BurmaNet News, June 4, 2010

[Editor]

June 4, 2010, Issue #3976


INSIDE BURMA
Irrawaddy: Burma's military budget to increase significantly
Irrawaddy: National Library goes in regime's latest property sale

ON THE BORDER
BBC News: Desperate plight of Burma's Rohingya people

HEALTH
UN News Centre: UN declares Myanmar free of maternal and neonatal tetanus

INTERNATIONAL
Christian Science Monitor: Burma tops 'worst of the worst' list of human
rights violators
Washington Post: Report says Burma is taking steps toward nuclear weapons
program
AP: US senator nixes Myanmar trip over nuclear concern
Seoul Times: Protest against military election in Burma

OPINION / OTHER
Asia Times: Myanmar's nuclear bombshell – Bertil Lintner
Irrawaddy: Webb's change of plans means no change of heart – Editorial

INTERVIEW
DVB: Expert says Burma ‘planning nuclear bomb’ – DVB and Robert Kelley



____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

June 4, Reuters
Large fire destroys over 400 shops in Myanmar

Yangon – More than 400 shops were destroyed when a huge fire broke out in
a town in northern Myanmar on Thursday, the second major blaze at a
commercial market in the last 10 days.

The fire started in the early hours of Thursday in the commercial town of
Monywa, about 840 km (520 miles) north of the biggest city, Yangon, and
burned down 410 of the 550 shops at a market, local fire officials said by
telephone.

Investigators were yet to determine the cause of the fire and there were
no known casualties.

A huge fire on May 24 at the five-storey Mingalar Zay market complex in
Yangon raged for almost 12 hours, destroying 870 shops and causing damage
worth more than $21 million.

In February, at least 650 shops were reduced to ash when a fire broke out
in Thingangyun market in Yangon, Myanmar's commercial capital.

Fires have become a major problem in Myanmar, often as a result of the
overheating of batteries used because of chronic power shortages in the
country.

A total of 528 fires broke out across the country in the first four months
of this year, killing 25 people, according to official statistics.

____________________________________

June 4, Irrawaddy
Burma's military budget to increase significantly

At the four-monthly meeting of Burma's top generals held in Naypyidaw
during the last week of May, the junta significantly increased its
military budget from last year, according to sources close to the Burmese
military.

A military source told The Irrawaddy on Thursday that although the amount
budgeted to the military is unavailable, it is known to be much larger
than last year's military budget.

“The money allocated to the military was budgeted under the heading
'Defense Budget', but there was no specific line items for separate
expenses,” he said.

The military source added, however, that it is generally believed that
large military equipment purchases will be made within the next six
months.

In 2009, Burma signed a contract with Russia for the purchase of 20 MiG-29
jet fighters at a cost of nearly US $570 million.

Analysts believe that many of Burma's future military purchases may come
from North Korea.

According to a report by UN experts obtained by The Associated Press last
month, North Korea is exporting nuclear and ballistic missile technology
and using multiple intermediaries, shell companies and overseas criminal
networks to circumvent UN sanctions.

The UN's seven-member panel monitoring the implementation of sanctions
against North Korea said its research indicates that Pyongyang is involved
in banned nuclear and ballistic activities in Iran, Syria and Burma.

In November 2008, Gen Thura Shwe Mann, the regime’s No 3 ranking general,
made a secret visit to North Korea and signed a memorandum of
understanding, officially formalizing military cooperation between Burma
and North Korea with his North Korean counterpart, Gen Kim Kyok-sik.

During his trip to Pyongyang, Shwe Mann also visited sites of secret
tunnel complexes built into the sides of mountains to store and shield jet
aircraft, missiles, tanks and nuclear and chemical weapons.

In addition, according to Burmese Maj Sai Thein Win, a former deputy
commander of a top-secret military factory who defected and brought with
him top secret documents and photographs about Burma's nuclear projects,
secret underground bunkers and tunnels have been built at many locations
in Burma.

Sai Thein Win, who was trained in Burma as a defense engineer and later in
Russia as a missile expert, said that about 10,000 Burmese officials have
been sent to Russia  thus far to study military technology, including
nuclear technology.

Sai Thein Win also said in a report that Burma is trying to build
medium-range missiles such as SCUDs under a memorandum of understanding
with North Korea. “Burma wants to have rockets and nuclear warheads. Burma
wants to be a nuclear power,” Sai Thein Win said.

One reason the regime is able to increase its military budget and import
expensive military equipment and technology may be its expected increase
in energy revenues.

A study by the Washington-based United States Institute of Peace said that
Burma's export earnings from the country's growing energy sector will
double in the next five years, due mainly to oil and gas transit pipelines
now being built from Burma to China. The Institute said the calculation is
based on energy exports—mostly gas—accounting for at least 45 percent of
the $6.6 billion earnings declared by Burmese interests in 2008.

Burma's military regime is infamous for spending a large percentage of its
national budget on the military, rather than on education, health and
other public services. According to Burma military experts, 40 to 60
percent of the national budget is allocated to the military.

In contrast, 0.4 percent of the national budget is spent on healthcare,
while 0.5 percent  is spent for education, according to a report released
in 2007 by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a think-tank
based in London.

In other news regarding the four-monthly meeting, according to military
sources there  was no major military reshuffle in Naypyidaw.

____________________________________

June 4, Irrawaddy
National Library goes in regime's latest property sale – Nayee Lin Latt

Burma's National Library and a TV studio complex are among five
state-owned buildings sold to private investors, according to informed
sources in Rangoon.

Apart from the National Library, the regime has shed itself of the MRTV 3
news and studio complex, the People's Department Store, the Yadanapon
Theater and a six-story office building, said sources close to the
regime's Privatization Commission.

The buildings were among more than 20 administered by the regime's
Department of Human Settlement and Housing Department. The buildings that
are still unsold belong to the Ministry of Industry No. 1, Ministry of
Agriculture and Irrigation, Ministry of Health, Rangoon Division
Department of Health, Ministry of Transport, Ministry of Energy and
Ministry of Co-operatives.

A Privatization Commission official said that since late 2009 a total of 
147 state-owned buildings, including factories and government ministry
offices, had been sold off.

A Rangoon Municipal Committee engineer said the sale was aimed at offering
“economic opportunities” not only to business investors but also to the
“general public.”

One of the customers in the latest sell out, however, was the Shwe Taung
Development Co., Ltd., which enjoys a close relationship with the regime.
It paid 130 billion kyat (about US $13 million) for the MRTV 3 complex.

The National Library went for only about 100 million kyat ($100,000),
while the Yadanapon Theater, which belonged to the Myanma Motion Picture
Enterprise of the Ministry of Information, fetched more than 920 million
kyat (nearly $1 million).

One businessman with close contacts to regime officials suggested that
state-run property was being sold off to raise funds for the development
of the government quarter in Naypyidaw and help finance the upcoming
election.

