Communities call for war talks to stop military attacks

Yangon, Sunday: Youth and women leaders from Burma's ethnic and religious minorities today called for the commencement of war talks in response to increased military attacks and atrocities upon civilians.

"Every time the government has peace talks, there are more attacks, rapes, abductions and killings of civilians, especially targeting women, children and young people. In the past few months, when Myanmar Peace Center hosted more peace talks, the Tatmadaw increased attacks in Kachin and northern Shan states," explained a youth leader.

"We need to abandon peace talks now and start war talks so the military will be busy talking instead of raping ethnic women and girls," emphasized a women's rights activist.

A longtime observer of the Burma situation concurred with the analysis and congratulated the activists for thinking outside the box. "The UN, US and EU should begin exploring this strategy as it can't be worse than what they have been doing in the past 3 years.

"If it works, then we can start talking about establishing a parliamentary commission to oppose constitutional reform and re-brand the MPC as the Myanmar War Center."