Muslim families arrive at a temporary shelter at the monastery in Lashio, Northern Shan State, Myanmar, yesterday.
YANGON: Myanmar yesterday reached a tentative peace deal with ethnic minority Kachin rebels to end the civil war, which has displaced tens of thousands of people.
Kachin and government representatives, meeting on home soil for the first time since fighting flared up two years ago, signed a seven-point plan to end hostilities in the remote northern region.
“I think we have achieved a breakthrough,” said negotiator Min Zaw Oo, a director of the EU-funded Myanmar Peace Centre who took part in the talks in the Kachin state capital Myitkyina.
“The agreement is to stop fighting at this point and afterwards there are going to be detailed discussions about the repositioning of troops,” he added.
An official translation of the document said the two sides vowed to strive for a “de-escalation and cessation of hostilities”.
They also agreed to hold political dialogue — a key demand of the rebels who have long argued that negotiations should address their demands for more political rights and greater autonomy.
Both sides also agreed to hold discussions on resettling people displaced by the fighting and create a joint monitoring team.
A presidential spokesman hailed the agreement as “really good news”. Representatives from the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) were not available to comment.
The bloodshed in the northern state of Kachin bordering China and religious unrest elsewhere in the country have overshadowed political changes as Myanmar emerges from decades of military rule.
Representatives of the KIA and President Thein Sein’s reformist government held three days of talks in Myitkyina. Previous rounds of negotiations had taken place across the border in China.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s Special Adviser on Myanmar, Vijay Nambiar, joined the meeting for the first time as an observer, along with representatives of China and other ethnic minorities.
While the KIA is the last major rebel army to agree to a preliminary peace deal, skirmishes occasionally break out between the government and other groups.
According to the UN, about 100,000 people have been displaced in Kachin, where a 17-year ceasefire broke down in June 2011.
Thein Sein’s government has agreed tentative ceasefires with most of Myanmar’s ethnic rebels as part of its reforms, but fighting in Kachin had persisted.
The military’s use of air strikes against the KIA in December caused an international outcry, but violence has since eased.
Since coming to power two years ago, Sein has surprised even cynics by freeing hundreds of political prisoners, easing censorship and letting opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi enter parliament. But international optimism over the sweeping changes has been marred by the Kachin conflict and outbreaks of Buddhist-Muslim strife.
Meanwhile, troops patrolled the riot-scarred streets of a town in the east where hundreds of Muslims fled their homes after a new outbreak of religious violence left at least one dead.
Armed mobs had roamed the streets of Lashio in Shan state in the past two days of fighting that saw a mosque and orphanage torched. Some 300 Muslims took refuge at a monastery in the town, guarded by police and soldiers, after violence tore through their neighbourhood. AGENCIES