A retired professor from Rangoon's University of Economics expressed
sorrow at the sale of the National Library, saying it contradicted an
official statement assuring support for Burmese literature.

____________________________________
ON THE BORDER

June 4, BBC News
Desperate plight of Burma's Rohingya people

Nasima, 22, is from the Rohingya ethnic group, a Muslim minority that
lives in western Burma. Rights groups say it is one of the most persecuted
communities in the world - they were made stateless in 1982, and deemed to
be illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.

Several hundred thousand have since crossed into Bangladesh, where people
speak a similar language. This year Dhaka has been accused of arresting
hundreds of Rohingya and forcing them over the border - claims the
government denies. It says it is too poor to help them. The BBC's Mark
Dummett spoke to Nasima in the Kutupalong makeshift camp, which is now
home to more than 30,000 Rohingyas.

“In Burma my people face persecution, so that's why we come to
Bangladesh," Nasima said.

"In my family's case, we came under pressure from the government because
we had some property.

"One day, the army accused my father of sheltering someone who had just
returned from Bangladesh. Anyone who comes back to Burma is sent to jail,
so it is illegal to look after them. But that accusation was false.

"They took my father to a military camp and beat him up. After seven days
they sent us his blood-stained clothes and said they would kill him.

"So we sold all our cattle and chickens at the market. We sent that money
to the camp and they then released him.

"Later, my brother was attacked by some Buddhist people. He was badly
injured and after lots of suffering he eventually died.

"As I grew up, my father decided that I wasn't safe in Burma. The
government doesn't let us marry so he told me to leave for Bangladesh.

"We had a relative who was handicapped and a beggar, and she agreed to
look after me.

"We took a boat over the river and it was very dangerous. On the other
side we were stopped by the Bangladesh Rifles [BDR].

"They demanded bribes of 100 taka each [$1.50] to let us through, but we
only had 100 taka between us.

"'You must leave the girl with us then,' the BDR men said. But my relative
refused and argued that she could not move without me helping her. So
finally they let us through."

Police raid

Nasima said: "I already had one sister in Bangladesh but I didn't know
where she was living. So we went to Cox's Bazar and lived as beggars.

"Sometimes people would give us a little rice or a bit of money to survive.

"Finally I met a man who knew my sister. She was living in Alikadam, and
her husband came and got me.

"I lived there for two years, working as a farm labourer. Life was fine,
and I was able to marry and have a child.

"But five days after the baby was born the police arrived. They came
without warning when we were having dinner.

"They rounded up all the Burmese men including my husband and my sister's
husband and put them in a police truck.

"I told the police that I had a newborn and that we could not survive
without my husband.

"I begged them to let him stay, but they said that the Rohingya should
expect no mercy. So I told them to take me too.

"They put me into the lorry and drove us to the river.

"They found a fishing boat and threatened to beat up the captain if he
didn't take us to the other side - to Burma.

"Once we got there, he told us that he had seen some other Rohingyas being
shot by the Nasaka [the Burmese border guards], and he told us how to
follow the river upstream and then sneak back into Bangladesh.

"We walked the whole night and then finally in the morning we got back to
this side.

"That's when I noticed there was something wrong with my baby. He had died
during the journey and I hadn't even realised it. We dug a small hole with
our bare hands and buried him there.

"We came to a road and waved to a passing jeep. We begged the driver to
save our lives and take us away from there. All I had to pay him with was
my scarf.

"He had heard about the Kutupalong camp and said that the Rohingya were
safe there.

"One week after arriving at the camp my husband said he had to go and find
work. He left and I have no idea where he is now.

"I survive by going into the jungle and collecting firewood to sell. If I
collect some, I can then eat a little.

"This week I have only had three meals. But I am living alone. It is much
worse for some of the families with 10 or 11 mouths to feed.

"Death would be better than this life."

____________________________________

June 4, Mizzima News
Most trafficking victims in Thailand ‘are Burmese’ – Usa Pichai

Chiang Mai – Burmese workers rank the highest in numbers of
human-trafficking victims in Thailand, while a labour shortage in the
kingdom’s expanding fisheries industry is set to exacerbate the problem,
rights groups say.

Sompong Sakaew, director of the Labour Rights Promotion Network, told
Mizzima today that human trafficking in Thailand was ranked by the United
States as “worrisome” and that the situation had worsened in recent years.
The NGO is based in the fish-farming and salt-producing province of Samut
Sakhon, on the Gulf of Thailand south of Bangkok.

“The biggest problem is in the fishery industries, where Burmese workers
are deceived and forced to work the hardest and longest,” he said.

A recent estimate of the number of migrant workers in Thailand was set at
more than three million, but the registered number is 700,000 workers, and
they are mainly from Burma.

Sompong said business owners in Thailand still lacked the conscience to
employ workers legally. Many wanted cheap labour and ignored the realities
of the illicit trade that was supplying and exploiting these workers.

“Thailand is at risk of an international boycott of its seafood products
if the human trafficking in this industry remains unresolved,” he warned.

According to the Mirror Foundation anti-human-trafficking centre in
Bangkok, up to 138 cases were reported to the foundation last year – three
times than in the previous year. The report was released at a press
conference yesterday in Bangkok prior to National Anti-human Trafficking
Day tomorrow.

Conditions in northern Thailand have also declined. Burmese boys from Mae
Sot were deceived and forced to sell roti in Chiang Mai. Traffickers have
also persuaded children from Burmese families to work in Thailand, and
later forced them to sell flowers in the northern city, according to Duan
Wongsa, manager of the Anti-Trafficking Co-ordination Unit Northern
Thailand, in Chiang Mai.

“Recently
 traffickers brought children from refugee camps along the
border in Tak Province to inner provinces of Thailand,” she added.
“Children would be brought and forced to work as domestic helpers for
pitiful wages.”

Ekkalak Lumchomkae, head of the Mirror Foundation centre, told Mizzima the
situation was in crisis, particularly in the fisheries sector.

GreenFacts.org ranked Thailand third in the world in 2006 among its top 10
exporters and importers of fish and fishery products, but the country
faces a severe labour shortage, with an estimated deficit of more than
10,000 workers. The shortage provides impetus for the traffickers to tries
harder to search workers to serve businesses.

“From our fieldwork in some areas, there are politicians and officials
behind the traffickers,” Ekkalak said. “Legal measures to control the
fisheries sector are ineffective or local officials are negligent in
applying the law.”

The situation in other sectors, such as prostitution, begging and
flower-selling remained unchanged in 2008 and last year, the centre’s
report said.

Ekkalak said the rate Burmese workers have to pay to middlemen to work in
Thailand had increased, from the recent figure of around 20,000 baht
(US$606), to 25,000 baht, nearly twice the amount demanded in the previous
year. It takes most of them at least a year to repay the brokers.

He added that police have only been able to arrest minor Burmese
traffickers after raids on suspected factories, failing to net the
masterminds. “Local police were not brave enough to charge them
[trafficking kingpins] under the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act 2008, but
tend to lay charges for lesser offences.”

