires that have broken down. The groups reportedly involved in talks include the Shan, Karen, Karenni, Chin and Kachin.
A high-level government delegation met on Tuesday with the Kachin Independence Organization in Ruili in Yunnan Province China, Myanmar’s state press reported this week. The Kachin, whose state is in the north, have been fighting the government since June, when the army tried to break up some of their militia strongholds.
The reports said both sides agreed at the meeting to continue initial peace talks aimed at a ceasefire and political dialogues.
Kachin sympathizers have circulated accounts of government brutality, but the remote area is mostly inaccessible to foreigners and the allegations are difficult to confirm. The government has reported little on the fighting.
Myanmar democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi has called the end to the fighting with ethnic guerrillas a national priority, and last month said she would be willing to help with peace negotiations.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in