Americans ask: is Burma building a nuclear bomb?

Barack Obama's Nuclear Security Summit this week was ostensibly aimed at preventing terrorists from building a nuclear weapon, but the US president also had an eye on Iran, North Korea – and maybe even Burma.

None of these pariah states was invited to the talks, and while there was much debate over sanctions against Iran, which is suspected of having military ambitions for its nuclear research, there is mounting evidence that Burma's military junta has its own nuclear weapons
programme.

The Daily Beast yesterday quoted a "senior American diplomat" who says the Burmese could follow the example of North Korea, which according to the International Atomic Energy Agency became a nuclear power in 2009. "Burma can become the second hermit kingdom in Asia with nuclear weapons, able to deflect any outside threat. Unfortunately for us, Burma has the hard currency to buy what Pyongyang is selling - it may be rubies for atoms," the source said.

Burma is of course famous for its rubies, but it also has uranium mines. To make that uranium usable for either a nuclear reactor or weapons, Burma would need some kind of processing facility.

Burma has in the past made no secret of its civilian nuclear ambitions. The junta signed a deal with Russia in 2007 to build a 10-megawatt research reactor and train technicians to run it. However, Russia's nuclear energy agency Rosatom told Associated Press last year "there has been no movement whatsoever on this agreement with Burma ever since".

As a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, Russia would only be willing to provide technical know-how for civilian applications, which could explain both the delay in building the research reactor and Burma's alleged dealings with North Korea.

Evidence for a uranium enrichment plant is circumstantial, but plentiful. In June last year, Japanese police arrested a North Korean and two Japanese businessmen on suspicion of exporting a magnetometer to Burma. Such devices have many civilian applications such as in archaeology – small versions are even present in iPhones - but they are a critical component in gas centrifuges used to enrich uranium.

The following month, the Kang Nam I, a North Korean ship bound for Burma, returned home after it attracted the attention of the US Navy. Associated Press quoted a South Korean intelligence expert as claiming satellite imagery showed the ship was carrying nuclear equipment and "Scud-type missiles". Senior members of the Burmese junta are also believed to have visited North Korea in 2008 – apparently to conclude a military cooperation pact.

Evidence from inside the Burmese regime comes from a two-year investigation by Desmond Ball, a professor of strategic studies at the Australia National University, and journalist Phil Thornton. Last August they published an article in the Sydney Morning Herald
based on interviews with defectors crossing the Burmese border into Thailand.

They suggest the junta has established a ‘nuclear battalion' in its army and has plans to produce one nuclear warhead per year from 2014. They say Burma is trading refined uranium in return for technological knowhow from Pyongyang.

One defector from Burma who was sent to Moscow as part of efforts to create a 'nuclear battalion' to run a reactor said that, in addition to the planned Russian reactor, there was a second secret reactor at a complex called Naung Laing. The defector claimed that Russians were on hand to help build a plutonium reprocessing capability.

Another defector, a book-keeper to a tycoon with links to the Burmese junta, said: "They're aware they cannot compete with Thailand with conventional weapons. They want to play power like North Korea. They hope to combine the nuclear and air defence missiles."

Hillary Clinton admitted US concerns when she said last year:  "We worry about the transfer of nuclear technology and other dangerous weapons [from North Korea to Burma]."

North Korea has form: it is believed to have helped Syria build a nuclear reactor which was destroyed by an Israeli air strike in 2007. But there are dissenting voices who do not credit the idea of a nuclear-armed Burma.

The International Institute for Strategic Studies says Burma "has no known capabilities that would lend themselves to a nuclear weapons program, apart from limited uranium deposits and some personnel who have received nuclear training overseas".

As for the 10-megawatt research reactor, if it is built, "few of the skills required for such a program are readily transferable to nuclear weapons development… and any attempt to divert plutonium from the reactor is likely to be detected by IAEA inspectors".

There may be a prosaic explanation for American talk of a Burmese bomb. The military junta is holding elections this year – elections that, thanks to recently enacted laws, will not involve the pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Just as the Nuclear Security Summit seemed like an elaborate ploy to isolate Iran,  talking up Rangoon's nuclear ambitions may be the Americans' way of getting a nervous India – and maybe even China - onside to help it tackle its neighbour's human rights record. ·