http://www.mizzima.com/news/world/1158-time-for-europe-to-confront-burmas-generals.html
by Mizzima News
Monday, 20 October 2008 17:57
Amnesty International is calling on the French government, as current President of the European Union, to make the human rights situation in Burma a focal point of the upcoming Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM).
Addressed on Friday of last week to French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, the EU and French delegations of Amnesty International are urging the French mission to raise three seminal issues regarding the situation in Burma: the 2010 elections, political persecution and crimes against humanity in eastern Burma.
Regarding the proposed 2010 general election, the petitioners write, "[R]ather than attempting to introduce the rule of law and respect for human rights to Myanmar, this constitutional process seeks to perpetuate and legitimise the government's continuing human rights abuses and ensure impunity for past, present and future violations."
Additional concern is expressed for what Amnesty decries as positive remarks from members of the international community on the junta's 7-step roadmap to democracy, of which the 2010 election is to be step number five.
If elections are to take place in two years' time, the constitution, judged to be approved by authorities in May, must be "radically reformed or replaced," according to the letter.
Sighting an alarming doubling in the political prisoner population in the country since last year's Saffron Revolution, Amnesty further believes that the "ASEM summit can provide an opportunity for the French Presidency to implement the EU guidelines on HRDs (human rights defenders) and to raise concerns about the general situation for prisoners of conscience in Myanmar."
Lastly, in reference to the human rights situation in the eastern part of the country, Amnesty refers to an in-house report which detailed a two-and-a-half year offensive in that part of the country, commencing in November 2005, which it claims was the largest of the past decade and for the first time identified civilians as the primary military target of the Burmese army.
The 7th ASEM summit is to be held on the 24th and 25th of this month in Beijing, China. The grouping currently brings together 45 states, but it is expected that membership will increase by a half dozen this year, including the admission of India.
Monday, October 20, 2008
Time for Europe to confront Burma's generals -MIZZIMA
Seminar: Recovering Lost Gems of Myanmar’s Past: Collecting, Preserving, and Accessing Old Texts from Palm Leaves and Parabike Manuscripts
http://www.southeastasianarchaeology.com/2008/10/20/seminar-recovering-lost-gems-of-myanmars-past-collecting-preserving-and-accessing-old-texts-from-palm-leaves-and-parabike-manuscripts/
October 20th, 2008
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noelbynature Posted in Burma (Myanmar), Singapore, Talks / Presentations |
Please find registration information at the ARI website or at the end of this post.
Recovering Lost Gems of Myanmar’s Past: Collecting, Preserving, and Accessing Old Texts from Palm Leaves and Parabike Manuscripts
by Dr Thaw Kaung
Date: 23/10/2008
Time: 16:00 - 18:00
Venue: ARI Seminar Room, 469A Tower Block, Level 10, Bukit Timah Road, National University of Singapore @ BTC
Organisers: Dr Maitrii Aung-Thwin & Dr Titima Suthiwan
CHAIRPERSON
Dr Maitrii Aung-Thwin, Department of History, National University of Singapore.
ABSTRACT
This paper explores the institutions, individuals, and contexts in which the Myanmar past has been constructed through the collection and preservation of old paper manuscripts. It will survey efforts made by colonial and post-colonial officials to identify, locate, and acquire Burmese Palm Leaves while introducing new efforts to digitize these rare and disappearing sources to the Southeast Asian past.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Thaw Kaung is a Member of the Myanmar Historical Commission and former Chief Librarian of Universities Central Library (Yangon). He chairs several national, regional, and international library/preservation committees and he is recipient of the 2005 Fukuoka Asian Culture Prize. Dr. Thaw Kaung studied at the University of London where he earned a post-graduate diploma in Librarianship. He founded the Department of Library Studies at the University of Yangon in 1971 and established a post-graduate curriculum in Library and Information studies. Dr. Thaw Kaung has published numerous books and articles in both the Burmese and in English, influencing a generation of scholars within Myanmar and abroad. Some of his notable publications include: “Preservation and Conservation Work in the Universities Central Library” (1997), “Bibliographies Compiled in Myanmar” (1998), “Post-Colonial Society and Culture: Reflections in Myanmar Novels in the last 50 Years” (1999), and “The Ramayana Drama in Myanmar” (2002).
