KIO's Gun Maw other ethnic leaders meet Suu Kyi

Maj-Gen Sumlut Gun Maw (sencond From left), the KIO's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Photo: NLD

A group of senior representatives from Burma's armed rebel groups including the Kachin Independence Organization's (KIO) Minister of Foreign Affairs, Major General Sumlut Gun Maw met with Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi at her home on Monday.

The delegation, which also included Nai Hong Sar from the New Mon State Party (NMSP) and the long time Pao leader Khun Okkar, expressed their desire to see the famed Nobel Prize Winner serve as a witness to the peace process, according to a report published on the Irrawaddy website.

The meeting appears to be the first time Aung San Suu Kyi has at least publicly met with any official from the KIO since the 1990's. Since her release from house arrest in November 2010 she has met a long line of other leaders from the various armed ethnic groups including the Karen National Union (KNU) and the Shan State Army South's leader Yawd Serk.

Neither Aung San Suu Kyi or any of her colleagues from the National League for Democracy (NLD) have played a significant role in the ongoing peace process between Burma's nominally and country's various armed ethnic groups. Burma's famed opposition leader has also rarely spoken publicly about the Kachin conflict since it resumed in June 2011.

Speaking to Australia's public broadcaster ABC in November last year Aung San Suu Kyi claimed that there was no need for her to speak out about the Kachin conflict. Responding to a question from ABC presenter Leigh Sales about criticism she has received for failing to speak up for Burma’s ethnic minorities the Nobel peace prize winner responded,  “The Kachin Independence Organization, the KIO, are having official peace talks with the Government and I'm a bit puzzled when I'm told, ‘Why am I not criticising the Army? Why am I not speaking up for the Kachins?’ Isn't this what the KIO is doing directly with the Government? When they are engaged in direct peace talks with the Government, why are we then supposed to stand up and condemn one side or the other? That might in fact derail the peace process and then we'd be blamed for it.”