Burma: Digging the Tunnels, Part Two

July 6, 2009 (DVB)–The tunnel project underway in Burma includes plans to build covert ammunitions factories that will produce surface-to-air missiles controlled from underground command bases, leaked intelligence documents reveal.

Last week DVB revealed that some 800 tunnels were under construction throughout Burma, with sections of the project dating as far back as 1996.

The majority of tunneling and construction equipment for the project has been bought from North Korea in a series of deals over the last three years which total at least $US9 billion, according to two purchase orders received by DVB.

Photographs released by DVB also show North Korean advisors in Burma training their Burmese counterparts in tunnel construction.

There are suggestions that the project includes preparations to withstand chemical and nuclear attacks, following reports last week that the tunnels are lined with bomb-proof material. However there is no hard evidence to verify this.

There will also be room to hold anti-missile batteries and tanks in various sections of the tunnels.

The project, the name of which translates as People’s Militia Strategic Operation, involves an extensive network of tunnels across the whole of Burma.

Engineering documents reveal that close to the remote Burmese capital Naypyidaw is a tunnel believed to house either military operational command headquarters or an advanced weapons factory.

The tunnel site is near to the Pyinmana to Pinlaung road, between Kathedoo North stream and Kathedoo South stream, and is designed to hold more than 1000 soldiers for several months.

The interior is divided into rooms that cater for varying amounts of people. Earth refilling and tree planting projects outside the tunnels have been carried out to camouflage their entrances.

Details about whom the transactions between Burma and North Korea are being channeled through are not known.

Five Burmese companies – Htoo Trading, Kambawza, Asia World, Aden and Shwe Thanlwin – are known however to have provided machinery for the digging of the tunnels.

Htoo Group, the parent company of Htoo Trading, owns the Burmese airline company Air Bagan.

The documents also reveal that security in Rangoon division has been carefully reshuffled and reinforced over recent years to prepare for a possible foreign invasion. It was largely for this reason that the capital was moved in 2005 from Rangoon city to Naypyidaw, 350 miles north.

Six military regions have been developed in Rangoon division to counter “foreign aggression”. Tunnels built throughout these regions are camouflaged and capable of hiding troops in an emergency situation.

Inside the tunnels, there are plans to build ration stores and reserve food supplies exist alongside factories, weapons and ammunition stores, and hospitals.

These tunnels would be controlled by a series of underground command centres linked via an elaborate fibre-optic communication network. The network will connect military operational headquarters to other army units stationed in the tunnels.

Based on intelligence documents, automatic shutting down facilities, poison gas devices and smoke sensors will also be installed. There will be regular power supply lines running throughout the tunnels, along with a ventilation system that the purchase order shows comes from North Korea.

For security reasons, the nearest buildings around them are used as guard posts. Residential buildings and governmental offices are built on top of some tunnels, close to the entrances.

A secret visit by General Thura Shwe Mann, the Burmese regime’s third-in-command, along with 18 other high ranking military officials to North Korea in November 2008, is another indicator of how the two countries have been cooperating.

During the visit, Shwe Mann and North Korean Army Chief General Kim Gyok-sik signed an Memorandum of Understanding on further cooperation plans. The Burmese delegation also visited an underground military hardware factory near Pyongyang.

The government in Burma continually publicises infrastructural developments such as road and dam building but has kept the tunnel project highly secretive.

Despite the extent to which Burma is bolstering its security – it is thought to spend some 40 per cent of its annual budget on the military - it remains without external enemies.

Related:
Original DVB Burma’s military regime: Digging the tunnels - Part I
or here: Part I
and
Part III

Reporting by DVB

In DVB TV report...
Lately there has been news all over the world about the Burmese military junta’s tunneling project. How, and with what intention, is Burma, one of the world’s poorest countries, running such a secretive project worth billions of dollars? We interview U Bo Bo Kyaw Nyein, a Burmese analyst who has been monitoring the situation in the country.

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READ MORE---> Burma: Digging the Tunnels, Part Two...

Burma’s military regime: Digging the tunnels - Part I

June 24, 2009 (DVB)–New images have emerged that show North Korean and other foreign advisers in Burma consulting with officials on what now appears to be an extensive network of some 800 underground tunnels across much of the country.

While rife government corruption and uneven development in Burma yesterday awarded Burma a spot at the bottom of Foreign Policy magazine’s Failed States Index, billions of US dollars are now known to have been channeled by the Burmese government into building the tunnels.

DVB has been tracking the development of the tunnels and underground installations in Burma for a number of years. This is the first in a series of DVB stories revealing the secretive tunnel project.

Evidence has been obtained that shows between 600 and 800 tunnels in various stages of construction, with work on some sections dating as far back as 1996.

Photographs of a number of tunnel sites clearly show North Korean advisers present. In one photograph of a work site at Pyinmanar Taung Nyo, dated 29 May 2006, North Korean advisers are seen training Burmese soldiers and technicians in tunnel construction.

Several government budget files also show evidence of foreign aid and loans being used to fund construction work.

A number of senior Burmese officials have been dismissed in recent days following the first publication of DVB’s tunnel photographs in the Yale Global Online on 8 June.

The military government has launched an investigation into how details of such a sensitive project were leaked, with associates of former intelligence chief Lieutenant General Khin Nyunt being questioned by police.

Further intelligence documents obtained by DVB show that the tunnel system is being disguised by the government as a fibre optic cable installation project.

Leaked engineering designs show, however, that some sections of the tunnels are wide enough to allow trucks to enter and leave. There is also storage space for food and weaponry, and separate rooms that would hold around 600 personnel for several months.

The documents also reveal plans to hold large rockets and satellite communication command centers inside the tunnels.

Although the financially weak Burmese government is thought to allocate some 40 per cent of its budget for military purposes, the tunnel project over the course of 13 years has likely run into the billions.

Some observers have speculated that the abrupt hike in fuel prices that sparked the September 2007 protests may have been a prelude to securing extra capital for the project.

Likewise, Burma struck a deal with China in April this year to siphon its vast offshore natural gas reserves to China’s energy hungry population, a venture that will have given the tunnel project an important boost.

Speculation that Burma is trading in military hardware with North Korea was reinforced on Monday with reports that a North Korean freighter ship believed to be carrying arms was headed in the direction of Burma.

Despite only reestablishing diplomatic ties in 2007, following North Korea’s bombing of a South Korean delegation in Rangoon in 1983, the two countries share characteristics that make them obvious allies.

According to journalist and expert on North Korea-Burma relations, Bertil Lintner, both countries have “absolutely no interest” in supporting respective UN arms embargoes.

Indeed, North Korea is one of the few countries willing to continue military trade with the pariah state, with “even China…reluctant to sell certain types of equipment to Burma”, according to Lintner.

Perhaps most worryingly for countries outside of Burma’s friendship group, it has renewed an alliance with a country that is rapidly becoming the icon of a new generation of ‘rogue states’ threatening nuclear warfare.

With this in mind, speculation will likely start to circulate as to whether the tunnel network could be linked to rumours that Burma is mining uranium ore, a key ingredient for nuclear fission. No evidence has yet appeared to verify this, however.

In our next story we will reveal the purpose of these tunnels, foreign involvement in the project and what is inside the tunnels.

Read Part II...
and
Part III

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READ MORE---> Burma’s military regime: Digging the tunnels - Part I...