The West Must Engage Burma

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Burma is a bugger of a problem. And it's getting worse.

Last weekend, Fairfax papers reported testimony from two Burmese defectors which suggested Rangoon had progressed some distance towards building clandestine nuclear facilities with North Korean assistance.

Burma is a rogue state. Rogue states, like failed states (such as Somalia), are beyond international norms and almost by definition do not care about international opinion, with the exception generally of their one or two sponsors.

Burma is a particularly difficult case. If ever there was an example ofthe need for some new thinking, it's Burma.

Just establishing the facts is extremely challenging. The defector testimony said Burma was constructing tunnels in which it had also begun constructing nuclear reactors, with North Korean help.

This was a valuable story, not because what the defectors say is necessarily true, but because it is useful to know what defectors are saying. After Iraq, everyone is very careful about defector testimony regarding nuclear matters.

Defectors don't always tell you the truth. Sometimes they say what they believe their interrogators want to hear. Sometimes they say what will maximise their value. Sometimes they don't know the truth.

On the other hand, defectors have on occasions given critically important and accurate testimony. It was dissident testimony that revealed Iran's secret nuclear programs.

I have been following this Burmese story a long time. In 2006, I reported that US intelligence harboured deep concerns about Burma's ambitions to acquire nuclear material and expertise from North Korea.

At that time, the best US analysis was that no nuclear material had yet passed from North Korea to Burma.

Having talked to some extremely well-informed Asian analysts, I'm inclined to think the Burmese defector testimony was exaggerated.

No one knows for sure. The stakes are so enormous that we need to make a serious effort, though, to find out all we can. Much of the defector testimony seems to hinge on North Korean assistance in building tunnels. It is true that tunnels can be used to hide reactors. However, there is also significant evidence that North Korea has been helping the paranoid Burmese regime build tunnels as elaborate air raid shelters for the ruling junta in the event of US attack.

A US air attack on Burma is almost inconceivable but Than Shwe's military junta is intensely paranoid. It moved its capital from Rangoon to an inland city apparently because it feared Rangoon was susceptible to military attack.

There is no doubt there is a deep relationship between the Burmese and North Korean militaries. The two countries have a strange history.

Burma broke diplomatic relations with Pyongyang in 1983 after North Korean agents attempted to kill Chun Doo-hwan, the South Korean president then visiting Burma. They missed Chun but killed 20 other people. The two dictatorships re-established relations in April 2007.

Since then, the militaries of both countries have had an intense and deepening relationship. Burma is thought to have imported a great deal of standard infantry equipment from North Korea. Burma maintains the biggest standing army in Southeast Asia, with more than half a million troops and a paramilitary force of more than 100,000. Western governments have been a bit cagey about revealing how much they know of what military materiel has passed between North Korea and Burma. They normally don't go beyond calling on Burma to fully implement UN resolutions that ban member states from trading with North Korea in military equipment and arms.

North Korea also has a record of selling nuclear material to anyone who will buy it. In 2007 the Israelis destroyed a nuclear reactor the North Koreans had helped the Syrians build.

Further, Burma certainly has an indisputable interest in acquiring nuclear technology. A few years ago it signed a deal with Russia to build a small nuclear reactor for research purposes and for the production of nuclear medical materials.

This is a truly bizarre project. Burma has one of the most primitive, impoverished and ineffective health systems in the world. International analysts do not believe Burma could safely run such a reactor. The Russians insist that what they provide Burma will comply completely with International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards. Most analysts think the Russians are on the level about this and have no desire to proliferate any weapons-usable technology to the Burmese. However, the US State Department has criticised the Russian project, saying in effect that it has no reasonable rationale and presents serious dangers.

It seems that the project has gone extremely slowly, primarily because of Burmese financing difficulties.

An important insight comes from India. Indian sources reveal that two Pakistani nuclear scientists, Suleiman Assad and Muhammad Mukhtar, who were part of A.Q. Khan's nuclear proliferation network, went to live in Burma several years ago. After 9/11 the American FBI had wanted to talk to them about their nuclear proliferation activities. There is some disagreement among Indian sources as to whether the men defected to Burma or were encouraged by the Pakistan government to go there.

It seems strange, as China and India, not Pakistan, are the two main external competitors for influence within Burma.

Nonetheless, the Indian sources reporting this are entirely credible, with intelligence and high government service backgrounds.

The Pakistanis surely didn't pick Burma for the lifestyle.

Perhaps the most intriguing evidence of all was US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton remarking at the recent ASEAN meeting in Thailand: "We worry about the transfer of nuclear technology from North Korea to Myanmar (Burma)."

Does that statement confirm that such a transfer has taken place?

Probably not. If the Americans had hard evidence of this they would almost certainly be taking stronger international action. But it would be important for Clinton to send a strong public message, not least to the Burmese, if, as seems likely, the Americans were aware even that the Burmese were talking it over with the North Koreans, or in the very early stages of a nuclear effort.

Finally, the Burmese operate at a pretty primitive level technologically. It's unlikely they could produce nuclear reactors or weapons. But in these matters intent is everything. The Burmese might be the only people in the world who see the North Koreans as at least partly a positive model, having secured themselves from external interference through possession of nuclear weapons.

This is a difficult story but one of immense importance. This column has long believed that by isolating Burma the West only serves to increase the rogue-state mentality that animates its rulers. It is an extremely unpleasant regime, for which there is no ethical defence at all. But if we continue to isolate it, we drive it into the welcoming arms of China and make it more likely to turn towards rogue-state solutions, of which nuclear weapons are the apex. It's a tough and ugly call, but the West needs a new policy of engagement with Burma.

Greg Sheridan is the Foreign Editor of the Australian.
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