Man dies on bomb blast in Myanmar's main city
http://malaysia.news.yahoo.com/ap/20081020/tap-as-myanmar-blast-d3b07b8.html
AP - Monday, October 20YANGON, Myanmar - A bomb blast killed a man at his home on the outskirts of Myanmar's main city less than 24 hours after another explosion in the area, an official said Monday.
The man died at a house in a northwestern suburb of Yangon Sunday evening, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to reporters.
Another occupant in the house escaped unhurt.
The blast followed a bomb explosion on Saturday at a sports field in a northern Yangon suburb. There were no casualties. Another bomb was found nearby and defused, according to officials.
Sunday's blast was the fourth in the Yangon area in the past month.
Terrorism is rare but not unknown in Myanmar, which has been under near-continuous military rule since 1962.
Several small-scale bombings have occurred in recent months. An explosion damaged the office of a government office in July in Shwepyitha township, where Sunday's blast occurred, and two bombs damaged parked cars in downtown Yangon in April.
The government often blames the bombings on opponents of the regime, or ethnic rebel groups seeking autonomy.
Developing states to take part in finance crisis summit: Japan
U.S. President George W. Bush who has agreed to hold a G8 summit in the United States as Japan, the chair of the G8 rich nations, said Monday that developing economies would take part in the emergency meeting.
(AFP/Getty Images/Ron Sachs)
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20081020/bs_afp/financebankingjapang8_081020044142
TOKYO (AFP) – Japan, the chair of the Group of Eight rich nations, said Monday that developing economies would take part in an emergency summit on revamping the ailing global financial system.
"This is not a problem only for the Group of Eight countries," Chief Cabinet Secretary Takeo Kawamura, the government's spokesman, told a news conference.
He said G8 countries were debating whether the summit would include only selected emerging powers such as Brazil, China and India or whether to invite a wide range of developing countries.
On Saturday, US President George W. Bush, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso agreed to hold a first summit in the United States "soon after the US elections" on November 4.
Kawamura said that Japan hoped to play a leading role in the summit as chair of the G8.
"Only Japan has experience in overcoming a financial crisis. We have precious experience," Kawamura said, referring to the collapse of Japan's financial system in the late 1990s triggered by massive bad debts.
"It is natural for Japan as the chair of the G8 to play a leading role in jointly tackling the crisis," he said. "We can offer good suggestions and share Japan's experience with other countries."
The G8 groups Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States.
Japan invited leaders of 15 other nations for the last G8 summit held in July in the northern resort town of Toyako. The expanded G8 meetings included talks on African development and global warming.
But Japan, the only Asian nation in the G8, has opposed calls to permanently expand the elite club.
Japan's economy is expected to remain stagnant for some time
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20081020/bs_afp/japaneconomybank_081020075107
A worker at Japan's auto giant Toyota on a vehicle production line in Miyata City. The country's economy is expected to remain stagnant for a while as a global economic slowdown weighs on exports, the country's central bank chief has said.
(AFP/File/Ken Shimizu)
TOKYO (AFP) – Japan's economy is expected to remain stagnant for some time with a global slowdown weighing on exports, the country's central bank chief said Monday.
Corporate earnings in Asia's largest economy are shrinking and companies are cutting their capital investment, Bank of Japan governor Masaaki Shirakawa told a meeting of the central bank's branch managers.
"The economy of our nation is currently stagnant due in part to slower exports stemming from the lingering effects of high energy and material prices and a slowdown in overseas economies," he said.
Business confidence remains cautious while consumption has turned softer due to inflation and sluggish wages, Shirakawa said.
"Looking ahead, it is highly probable that the economy will remain stagnant as it has become clear that overseas economies continue to slow down," he said.
Japan's economy suffered its worst contraction in seven years in the second quarter of 2008 and many analysts believe it is already in recession.
The Bank of Japan also downgraded its assessment of the country's nine regions in a quarterly report.
"Economic growth had been sluggish in general, mainly due to the effects of earlier increases in energy and materials prices and weaker growth in exports," the report said.
Corporate profits continued to decrease and business sentiment has become even more cautious, leading to cutbacks in investment. Private consumption was also soft while production was relatively weak, the report said.
But the central bank said that Japan's financial system remained in relatively sound health compared with those of the United States and Europe.
"The Bank of Japan will continue our efforts to secure the stability of financial markets," Shirakawa said.
