Myanmar mediators urge Suu Kyi to help in Kachin war
5 January AFP
Mediators trying to broker a peace deal between the military and
ethnic minority rebels in northern Myanmar on Saturday appealed to Nobel
laureate Aung San Suu Kyi to help end the bloody conflict.
The military's use of air strikes against the rebels has stoked
international concerns about a civil war that has overshadowed widely
praised political reforms seen since the end of junta rule in 2011.
“Aung San Suu Kyi also has responsibility to implement ethnic peace,”
Yup Zaw Hkaung, a local businessman and peace negotiator in the Kachin
state capital Myitkyina, told AFP by telephone.
“When she came to Kachin State to campaign for votes, she talked
about peace. She cannot abandon Kachin,” he said, adding that neither
the opposition leader nor President Thein Sein had replied to letters
asking for help.
Civil war has plagued parts of the country formerly known as Burma
since it won independence from Britain in 1948.
Suu Kyi, a former political prisoner turned lawmaker, used her maiden
speech to parliament in July last year to call for greater protection of
ethnic minority rights.
But the veteran activist has disappointed rights campaigners by not
speaking out more vocally in support of another minority group, the
Rohingya, in the violence-torn western state of Rakhine.
In northern Kachin, tens of thousands of people have been displaced
since June 2011 when a 17-year ceasefire between the government and the
Kachin Independence Army (KIA) broke down.The number of casualties is
unknown. The Kachin accuse the government of pushing dialogue only on
the basis of a ceasefire and troop withdrawals, neglecting to address
longstanding demands for greater political rights.Myanmar has reached
tentative ceasefires with most of the other major ethnic rebel groups,
but several rounds of talks with the Kachin have shown little tangible
progress.
“The fighting has been escalating,” Yup Zaw Hkaung said.“We are
urging dialogue as soon as possible. People are in big trouble.” He said
his Peace Creation Group, a mediation team formed with three other local
businessmen, wanted to meet Thein Sein face-to-face to discuss the
conflict with the former general, whose office said in December 2011 he
had ordered an end to military offensives against the rebels.
“As air strikes with jets have been used in the attacks, hatred
between the two sides could be growing,” Yup Zaw Hkaung said.
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