In Myanmar, a brief ceasefire between a powerful alliance of ethnic armed groups and the ruling military junta appears to have been broken just hours after it was negotiated at China’s urging.
The Three Brotherhood Alliance, one of the factions fighting in a coordinated armed struggle against the Tatmadaw (Myanmar’s military junta), agreed to the ceasefire Friday in the Chinese provincial capital of Kunming, about 250 miles from Myanmar’s northeast border with China. The ceasefire provision was seemingly limited to Shan state, which borders China, and aimed at protecting Chinese interests and civilians in the region.
But by Friday, the military had broken the agreement, according to a statement from the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA), one of the ethnic armed groups, along with the Arakan Army and the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, in the Three Brotherhood Alliance. The junta attacked multiple positions in northern Shan State Friday and Saturday, the Irrawaddy and local Burmese outlets reported. Vox is unable to independently verify the claims.
The ceasefire came after multiple rounds of talks between the Tatmadaw and the Three Brotherhood Alliance. Both sides reportedly broke a previous ceasefire agreement negotiated last month, and some observers did not expect the current agreement to hold.
“The three parties, the three ethnic armed organizations up on the border actually had no intention in participating in these talks and did so really only because of very strong Chinese pressure,” Jason Tower, country director for the Burma program at the US Institute of Peace, told Vox. “And I think that the ceasefire was really doomed to fail from the outset, given that there was just no intention on the part of the different parties to seriously engage in any form of deeper dialogue about the situation.”
But the ceasefire, though it involves a critically important armed group, did not apply to other parts of Myanmar, where…
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