$500m Burma arms deal: Real or imagined?
Burma-watchers worldwide generally hold that Rangoon six years ago concluded a massive arms purchase deal with Ukraine involving 1,000 armoured personnel carriers (APCs). Reportedly offered in kit form for local assembly at a purpose-built plant, the vehicle was designated the BTR-3U.
This acquisition, which had an estimated value of US$500 million, would have substantially bolstered Burma’s inventory of some 325 APCs. Thailand and Bangladesh, both of which has skirmished with Burma over the years, field upwards of 950 and 180 APCs respectively.
Some analysts noted, somewhat ominously, that such vehicles may be better suited to squelch civil unrest than to be used for conventional warfare operations over Burma’s inhospitable terrain.Moreover, the BTR-3U is normally equipped with a Deutz engine from Germany and an Allison transmission of US origin. Both would seem to contravene ongoing arms sanctions. In October 2007, Amnesty International included the agreement with Ukraine among arms sales to Burma that it viewed as disturbing – except that it appears likely that the deal never took place. Initial news of Burma’s purported APC purchase appeared in two April 2004 reports – one in Irrawaddy, a periodical focused on Burma published in Thailand, and the other in the Russian media. The former was written by reputable Burma-watchers William Ashton and Bruce Hawke, and the latter gained credence because of presumed Russian links to Ukrainian sources.
These articles stated that the agreement was struck in May 2003, with deliveries scheduled over the following 10 years. The Ukrainian partner was cited as the Malyshev HMB plant in Kharkov, with the sale arranged by the Ukrainian state arms company UkrSpetsExport.
An October 2006 Asia Times article reported that the vehicles would be assembled at a new facility 12km to 15km outside Meiktila, an important air force town, but doubts about the arrangement had by then begun to simmer. “Although the deal was designed to run until 2014, Burma’s failure to meet payments on time has recently soured relations between the two sides,” noted the report by Clive Parker.
Three years later, and nearly two-thirds into the purported contract’s 10-year timeframe, there is no evidence that it was ever implemented.
“Personally, I have some doubts on the 1,000 figure since that seems rather much for Myanmar and does not seem to be matched by other large orders of major weapons one would expect if Myanmar is trying to modernise its armed forces. Also, I would like to see some clear evidence – for example, a picture – of the BTR-3U in Myanmar to confirm the UN Register report,” said Siemon Wezeman of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute in an e-mail exchange.
The UN Register of Conventional Arms is a voluntary mechanism aimed at promoting transparency. Ukraine reported in 2004 its transfer of 10 fully assembled BTR-3U to Burma a year earlier, the only official acknowledgement of a bilateral trade involving this vehicle.
The authoritative reference work Military Balance, produced annually by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, has so far failed to note the 2004 transfer to Burma of these 10 APCs or the 1,000-vehicle deal. So too the German-based Military Technology magazine, though this has noted there are no indications that local production has taken place.
E-mailed questions on the APC deal addressed to UkrSpetsExport failed to elicit a response, as was the case with sanctions-related questions addressed to the German Embassy in Rangoon. The US State Department was more helpful but could not enlighten on the APC contract.
Jayson Greer, a political-military officer whose brief includes Burma, told The Straits Times that he had not heard of Ukraine’s 1,000-platform sale. “The people in DDTC (Directorate of Defence Trade Controls), who would deal with this, are also drawing a blank,” he added in a follow-up e-mail.
Dr Andrew Selth, a renowned Burma scholar at the Griffith Asia Institute in Australia had this to say in a recent e-mail: “After that initial flurry of activity, everything went very quiet. I would not be surprised if the regime’s very ambitious plans fell in a heap and the APC project stalled. It would not be the first time something like that has happened.
“As always, we are left wondering what is going on inside Myanmar and what the generals are really thinking. The information gap is filled with rumours and speculation, encouraged by the activities of political lobbyists and those looking for a sensational story.”
Burma’s acquisition of the BTR-3U, whether real or imagined, seems a clean fit with Dr Selth’s generic lament.
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