Catherine Dill and I have published a pair of articles concerning allegations that Burma’s generals are building a chemical weapons facility near a place called Pauk. The article published on the CNS website analyzes satellite images of the site, while the other in Foreign Policy explains why we ought to care.
The short version is that the facility at Pauk is one of a number of sites being built by the Directorate of Defense Industries (DDI), which is believed to be responsible for the arms trade with North Korea. The Obama Administration has largely neglected nonproliferation concerns, understandably calculating that democratization in Burma would take care of the relationship with North Korea, as well as any illicit weapons programs. That argument is lot harder to make now, especially given the Burmese government’s detention of the journalists who original reported the story. Burma’s North Korea and nonproliferation problems show that some Burmese generals remain a law unto themselves, which is really a democratization problem.
In the coming weeks, we’re going to write more about Burma — revisiting some known DDI facilities, revealing some new ones. The take-away, though, is simple: Since the Obama Administration began to engage Burma to encourage a transition to democratic , the Directorate of Defense Industries has expanded. If the Obama Administration wants to sustain its engagement with Burma, it has to make nonproliferation concerns a real priority.
That starts with insisting that Myanmar ratify the Chemical Weapons Convention (instead of making repeated promises to do so).
I always enjoy the comments here at ACW, so I wanted to share the information and see what folks had to say.