The centre blacklisted four seaside provinces with severe trafficking
problems: Songkhla, Chonburi, Samut Sakhon and Samut Prakan.

A 14-year-old Muslim girl in Mae Sot, lured into working as a
flower-seller in Bangkok, said she went unpaid during two years work for
her employers.

“They told me that the money would be paid to my mother but she also never
saw it,” the teen said. “They also hit me in the head when I could not
bring in enough money.”

She later escaped from her taskmasters with the help of her neighbours and
returned to Mae Sot – which along with the fishing town of Ranong on the
southwest coast of Thailand near a marine border with Burma, and Chiang
Rai in the far north – is a hotspot of activity for human traffickers.

Thai Minister of Social Development and Human Security Issara Somchai said
at the opening of anti-human trafficking campaign in Bangkok that recent
trafficking has become a more complex process.

Transnational networks put children and young people at high risk because
their desire for better livelihoods leaves them open to exploitation,
according to a report on Thailand’s Public Relations Department website on
Friday.

Thailand’s first anti-trafficking legislation took effect in June, 2008,
and was aimed at tackling the ever-increasing problem. The content
specified provisions banning trafficking that involves the recruitment,
transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons by threats or
use of force for the purpose of exploitation.

Exploitation is defined as seeking benefit from prostitution, or
production or distribution of pornographic materials. The law also bans
other forms of sexual exploitation, slavery, forced begging, other forced
labour or provision of services, coerced removal of organs for the purpose
of trade, or any other similar practices resulting from forced or harmful
work with extortion as the result, regardless of a person’s consent.

However, activists said the problem was not in the law, but in its
application. Local police are reluctant to charge traffickers, who are
often violent or armed, or employers in their jurisdictions, who usually
have considerable social power. Police therefore seek far lesser penalties
than the legislation prescribes, rights activists have said.

____________________________________
HEALTH

June 4, UN News Centre
UN declares Myanmar free of maternal and neonatal tetanus

Years of persistent efforts to vaccinate all pregnant women in Myanmar
against maternal and neonatal tetanus have borne fruit with the country
now declared free of the disease, the second East Asian nation to have
achieved that milestone status, the United Nations Children’s Fund
(UNICEF) reported today.

“The achievement came as a result of joint efforts of all the partners
collaborating with the Ministry of Health, who worked hard for many years
to reach this stage,” said Ramesh Shrestha, UNICEF Representative in
Myanmar. “But it is also a reminder that the momentum needs to be
sustained and routine immunization must be further strengthened to ensure
maintenance of the elimination status,” he added.

Myanmar’s status as a maternal and neonatal tetanus elimination country
was confirmed last month by international experts through a process led by
the UN World Health Organization (WHO). Viet Nam is the only other country
in the region to have achieved that status.

The achievement followed Myanmar’s systematic efforts for several years to
reach all pregnant women with tetanus toxoid (TT) vaccines and making
provisions for safe and clean deliveries throughout the country, as well
as conducting extensive supplemental TT immunization activities with
strong support from UNICEF since 1999 that targeted women of child-bearing
age.

The status validation process included a community-based survey of
neonatal mortality rates due to tetanus in all children born from April
2009 to April this year in the townships selected for the survey.

The community-based survey used standard WHO methodology and was conducted
in the townships of South Okalappa (Yangon Division), Singaing (Mandalay
Division) and Saw (Magway Division). The townships were chosen for survey
through an extensive review process that indicated they were likely to
have the highest maternal and neonatal tetanus burden.

On 18 May, the results of the survey revealed that neonatal tetanus
mortality was reduced to less than 1 case per 1,000 live births in the
surveyed townships. The survey confirmed that the disease has been
eliminated as a public health problem in those townships, as well as
Myanmar as a whole.

Neonatal tetanus is a form of generalized tetanus affecting infants during
the first month of their life and is estimated to cause approximately
59,000 deaths per year worldwide. Maternal tetanus has a similar nature
and affects women during pregnancy and, more often, following unclean
deliveries and abortions. Since both share the same risk factors and means
of prevention, neonatal tetanus elimination acts as proxy for maternal
tetanus eradication.

Between 1999 and 2006, some 6.7 million women of child-bearing age in
Myanmar were targeted and more than 80 per cent of them were protected
with two doses of TT. In 2007, review of relevant health indicators led to
the identification of 60 and 27 townships respectively for receiving one
and three rounds of intensified TT immunization activities for about 3
million women of child-bearing age. In 2008 and 2009, the targeted areas
were further narrowed down and corrective supplementary immunization was
administered in seven townships. The final 1 million eligible women were
reached by additional mass TT campaigns.

While the validation of maternal and neonatal tetanus elimination status
by WHO experts is an important milestone, the partners will now need to
make sure that this status is maintained. The Ministry of Health has
already developed plans to sustain the elimination status by maintaining
high protection levels against tetanus in mothers and newborns and
controlling chances of contracting tetanus during and after delivery and
birth.

Despite the progress made since the late 1980s, maternal and neonatal
tetanus continues to be a public health problem in many developing
countries and can account for a considerable proportion of maternal and
neonatal deaths in high-risk areas. Since 2000, 18 countries have
eliminated the problem. Elimination efforts will now focus on 40 other
countries.

____________________________________
INTERNATIONAL

June 4, Christian Science Monitor
Burma tops 'worst of the worst' list of human rights violators – Howard
LaFranchi

Washington — The hit parade of the world’s worst human rights violators is
out, and it reads like a rap sheet of the usual suspects.

The “worst of the worst,” as Washington-based human rights watchdog
Freedom House calls them, is comprised of nine countries and one
territory: Burma, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Libya, North Korea, Somalia,
Sudan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tibet (under Chinese jurisdiction).

What Freedom House calls “shameful” is that one of those “worst” – Libya –
was just elected to the United Nations’ premier human rights organization,
the Human Rights Council. Moreover, three countries on the organization’s
expanded list of countries with only slightly better human-rights records
– China, Cuba, and Saudi Arabia – are already members.

“It’s a badge of shame that these countries sit on the council, but the
shame really goes to the [UN] General Assembly countries that elected
these egregious violators of rights in the first place,” says Paula
Schriefer, Freedom House’s director of advocacy. She notes that Saudi
Arabia, for example, was elected to the council with more than 150 votes
out of the 192 General Assembly members.

In all, 20 countries and territories have such appalling human rights
records as to be considered the world’s worst. Rounding out the list
Freedom House issued Thursday are: Belarus, Chad, Guinea, Laos, Syria, and
two territories: South Ossetia and Western Sahara.

The “worst of the worst” list is just one piece of evidence that Freedom
House offers to support its conclusion that freedom globally is on the
decline, after several decades of general expansion.

