Govt Peace Committee to Meet KIO Again

By SAW YAN NAING Monday, December 19, 2011

Naypyidaw’s peace committee, led by government Minister Aung Thaung, has attempted to quell mounting tensions with Kachin rebels by offering to enter peace talks on ongoing conflicts and war refugees.

Sources close to the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO) claim that their leadership received a letter signed by Aung Thaung yesterday. The government peace committee said that it wanted to discuss political issues, said the sources.

Recent meetings have all broken down as government representatives only proposed a ceasefire agreement while the KIO also wanted political talks.

Representatives from Naypydaw will include Aung Thaung and Railways Minister ex-Maj-Gen Aung Min, but sources say that the date of any future meeting is currently unknown.

The Aung Thaung-led peace committee—a “union-level peace discussion group” formed by Burma President Thein Sein—vowed to achieve a permanent resolution with major ethnic rebel groups in three to four years.

Armed conflicts broke out between government soldiers and the Kachin Independence Army—the KIO's military wing—in June 2011 forcing more than 4,000 civilian refugees to flee the conflict zone towards the Sino-Burmese border.

Peace negotiators have since met several times with KIO leaders in both Kachin State, northern Burma, and China's Yunnan province without any successful agreement.

The KIO is estimated to have more than 10,000 troops and is one of the major ethnic armed groups in Burma.

Aung Thaung, a top member of the ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party, told local journalists in Burma that he would try his best to achieve peace with ethnic groups.

“There has been no peace in the country for more than six decades. Myanmar is the only country in the world where ethnic conflicts have continued for six decades and the world has looked down on us,” Aung Thaung told local reporters.

“Thus we have vowed to try our best to achieve peace with armed ethnic groups,” he added.

There have been ethnic conflicts between minority rebel groups and the Burmese government ever since the nation gained independence from Great Britain in 1948.

From late 1990, a series of ceasefire agreements were signed between the Burmese government and 17 ethnic armed groups. The KIO eventually agreed terms in 1994, but this 17-year-long ceasefire agreement broke down in June 2011.

Thein Sein ordered an end to fighting with Kachin rebels on Dec. 10, but skirmishes have continued due to difficulties in communicating with troops in remote areas, said Aung Thaung.

The government peace committee also met with armed ethnic groups including Karen, Karenni, Shan, Mon and Chin rebels in northern Thailand on Nov. 19 but failed to reach a formal agreement.

So far, two major ethnic armed groups—the Shan State Army-South and breakaway Democratic Karen Buddhist Army—have reached ceasefire deals with the government.
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