Myanmar and North Korea: An Association of Evil?

The increasing cooperation and friendship between North Korea and Myanmar has been the subject of this earlier posting and apparently the American government is becoming quite concerned.  According to the Washington Post (copied on the Journal Gazette) the Obama administration has begun an aggressive campaign to persuade Myanmar from purchasing North Korean weapons and technology.

Concerns about the relationship — which encompass the sale of small arms, missile components and technology possibly related to nuclear weapons — in part prompted the Obama administration in October to end the George W. Bush-era policy of isolating the military junta, said a senior State Department official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.

Chief amongst these concerns is obviously North Korea’s exportation of nuclear technology:

Underlining the administration’s concerns about Myanmar is a desire to avoid a repeat of events that unfolded in Syria in 2007. North Korea is thought to have helped Syria secretly build a nuclear reactor there capable of producing plutonium. The facility was reportedly only weeks or months away from being functional when Israeli warplanes bombed it in September of that year.

“The lesson here is the Syrian one,” said David Albright, president of the nongovernmental Institute for Science and International Security and an expert on nuclear proliferation. “That was such a massive intelligence failure. You can’t be sure that North Korea isn’t doing it someplace else. The U.S. government can’t afford to be blindsided again.”

Apparently Myanmar isn’t just relying upon North Korea to support its nuclear needs:

In a report Albright co-wrote in January, titled “Burma: A Nuclear Wannabe,” he outlined the case for concern about Myanmar’s relations with North Korea. First, Myanmar has signed a deal with Russia for the supply of a 10-megawatt thermal research reactor, although construction of the facility had not started as of September.

Second, although many claims from dissident groups about covert nuclear sites in Myanmar are still unverified, the report said that “there remain legitimate reasons to suspect the existence of undeclared nuclear activities in Myanmar, particularly in the context of North Korean cooperation.”

Of course human rights issues may hamper some of the United States’ increasing relations with Myanmar. According to WorldPress:

One woman’s story was particularly harrowing. “They raped us all without a second thought, until we finally escaped their drunken grasps. News spread quickly throughout my village. We received international attention when the BBC picked up the story. I had become a headline. The shame I brought to my family, my school, my village, was so difficult to bear. I wanted to forget, but no one would let me. I was caned by my teacher in front of the entire school before being expelled. Later, I was also expelled from my community for bringing shame upon it. Left without a home, a school, friends or a family, I was arrested by the police for ‘defaming’ the same soldiers who raped me.”

Other accounts of these assaults can be seen here.  Not only is Myanmar raping and imprisoning political opposition and undesirables – it is also accused of supplimenting its military with child-soldiers

Heisoo Shin said, “Burma is in violation of rights under treaties it has ratified such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child.” Burma’s army has been accused of recruiting child soldiers and using child labor by the United Nations and foreign governments.

Some are demanding that the United States take a firmer stance with Myanmar such as The Nation.