Japanese banks have been less severely hit so far by the global financial crisis compared with many of their Western peers, taking the opportunity to buy up chunks of ailing Wall Street banks.
In Cash-Rich Japan, World's Financial Woes Inspire a Grand Plan
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/18/AR2008101801688.html
By Blaine Harden
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, October 19, 2008; A21
TOKYO -- Kotaro Tamura, an investment banker turned Japanese lawmaker, has an immodest proposal for healing the sick global economy, making all Japanese richer and compelling the United States to be more deferential toward Japan.
"We are in a special position because we have huge money," Tamura said, referring to about $950 billion in government foreign reserves, $1.5 trillion in public pension funds and $15 trillion in personal financial assets, about $8 trillion of which is on deposit at shockingly low interest rates in Japanese banks.
"We should send the signal that we are ready to save the world with this money," he said in an interview.
Tamura leads a group of 65 lawmakers from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party who have proposed to Prime Minister Taro Aso that Japan treat the global financial meltdown "as a huge opportunity for us."
They are urging the government to inject some of its abundant cash into troubled U.S. and European banks, in return for equity, and to purchase distressed corporate assets at fire-sale prices.
"The economy of every major power has crashed, and Japan has the least tainted market in the world," Tamura said.
So far, Aso's government has said nothing about any such investments. Asked what the prime minister thinks of the idea, Aso's spokesman declined to comment.
In recent days the government has said only that it would assist developing countries by contributing money to a rescue effort organized by the International Monetary Fund.
The chronically risk-averse habits of Japanese savers, who keep most of their trillions in accounts that pay less than 0.5 percent interest a year, suggest that Tamura's plan to save the world and make Japan richer is unlikely to generate much popular support.
"We are a bank-centered nation that avoids risk, even good risk," said Akira Kojima, chairman of the Japan Center for Economic Research.
Kojima called the idea of investing some of Japan's cash in the midst of the financial crisis a good one, if done prudently. "It could be a catalyst for changing Japanese investment management strategy," he said.
At the same time, he said, it would be all but impossible to carry out, given the conservative bent of the government and the public. "The finance system is too rigid," he said.
Even when Japan's own banks were crumbling during the country's severe financial crisis in the 1990s, there was strong popular opposition to the government's decision to save banks with public money.
Still, Japan's chronic failure to earn decent returns from its mountain of savings is a subject of constant debate in this country.
"The use of the savings in Japan has not been successful for a long period," Hidehiko Sogano, an associate finance director at the Bank of Japan, said in a recent interview. "However, at the current moment, we do not have any consensus among the public to use them in more aggressive investments."
Proposals for Japan to follow the examples of China, Singapore, Norway and other export-rich countries in creating a sovereign wealth fund for foreign investment have gone nowhere.
It is a hard local sell, concedes Tamura, 45, the member of parliament who is the country's most outspoken advocate of such investment. "Our people hate risk, so we have to make a very good case, and that is easy to do," he said.
Tamura is trying to "persuade our people" to face facts: Japan's economy and its stock market depend on the vigor of the U.S. economy, particularly the willingness of American consumers to start spending lots of money again.
"Look at the Japanese stock market," he said. "It is diving faster than the U.S. market. The recession in the United States is our problem."
The stock market in Japan has lost about half its value this year, with a quarter of that loss occurring last week.
As the world's second-largest economy, Japan has a peculiar mix of monetary muscle and financial vulnerability. Its foreign reserves are second only to China's $1.9 trillion worth. But it must service the world's most onerous public debt burden -- 182 percent of its gross domestic product, compared with about 36 percent in the United States -- while meeting the mushrooming pension and medical needs of the world's oldest population.
And Japan's export-dependent economy is closely linked to that of the United States. Japan began sliding into recession this past spring after U.S. sales of Japanese cars started to decline.
Tamura argues that the fix is deceptively simple.
"Everything is very cheap right now [in world stock markets], and 10 years from now we would make very big money," he said.
His plan calls for Japan to hire outside financial experts to manage its investments in Europe and the United States. "They should be easy to find because they are all losing their jobs," he said.
Finally, Tamura said, Japan could gain much more than mere money by coming to the aid of the United States and its many distressed companies. "If we can save the United States economy, then the U.S. government will owe us in other ways," he said.
