China-backed Myanmar rebels call on junta to embrace peace talks
- The 25,000-strong UWSA is one of the world’s largest non-state militaries, making its own guns and conscripting a member from each household in areas it controls
- Sticks to its enclave on northern border and so far has had little involvement in fighting sparked by toppling of Aung San Suu Kyi’s government by the military
A powerful Myanmar ethnic rebel group with close ties to China called on Tuesday for the junta to engage in dialogue with anti-coup fighters to end 15 months of bloodshed.
With a standing force of around 25,000, the United Wa State Army is one of the world’s largest non-state militaries, manufacturing its own guns and conscripting a member from each household in areas under its control.
But the UWSA largely sticks to its autonomous enclave on Myanmar’s northern border with China, and has so far had little involvement in the fighting sparked by the toppling of Aung San Suu Kyi’s government by the military last year.
The UWSA made an “appeal to all parties in the conflict for resolving it by negotiation as soon as possible”, it said in a statement following talks with junta officials in the capital Naypyidaw.
Internal conflicts in the borderlands that have plagued Myanmar since independence from Britain “have proved that any fundamental problems cannot be solved by military force”, it said.