NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION AND BURMATHE HIDDEN CONNECTION
Roland Watson November 2006
Dictator Watch has received information that Burma’s military junta, the SPDC, is intimately involved inone of the greatest security threats the world faces, nuclear proliferation. The SPDC is mining and refininguranium and then bartering it to North Korea and reportedly also Iran. In return it is receiving, from NorthKorea, missiles including SAMs (surface to air missiles) and also possibly ballistic missiles, and technicalassistance on its own nuclear weapons program.While we do not have independent confirmation of this information, the case it presents is compelling.Uranium ore is being mined in Moehnyin Township in Kachin State and Mogok in Mandalay Division. Theore is then transported to a refinery on the Irrawaddy River at Thabeikkyin (just over one hundredkilometers north of Mandalay), which is conveniently located between the two mine sites. There the ore is processed into a material known as “yellow cake,” which is likely what is being bartered.Yellow cake is the raw material for the uranium enrichment process, which increases the proportion of uranium 235 isotope, the fissionable form of the element used in weapons and also nuclear fuel. The process involves adding fluorine to create uranium hexafluoride. This is then melted and pressurized tocreate uranium hexafluoride gas, which is subsequently filtered via gas diffusion, or put through a series of gas centrifuges, to yield higher concentrations of U235.The SPDC has many secret facilities spread throughout Burma, but the most important are east of Mandalay in Maymyo (a.k.a Pyin-U-Lwin) and to the southwest of this in the Setkhya Mountains. Themilitary complex at Maymyo includes Defense Industry buildings, the Defense Institute of Technology, andthe Defense Services Academy. Approximately forty kilometers south of this the Chinese built ahydroelectric dam on the Myit Nge River. Local villagers who have fled to Thailand report that there is atunnel from this dam leading to the defense complex, presumably to deliver electricity for weapons production. Just west of this, in the Setkhya Mountains, Burma’s “Nuclear Battalion” has in its ownnetwork of tunnels and reportedly is engaged in bomb-making research. Democratic Voice of Burma hasreported that the center of this operation is near the villages of Lun Kyaw and Taung Taw, and that thelatter is well guarded. Local villagers reported hearing huge explosions at night in April, June andSeptember this year.The implosion triggering system for a nuclear weapon uses conventional high explosives. The explosivessurround the fissile material core and on detonation rapidly compress it to a supercritical state.As background, beginning in 2001 Burma’s junta began a project to build a research reactor with Russianassistance (Miniatom) and training. Technicians who are sent to Russia are prohibited from seeing their families on their return to Burma. The families are given cell phones for communication. This program isalso known to involve North Korean technicians and possibly Pakistani nuclear weapons experts who took refuge in Burma, also in 2001.For missiles, the SPDC has made purchases from numerous countries including China, North Korea,Russia, and the Ukraine. These include different types of missiles: air-to-air missiles (AAMs), including for the MIG-29s it bought from Russia; SAMs; and perhaps surface-to-surface missiles (including ship-launched). The Congressional Research Service has just reported that between 2001 and 2005 North Koreasold forty ballistic missiles to other countries. Given that they are already working together, and withChina, with whom they share a land corridor, it would be surprising if Burma were not a customer. NorthKorea is desperate for cash, and the SPDC has money to spare from its energy and other natural resourcesales, and narcotics dealings (witness the recent extravagant wedding of Than Shwe’s daughter).An additional question is if the junta is now constructing its own missile production facility, at the DefenseIndustry complex, using imported equipment and technical assistance.
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