A U.S. move that has offended many Japanese is the Bush administration's decision last weekend to take North Korea off its list of states that sponsor terrorism.
The Japanese public vehemently opposes the delisting because North Korea has refused to provide satisfactory information about the fate of eight Japanese citizens who were abducted by North Korean agents during the 1970s and '80s.
"If we make the proper moves with our money, we can gain diplomatic fruit," Tamura said. "We can insist that the United States put more pressure on North Korea. As I said, this is a huge opportunity for us."
Burma Goes Ballistic
http://webdiary.com.au/cms/?q=node/1801
by Melody Kemp
I am thankful to my friends in Thailand and Burma for the following news which comes from those inside and outside Burma. Most names cannot be given for obvious reasons.
Heavy sighs and teeth sucking have become commonplace in Washington and UN circles as diplomats and hard heads consider what to do about North Korea’s and Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
Burma, whose secretive and murderous government recently literally headed for the hills, seems to have escaped the hard laser beam of disapproval, despite its own leading role, and nuclear objectives.
Last November Dictatorwatch reported that the SPDC was mining and refining uranium, and then bartering the yellowcake to Iran and North Korea; a claim debunked by the Orwellian-named State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) under a flurry of script changes. A cargo boat being loaded with yellow cake morphed into a North Korean vessel seeking refuge in Rangoon harbour, despite no storm activity being evident in the region. Then again, they could have been merely collecting a cargo of methamphetamine, which has been seen being loaded by speed boat at the same island dock. After all, North Korean ships have been visiting Burmese ports for 5 years … must be something of interest.
Another series of insider sources, different from those who reported the first shipments, are insisting that shipments of yellow cake are indeed taking place. They suggest that the relationship with Iran appears to be mediated by another power, they postulate Russia, but the sources conclude that the deals between North Korea and Burma are direct, and include the exchange for missiles and technical assistance in order to bolster Burma’s own nuclear ambitions. China and Russia have been cited as applauding from the sidelines, while offering the odd dance lessons when needed.
It is suggested that a businessman called Tayza whose front is provided by Aeroflot, is "the principle deal maker" (Watson 2006 Dictatorwatch), for Burma’s missile and nuclear program, mediating between Burma and China, North Korea and Russia. Trainee reactor technicians were flown by Aeroflot between Mandalay and Russian training sites.
Now taking into account the frank paranoia of Burma’s ruling SPDC, whose major enemy are its own people, this should be a matter of alarm and concern. On the international level of diplomacy or media coverage, this is not evident. Even the SPDC ethnic cleansing of Karen and Shan people has received little coverage when compared to other similar systematic atrocities, such as Darfur.
Last year the US tried to gain a Security Council resolution on Burma but was rebuffed by Russia and China. They are apparently trying again this year. Ban Ki Moon, the new UN Secretary general has been very low key on Burma, and some think that his independence is compromised and his approach to Burma linked to Daewoo being one of the Burma’s major sources of foreign revenue. Daewoo is considered to be a direct sponsor of Than Shwe’s regime. The issue is made more complex and difficult to finesse by the US appeasement policy toward China. The US (and Australia) do not want to anger China but rather make sure that trade continues and China is not tempted to sell its warehouses of US Treasury bonds at which point the US economy will crumble like a soggy cake.
Uranium Mines
Until now Burma has relied on hydropower and gas to generate its power. A plan to dam the Salween river is not only a proposal to gain additional marketable electricity that can be sold to Thailand, but also to deal a belly blow to the Karen and Karenni peoples whose ancestral land surrounds and is watered by the Salween, and whose villages will be submerged. In the violently perverse world of Burma, dams are an instrument of warfare.
Increasingly Burma is looking to developing a nuclear power industry to provide additional energy to support hoped for economic growth. However as the industry is capital intensive and in need of many more technical professionals than Burma has, nuclear power is only listed as a possibility amongst others (www.energy.gov.mm)
The Ministry of Energy had listed several sources of uranium ore in Burma (below).
Site
Min %U3O8
Max % U3O8
Magway
0.00010
0.5600
taungdwingi
0.0010
0.1100
Kyaukphygon
0.0015
0.0055
Kyauksin
0.0020
0.0052
Paongpyin
0.0061
0.0068
Uranium Mining Sites and Ore Quality: Myanmar Dept Energy.
