Myanmar’s leader Aung San Suu Kyi and the country’s military commander Senior General Min Aung Hlaing have opened a major conference with representatives of ethnic minority groups to try to reach a lasting peace after seven decades of strained relations and armed conflict.
Read the full story at SFGATE here.
Ethiopia and Eritrea have just made a breakthrough peace deal, ending what was Africa’s deadliest border war.
The two nations were at war from 1998 to 2000, but a 2002 border ruling was not accepted by Ethiopia. Now, Ethiopia has agreed to the ruling, resolving two decades of hostility.
Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed traveled to Asmara, Eritrea, last week to sign a pact formally ending the war and agreeing to re-establish diplomatic ties and trade relations. Eritrea’s President Isaias Afwerki is currently visiting Ethiopia for the first time since the war, and was greeted on his arrival today by thousands of people, many waving Eritrean flags, in Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres says the peace efforts will have “a far-reaching positive impact on the whole region”.
As the nations look ahead peacebuilding on the ground will be important and normalizing relations will be key. Ethiopian Airlines have announced that they will restart flights to Eritrea for the first time in 20 years, UN sanctions may be lifted and citizens on both sides are celebrating.
With over 90,000 armed UN peacekeepers working around the world today — from Haiti to Lebanon to Kosovo to Darfur — critics have debated whether peace forces are generally isolated from the communities they are meant to protect. They often engage from the outside, with soldiers often patrolling in vehicles and retreating at the end of the day to compounds of rarefied security. There is, however, another model for peacekeeping called unarmed civilian protection, or UCP.
Check out the full story on UCP, it’s benefits and debates at Waging Nonviolence here.
Photo: US Navy
UN Special Envoy Martin Griffiths has been in Yemen’s capital, Sana’a, this week for two days of talks with leaders and representatives of the Ansar Allah rebel movement and the rival General People’s Congress, the party of the current and former President. “All parties have not only underscored their strong desire for peace, but have also engaged with me on concrete ideas for achieving peace,” he said.
Get the full story from the UN here.
South Sudan’s warring parties signed a deal on security arrangements on Friday, the latest step toward a final agreement to end the almost five-year civil war. Representatives of President Salva Kiir and rebel leader Riek Machar signed the pact in Khartoum, the capital of neighboring Sudan. The agreement concerns key issues including unifying and reorganizing the army, establishing a joint security committee and removing fighters from population centers, the state-run Sudan News Agency reported late Thursday.
For the full story from Bloomberg see here.
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