Junta offers ceasefire, but not to protesters
YANGON, Myanmar — Myanmar’s junta announced Wednesday it is implementing a unilateral onemonth ceasefire, but made an exception for actions that disrupt the government’s security and administrative operations — a clear reference to the mass movement that has held daily nationwide protests against its seizure of power in February.
The announcement came after a flurry of combat with at least two of the ethnic minority guerrilla organizations that maintain a strong presence in their respective areas along the borders.
More than a dozen such groups have for decades sought greater autonomy from the central government, sometimes through armed struggle. Even in times of peace, relations have been strained and ceasefires fragile.
The movement against the Feb. 1 coup that ousted the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi focuses on civil disobedience, calling on employees in the public and private sectors to stop work that supports the machinery of governing.
It has been seeking an alliance with the ethnic minority armed groups to boost pressure on the junta. It would like them to form what they are calling a federal army as a counterweight to the government armed forces.
Largely peaceful demonstrators in the cities and towns of Myanmar have been facing police and soldiers armed with war weapons that they have used freely. At least 536 protesters and bystanders have been killed since the coup, according to Myanmar’s Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, which counts those it can document and says the actual toll is likely much higher.
There was no immediate reaction to the ceasefire announcement from the ethnic minority forces. Several of the major groups — including the Kachin in the north, the Karen in the east and the Rakhines’ Arakan Army in western Myanmar — have publicly denounced the coup and have said they will defend protesters in the territory they control.
The Kachin Independence Army, the armed wing of the Kachin Independence Organization, attacked a police station in Kachin state’s Shwegu township before dawn Wednesday, according to local news outlets The 74 Media and Bhamo Platform. The attackers were reported to have seized weapons and supplies and wounded one police officer.
Wednesday’s Kachin attack followed new conflict in eastern Myanmar, where Karen guerrillas seized an army outpost Saturday. Myanmar’s military followed with air strikes through Wednesday that killed at least 13 villagers and drove thousands more across the border into Thailand, according to the Free Burma Rangers, an established humanitarian group that provides medical assistance to the area’s villagers.