The quality of the ore varies greatly as can be seen from the above government source. One of the mines has been since taken over by the military who cancelled all its private orders. Magwe, like some of the reactor sites proposed by Indonesia, is on a significant fault line which registered a major earthquake in 2003.
In 2001 Russia assisted Burma to build a research reactor. Burmese technicians were sent to Russia and forbidden from seeing their families on return, being only able to communicate with them via mobile phone. Those who managed to escape the strict secrecy and leave Burma, reported that North Korean and Pakistani advisers were seen on site. Bertil Lintner, crime buster for the now defunct Far Eastern Economic Review, could not vouch for the Russian delivery of the reactor after all this activity, but he did say that a huge underground bunker had been built at Taudwingyi, which is one of the primary mine sites.
It is said that the SPDC has many facilities secreted in various locations where the uranium can be enriched to increase the proportion of U235. This process, requiring the addition of fluorine and the consequent melting and pressurization to produce uranium hexafluoride gas which is then filtered via gas diffusion, is said to occur at locations east of Mandalay (Maymyo) and southwest in the Setkhya mountains. Both sites are usually cloud covered, making conventional aerial surveillance difficult. One of Burma’s major Defence establishments is located in Maymyo and villagers fleeing violence have reported that there is a tunnel connecting the Chinese sponsored hydro dam on the Myit Nge River which leads to the defence complex. Some have conjectured that this to provide sufficient dedicated power to the complex for the development of enriched uranium and for weapons production.
Insiders also insist that the SPDC has enrichment facilities at the end of the South Nawin Dam which was built with forced labour and Japanese funds. This is particularly interesting, as this would enable the creation of nuclear weapons by Burma or any of its patrons. Sources can be trucked across borders into China with the same lack of detection that allows drugs to be shipped out in vast quantities.
Some informants who have been watching the situation closely, are almost sure that Burma has ballistic weapons and that technical and military cooperation with China is encouraging an arc of weaponry across the region. China’s army Chief of Staff Liang Guanglie visited the Maymyo site in October last year, and while circumstantial, evidence leads one to conclude that such a high level delegation would not be there to discuss the recipes for infantry ‘meals ready to eat’.
Russian geologist protected by Burmese security prospected for uranium in Karenni state in 2003, but the guerilla army put up a barrage of resistance and they fled.
It is alarming enough that the west has been assiduously ignoring the 60 year old war in Burma, a war like many having its roots in European, in this case British colonialism, But it is even more alarming that a nuclear build up in a state where the leaders are motivated by fear, drugs, genocide and numerology, goes without comment.
In a postscript, UN envoy Gambari who visited Burma late last year, was asked to investigate amongst other things, the murder of 50 porters reported by the Karen Information Center. Two porters who escaped the massacre gave evidence that on October 19 last year, the prison porters had been executed between the villages of Nor Soe and Gor Thay. Porters are often political prisoners; activists who dared oppose the regime or petty criminals sent to the front lines to carry weapons and do other arduous work. It is not known if Gambari did so.
RUSSIA-BURMA NUCLEAR INTELLIGENCE REPORT
RUSSIA-BURMA NUCLEAR INTELLIGENCE REPORT
By Roland Watson
June 26, 2008
We have new, disturbing, and detailed intelligence about the assistance Russia is providing Burma’s dictatorship, the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), on its nuclear program and more generally its military modernization. This new information both confirms earlier intelligence that we have published, and expands what is known about the overall program.
Nuclear reactor and uranium mining
It has been widely reported that Russia is going to provide Burma a nuclear reactor, for so-called “research” purposes. We have received information that the SPDC has now purchased the 10 MW reactor. It is not new, but is reportedly in good condition. It is being dismantled, transported to Burma, and rebuilt. While we cannot confirm that it has arrived, our sources say that installation is due to be completed by December this year. (We have previously reported that North Korean technicians will assist with the construction.)
The reactor will be built at a site some ten kilometers from Kyauk Pa Toe (aka Kyauk Pha Htoe), in Tha Beik Kyin township, approximately one hundred kilometers north of Mandalay near the Irrawaddy River.
In return for the reactor and other services, a Russian government mining company has received concessions to mine gold, titanium and uranium. There are two gold mining sites: in Kyauk Pa Toe; and in the mountains to the right of the Thazi-Shwe Nyaung railway line from Mandalay Division to Southern Shan State in the Pyin Nyaung area.
