The Shan State Army (SSA) South, after one and a half hour meeting with Naypyitaw’s special representative U Aung Min at an undisclosed location on the Thailand-Burma border yesterday, had reached agreement for a ceasefire with Naypyitaw, www.taifreedom.com, the SSA’s webpage, reports today.
Lt-General Yawdserk, Chairman of the Restoration Council of Shan State (RCSS), had presented a 4 point proposition:
- Cessation of hostilities
- Political negotiations
- Setting up of a Special Development Zone, and
- Cooperation in the drug eradication
The two sides will hold another meeting for an official signing of the ceasefire in the near future, it says.
The SSA South will be the 4th opposition armed group, after Wa, Mongla and Democratic Karen Buddhist Army, to reach agreement with the new civilianized government.
“Our people have been living in the dark for more than 50 years,” Yawdserk told U Aung Min. “It is good that the sun has come up. However, if we are unable to prevent continued inequality and discrimination, another eclipse is bound to come.”
updated (21 November 2011)
The meeting between Naypyitaw representatives on the Thai-Burma border for peace talks, on 19 November coincided with a clash in Mongyu-Mongyawng area on the same day. The half-hour encounter, 06:00-06:30, between the SSS’s 108th Battalion and IB 334 column led by Capt Myint Kyaw Naing, ended with the retreating SSA in possession of a G-3 automatic rifle, says the SSA’s eastern region commander Lt-Col Gawn Zeun. The Burma Army, he adds, has also been in a campaign to push out the SSA from Kengtung township. (SHAN)
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