The Jerusalem Post Internet Edition
Tuesday, July 28, 1998 - 5 Av 5758
Report: Israelis Helping to Produce Arms in Burma
By Arieh O'Sullivan and news agencies
JERUSALEM (July 28) - Israeli consultants are helping
Myanmar, formerly Burma, produce small arms and ordnance
in a prefabricated factory built in Singapore, the
London-based Jane's Defense Weekly said yesterday.
The report comes amid renewed denouncings of the
military-ruled government of Myanmar for the arrest of
Nobel Peace Prize winner Suu Kyi, head of the National
League for Democracy.
According to the latest issue of Jane's, the Israelis
are connected with TAAS-Israel Industries, but it is
unclear whether they are current or former employees.
The factory was designed and built by Chartered
Industries of Singapore and shipped to Yangon, formerly
Rangoon, in mid-February. The factory is most likely
producing the EMERK-1, a local assault rifle, the weekly
said.
"They rebuilt the whole factory in Burma with assistance
from Israeli military experts. We still don't know
exactly whether these experts are active officers of the
Israeli military or former officers," said a journalist
from Radio-Free Burma interviewed on Israel Radio
yesterday.
The Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv issued a reaction to
the report which was neither a confirmation nor a
denial.
"The Defense Ministry has a clear policy anchored in the
practices of the office which determines the security
links and their scope and character. It is a policy
which is in line with the foreign policy of Israel and
coordinated with the Foreign Ministry," the statement
said.
"We do not elaborate on this policy regarding each
specific nation," the statement added.
A TAAS spokesman said he was looking into the report and
could not comment otherwise about it.
In the sharpest condemnation yet by the United States of
the government of Myanmar, US Secretary of State
Madeleine Albright said that Washington "deplores the
government of Burma's refusal to allow members of the
National League for Democracy, a legal political party,
to travel freely."
Kyi was stopped by police on Friday while driving to
meet with NLD members and, as Albright spoke in Manila,
was preparing to spend her third night in her car.
Albright said that conditions in Myanmar have worsened
during the past year, despite progress on political
reforms in other parts of Asia.
"With each passing day," she said, "the likelihood of
social breakdown or explosion that would undermine
regional stability grows higher."
Myanmar's junta rose to power after crushing
pro-democracy demonstrations in 1988. It recently has
clamped down on opponents since Kyi set an August 21
deadline for the government to allow the national
assembly, elected in 1990, to convene. Kyi's National
League for Democracy swept the election, but the
military refused to recognize the results.