Titanium is also being mined, or derived from the same ore, at Kyauk Pa Toe.
Uranium is being mined at three locations: in the Pegu-Yoma mountain range in Pauk Kaung Township of Prome District (aka Pyi); in the Paing Ngort area in Mo Meik Township in Shan State; and at Kyauk Pa Toe.
The reactor site has been chosen because of its proximity to the Tha Beik Kyin and Mo Meik uranium mines. It is likely that the gold mining operation at the former will be used as cover, to conceal the nuclear facilities.
We have previously reported, from different sources, that the SPDC has a yellowcake mill somewhere in the Tha Beik Kyin area. Now we know the exact location (or at least enough information to find it with satellite imagery).
The reactor has been publicized as being for research purposes, meaning research on nuclear power generation. We believe that the SPDC has no real interest in generating electricity, or at best that this is a secondary consideration, and that the primary purpose is atomic weapons development. Our sources say that the SPDC expects to have full nuclear capability within ten years.
Russia is presumably supplying the reactor fuel as well. While Burma has uranium ore, and mills to convert it to yellowcake, this must be enriched to create the fuel, typically using cascades of gas centrifuges. We have received one report that the SPDC has begun a centrifuge program, at the South Nawin Dam, but this is unconfirmed. Barring this operation, the source of the fuel therefore must be Russia.
Note: Locating the reactor at Kyauk Pa Toe really only makes sense if there are plans to build an enrichment facility there. This way you would have the full industrial cycle in close proximity: mine, mill, enrichment, and reactor.
What is perhaps most disturbing about Russia’s program with the SPDC is that it is identical to the Soviet Union’s assistance that propelled North Korea to become a nuclear power. Why, with the end of the Soviet Union and the Cold War, is Russia still helping rogue regimes proliferate? The surface answer of course is money, in this case in the form of natural resources, but the deeper question remains. Russia is considered to be a democracy. What would the people of the country think of their leaders giving such help to the likes of the SPDC and Than Shwe?
In 1965, the Soviet Union gave North Korea a 2 MW reactor, which was upgraded in 1973 to 8 MW. It also supplied fuel through at least this period. North Korea then went on to construct a much larger reactor, and in the 1980s began weapons development. This included building separation facilities to obtain plutonium, and high explosives detonation tests. (We have received reports that the SPDC has already conducted such tests, in the Setkhya Mountains, aka Sa Kyin Mountains, southeast of Mandalay.) At some point North Korea also began its own uranium enrichment program, to produce weapons grade material, and the U.S. confronted the country about this in 2002. This means that the North has two different sources of fissile material for weapons, reactor plutonium and enriched uranium.
The North detonated a small atomic weapon, with a yield of less than one kiloton, in October 2006, using some of its plutonium. It is now reportedly about to disclose its nuclear assets, and also destroy its plutonium producing reactor, but the sticking point has been the enriched uranium. The North appears unwilling to discuss this (and at this point to disclose its weapons cache), which means that even with the destruction of the reactor and the plutonium stockpile (for the latter the size of which is subject to serious dispute), the North would retain the ability to produce weapons with the uranium. At the moment the U.S. appears willing to accept partial disclosure, i.e., of only the plutonium.
In addition to Russia, North Korean technicians have been helping Burma with its nuclear ambitions (and other weapons programs), and we have received information that the SPDC has given the North refined uranium in return, which may be destined for the enrichment program.
This is all very disturbing, all the more so because of the apparent weakness of the Bush Administration, which has been unwilling to press the North, and which refuses even to mention Burma (its nuclear program). It took North Korea forty years before it detonated a weapon. It will likely take the SPDC only a fraction of this period. Once the Burmese junta has atomic weapons, its rule will be entrenched, and its neighbors, foremost Thailand, will be seriously endangered.
Precision-guided munitions
We have also previously reported that Burma has a wide variety of missile installations, including large quantities of land-based SAMs; ship-launched missiles, both surface to air and surface to surface; weapons for its MIG 29s; and even short range ballistic missiles. We have now received information that while Burma formerly bought anti-aircraft weapons from the Ukraine, in 2007 it purchased four shiploads of such weapons from Russia. We have also learned that the SPDC has multi-tube mechanized rocket launchers from North Korea. (Note: these may be for use with the ballistic missiles, and if so they confirm our earlier intelligence.)