“By absolute standards, the world is still freer than it was 30 years
ago,” Freedom House Executive Director Jennifer Windsor says in the
report’s overview. The less-good news: “The last four years have seen a
global decline in freedom,” she adds, including in such specific areas the
organization measures globally as multiparty elections, freedom of
association, freedom of speech, rights of minorities, and the rule of law.

The report finds that the countries on the “worst” list represent a
“narrow range” of political systems with such familiar names as
dictatorship, military junta, and one-party rule. Another common factor in
many of the countries on the list is corruption.
The Human Rights Council, which sits in Geneva, is dismissed by some
rights advocates because of the participation of some “worst” rights
violators. The council was snubbed by the Bush administration for that
reason, but the Obama administration reversed course and decided to try to
reform the body from within.

Ms. Schriefer, who was reached by phone in Geneva where she is
representing Freedom House with the council, calls the presence of
“egregious” rights violators on the council an “embarrassment,” but adds,
“There’s no reason the majority can’t get down to business on the work of
promoting and supporting human rights in all corners of the world.”

She notes on the bright side that the council has managed to appoint an
independent expert on Sudan, and is about to consider renewing the
expert’s mandate. “You can tell issues like this matter to countries [that
become the object of rights probes] by the energy and resources they put
into avoiding it,” she says.

The council has also registered a number of setbacks. A group of
rights-promoting countries attempted to pass a resolution in May 2009
condemning Sri Lanka for repressive actions against its own citizens. But
the effort backfired when supporters of the Sri Lankan regime on the
council amended the resolution so it ended up praising the government’s
steps.

“Now Sri Lanka uses the resolution as part of its propaganda trumpeting
the support it has garnered internationally,” Schriefer says. “That was
not a positive step for human rights.”

____________________________________

June 4, Washington Post
Report says Burma is taking steps toward nuclear weapons program – Joby
Warrick

Burma has begun secretly acquiring key components for a nuclear weapons
program, including specialized equipment used to make uranium metal for
nuclear bombs, according to a report that cites documents and photos from
a Burmese army officer who recently fled the country.

The smuggled evidence shows Burma's military rulers taking concrete steps
toward obtaining atomic weapons, according to an analysis co-written by an
independent nuclear expert. But it also points to enormous gaps in Burmese
technical know-how and suggests that the country is many years from
developing an actual bomb.

The analysis, commissioned by the dissident group Democratic Voice of
Burma, concludes with "high confidence" that Burma is seeking nuclear
technology, and adds: "This technology is only for nuclear weapons and not
for civilian use or nuclear power."

"The intent is clear, and that is a very disturbing matter for
international agreements," said the report, co-authored by Robert E.
Kelley, a retired senior U.N. nuclear inspector. Officials for the
dissident group provided copies of the analysis to the broadcaster
al-Jazeera, The Washington Post and a few other news outlets.

Hours before the report's release, Sen. James Webb (D-Va.) announced that
he was canceling a trip to Burma, also known as Myanmar, to await the
details. "It is unclear whether these allegations have substantive merit,"
Webb, who chairs a Senate Foreign Relations panel on East Asia, said in a
statement released by his office. "[But] until there is further
clarification on these matters, I believe it would be unwise and
potentially counterproductive for me to visit Burma."

There have been numerous allegations in the past about secret nuclear
activity by Burma's military rulers, accounts based largely on ambiguous
satellite images and uncorroborated stories by defectors. But the new
analysis is based on documents and hundreds of photos smuggled out of the
country by Sai Thein Win, a Burmese major who says he visited key
installations and attended meetings at which the new technology was
demonstrated.

The trove of insider material was reviewed by Kelley, a U.S. citizen who
served at two of the Energy Department's nuclear laboratories before
becoming a senior inspector for the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Kelley co-wrote the opposition group's report with Democratic Voice of
Burma researcher Ali Fowle.

Among the images provided by the major are technical drawings of a device
known as a bomb-reduction vessel, which is chiefly used in the making of
uranium metal for fuel rods and nuclear-weapons components. The defector
also released a document purporting to show a Burmese government official
ordering production of the device, as well as photos of the finished
vessel.

Other photographs show Burmese military officials and civilians posing
beside a device known as a vacuum glove box, which also is used in the
production of uranium metal. The defector describes ongoing efforts on
various phases of a nuclear-weapons program, from uranium mining to work
on advanced lasers used in uranium enrichment. Some of the machinery used
in the Burmese program appears to have been of Western origin.

The report notes that the Burmese scientists appear to be struggling to
master the technology and that some processes, such as laser enrichment,
likely far exceed the capabilities of the impoverished, isolated country.

"Photographs could be faked," it says, "but there are so many and they are
so consistent with other information and within themselves that they lead
to a high degree of confidence that Burma is pursuing nuclear technology."

A Washington-based nuclear weapons analyst who reviewed the report said
the conclusions about Burma's nuclear intentions appeared credible and
alarming. "It's just too easy to hide a program like this," said Joshua H.
Pollack, a consultant to the U.S. government.

____________________________________

June 4, Associated Press
US senator nixes Myanmar trip over nuclear concern – Grant Peck

Bangkok — A U.S. senator on Thursday postponed a trip to Myanmar, saying
it is a bad time to visit because of new allegations that its military
regime is collaborating with North Korea to develop a nuclear program.

A statement issued by the office of Sen. Jim Webb, chairman of the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee Subcommittee on East Asia and Pacific Affairs,
said the allegations had not been substantiated, but there were also
concerns that Myanmar had broken a U.N. embargo on buying arms from North
Korea.

"Until there is further clarification on these matters, I believe it would
be unwise and potentially counterproductive for me to visit Burma," said
his statement, referring to Myanmar by its former name. Webb was supposed
to go to Myanmar late Thursday.

Myanmar's military regime is under economic and political sanctions by
many Western nations because of its poor record on human rights and its
failure to hand over power to a democratically elected government. The
leader of the pro-democracy opposition, Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu
Kyi, has been detained for about 14 of the past 20 years.

Webb's statement cited news reports it did not identify. "From the initial
accounts, a defecting officer from the Burmese military claims direct
knowledge of such plans, and reportedly has furnished documents to
corroborate his claims," his statement said.

The website of the Doha-based Al-Jazeera satellite TV station said
Thursday it will broadcast a program Friday with evidence that "Myanmar's
ruling generals have started a program to build nuclear weapons (and) are
trying to develop long-range missiles."

U.S. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said Washington has "been
concerned about Burma's relationship with North Korea, the transactions
that occur between Burma and North Korea."

"We are very conscious that North Korea is a serial proliferator of
dangerous materials and weapons," Crowley said. "This is something that we
have expressed directly to Burma and that continues to be a major concern
of ours."

The trip by Webb, a Democrat from Virginia, had been scheduled to follow a
visit by U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia Kurt Campbell
last month, and would have overlapped with that of Premier Wen Jiabao of
China, Myanmar's closest and most powerful ally, who arrived Wednesday in
Myanmar.

On his current Asian tour, Webb has visited South Korea and Thailand.

