Respected Swedish journalist Bertil Lintner believes that Myanmar's ruling junta is trying to become a nuclear power. In AsiaTimes Online, Lintner writes that he's not the only one worried about it. He says:The US Embassy in Yangon stated in a report dated August 27, 2004 - which has recently been made public by WikiLeaks - that one of their sources had said that North Korean workers were assembling surface-to-air missiles at a "military site in Magway Division" where a "concrete-reinforced underground facility" was also being constructed.Lintner reports that U.N. officials have also accused North Korea of supplying Myanmar with banned nuclear and ballistic missile equipment. And he says U.S. worries about Myanmar's nuclear ambitions came up in a high-level meeting with German officials in August 2009.
Publicly, U.S. officials are downplaying the threat and the facts would seem to bolster that view. Myanmar is simply not in the same league as Iran or Pakistan. It has the poverty of Haiti combined with the xenophobia and closed economy of North Korea. It's led by a man who is so superstitious that he changed the nation's currency to units of 9 because he believed it would help him live to be 90 years old. He also reportedly stands in front of a mirror and stomps on raw meat to prevent assassination attempts. It's just hard to believe that someone in those circumstances could lead a successful effort to produce one of the most complicated weapons in the world. Lintner seems to believe that it could happen and he knows Myanmar's affairs very well. If you'd like to read his full article, you can find it at http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/LL16Ae01.html.
Other useful links: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertil_Lintner
http://www.asiapacificms.com/books/
