Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has offered to help negotiate an end to conflicts between the government and the country’s ethnic minority groups.
Suu Kyi made the offer on Tuesday in a video address to members of her National League for Democracy party on Union Day, which marks when her late father signed a 1947 agreement with leaders of the country’s ethnic minorities to gain independence from Britain.
The occasion is a reminder of an issue that has destabilised the country since even before it obtained independence in 1948 under the name of Burma.
Rebellions by ethnic minorities striving for greater autonomy were hard for a democratic parliamentary system to deal with, which increased pressure for strong central authority and helped lead to an army takeover in 1962. Military rule persisted until 2011.
The government of elected President Thein Sein has reached ceasefire agreements with most of the major ethnic groups, but still finds itself engaged in a bitter struggle with the Kachin in northern Myanmar.
Thein Sein in his Union Day address stressed the importance of “political stability and the end of armed conflicts”.
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