Campbell during his visit last month cautioned Myanmar's military regime
that it should abide by U.N. sanctions that prohibit buying arms from
North Korea.

A U.N. Security Council resolution bans all North Korean arms exports,
authorizes member states to inspect North Korean sea, air and land cargo
and requires them to seize and destroy any goods transported in violation
of the sanctions.

Campbell said that Myanmar's leadership had agree to abide by the U.N.
resolution, but that "recent developments" called into question its
commitment.

At a news conference late Thursday in Bangkok, Webb said he still strongly
believed that continuing a dialogue between the U.S. and Myanmar is
important for maintaining a strategic balance in Southeast Asia and
encouraging more open government in Myanmar, "but a productive dialogue is
only achievable in an environment where we don't have these other issues
so outstanding."

He also said he thought "China should step forward and assume a bigger
role and become more openly involved in solving a range of issues"
including Iran, Burma, North Korea, as well as transnational problems.

Webb also called for President Obama to "immediately appoint a special
envoy to address the entire range of issues regarding relations between
the United States and Burma" — an action mandated by U.S. law.

Associated Press writer Alex Alper contributed to this report.

____________________________________

June 4, Seoul Times
Protest against military election in Burma – Nava Thakuria

The Burmese communities living in different parts of the world have
started coordinated demonstration against military controlled election in
their country. The exile Burmese and their supporters had participated in
a Global Day of Action on May 27 in more than 20 countries around the
globe. They termed the proposed general election by the military regime of
Burma (Myanmar) as military's election and continued their call for a
genuine people's election.

The last election in Myanmar on May 27, 1990 resulted in an overwhelming
victory for the pro-democracy opposition parties, but the military junta
did not hand over power to the elected representatives.

The Myanmarese expatriate groups demonstrated their resentment against the
imposed military election in Myanmar organizing rallies primarily in front
of Myanmar Embassy, United Nations building and other public places on the
day to draw the attention of the international community.

The pro-democracy Myanmarese activists based in India also staged a
demonstration and a symbolic people's election at Jantar Mantar in New
Delhi on the same day. A memorandum was also sent to the Union government
by the demonstrators with various demands and appeals.

The Global Day of Action under the Global Campaign against Myanmar's 2010
military election was initiated by Ten Alliances of Myanmar's democracy
and ethnic rights movement representing broad-based and multi-ethnic
cooperation of political and civil society organizations from inside and
outside Myanmar. The initiative has been endorsed by over 150
organizations in the world.
Meanwhile, thousands of Myanmarese community living in exile had signed
postcards and that way voted in favour of the pro-democracy icon Daw Aung
San Suu Kyi and a democratic federal union of Myanmar.

The signed postcards even call on the Indian Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan
Singh to denounce the forthcoming 2010 elections in Myanmar and reject the
results unless the Myanmarese regime changes its repressive actions.

"It is already clear that the military's elections this year will not be a
step forward that Myanmar needs. The National League for Democracy and
many ethnic groups have already decided that they cannot participate in
such a sham election. The Indian government should stand with them and the
people of Myanmar in demanding genuine democratic elections, rather than
supporting the military's sham elections," said Dr Tint Swe, MP elect in
1990 election.

The NLD and other democratic parties of Myanmar recorded a landslide
victory in the 1990 general election, but the junta did not recognize the
outcome of the polls. And shockingly, the group of Generals imprisoned
many opposition political leaders and many elected representatives left
the country to take refuge in foreign countries.

The military junta has once again declared a general election sometime
later this year. But the electoral laws released prior to the exercise
indicated that the junta was still uncomfortable with Ms Suu Kyi. Over
2000 political activists are still behind bars in Myanmar and they will
never be allowed to take part in the election.

Speaking to this writer from New Delhi, Tint Swe of NLD (now
de-registered) also added, "The people of Myanmar put their choices
bravely twenty years ago, but their mandates were bulldozed by the junta.
We reaffirm our conviction that the people of Myanmarese deserve the
freedom to choose their future for themselves."

Condemning the military dictatorship of Myanmar as well as flawed its
election laws, the senior Myanmar political leader demanded the immediate
release of all political prisoners. He also asked for a genuine political
dialogue with opposition and ethnic groups of Myanmar before the election.

"We, the exile Myanmarese in India or anywhere in the globe are actually
calling on international governments to denounce the proposed Myanmar
election and reject the results under this situation. The Chinese and
Indian governments with the member-countries under the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations are being urged primarily, as those nations have
maximum influences on the junta," said Pu Kim, a Myanmar political
activist based in New Delhi.

Earlier the European Union and Association of South East Asian Nations
urged the Myanmar government to ensure a credible and transparent
election. In a joint statement on May 26, both the organizations insisted
that the junta should go for 'a credible, transparent and inclusive
process' for the proposed election.

But their statement invited critical comments from the Myanmar Campaign
UK. Reacting sharply, the pressure group termed the joint statement on
Myanmar by the EU and ASEAN which includes Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia,
Laos, Myanmar, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines,
as 'pathetic' and 'irresponsible'.

"The statement bizarrely calls on the dictatorship to 'continue to engage
in meaningful manner with the international community, including ASEAN and
the UN'. Both the EU and ASEAN are fully aware that the dictatorship has
not been engaging in a meaningful manner with the international community,
yet they use the word 'continue'.

Why are they issuing factually incorrect statements which present the
dictatorship in more positive light?" asked Mark Farmaner of Myanmar
Campaign UK.

He also added, "The statement also calls on the elections to be made free
and fair, even though the EU and ASEAN are aware that this is impossible
and that the dictatorship has no intention of making them so. Both the EU
and ASEAN are also fully aware that the new constitution introduced after
the election is designed to maintain dictatorship, making the question of
whether elections are free and fair completely irrelevant."

"After almost five decades of military rule, the people of Myanmar want
real, democratic, people's elections. It is now clear, however, that the
military regime's first election in 20 years will be nothing but a thinly
veiled attempt to legitimize military rule," stated a press release from
Myanmar Partnership, the campaign secretariat of Global Campaign against
Myanmar's 2010 military election.

Even the ASEAN secretary general Surin Pitsuwan admitted in an interview
that the Myanmar election might not be perfect. But the soft spoken
gentleman and former Thai foreign minister argued that it would be the
beginning of an initiative emphasizing on a genuine national
reconciliation and finally would lead for a real democracy in Myanmar.

____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

June 4, Asia Times
Myanmar's nuclear bombshell – Bertil Lintner

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.

____________________________________

June 4, Irrawaddy
Webb's change of plans means no change of heart – Editorial

Why did US Senator Jim Webb abruptly cancel his planned trip to Burma?
Some Burmese living abroad have been asking in Internet discussion whether
Webb had seen the light and had finally changed his thinking on the Burma
question. The answer is: No.

An official explanation for the cancellation, issued by Webb's office in
Washington, said the decision had been taken because of “news reports”
containing “new allegations regarding the possibility that the Burmese
government has been working in conjunction with North Korea in order to
develop a nuclear program.”

