BANGKOK - Myanmar's ruling generals have started a secret program to develop
nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles to deliver them in a high-stakes bid to
deter perceived hostile foreign powers, according to an investigative report by
the Democratic Voice of Burma that will be aired later on Friday by television
news network al-Jazeera.
Asia Times Online contributor Bertil Lintner was involved in reviewing
materials during extensive authentication processes
conducted by international arms experts and others during the report's
five-year production. In the strategic footsteps of North Korea, Myanmar's
leaders are also building a complex network of tunnels, bunkers and other
underground installations where they and their military hardware would be
hidden against any external aerial attack, including presumably from the United
States.
Based on testimonies and photographs supplied by high-ranking military
defectors, the documentary will show for the first time how Myanmar has
developed the capacity and is now using laser isotope separation, a technique
for developing nuclear weapons. It will also show how machinery and equipment
has been acquired to develop ballistic missiles.
That Myanmar is now trying to develop nuclear weapons and has become engaged in
a military partnership with North Korea will dramatically change the region's
security dynamic. Myanmar is a member of the Association of Southeast Asian
Nations (ASEAN), a 10-nation grouping whose members jointly signed the 1995
Southeast Asian Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone Treaty, also known as the Bangkok
Treaty.
The nuclear bid will also put the already diplomatically isolated country on a
collision course with the US. US Senator Jim Webb, who has earlier led a
diplomatic drive to ''engage'' the junta, abruptly canceled his scheduled June
4 trip to Myanmar when he learned about the upcoming documentary. The explosive
revelations about Myanmar's nuclear initiative are expected to freeze
Washington's recent warming towards the generals.
It is possible that the junta's grandiose schemes could amount to little more
than a monumental waste of state resources. According to one international arms
expert familiar with the materials on Myanmar's program, the laser isotope
separation method now being employed by Myanmar's insufficiently trained
scientists ''is probably one of the worst that is yet to be invented. The major
countries of the world have spent billions of dollars trying to make the
process work without success.''
There
is thus a risk that the generals will further undermine the country's already
wobbly economic fundamentals on ill-conceived weapons projects, ones that may
yield little more than lots of radioactive holes in the ground and some crude
Scud-type missiles.
Western military experts
assert that
any sophisticated bunker-buster bomb could easily penetrate the newly built
network of tunnels and other underground facilities, constructed near the new
capital of Naypyidaw. In light of the country's lack of technical know-how, Myanmar's
desired nuclear bomb may also turn out to be a huge white elephant. It is not
even certain that its homegrown missiles will fly. At least that is the
conclusion of weapons' experts who have closely examined the materials that
will be presented in al-Jazeera's investigative report.
The program was produced over five-years by the Democratic Voice of Burma, or
DVB, a Norway-based radio and TV station run by Myanmar exiles. They have made
their case based on leaked photographs, documents and testimonies from key
military defectors. The documentary was directed by London-based Australian
journalist Evan Williams.
Nuclear turncoat
The report's main source, Sai Thein Win, is a former Myanmar army major who
recently defected to the West, bringing with him a trove of information never
seen before outside of the country. His documentation has been scrutinized by,
among others, Robert Kelley, a former US weapons scientist at the Los Alamos
facility where work is conducted towards the design of nuclear weapons.
From 1992 to 1993 and 2001 to 2005, Kelley also served as one of the directors
of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). "Sai Thein Win reminds us to
some degree of Mordecai Vanunu, an Israeli technician at the Dimona nuclear
site in the Negev desert ... Sai is providing similar information," said
Kelley.
Vanunu blew the whistle on Israel's nuclear program, and, according to Kelley,
Sai Thein Win has "provided photographs of items that would appear to be very
useful in a nuclear program as they are specific to nuclear issues. They could
be seen as for other things, but they look like they were designed for a
nuclear program."
Geoff Forden, another international arms expert, says Myanmar appears to be
"pursuing at least two different paths towards acquiring a missile production
capability. One is a more or less indigenous path. The less indigenous comes
from the fact that they have sent a number of Myanmar military officers to
Moscow for training in engineering related to missile design and production."
