Is the North Korean involvement in advising and building underground tunnels in Burma concentrated on military-based activities, or does it also include hydropower projects which are scattered around the country?

That is one of the questions raised by Burmese civil engineers living inside and outside Burma, since photographs of a tunnel construction site were posted on news Web sites in recent weeks including the Democratic Voice of Burma, Yale Global online and The Irrawaddy.

Unsolicited photographs and video were published in recent weeks from a number of sources including the Burmese military and Burmese activists.

Some of the photographs showing tunnel construction were sent to The Irrawaddy by an organization calling itself the Peace Creation Group, an underground group in Burma.

When The Irrawaddy editors contacted members of the group, they said the photographs were taken around Naypyidaw, but they had no knowledge of what the photographs showed.

Some images appear to show civilian workers in blue-colored uniforms, other people who appear to be foreigners from Asia, Burmese military officers, and normal construction site workers. Workers with the Ministry of Electricity normally wear blue-colored uniforms.

Burmese engineers inside and outside the country noted that the military regime currently has 12 hydropower projects scheduled, including the Ye Ywa hydropower project, 31 miles southeast of Mandalay, the largest in the country.

“I am wondering whether these photos are for hydropower projects or military purposes,” wrote one civil engineer who worked on the Paunglaung hydropower project near Naypyidaw.

“As for me, I can’t distinguish which one is military or for hydropower projects,” he said. “Hydropower project tunnels are quite large, [and] are built underground [and sometimes in] mountains,” he wrote.

Burma’s directorate of military engineers, along with private construction contractors, is involved in implementing hydropower projects and underground tunnels.

Suspicions about the exact purposes of tunnel construction in Burma were heightened recently after accounts surfaced about Burmese-North Korean military cooperation in the areas of military hardware procurement and tunnel construction projects.

According to a MoU signed between Burma and North Korea which has been obtained by The Irrawaddy, Burma plans to build a military headquarter facility with a maze of underground tunnels around Naypyidaw, the remote capital.