NAYPYIDAW, Myanmar - One year after
Myanmar's secretive ruling military junta suddenly
relocated the national capital 320 kilometers
north from Yangon to Naypyidaw, the motivations
behind the dramatic move are still unclear.
Foreign access to the new capital is
strictly forbidden. But this correspondent's
recent travels through the area showed that the
junta has quietly continued to build around the
new capital's
greenfield site, which is
rapidly swallowing the old town formerly known as
Pyinmana. And recent construction of key
infrastructure in other parts of the country's
heartland Mandalay division offers new clues to
the junta's grand designs for the region.
Although on a smaller scale than in the
new capital, Myanmar's government is concurrently
developing military, communications and transport
infrastructure in a corridor that runs directly
north from Naypyidaw to Pyin Oo Lwin, the town
where the army's Defense Services Academy (DSA)
training facility is situated.
The regime
is building a new military airport just outside of
Pyin Oo Lwin in nearby Anikasan town. The single
runway, a 3,000-meter-long airstrip, took nearly
two years to complete and immediately came into
service last October when the junta received
India's army chief of staff J J Singh in Pyin Oo
Lwin. The Indian official was subsequently taken
on a tour of the DSA as well as the Defense
Services Technological Academy.
Residents
of Pyin Oo Lwin and nearby Mandalay say the new
airstrip is more commonly used to ferry
high-ranking military officials between Naypyidaw
and a newly built luxury housing complex between
Anikasan Airport and Pyin Oo Lwin, which
reportedly includes a large mansion belonging to
State Peace and Development Council chief General
Than Shwe. Strictly off limits to visitors, the
site was built with the help of Htoo Trading,
owned by Tay Za, the military's preferred
construction contractor and a renowned arms
dealer.
In July, just outside of Pyin Oo
Lwin, the junta began construction on the
Yadanabon Silicon Village, a new cyber-city that
promises to serve as an integral part of the new
capital's communication network. Although
construction has just commenced, architectural
blueprints seen by this correspondent at the
site's foreman's cabin show plans for a sprawling
complex devoted to software incubation and
information-technology hardware suites, along with
a modern residential zone.
In August,
builders had cleared a channel for a new access
road to the site, though construction of the
complex itself has not progressed beyond initial
landscaping. Builders could be heard by this
correspondent blasting the hillside as part of the
land-clearing process. As with the new capital
Naypyidaw, photographing the site is strictly
forbidden.
Military industrial
complex The junta apparently has an eye on
concentrating key industry around the region. Old
and new military installations line the main road
from Pyin Oo Lwin to Mandalay, including the
Defense Services Mechanical and Electrical
Engineering School, which was built more than a
decade ago. The town is also home to the Defense
Services Institute of Technology, the Defense
Services Administration School and the Army
Training Depot.
Also just outside Pyin Oo
Lwin is Myanmar's only iron-and-steel factory,
which produces about 30,000 tons of metal a year,
according to the Chinese state news agency Xinhua.
In a bid to improve access to this increasingly
significant military town, the government in 2003
decided to upgrade drastically the notoriously
poor Mandalay-Pyin Oo Lwin road with the help of
the Asia World Co, another preferred contractor
owned by Steven Law, who has widely alleged links
to the narcotics trade. It now takes less than an
hour by car to reach Mandalay from Pyin Oo Lwin.
Almost equidistant between Pyin Oo Lwin
and Naypyidaw is the strategically significant
town of Meiktila, home to the country's air force.
Meiktila has also seen extensive development in
recent years coincident with construction of the
new capital. Since 2001, there have been reports
that China and Russia have helped upgrade the
Shante air base, the country's main military
airstrip, a few kilometers northeast of Meiktila.
Reports that both countries have recently
sold and delivered fighter jets to the base seem
to be confirmed by satellite images downloaded
using Google Earth, which clearly show a number of
olive-green Chinese Chengdu F-7M Airguard and
light-khaki NAMC A-5C military aircraft along with
blue Russian MiG-29s - all recent additions to
Myanmar's air force. At the nearby Meiktila
Airfield, Google Earth images also show a number
of what appear to be Russian Mi-17 helicopters.
In addition to supplying military
hardware, media reports have suggested, Chinese
and Russian aeronautical experts have in recent
years made regular visits to the various air force
training schools around Meiktila.
The
state-run New Light of Myanmar newspaper in April
2004 confirmed that lectures were administered by
"local and foreign experts" at the Myanmar
Aerospace Engineering University in Meiktila,
which at the time was still in the process of
being completed. This "new and separate
university", the report said, would "make the
teaching programs more effective by sending
teachers going to work at the university to
foreign countries for further studies and inviting
foreign technicians to the university to give
lectures".
Highlighting the military
significance of the new facility, Than Shwe said
during a 2004 visit, "Only when the university
produces future technicians in aerospace and
engineering fields for the state will the nation
be able to keep pace with others." The military
has also relied on Chinese and Russian assistance
to help build other significant military
installations in and around Meiktila.
In
April 2004, around the time construction on the
new capital began, the junta signed a US$500
million deal with Ukrainian state arms company
UkrspetsExport to build an APC (armored personnel
carrier) factory. Between 12km and 15km outside of
Meiktila, according to a former employee of the
Ukrainian firm who worked on the deal, the
facility is designed over a 10-year period to
receive about 1,000 70%-assembled BTR-3U APCs.
