Indian Defence Review

There has been a fresh impetus in defence cooperation between Pakistan and Myanmar since the year 2000. Myanmar has been soliciting Pakistan’s assistance in some very key areas like setting up of an air-defence network, upgradation of airfields, and establishment of the University of Aeronautical and Space Education (Meiktila). Myanmar has also sought Pakistan’s assistance in cartographic survey and mapping. Given Chinese strategic sensitivities with regard to Myanmar, such growing bonhomie between Pakistan and Myanmar cannot be possible without Chinese prodding and support.

It was also during this period that Russia, at Myanmar’s request, announced its intention to build a research reactor in Myanmar. In 2002, Myanmar’s deputy foreign minister, Khin Maung Win, announced that Myanmar had decided to build a nuclear research reactor for producing radio-isotopes for medical purposes. It may be reiterated that the health-care facilities in Myanmar are of abysmal standards and there are very few hospitals equipped and trained to handle radio-isotopes. The agreement with Russia for setting up a 10 megawatt reactor near Magwe in Myanmar was signed only in May 2007 due to financial difficulties.

Nevertheless, hundreds of military personnel had been sent to Russia between the year 2001 and 2007 for training in nuclear science and technology. In some instances, their training duration was extended as the Russian instructors found a significant number of personnel without the requisite basic knowledge and being slow on the uptake.

Thus, Myanmar in the last decade or so has been able to create a pool of personnel trained in harnessing nuclear technology for civil application. On the flip side, and by conscious design, they  were also grounded in the basic knowledge of nuclear technology, which is being honed and utilized for nuclear weapons development programmes. Sources, however, maintain that Myanmar’s technological manpower resources despite all the efforts are still not competent enough to handle nuclear facilities or programmes.

Therefore, Myanmar has adopted a two pronged strategy for development of its nuclear weapons programme. The setting up of the 10 megawatt reactor by Russia is a parallel venture to act as a ruse for nuclear weapons development activities with the active collaboration of North Korea. Although Myanmar is signatory to the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty (NPT), it is yet to agree to the Additional Protocol, which allows the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to conduct more intrusive monitoring of nuclear facilities and operations.

In May 2007, the US State Department spokesman, Mr Tom Casey, said that the US had a “general sense”, that Burma had “neither the regulatory or legal frame nor safeguard provisions” for a country to be able to handle such a programme. He expressed the apprehension that there were “no accounting mechanisms or other kinds of security procedures” to prevent nuclear fuel from being stolen. He added: “We would be concerned about the possibility for accidents, for environmental damage, or for proliferation simply by the possibility of fuel being diverted, stolen or otherwise removed.”

Post 9/11, two Pakistani nuclear scientists, Suleiman Asad and Mohammad Ali Mukhtar took refuge in Myanmar in November 2001 when the US intelligence began to investigate the nexus between Pakistani nuclear scientists and the Al-Quaeda.

Following the resumption of diplomatic relations between Myanmar and North Korea, Myanmar’s Military Junta permitted North Korean transport planes going to Pakistan and Iran to re-fuel in the Yangon airport. The clandestine cooperation between North Korea and Iran in the field of nuclear weapons and missile technology is well known. Defectors from Myanmar allege that the Junta has sent uranium deposits from its mines to Iran, as also Russia, for evaluation.

The nuclear weapons programme that Myanmar embarked on a decade ago characterizes the coalescing of its strategic imperatives with an indulgent China. The involvement of North Korea, Pakistan and to an extent Iran, for furtherance of China’s regional and global agenda is in keeping with their status as proxy powers of the latter.

Myanmar’s determined bid to acquire nuclear capability is ‘not India-centric’. It does not perceive any threat from India, which is apparent from the deployment pattern of its military. Further, it has no fixed defences along the 1463 km long Indo-Myanmar border, which is largely undisputed. In fact, Myanmar clearly desisted from denouncing the Indian nuclear tests in May 1998. Myanmar is pursuing the nuclear course for the very survivability of the military regime. In that it is probably guided by the North Korean example. The military regime in Myanmar has also been circumspect about turning into a vassal state of China. However, the regime’s survival compulsions have outweighed other considerations, which China has been ruthlessly exploiting.

Internationally, the isolation of Myanmar has rendered it into a desperate political and economic situation. Therefore, the nuclear capability in the plausible reckoning of the Military Junta will invest it with the much needed diplomatic maneuver space in the international arena, in the absence of which Myanmar has no one to turn to, except  China. Indeed, it is the international isolation of Myanmar in the 90s that compelled it to become beholden of China. Nevertheless, China’s patronage and even its admission into the ASEAN as a full member have not mitigated its political and economic problems. The western world continues to view the Myanmar regime as totalitarian, repressive and regressive.

Large number of tunnels being done in Myanmar is to store nuclear material of these countries (China, Pakistan, North Korea) under the international scanner. Myanmar being an isolated and closed country is ideal for the purpose.

The military dispensation in Myanmar, very much like the regime in North Korea is paranoid about being dislodged by intervention, military or otherwise, by the US and its allies. The nuclear weapons capability, the Myanmar regime contends will strategically insulate it against any such design.

For China, a nuclear armed Myanmar will further bolster its strategic encirclement of India, the major challenge to its regional supremacy. In the global context, proxy nuclear states serve as robust strategic pawns in the prevailing uni-polar international order.

Myanmar’s nuclear power status will have serious ramifications for the ASEAN. Besides driving the wedge in the grouping, it will act as a counterpoise to the ASEAN countries considered close to the US. It may be mentioned that all members of the ASEAN signed the South East Asian Nuclear Weapons Free Zone Treaty, which came into force in 1997.

The most disturbing part of Myanmar’s nuclear programme is the China-North Korea-Myanmar-Pakistan-Iran axis. Some analysts reckon that it is the part that Myanmar’s nuclear programme is not entirely of its own volition, but is a strategic maneuver by China and its proxies. They maintain that the large number of tunnels being done in Myanmar is to store nuclear material of these countries under the international scanner. Myanmar being an isolated and closed country is ideal for the purpose. In other words, Myanmar may be becoming a nuclear hub of all nuclear pariah states under the leadership of China.