Informed sources in Bangkok said the news reports related to a documentary
on the Burmese regime's nuclear ambitions made by the Democratic Voice of
Burma and broadcast by the Doha-based television station Al Jazeera on
Friday.

The sources said Webb was told about the documentary at lunch in the Thai
capital on Thursday. The senator has little background information on
Burma's nuclear program, so he asked his staff to check the matter out.

His reaction to what they told him was to immediately cancel his planned
visit to Burma, which was to have begun on Friday. In a statement issued
by his office in Washington, Webb said that until he received “further
clarification” it would be “unwise and counterproductive” to proceed with
the visit.

Webb said in his press release: “News reports published today [Thursday]
contain new allegations regarding the possibility that the Burmese
government has been working in conjunction with North Korea in order to
develop a nuclear program. From the initial accounts, a defecting officer
from the Burmese military claims direct knowledge of such plans, and
reportedly has furnished documents to corroborate his claims.

“It is unclear whether these allegations have substantive merit. However,
given the fact that Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell recently
accused Burma of violating UN Security Council Resolution 1874 with
respect to a suspected shipment of arms from North Korea, there are now
two unresolved matters related to activities of serious concern between
these two countries. Until there is further clarification on these
matters, I believe it would be unwise and potentially counterproductive
for me to visit Burma.”

Webb also urged US President Barack Obama to appoint a special envoy to
address the entire range of issues regarding relations between the US  and
Burma. Did this indicate a change of heart?  Saving face is nearer the
truth.

Webb opposes sanctions against Burma and is seen as leaning toward the
regime. It's also rumored that he and senior US State Department officials
concerned with Asia-Pacific affairs are not on good terms.

Nor does Webb enjoy much popularity among Burmese dissidents. Veteran
Burmese politician Win Tin has said he wouldn't welcome a meeting between
Webb and detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

“He doesn't have good sympathy for Burma's democracy movement,” Win Tin
said bluntly.

Several Burma watchers point out that Webb is just one voice in the US
Senate and unlikely to carry enough weight to influence the US
administration and its policy on Burma.

During the recent anniversary of the 1990 Burma election, US senators
Mitch McConnell, Joe Lieberman, Dianne Feinstein, Judd Gregg, John McCain
and Sam Brownback condemned the military regime for its refusal to
transfer power to the opposition in 1990 and its plan to hold a new
election this year without the participation of the National League for
Democracy and other pro-democracy forces. Webb's name was not on the list
of senators.

Webb visited Burma in August 2009, soon after the US instituted a new
policy of engagement with the Burmese junta. He met Snr-Gen Than Shwe and
Suu Kyi, and also obtained the release of an American prisoner, John
Yettaw, who had been convicted of illegally entering Suu Kyi's lakeside
home.

After his visit last year, Webb disclosed in a New York Times article that
he had made a private visit to Burma in 2000 at the invitation of an
American businessman whom he did not name.

Regime leader Snr-Gen Than Shwe's subsequent decision to meet the US
senator was seen as a gesture that resulted in Webb asking the Washington
administration to engage the regime and consider taking “a different
course of action.”

Webb wrote in the New York Times:  “Our distinct policies toward different
countries amount to a form of situational ethics that does not translate
well into clear-headed diplomacy. We must talk to Myanmar’s leaders. This
does not mean that we should abandon our aspirations for a free and open
Burmese society, but that our goal will be achieved only through a
different course of action.”

Webb argued that sanctions could endanger regional stability. “Sanctions
by Western governments have not been matched by other countries,
particularly Russia and China. Indeed, they have allowed China to
dramatically increase its economic and political influence in Myanmar,
furthering a dangerous strategic imbalance in the region.”

Burmese analysts believed that anti-sanction groups and influential
businessmen were behind his first visit. Some analysts regard Webb's
anti-China stance as beneficial to Burma, which is widely seen as a
satellite state of China.

Several analysts who have met Webb him questioned his understanding of
Burma, however.

They cite a statement made by Webb after the regime freed American citizen
Kyaw Zaw Lin (aka Nyi Nyi Aung) in March: “Since my visit to Burma last
August, the military government has made several substantive gestures that
should be appropriately considered by the US Department of State as
opportunities to increase our engagement with Burma.”

“Substantive gestures?” It would be interesting to know what these were. 
Webb just kept us guessing.

____________________________________
INTERVIEW

June 4, Democratic Voice of Burma
Expert says Burma ‘planning nuclear bomb’ – DVB and Robert Kelley

A five-year investigation by DVB has uncovered evidence that Burma is
embarking on a programme to develop nuclear weaponry. At the centre of the
investigation is Sai Thein Win, a former defense engineer and missile
expert who worked in factories in Burma where he was tasked to make
prototype components for missile and nuclear programs.

Sai contacted DVB after learning of its investigation into Burma’s
military programmes, and supplied various documents and colour photographs
of the equipment built inside the factories. The investigation has also
uncovered evidence of North Korean involvement in the development of
Burmese missiles, as well as Russia’s training of Burmese nuclear
technicians.

In collaboration with DVB, American nuclear scientist and a former
director in the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Robert Kelley,
has spent months examining this material. Here he writes in an exclusive
report for DVB that Burma is probably mining uranium and exploring nuclear
technology that is only “useful only for weapons”. For the full 30-page
report, click here.

A remarkable individual has come out of Burma to describe nuclear-related
activities in that secretive country. DVB has interviewed this man at
length and is presenting his evidence here for all to see.  His name is
Sai Thein Win, and until recently he was a major in the Burmese army.  He
was trained in Burma as a defense engineer, and later in Russia as a
missile expert.  He returned to Burma to work in special factories, built
to house modern European machining tools, to build prototypes for missile
and nuclear activities.

Sai brought with him some documents and colour photographs of equipment
built in these factories. DVB is publishing these photos and has arranged
with experts to analyze what they have discovered. Some will no doubt want
to weigh in and add their conclusions – no doubt there will be detractors
who do not agree with the analysis and our conclusion that these objects
are designed for use in a nuclear weapons development program.  We invite
their criticism and hope that any additional analysis will eventually
reinforce our view that Burma is engaged in activities that are prohibited
under international agreements.

DVB has hundreds of other photos taken in Burma inside closed facilities,
as well as countless other information sources and documents. Background
information is given for the very specific information Sai is providing.

In the last two years certain “laptop documents” have surfaced that
purport to show that Iran is engaged in a clandestine nuclear program. The
origin of these documents is not clear but they have generated a huge
international debate over Iran’s intentions.  The Burmese documents and
photographs brought by Sai are much closer to the original source
materials and the route of their disclosure is perfectly clear.  The
debate over these documents should be interesting in the non-proliferation
community.

Who is Sai Thein Win?

