BANGKOK—There are regional and international security implications arising out of fresh evidence that Burma is seeking nuclear weapons and is in breach of a UN arms embargo on North Korea.
Referencing the nuclear issue, US Sen. Jim Webb on Thursday canceled his scheduled trip to Burma.
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| Burmese soldiers carry flags as they march during the Armed Forces Day parade in Naypyidaw in March. (Photo: Reuters) |
“It would be inappropriate and counter-productive for me to go at this time,” Webb told journalists at a Thursday press conference in Bangkok. While the substance of the nuclear issue and the potential breach of UN Security Council Resolution 1874 remain to be clarified, Webb said, “There is enough for now in these two allegations, which need to be resolved,” before he could reconsider going to Burma.
While allegations about a junta nuclear weapons program have emerged in the past, the latest reports are backed by documentation and photographs supplied by Burmese army defector Maj Sai Thein Win. A news documentary about the issue ran on Al-Jazeera today and is based on work carried out by the Democratic Voice of Burma news agency. Sai Thein Win had to flee Burma after superiors suspected that information about missile-building and uranium enrichment programs were being leaked. He says “that they really want to build a bomb, they want rockets and nuclear warheads.”
American nuclear scientist Robert Kelley, a former director in the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the international nuclear watchdog, said he spent months examining the material supplied by Sai Thein Win and concluded that the projects outlined in the material are “useful only for weapons.”
In an overview published on the DVB website, Kelley said: “The total picture is very compelling. Burma is trying to build pieces of a nuclear program, specifically a nuclear reactor to make plutonium and a uranium enrichment program. Burma has a close partnership with North Korea.”
The seven-member UN panel monitoring the implementation of sanctions against North Korea said in a report last week that Pyongyang is involved in banned nuclear and ballistic activities in Iran, Syria and Burma.
After an early May visit to Burma, US assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs Kurt Campbell, said that the junta leadership had agree to abide by UN Security Council Resolution 1874, but that "recent developments" called into question its commitment. He said he sought the junta's agreement to "a transparent process to assure the international community that Burma is abiding by its international commitments."
"Without such a process, the United States maintains the right to take independent action within the relevant frameworks established by the international community," he said.
Whether or not the Burmese regime has the know-how to actually realize its apparent nuclear ambitions is another issue. According to Kelley, “Nothing we have seen suggests Burma will be successful with the materials and component we have seen.”
Speaking to Al-Jazeera, other nuclear experts such as John Isaacs, who is executive director of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, said that there is not yet “actual proof” of what the regime is trying to do.
However, the documentation assessed by Kelley suggest intent on the part of the junta. The regime has not signed the IAEA's Additional Protocol, meaning that the agency has not power to set up an inspection of Burma's nuclear facilities under the existing mechanism known as the Small Quantities Protocol.
The hour-long Al-Jazeera/DVB report gave details of a nationwide labyrinth of underground tunnels, believed to be shelters for the military in the event of an attack from outside or demonstrations at home. The total cost of the tunnels, built in collaboration with North Korean military advisers, is estimated in the range of US $3 billion.
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