289.13 // Cease Fire Offer Rejected on Serenno
Serennoan rebels delivered an emphatic “no” to an Ascendancy proposal for an end to fighting in their world, insisting that Chiss forces must relinquish their hold on the planet as part of any diplomatic solution.
The opposition council’s announcement after closed-door talks with an Ascendancy on Bobecc quashed hopes for an early end to the nearly 2-year-old conflict between Ascendancy forces and opposition fighters on Serenno.
“The Ascendancy’s ceasefire initiative does not include the departure of their military and political rulers from our world, therefore it is unacceptable,” Commander Ahlstan Rhan of rebel forces said at Torwyn, the rebels’ de facto capital. “We will not negotiate on the blood of our martyrs. We will die with them or be victorious.”
Commander Rhan said the proposal had been around for more than a cycle. Rebels also said it was unacceptable because it did not call for the Ascendancy to withdraw its forces from besieged cities and did not allow protests, which is a key opposition demand.
The Galactic Alliance also greeted news of the Ascendancy’s openness to a cease-fire with suspicion. Secretary-General Ranth Anzaria at a Coruscanti news briefing that Ascendancy forces had demonstrated that they “did not keep their promises,” local news service reported.
Meanwhile, Chiss fighters continued to attack the rebel-held city of Rekonn. Among many of the people killed was a 3-year-old girl, Breanna Latt, whose parents brought her body to one of the makeshift field hospitals in the city. Many more were wounded, said the doctor, who asked that his name not be published for security reasons.
“Nobody is supporting civilians but everybody is saying they are supporting civilians,” said the doctor. “We don’t know how the people promising to help us are helping us.”
Reporting from Coruscant, Nik Carraway, Galactic Holonews