LONDON (21st July 2010) Jane’s Intelligence Reviewhas acquired commercially available satellite imagery from DigitalGlobe taken over sites in Myanmar reported to be nuclear sites, including two machine tool factories. These images corroborate evidence gathered by the Democratic Voice of Burma from Major Sai Thein Win, a defector from Myanmar, who worked as a deputy director at the two machine tool factories. Jane’s Intelligence Review Contributor Robert Kelley, former senior International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspector, has provided an assessment of this information.
Win’s information is so consistent with Western information that it increases confidence in its content and, in combination with the DigitalGlobe satellite imagery analysed by Jane’s Intelligence Review, it has helped clarify to some extent the intent and capability of Naypyidaw to pursue a military nuclear programme.
After careful analysis of the diagrams, manifest orders, photographs and satellite imagery, Jane’s Intelligence Reviewcan conclude that Myanmar is taking measures to propagate an indigenous nuclear programme, but its ability to advance along the route towards nuclearisation is severely hampered because the programme is overly ambitious with limited expertise.
Myanmar retains obsolete agreements with the IAEA and has not signed the additional protocols that would provide the agency greater powers for more intrusive inspections of the factories in question. Myanmar has ignored the IAEA’s request to upgrade this agreement, which means the country is virtually exempt from inspections.
Christian Le Mière, editor of Jane’s Intelligence Review, explained, “There is no question Myanmar is attempting to build the components for a nuclear fuel cycle. However, Win’s testimony and other evidence also reveal intrinsic flaws within the programme. Careful analysis of the recovered data reveals that Myanmar is vastly out of its depth in terms of nuclear pursuit. Almost all of its diagrams and computer-assisted designs for tool production are categorically flawed. The apparent attempts at enrichment using the highly technical process of laser isotope separation, a technique that challenges even the most sophisticated of nuclear actors, will never materialise without an unprecedented augmentation of methodology.”
Jane’s Intelligence Review reported that Myanmar certainly has the intent to develop its nuclear programme. This in itself is a significant breach of IAEA agreements and its membership of the 1995 Southeast Asia Nuclear-Weapons-Free Zone (Treaty of Bangkok). Paradoxically, Myanmar is currently aided in its programme by a lack of IAEA oversight and had Win not come forward with his evidence Myanmar could have continued to fumble along its course towards uranium enrichment with little impediment.
Le Mière concluded, “Win’s disclosure of the sensitive information and the scrutiny thereof may lead the way to hinder Myanmar’s efforts through diplomatic impediments, but it also has served to inform its nuclear leadership of its grave technical shortcomings. Nevertheless, with Myanmar’s current freedom from sanctions and relative economic prosperity, the junta may be able to outsource the technical know-how and tools to reach its goals far sooner than expected.”
Jane’s Intelligence Review is an IHS (NYSE: IHS) publication.
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