Sai was a major in the Burmese army. He saw a DVB documentary about
special factories in Burma that had been built by the regime to make
components for Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD).  He worked in two of
these factories and felt there was more that needed to be conveyed outside
Burma. Sai came out to Thailand to tell the world what he has seen and
what he was asked to do. What he has to say adds to the testimony of many
other Burmese defectors, but he supplements it with many colour
photographs of the buildings and what they are building inside them. In
addition he can describe the special demonstrations he attended and can
name the people and places associated with the Burmese nuclear program
that he visited.

Sai Thein Win reminds us of Mordecai Vanunu, an Israeli technician at the
Dimona nuclear site in the Negev desert. Vanunu took many photographs of
activities in Israel that were allegedly related to nuclear fuel cycle and
weapons development. These photos were published in the Sunday Times in
London in 1986.  They purportedly showed nuclear weapons activities in
Israel at the time.  Israel has never confirmed that the images were taken
in their facilities; much less that Israel even has a nuclear weapons
program.  But Vanunu was abducted, tried in an Israeli court and sentenced
to many years in prison for divulging state secrets.  Sai is providing
similar information.

What is the Program that Sai Describes?

Sai tells us that he was tasked to make prototype components for missile
and nuclear programs.  He is an experienced mechanical engineer and he is
capable of describing machining operations very accurately.

Sai has very accurately described a missile fuel pump impeller he made
because he is trained as a missile engineer.  His information on nuclear
programs is based upon many colour photographs and two visits to the
nuclear battalion at Thabeikkyin, north of Mandalay.  The Nuclear
Battalion is the organization charged with building up a nuclear weapons
capability in Burma.  The Nuclear Battalion will try to do this by
building a nuclear reactor and nuclear enrichment capabilities.

It is DVB consultants’ firm belief that Burma is probably not capable of
building the equipment they have been charged to build: to manufacture a
nuclear weapon, to build a weapons material supply, and to do it in a
professional way.  But the information provided by Sai and other reporters
from Burma clearly indicates that the regime has the intent to go nuclear
and it is trying and expending huge resources along the way.

Factories filled with European equipment

Two companies in Singapore with German connections sold many machine tools
to the Burmese government, notably the Department of Technical and
Vocational Education (DTVE).  DTVE is closely associated with the
Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) which is subordinate to the Ministry of
Science and Technology (MOST).  A great deal of information is known about
people and organizations in this chain.  DTVE is probably a front for
military purchasing for weapons of mass destruction; that is to say
nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and the means to deliver them,
largely missiles.

The German government did not have derogatory information about DTVE when
the tools were sold and allowed the sale.  Fortunately, although the
machine tools were very expensive and capable, they were sold without all
of the accessories to make the very precision parts required for many
missile and nuclear applications.  These factories are only making
prototypes and first models of equipment for other research organizations.
 They are not making serial copies for a production program and they do
not do research themselves

The companies believed the machines were to be used for educational and
vocational training, but the German government, suspicious about the end
use, sent a diplomat and an expert to examine the machines that were
installed in two special factories in Burma.  The expert was suspicious
that the machines would be used for uses other than training; there were
no students and no universities nearby, and there were no women students. 
The expert noted that none of the male students wore military uniforms. 
DVB has examined the photos and some of the “students” who wore civilian
clothes during the expert visit wear military uniforms when the Europeans
are not there.

Sai provided recognizable photos of the equipment installers and the
Germans during their site visit.  This is one of many indications that he
was at the factories and that his story is very credible.  It is also
fortunate that the German government was diligent and visited these
factories to verify the end use.  The Burmese were probably not telling
the whole truth, but the visits allow serious verification of the facts.

Sai describes equipment the Nuclear Battalion is building

Sai has provided DVB with many photos of material that the Nuclear
Battalion at Thabeikkyin is requesting. One of the most obvious ones is
requested in an accompanying secret memo from the No (1) Science and
Technology Regiment at Thabeikkyin to the Special Factory Number One near
Pyin Oo Lwin. It is for a “bomb reactor” for the “special substance
production research department” and there are some sketches of what is
wanted as well as pictures.  A bomb reactor in a nuclear program is a
special device for turning uranium compounds into uranium metal for use in
nuclear fuel or a nuclear bomb.  The pictures and sketches are of such a
bomb reactor and one of the pictures has been subjected to high
temperature. The paint is burned off and it has been used.  It may be a
design from a foreign country or a Burmese design.  But the need for a
bomb reactor in a Burmese Nuclear Battalion is a strong signal that the
project is trying to make uranium metal.  Whether the uranium metal is
used in a plutonium production reactor or a nuclear device, Burma is
exploring nuclear technology that is useful only for weapons.

Sai also provided photos of chemical engineering machinery that can be
used for making uranium compounds such as uranium hexafluoride gas, used
in uranium enrichment.  He describes nozzles used in advanced lasers that
separate uranium isotopes into materials used for bombs.  He provides
pictures of a glove box for mixing reactive materials and furnaces for
making uranium compounds.  All of these things could have other uses, but
taken together, in the context of the Nuclear Battalion, they are for a
nuclear weapons program.

Sai has been told that the regime is planning to build a nuclear reactor
to make plutonium for a nuclear bomb.  He has seen a demonstration of a
reactor component called a “control rod” that fits this story.  He has
been told that the regime plans to enrich uranium for a bomb and he has
seen a demonstration of a carbon monoxide laser that will be part of this
enrichment process.  He has named the individuals he met and heard from at
Thabeikkyin and they can be correlated through open source information
with their jobs for the Burmese Department of Atomic Energy.  Many are
frequent visitors to IAEA grant training projects.  He himself was tasked
to make nozzles for the carbon monoxide laser.  He actually knows less
about the chemical industrial equipment seen in his photos than we can
judge, but his overall story is quite interesting.  It is also clear that
the demonstrations and explanations that he has seen are quite crude. If
they are the best Burma can do they have a long way to go.

How does Sai fit into the overall Burma story?

Sai is a mechanical engineer with experience in machining parts on highly
specialized and modern machine tools.  These machine tools make items that
are very precise and can be used in nuclear energy programs or to make
missiles.  Sai is not a nuclear expert and he has little to say about the
things he made, or that his factory made other than what he was told about
their uses.  He does provide photos of items that would be used in the
nuclear industry to process uranium compounds into forms used in the
nuclear weapons development process.  These photos or his descriptions
could be faked, but they are highly consistent with the uses he suggests.

Sai received a degree as a defense engineer in Burma.  He then went to
Russia to train in missile technology at the prestigious Bauman Institute
in Moscow.  He can document all of this.  His friends went to Russia as
well and studied nuclear and chemical technology at the Moscow Institute
of Engineering Physics (MIFI) and the Mendeleev Institute of Chemical
Technology.  MIFI was the main training institute for Soviet nuclear
weapons designers for many years.  The ones who studied chemistry at
Mendeleev are probably the ones who are most important in building the
special equipment that Sai knew about.