At the factory, Meiktila-based Ukrainian
technicians are geared to work hand-in-hand with
their Myanmar counterparts to complete the
assembly process and pass along knowledge about
the vehicles' inner workings, the company's former
employee said. Although the deal was designed to
run until 2014, Myanmar's failure to meet payments
on time has recently soured relations between the
two sides.
In a bid to receive past-due
payments, Sergiy Korostil, UkrspetsExport's chief
representative in Yangon, wrote a letter to
Myanmar's Ministry of Defense this year. This was,
however, rebuffed when the Myanmar side accused
the Ukrainians of violating their side of the
agreement when their technicians were discovered
to have left their designated military compound
without authorization. Whether this tit-for-tat
exchange has killed the deal is unclear. Korostil
is reportedly still operating out of his office at
the Nikko Hotel in Yangon with a small team of
staff, and the executive has since made visits to
Naypyidaw to meet with government officials.
The hiccup with UkrspetsExport has not
dampened other foreign firms' appetite to ink
deals with the junta. Many Asian companies have
traveled to Naypyidaw to sign a host of state
contracts to build communication, transport and
perhaps even military infrastructure. In 1998,
prior to the UkrspetsExports episode, Myanmar
agreed to a deal with China to build a landmine
factory just outside of Meiktila, which is
reportedly still up and running.
The junta
has also made efforts to significantly upgrade
transport links to Meiktila. In August, workers
could be seen opposite the town's train platform
working on the beginnings of a construction
project between the two main lines that run
through Meiktila railway station. On July 16, the
government held a ceremony to launch the new
Naypyidaw-Meiktila express-train service, one of a
number of recently added routes to the new
capital. The project included construction of "13
small and big bridges ... along the railroad", the
state-run press reported.
South of
Meiktila, the road to Naypyidaw has undergone
considerable renovation, at least by Myanmar's
poor standards. Although many roads in the new
capital remain unfinished, an expansive new
highway that leads off the main Yangon-Mandalay
road to the new Ministry of Defense compound is
nearly complete. A Western observer who in
recent months caught a rare glimpse inside the new
35-square-kilometer defense zone to the north of
the new capital noticed giant statues of past
Burmese kings along the main parade ground. "Most
notable was the four-lane concrete road that
passes through the entire complex, [which] becomes
six then eight lanes as you enter the military
side. Reportedly, this is so it can serve as an
airplane runway," said the Western observer, who
requested anonymity.
Mysterious
motivations While commentators have
offered a host of reasons for the junta's sudden
move north, ranging from astrology to military
strategy to fears of a possible US-led invasion,
the larger field of development in Myanmar's
central heartland lends credence to the simpler
strategic notion that the junta regards the
central heartland as an ideal site to consolidate
its resources.
Whether or not the move to
Naypyidaw offers strategic military advantages is
debatable, according to Andrew Selth, an expert on
Myanmar's armed forces. "Building Naypyidaw
emphasizes and utilizes that corridor, but there
have long been plans to upgrade these facilities,
as they are also important for economic and
political reasons," he said. "In purely strategic
terms, it would have been more sensible to
diversify these critical north-south links and
build more routes on the western side of the
Irrawaddy [River], or in the east of the country."
Selth said the increasing separation of
Myanmar's ruling military generals from the
civilian population would make it far easier for a
potential foreign invader to target the junta
through air strikes. Nevertheless, the argument
previously put forward that the switch inland from
the old coastal capital Yangon reduces the risk to
the junta of a land invasion was probably taken
into account by the military.
In the past,
the junta felt most threatened through its
vulnerability at the Bay of Bengal. In 1988, the
US moved navy vessels into the area, apparently in
the event of the state collapsing during the
democratic uprisings. In 1992, junta abuses
against Muslims in Arakan state prompted the wrath
of Saudi Arabia, whose army chief Prince Khaled
bin Sultan bin Abdul Aziz called on the United
Nations to intervene and help the minority
Muslims.
Selth reasons that relocating
inland does not put the military out of reach of
advanced missiles and aircraft of its perceived
primary threat - the United States. President
George W Bush's administration has recently
referred to Myanmar as an "outpost of tyranny",
though few security experts reckon the US would
ever attack, because of China's heavy influence in
Myanmar. But "if the external threat was seen as
real and imminent, the regime may well choose to
consolidate its military strength in central
[Myanmar], with a view to a conventional defense
of the [Myanmar] heartland," he said.
Whether efforts to expand resources and
facilities in the country's central heartland
truly shore up national defenses given that the
main insurgency threat lies in the surrounding
areas controlled by Karen insurgents is debatable,
Selth said. "Given its make-up, it is difficult to
see the current government doing anything that
does not include some consideration of military
and strategic factors," he said.
While
evidence of massive construction activity in
Mandalay division suggests that the junta may well
see central Myanmar as the key to its ultimate
survival, as ever, only Than Shwe and his inner
circle know the real reason behind their dramatic
and expensive shift to Naypyidaw.
Clive Parker is a reporter at
The Irrawaddy, an online news service and monthly
magazine that focuses on Myanmar and Southeast
Asia, based in Chiang Mai. He is possibly the
first foreign journalist to report from Myanmar's
new capital.
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