Assurances of peaceful intentions arouse o­nly skepticism

Burma’s confirmation of plans to build a 10-megawatt nuclear reactor with the help of Russia’s federal atomic energy agency Rosatom has created nervousness and anxiety among Burma observers.

The regime in Naypyidaw, facing international isolation and sanctions, claims that the planned nuclear reactor is to be built for a “peaceful purpose.” Back in January 2002, then-deputy Foreign Minister Khin Maung Win declared that Burma’s “interest in nuclear energy for peaceful purpose is longstanding.”

Such assurances have met with skepticism o­n the part of the international community and Burmese at home and abroad, however.

Skepticism has also greeted Rosatom’s official statement that the 10-megawatt nuclear reactor, fueled by less than 20 percent uranium-235, will contribute to Burma’s “research in nuclear physics, bio-technology, material science as well as…produce a big variety of medicines.” A first round of talks o­n details of the project has begun and further discussions are scheduled for the second half of this year.

Burma’s interest in developing nuclear energy is not new. It dates back as far as the 1950s, with the creation of the Union of Burma Atomic Energy Center headed by Hla Nyunt, a student of renowned Japanese physicist Hideki Yukawa, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1949.

The UBAEC recruited young and talented physicists and sent them to the US and Britain for further studies. At least six were trained in 1956 at the Argonne National Laboratory, o­ne of the US Department of Energy’s largest research centers.

Burma was well advanced in those days to develop a nuclear project, compared to neighboring countries. In the early 1960s, a site for a nuclear research reactor was designated near the Hlaing Campus in Rangoon.

So the nuclear project fell by the wayside, although in 1984 Ne Win admitted to university professors at a dinner party that he had made a blunder by ending it.

The current regime revitalized the nuclear project. Thein Oo Po Saw, an Arakanese professor who was a student of Hla Nyunt in the 1950s, initiated the revival of the Atomic Energy Committee in 1990 and renewed links with the International Atomic Energy Agency. Since then, Burma has been demonstrating its intention to develop nuclear energy for a “peaceful purpose.”

The regime outwardly supports the concept of nuclear free zones and signed the Treaty o­n the Southeast Asia Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone, or Bangkok Treaty, in 1995. A year later, Burma signed the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.

Simultaneously, it was planning to build a nuclear reactor. The Ministry of Science and Technology was created in 1997 and headed by extreme nationalist U Thaung, a graduate of Defense Services Academy Intake 1. Two years later, Burma began negotiations with Russia o­n a nuclear reactor project, and in January 2002 the military government confirmed plans to build a nuclear research reactor for peaceful purposes.

As was to be expected, Burma’s dissidents in exile got busy gathering information o­n these developments, but little hard evidence has yet emerged. The location of the planned nuclear reactor is still unknown, although some dissidents used Google “Earth” to pinpoint some possible sites and even buildings in central Burma. Magwe has been mentioned.

The truth must be faced, however, that if the nuclear reactor is to be built with a military use in mind its location will be a state secret. The possibility of Burma becoming a nuclear power is anyway still very many years off.

At the moment, the spotlight falls o­n Russia’s role in fueling Burma’s nuclear ambitions, but exile groups and regime critics allege that Burma has also been seeking nuclear technology from North Korea. Military missions from North Korea have been seen visiting Burma, and North Korean technicians have been spotted unloading construction materials from trains in central Burma. Russian planes have also been sighted landing in central Burma.

The North Korean cargo vessel Kang Nam I docks at Thilawa Port, about 30km south of Rangoon, o­n May 21, 2007. In November 2006, the Kang Nam I was detained and inspected in Hong Kong o­n suspicion of safety violations

Even the US has its suspicions, and as early as 2004 American officials and congressmen were warning of renewed secret relations between Burma and North Korea.

Richard Lugar, then chairman of the US Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, warned in 2005 that North Korea’s main export is dangerous weapons technology, a major threat to Asian security and stability. The US State Department has also registered official complaints with the Burmese government over rumored missile transfers from North Korea.

An important factor in these developments was the restoration of diplomatic ties between Burma and North Korea in April. Relations between the two countries were broken in 1983 after a bomb attack in Rangoon by North Korean terrorists o­n a visiting South Korean delegation headed by then-President Chun Doo-hwan.

Clandestine contacts between the two countries had been established several years ago, as Burma stepped up its search for sources of conventional weapons. Burma defense analyst Andrew Selth, author of the recent report “Burma and nuclear proliferation: policies and perceptions,” reported that Burma had bought conventional weapons and ammunition from North Korea, including 16 130mm M-46 field guns, in the late 1990s. Burma has also reportedly sent military missions and officers to Pyongyang. These military ties can o­nly spell more trouble o­n the horizon.

Hard as it is to read the minds of Snr-Gen Than Shwe and his top military leaders, they are known to harbor dreams of a “Fourth Burmese Empire,” supported by military might. Just the uncertainty surrounding their nuclear ambitions is likely to intimidate such neighbors as Thailand and Bangladesh, and the generals might also believe a nuclear capability gives them the upper hand in dealings with Western nations and their sanctions policies.

The regime plans to create a nuclear nation by 2025, according to researchers in Burma. Some Burmese professors who worked with the Ne Win government and who have been advising the current regime disclosed that nuclear reactors of 100-400 megawatts are planned. They say plans also include smaller reactors and further development in the area of nuclear research.

