Junta Media Highlights North Korean Anniversary

Burma’s state-controlled media reported on North Korea’s 61st anniversary celebration on the front page of The New Light of Myanmar on Thursday, reflecting the junta’s close relationship with Pyongyang.

The paper reported that Lt-Gen Tin Aye, the chief of Military Ordnance and head of the Union of Myanmar Economic Holding Ltd, attended the anniversary celebration of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea held in a hotel in Rangoon on Wednesday.

Rangoon Mayor Brig-Gen Aung Thein Lin also attended the North Korean party. Both Tin Aye and Aung Thein Lin have traveled to the Communist country for arms deals between two states.

North Korea and Burma officially reestablished diplomatic ties in April 2007. Burma cut relations with North Korea in 1983 following a bomb attack by North Korean agents on a visiting South Korean delegation led by then President Chun Doo Hwan. Chun Doo Hwan narrowly escaped death or injury, but four South Korean cabinet ministers and 13 other officials were killed by the blast.

Renewed North Korea-Burma ties have been highlighted in international media recently because of reports that said North Korea has provided arms and technology to the Burmese military.

The state-run newspaper ran the North Korean anniversary story on the front page. The Korean Central News Agency did not report on the Rangoon event.

Burma and North Korea both give priority to the role of the military in their country’s affairs.

Since 1994, the North Korean People’s Army was granted the “supreme repository of power.”  Since 1962, the Burmese army has played the leading role in governing the Union of Burma.