Sai Thein Win was among the Myanmar army officers sent to Russia and he has
produced photographs of himself taken during his training there. He also has
pictures of a top secret nuclear facility located 11 kilometers from
Thabeikkyin, a small town near the Irrawaddy River in northern Myanmar.
He claims this is the headquarters of the army's nuclear battalion and that it
is there the regime is trying to build a nuclear reactor and enrich uranium for
weapons. Missile development, he says, is carried out at another facility near
Myaing, southwest of Mandalay, in central Myanmar.
Machinery for the Myaing plant has been supplied by two German firms, which
also sent engineers to install the equipment. The Germans, Sai Thein Win says,
were told that "the factories were educational institutions ... those poor
German engineers don't know, didn't know that we were aiming to use those
machines in producing rocket parts or some parts for military use."
How useful those machines will be for missile development is questionable.
Despite their training in Russia, the Myanmar engineers handling them have
little or no knowledge of producing sophisticated weapons, according to experts
who say the generals' apparent dream of having a nuclear reactor may also be
just that: a pipedream.
Another high-ranking Myanmar military official also provided DVB's researchers
with classified information related to the country's nuclear and missile
program. He, however, fell out of view while in Singapore some time last year
and his current whereabouts is now unknown.
Myanmar was one of the first countries in the region to launch a nuclear
research program. In 1956, the country's then-democratic government set up the
Union of Burma Atomic Energy Center in the former capital Yangon. Unrelated to
the country's defense industries, it came to a halt when the military seized
power in 1962. The new military power-holders, led by General Ne Win, did not
trust the old technocrats and saw little use in having a nuclear program
designed for peaceful purposes.
In 2001, Myanmar's present ruling junta aimed to revitalize the country's
nuclear ambitions. An agreement was signed with Russia 's Atomic Energy
Ministry, which announced plans to build a 10-megawatt nuclear research reactor
in central Myanmar. That same year, Myanmar established a Department of Atomic
Energy, believed to be the brainchild of the Minister for Science and
Technology, U Thaung, a graduate of the Defense Services Academy and former
ambassador to the US. At the time, US-trained nuclear scientist Thein Po Saw
was identified as a leading advocate for nuclear technology in Myanmar.
Reports since then have been murky, including speculation that the deal was
shelved due to Myanmar's lack of finances. The Russian reactor was never
delivered, but in May 2007 Russia 's atomic energy agency, Rosatom, again
announced it would build Myanmar 's nuclear-research reactor. Under the initial
2001 agreement, Myanmar nationals, most military personnel, were sent to Russia
for training. Nearly 10 years later, Russia has yet to deliver the reactor
because Myanmar "refused to allow inspection by the IAEA", according to DVB.
North Korean ally
Myanmar thus appears to have embarked on its own indigenous program to build a
nuclear research reactor. Unconfirmed reports circulated on the Internet claim
that North Korea is assisting the Myanmar authorities in the endeavor.
Diplomatic relations between North Korea and Myanmar, which were severed in
1983 when North Korean agents detonated a bomb in Yangon, were officially
restored in April 2007.
Only days later, a North Korean freighter, the Kang Nam I, docked at
Thilawa port near the old capital. Heavy crates were unloaded under strict
secrecy and tight security. A journalist working for a Japanese news agency was
detained and interrogated for attempting to photograph the unloading.
Last year, the Kang Nam I was back in the news when, destined for
Myanmar, it was turned back by US naval warships. At the time, it was thought
to be carrying material banned under UN Security Council resolutions aimed at
preventing North Korea from exporting material related to the production and
development of weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
North Korea's role in Myanmar 's nascent nuclear program is still a matter of
conjecture. But in May this year, a seven-member UN panel monitoring
implementation of sanctions against North Korea said its research indicated
that Pyongyang is involved in banned nuclear and ballistic activities in Iran,
Syria and Myanmar.
The experts in the documentary said they were looking into "suspicious activity
in Myanmar", including the presence of Namchongang Trading, one of the North
Korean companies sanctioned by the UN. North Korean tunneling experts are also
known to have provided crucial assistance to the construction of Myanmar's
underground facilities.
