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2012-04-08 Southeast Asia
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Myanmar holds talks with rebels
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YANGON: Myanmar's president had a landmark meeting on Saturday with one of the country's biggest ethnic rebel groups, a mediator said, marking one of the biggest steps taken by a government seeking "everlasting peace" after decades of hostilities.
Thein Sein, a former infantry commander and heavyweight in the junta that ceded power a year ago, told a visiting delegation of the Karen National Union (KNU) that his government viewed the rebels as brothers rather than enemy with whom the army had fought since 1949.
The meeting in the capital Naypyitaw was the first time the reform-minded president had met rebel leaders since he issued a call for dialogue last August, embarking on a three-phase peace process with more than a dozen groups aimed at bringing them into Myanmar's new political system.
"The president explained his change of attitude toward ethnic armed groups," a mediator who attended the meeting told Reuters by telephone. "He told them he considered ethnic armed groups as enemies when he was a soldier but after becoming president, he considers them as ethnic brethren."
Peace with the militias has been demanded by Western nations now reviewing economic and political sanctions. The former regime's suppression of ethnic minorities and allegations of human rights violations by troops were a key factor in imposing the embargoes.
The peace process is one of the most ambitious plans by a quasi-civilian government dominated by retired generals of the authoritarian regime who were despised by most Burmese and regarded by the West as pariahs. The new administration has embarked on a wave of social, political and economic reforms that it says are "irreversible" as it seeks to get sanctions lifted to allow a flood of foreign investment into one of Asia's last remaining frontier markets. 
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Posted by Steve White 2012-04-08 00:00||
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Posted by JosephMendiola 2012-04-08 22:02||
2012-04-08 22:02||
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