Stories about a nuclear reactor in Burma

There have many wild stories about a nuclear reactor in Burma.  It is
clear that Burma and Russia considered building a 10 Megawatt (10 MW)
research reactor in Burma in 2000.  It is also clear that this deal was
not closed and that Russia announced only intent to build a 10 MW reactor
around 2008.  This reactor has not been built and Russia is highly
unlikely to approve such a deal unless Burma signs a new special agreement
with the IAEA.  This agreement is called an Additional Protocol and Burma
is very unlikely to sign it because it would give the IAEA the access it
needs to discover a clandestine nuclear program in Burma.

Furthermore, a 10 MW nuclear reactor is a very small concern for
proliferation.  Such reactors are common in the world and they are simply
too small to be of serious proliferation concern.  They can be used to
teach students how to work in the nuclear area, but they are not
appropriate to rapidly make any serious quantities of plutonium for bombs.
 IAEA has standards for which reactors are especially suitable for
plutonium production and this proposed reactor is below that limit.  It is
appropriate only for nuclear technology training and the production of
medical radioisotopes.  Local production of medical isotopes is one of the
main reasons for reactors in the 10 MW class around the world.  Burma
could use this reactor for training, but reports that it bought a 10 MW
reactor from Russia are clearly untrue, and stories that they want to
build one of their own for a bomb program are nonsense.

The idea that Burma is building a larger reactor, like the alleged one
Israel destroyed in Syria, is more interesting. This could be a plutonium
production reactor, like the 25 MW (thermal) one that North Korea operated
in Yongbyon.  The fact that North Korea would consider supporting nuclear
programs outside its own borders, in client states like Syria, is of
serious concern when evaluating Burma.  North Korea does have a memorandum
of understanding to help Burma build intermediate range ballistic missiles
but their role in the nuclear program is only anecdotal.

Is Burma violating its international agreements?

The most important agreement that Burma must satisfy is its agreement with
the IAEA.  It signed an agreement with the IAEA in 1995 that it would not
pursue nuclear weapons under a carefully defined standard international
legal agreement. A supplement to this agreement, a so-called Small
Quantities Protocol, said that Burma had no nuclear facilities and very
small amounts of nuclear materials, which it did not even have to itemise.
As a result of this declaration, which was accepted by the IAEA, there are
no nuclear safeguards inspections in Burma. There are some IAEA visits to
Burma, because Burma is a recipient of IAEA scientific grant money for
humanitarian purposes.  Some of these grants train Burmese scientists for
nuclear activities that could enable them to produce nuclear materials,
but these are not the majority of the grants.

Burma has certified that it has no nuclear facilities, has minimal nuclear
materials, and has no plans to change this situation. The information
brought by Sai suggests that Burma is mining uranium, converting it to
uranium compounds for reactors and bombs, and is trying to build a reactor
and or an enrichment plant that could only be useful for a bomb.  There is
no chance that these activities are directed at a reactor to produce
electricity in Burma.  This is beyond Burma’s engineering capabilities. 
It is up to Burma to notify the IAEA if these conditions have changed. 
Clearly, if it is trying to secretly build a bomb and is breaking these
rules it will not be voluntarily notifying the IAEA.

Burma has also purchased high quality machine tools from a German machine
tool broker in Singapore that can be used for weapons of mass destruction
manufacture.  These tools could be used to make many things but they are
of a size and quality that are not consistent with student training, the
declared end use.

The Department of Technical and Vocational training is a front for weapons
procurement and is associated with the DAE and MOST.  All of these
departments, programs, and people associated with them, should be
sanctioned and prohibited from buying anything that could contribute to
weapons programs.

What is the state of Burma’s nuclear program?

We have examined the photos of the Burmese nuclear program very carefully
and looked at Sai’s evidence.  The quality of the parts they are machining
is poor.  The mechanical drawings to produce these parts in a machine shop
are unacceptably poor.  If someone really plans to build a nuclear weapon,
a very complex device made up of precision components, then Burma is not
ready.  This could be because the information brought by Sai is not
complete or because Burma is playing in the field but is not ready to be
serious.  In any case, nothing we have seen suggests Burma will be
successful with the materials and component we have seen.

What is significant is intent.  Burma is trying to mine uranium and
upgrade uranium compounds through chemical processing.  The photos show
several steps in this intent.  Burma is reported to be planning and
building a nuclear reactor to make plutonium and is trying to enrich
uranium to make a bomb.  These activities are inconsistent with their
signed obligations with the IAEA.

Even if Burma is not able to succeed with their illegal program, they have
set off alarm bells in the international community devoted to preventing
weapons of mass destruction proliferation.  The IAEA should ask Burma if
its stated declarations are true.  If these allegations appear real there
should be follow-up questions and inspections of alleged activities.  This
effort will be hampered by Burma’s failure to sign the Additional
Protocol.  Under the current Small Quantities Protocol Agreement, IAEA has
no power to inspect in Burma.

Burma is also trying to build medium-range missiles such as SCUDs under a
memorandum of understanding with North Korea. SCUDS are not likely to
carry a Burmese nuclear warhead because first generation nuclear warheads
are usually too heavy and large for the SCUD missile.  But there is little
reason to embark on SCUD missiles and nuclear weapons other than to
threaten ones near-neighbours. Burma is ruled by a junta that has no real
political philosophy other than greed. The junta rules for the purpose of
enriching a small cadre with the rich resources of the country: teak,
gold, jade, other minerals and the labour of the people. Like their model,
North Korea, the junta hopes to remain safe from foreign interference by
being too dangerous to invade. Nuclear weapons contribute to that
immunity.

Conclusions

DVB has interviewed many sources from inside Burma’s military programs.
Many other researchers are interviewing former Burmese military people,
for example Dictator Watch and Desmond Ball with Phil Thornton. They have
provided anecdotal evidence pointing to a Burmese nuclear weapons program.
Sai has clarified these reports and added to them with colour photos and
personal descriptions of his visits to the Nuclear Battalion. He trained
in Moscow in missile technology along with friends who trained in nuclear
technology who later vanished into the Nuclear Battalion of Thabeikkyin.
All were trained in some of Russia’s first quality institutes.

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. North Korea has recently been accused of trying to build a nuclear
reactor inside Syria to make plutonium for a nuclear program in Syria or
North Korea. The timeframe of North Korean assistance to Syria is roughly
the same as Burma so the connection may not be coincidental.

If Burma is trying to develop nuclear weapons the international community
needs to react.  There needs to be a thorough investigation of
well-founded reporting.  If these reports prove compelling, then there
need to be sanctions of known organizations in Burma and for equipment for
any weapons of mass destruction.

Kelley, 63, a former Los Alamos weapons scientist, was an IAEA director
from 1992 to 1993, and again from 2001 to 2005. Based in Vienna, Austria,
he conducted weapons inspections in Libya, Iraq, and South Africa, and
compliance inspections in Egypt, Turkey, South Korea, Taiwan, Syria,
Tanzania, Pakistan, India, and Congo, among others.