Moreover, Burma is researching the production of guided missiles, and with Russian assistance intends to build a rocket factory in Thazi Township. This will mark the latest step in a well-recognized proliferation of Russian precision-guided munitions in the Asia Pacific region. This class of weapons includes surface to air, to attack jets, and surface to surface to attack land-based targets and also ships. Cruise missiles fall within the category. We do not know which specific PGMs the factory intends to produce, only that they will be medium range guided rockets and that production is scheduled to begin within five years.
It is clear that the SPDC is intent on developing a strong defense against an international intervention, including foreign jets, helicopters and ships. Perhaps one reason why the U.S. and the French balked at dropping relief supplies following Cyclone Nargis was the risk of missile attack on their helicopters and ships.
Military modernization
We have previously noted that the Burma Army is weapons-deficient. It is clear that the extensive procurement program underway with Russia, as well as China, North Korea and others, is intended to rectify this. During the era of Ne Win and the BSPP (Burma Socialist Program Party), the junta established six weapons production facilities. There are now twenty-two, and clearly more are planned.
Coupled with the materiel acquisitions is a major educational program. There are more than 5,000 State Scholars in Russia, all of whom passed their Defense Services Academy class, a nine-month program in the Russian language, and an entrance exam in their specialty. (This is an increase from the 3,000 we previously reported.) They are candidates for either a masters (2 years) or doctorate (4 years – we previously reported 3 years for this degree). They study in Moscow or St. Petersburg, in the former in a suburb at the Moscow Air Institute. There are additional State Scholars from Burma in China, North Korea, Pakistan and India.
One of the more recent groups of scholars, Batch Seven, included 1,100 DSA officers. Their majors are as follows:
250 Nuclear science
100 Tunneling science
200 Rockets
100 Electronics
200 Computer science
100 Aircraft construction
150 Artillery
The students also learn other military subjects, including: tanks; maintenance; anti-aircraft training; ammunition production; fighter pilot training; naval craft construction; naval craft captaincy; and anti-terrorist training.
While it is clear that the overall modernization program will improve the SPDC’s preparedness against attack, the junta still has a significant problem with soldier morale. Many of the state scholars, who are an elite in the Tatmadaw, are not motivated and would seek asylum given the chance. Their stipends barely cover their expenses. The Russian language and their training programs are difficult. They are overworked and separated from the civilian population. Their visas prohibit them from buying air, train or long-distance bus tickets. When they return to Burma, some are used as Russian language teachers or as instructors at the SPDC’s Central Research and Training Unit, but many are sent to the front lines.
As an example, in January this year one scholar fled to the border of Finland, but was arrested by Russian intelligence agents when he used his cell phone to call his contact on the other side. There is widespread dissatisfaction at all levels within the SPDC, except perhaps the very top – although there is reportedly a split there as well, between Than Shwe and Maung Aye. While the new weapons systems improve the junta’s defense against an intervention, they still need operators. The SPDC is poised to fall, through an internal coup, and it is subject to a renewed popular uprising as well.
Acquiring a nuclear weapon would alter this equation somewhat, but really only by creating a new defense against an intervention, and this is as yet some years away, unless the SPDC acquires a warhead directly from North Korea. Still, any such development has to be prevented, which raises the question, yet again: what is the U.S. doing? Under geopolitical realism, the only concerns are national interests. On a superficial level, for the U.S. and Burma, these are limited to Chevron’s investment in Burma’s natural gas production and pipelines. A secondary interest is the concern of U.S. citizens of Burmese origin, but since this group is small it can effectively be ignored. It would seem, therefore, that all the Administration bluster notwithstanding, its only real policy objective for Burma is to protect Chevron, which corporation to bolster its case also makes large campaign donations.
The real direct national interest of the United States is to deny Burma nuclear weapons. It is not only North Korea, Iran and Syria that America (and the world) must contain. Having a nuclear-armed SPDC is an unacceptable risk. This trumps the need to assist a domestic corporation. Further, since Chevron is also a major cash source for the junta, which uses money as well as the direct transfer of natural resources to pay its weapons suppliers, it demands that the company be forced to divest.
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