According to an unnamed Myanmar army engineer, who was also interviewed for the
DVB documentary, "a batch of eight North Koreans came each time and [were] sent
back, [then] another eight came and were sent back. At the Defense Industry
factories, there are at least eight to 16 of them ... they act as technical
advisers."
In November 2008, Gen Shwe Mann, the third-highest ranking official in
Myanmar's military hierarchy, paid a secret visit to Pyongyang. Traveling with
an entourage of military officers, he visited a radar base and a factory making
Scud missiles, and signed a memorandum of understanding with the North Koreans
to enhance military cooperation between the two countries.
A photo file and other details of the visit were leaked to Myanmar exiles and
were soon available on the Internet, prompting the authorities to carry out a
purge within its own ranks. On January 7 this year, one Foreign Ministry
official and a retired military officer were sentenced to death for leaking the
material.
Military insecurity
Aung Lin Htut, a former intelligence officer attached to the Myanmar Embassy in
Washington until he defected in 2004, claims that soon after General Than Shwe
came to power in 1992 he "thought that if we followed the North Korean example
we would not need to take into account America or even need to care about
China. In other words, when they have nuclear energy and weapons other
countries ... won't dare touch Myanmar."
The tunnels and bunkers - some of which are large enough to accommodate
hundreds of soldiers - should be seen in the same light, Aung Lin Htut has
argued. "It is for their own safety that the government has invested heavily
into those tunnel projects," he said.
The generals may fear not only an outside attack, which is highly unlikely
according to security experts, but also another popular uprising. In 1988,
millions of people took to the streets to demand an end to military
dictatorship. In 2007, tens of thousands of Buddhist monks led marches for
national reconciliation and a dialogue between the military government and the
pro-democracy movement.
On both occasions, the generals responded with military force and brutally
suppressed the popular movements. But the generals were shaken and apparently
saw the need to move themselves and vital military facilities underground and
away from populated areas, as also seen in the junta's bizarre and sudden move
to the new capital Naypyidaw in November 2005.
For other reasons, North Korea reacted similarly after the war on the Korean
Peninsula. North Korea is believed to have one of the world's most extensive
complexes of tunnels, storage facilities - and even weapons' factories - all
hidden from the prying eyes of real and imagined enemies.
That is likely why Myanmar's generals see Pyongyang as a role model and why
relations between the two countries have warmed since the 1990s - hardly by
coincidence at the same time the US has become one of Myanmar's fiercest
critics. In 2005, then-secretary of state Condoleezza Rice branded Myanmar,
along with Belarus, Cuba, North Korea, Iran and Zimbabwe as "outposts of
tyranny", and the US tightened financial sanctions against the regime and its
supporters.
The present US administration of President Barack Obama adopted a more
conciliatory approach, sending emissaries to Myanmar to "engage" the generals
and nudge them towards democracy. But sources close to the decision-making
process in Washington also believe that concern over Myanmar's WMD programs -
and increasingly close ties with North Korea - should be equally important
considerations in any new US policy towards Myanmar.
One of the negotiators recently sent to Myanmar, US Assistant Secretary of
State for East Asia Kurt Campbell, is interviewed in the DVB documentary. When
asked about Myanmar's new security-related polices and initiatives, he replies
rather cryptically:
Some of it is sensitive so really can't be
discussed in great detail, but I will say we have seen enough to cause us some
anxiety about certain kinds of military and other kinds of relationships
between North Korea and Burma [Myanmar]. We have been very clear with the
authorities about what our red lines are ... we always worry about nuclear
proliferation and there are signs that there has been some flirtation around
these matters.
According to internal documents presented by the
DVB, the total cost of Myanmar's tunneling projects and WMD programs is
astronomical, running into billions of US dollars. This appears to be one
reason why several Myanmar military officers have defected to the West - and
brought with them the evidence that will be seen by global audiences on Friday.
Bertil Lintner is a former correspondent with the Far Eastern Economic
Review and the author of Great Leader, Dear Leader: Demystifying North
Korea Under the Kim Clan. He is currently a writer with Asia Pacific Media
Services.
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There
is thus a risk that the generals will further undermine the country's already
wobbly economic fundamentals on ill-conceived weapons projects, ones that may
yield little more than lots of radioactive holes in the ground and some crude
Scud-type missiles.