Aside from Thein Oo Po Saw, Burma’s nuclear project has been developed by Minister U Thaung, who signed the reactor agreement in Moscow in June with his Russian counterpart Sergei Kiriyenko, the head of Russia’s atomic agency. U Thaung is known to be close to Than Shwe and his deputy, Vice Snr-Gen Maung Aye.

U Thaung has in-depth knowledge of Burma’s mining and uranium sectors and resigned his army post to become director general of Burma’s Department of Geological Survey and Mineral Exploration in the 1980s.

His loyalty to the military is beyond question, and he continues to serve under the current regime. Appointed Burma’s ambassador to the US in 1996, he was recalled to Rangoon to head the Ministry of Science and Technology, with instructions to deal with the Russians and begin the reactor project.

U Thaung visited Moscow several times in the past seven years in pursuit of the deal. Earlier negotiations were interrupted in 2003 because of a dispute over the terms of payment, but perhaps the regime might now feel cash is no longer a problem in view of Burma’s newly-discovered vast natural gas reserves.

Although Burma has science and engineering students, U Thaung realized they need nuclear orientation and training and Burma began sending students and army officers to Moscow. In 2006, Nuclear Physics departments were established in the universities of Rangoon and Mandalay, with enrolment controlled by the government.

Last year, Russia’s ambassador to Burma, Dr Mikhail M. Mgeladze, confirmed that about 2,000 Burmese students had been admitted to 11 academic institutions in Russia, under a bilateral agreement, and about 500 had returned to Burma with bachelor, master’s or doctorate degrees.

Burmese nationals had also been trained by the IAEA in the application of nuclear technology for peaceful purpose, then-deputy Foreign Minister Khin Maung Win announced in January 2002.

Chinese intelligence sources believe that Maung Aye oversees Burma’s nuclear project. Maung Aye paid an official visit to Russia last year.

The reactor project has involved an intensification of the search for uranium in Burma. In the early 2000s, the regime confirmed publicly that uranium deposits had been found in five areas: Magwe, Taungdwingyi, Kyaukphygon and Paongpyin in Mogok, and Kyauksin. Residents of Thabeikkyin township, 60 miles north of Mandalay, said recently that searches were underway in the area. Other activity was reported from southern Tenasserim Division.

Recently, a Russian mining company accidentally found large deposits of uranium in upper Burma, according to Chinese sources. The Russian companies Zarubezneft, Itera, Kalmykia and the state-owned enterprise Tyazhpromexport have been involved in oil and gas exploration and the establishment of a plant to produce cast iron in Shan State. Tyazhpromexport’s investment alone is worth about US $150 million.

It’s not so much the Russian nuclear involvement with Burma that creates nervousness and speculation, however, as the generals’ new chumminess with North Korea.

In April, a North Korean freighter, the Kang Nam I, docked at Thilawa port, 30km south of Rangoon. Burmese officials said the ship, the first to visit Burma since the restoration of diplomatic relations, sought shelter from a storm.

The Thilawa port is run by AsiaWorld Company Limited, owned by former drug kingpin Lo Hsing-han. Two local reporters working for a Japanese news agency were briefly detained and turned back when they went to the port to investigate.

It wasn’t the first time a North Korean ship reported running into trouble in Burmese waters—by a strange coincidence, the North Korean cargo vessel M V Bong Hoafan sought shelter from a storm and anchored at a Burmese port last November. The Burmese government reported that an o­n-board inspection had “found no suspicious material or military equipment.” But journalists and embassies in Rangoon remained skeptical.

Early last July, a dissident source told The Irrawaddy that a North Korean ship carrying a senior Korean nuclear technology expert, Maj Hon Kil Dong, arrived in Rangoon with a biological and nuclear package. Western analysts and intelligence sources quickly dismissed this report but conceded it was possible that Burma would seek conventional arms and technology rather than high-tech long-range missiles from Pyongyang.

Indeed, to skeptics, the go-ahead for the nuclear reactor project and the arrival of that North Korean ship are two developments that can hardly be coincidental. The Russian involvement in Burma’s nuclear project and the arrival of North Korean ships also sent alarms bells ringing in Beijing, although Burma’s close and powerful political ally remained tight-lipped o­n the issue. But Beijing can hardly afford to have two nuclear neighbors: North Korea and Burma.

It is admittedly premature to conclude that Burma intends to undertake the complicated and perilous process of reprocessing uranium to get weapons-grade plutonium, as things stand at the moment, although strong suspicions will continue to grow. But as Burma has set a goal of becoming a nuclear power nation by 2025 does it make sense to develop a nuclear weapon? Maybe not.

But o­ne chilling theory is that if the North Korean freighters that arrived last November and this year carried not o­nly conventional weapons but plutonium and processing materials to Burma, it could indeed be suspected that Burma plans to skip the messy process of obtaining plutonium and move straight to the production of weapons.

It is easy to speculate that Burma may be seeking nuclear technology from Pyongyang, although no solid evidence has emerged so far. It is legitimate, however, to raise the issue and to inquire into the regime’s intentions, in the interests of keeping nuclear technology out of the hands of irresponsible governments.

The Burmese government has declared that it has no desire to develop nuclear weapons. Its nuclear program is solely for “peaceful purposes,” runs the government line. All fine and good—if it weren’t for the questionable source of those assurances.