Pakistan Myanmar relations: Past, Present & Future

Posted on 20 March 2009. Tags: Burma Pakistan military cooperation, Pakistan Myanmar relations

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Sittwe Burma Mayanmar: Chinese string of pearls ports strategy map

Pakistan has had good relations with all the countries in South Asia. Pakistan enjoys brotherly relations with Sri Lanka and Mayanmar. Pakistani leaders have visited Burma during its worst years of isolation. President Zia Ul Haq visited Rangoon and gave money to refurbish the dilapidated grave of the last Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar.

The Pakistani Chinese nexus plays a crucial part in Pakistani Burmese relations. Much of the military to military contacts are shrouded in secrecy by both sides. However Pakistan and Burma have shared a long history of helping each other. Burmese Muslims a forgotten minority

The strong and “all weather” friendship between China and Pakistan is well known. A third dimension to this relationship is being discerned with the active participation of Myanmar, which had strong ties independently with China ever since the Army in Myanmar took over the government. This developing triangular relationship needs to be watched by the Indian security analysts. China-Pakistan-Myanmar: The triangular relationship needs careful watch by C. S. Kuppuswamy

Myanmar’s officers attend Pakistan’s Military Staff College at Quetta in Balochistan province. Since 2001, a full-time Pakistani defense attache has been posted in Yangon.
‘Myanmar is first export customer for K-8 trainer’, Jane’s Defence Weekly (24 June 1998).
In 2001, three Pakistan Navy ships, including a submarine and a destroyer, called at Yangon, and this was followed by President General Pervez Musharraf’s visit to Myanmar. The joint communique issued at the end of the visit mentioned the Jammu and Kashmir issue, raising concern in New Delhi as Myanmar, rarely, if at all, comments on third countries.
Security sources said that Pakistan was negotiating to build an airstrip in the Chin region of Myanmar, which is contiguous to Mizoram.
Prior to President Musharraf’s visit to Myanmar (May 1-3, 2001) three Pak naval vessels a submarine, a tanker and a destroyer made port calls to Myanmar. The Myanmar government had always been maintaining that no foreign vessels would be permitted to visit the country’s ports.
Pakistan is known to have supplied conventional weapons to Myanmar and have also undertaken training of their army personnel in Pakistan.
Lt. Gen. Khin Nyunt, the intelligence chief, perceived as a rival to the Myanmar army chief paid a highly publicized visit to Pakistan in June 2000, when perhaps the modalities of the military assistance were worked out. Khin Nyunt is a powerful official in the Myanmar hierarchy and is known to be close to Pakistan.

Burmese students come to Pakistan for various activities and there are many students from Burma in Pakistan. The Pakistan Mayanmar military relations are exemplary and many military officers are trained by the Pakistani military and navy. Pakistan also has extensive contacts with the officers of the Mayanmar Army.

Pakistan has also been associated with Myanmar’s purchase of jet trainers from China. In June 1998 it was revealed that China would finance a $20 million sale of seven NAMC/PAC Karakorum-8 trainers to the MAF. An order for additional aircraft soon followed. About 14 of the two-seater jet trainers have already been delivered to Myanmar’s Shante air training base. Myanmar is the first customer of this aircraft. Its acquisition considerably increases the MAF’s ability to train pilots for its expanding fleet of Chinese F-7 interceptors and A-5 ground attack aircraft. Like Myanmar’s G-4 Super Galeb jet trainers (grounded due to a lack of spare parts), the K-8 can also be configured for ground attack.

The K-8 is manufactured in China, but Pakistan’s Aeronautical Complex has a 25% interest in the project. Albeit indirectly, the sale of these aircraft significantly boosts the level of Pakistan’s support for the Tatmadaw’s expansion and modernisation programme. Myanmar’s military links with Pakistan, Jane’s Intelligence Review, By William Ashton

Background: A historical perspective on good relations.

In January 1989 a senior official from Pakistan’s government arms industry reportedly visited Yangon to offer the SLORC war supplies. Two months later a group of senior Tatmadaw officers, led by Myanmar Air Force (MAF) Commander-in-Chief Major General Tin Tun, made an
unpublicised visit to Islamabad. The delegation also included Myanmar’s Director of Ordnance and Director of Defence Industries.

According to Bertil Lintner, an agreement was quickly reached for Pakistan to sell 150 machine guns, 50,000 rounds of ammunition and 5,000 120mm mortar bombs to the SLORC. Soon after the first deliveries were made, unexploded mortar bombs bearing the marks of the government-owned Pakistan Ordnance Factory (POF) were recovered by Karen insurgents along Myanmar’s eastern border.

The Tatmadaw delegation also inspected Pakistan’s aviation industry complex. This led to accusations by Karen insurgents the following May that Pakistan was training MAF pilots, possibly as part of a comprehensive deal to sell Pakistan-built combat aircraft to the SLORC.

Other sales followed. It was probably Pakistan that provided Myanmar with its new 106mm M40A1 recoilless rifles, some of which the Tatmadaw mounted on its 4×4 vehicles. Pakistan also sent the SLORC a diverse collection of mortars, rocket launchers, assault rifles and ammunition valued at about US$20 million. Some of these weapons were made in China and Eastern Europe. Myanmar’s military links with Pakistan, Jane’s Intelligence Review, By William Ashton

Zadetkyi Burma Mayanmar: Chinese string of pearls ports strategy map

After years of hesitancy, India has now firmly acknowledged the strategic importance of the Andaman Sea. The Indian Navy is setting up a Far Eastern Naval Command (FENC) off Port Blair on the Andaman Islands – also known as the Bay Islands – located midway between the Bay of Bengal and the Malacca Strait – to give it “blue-water” status.

It is evident New Delhi believes that the new strategic command will remain vulnerable unless the entire Andaman Sea is brought under the full control of the Indian Navy.

A variety of factors led to New Delhi’s full realization of the Andaman Sea’s importance for overall regional security.

To begin with, the US’s recent invitation to the Indian Navy to help patrol the Malacca Strait must have been viewed as an open US affirmation of its intent to bring India into the naval big league.

Coco Burma Mayanmar: Chinese string of pearls ports strategy map

The Malacca Strait, thanks to the weakness of the Indonesian and Malaysian navies, has become a hunting ground of pirates. Bringing the Indian Navy to help patrol the strait would mean, according to some analysts, Washington’s tacit approval of India’s assertion of naval control over the Andaman Sea, the eastern mouth of the Indian Ocean and the waters that surround Sri Lanka.

Although India is not party to any security arrangement for the Malacca Strait, the immediate purpose of any joint patrols would be to prevent smuggling, piracy, drug and gun trafficking, poaching and illegal immigration in the region.

Oil-tanker traffic through the narrow strait, which already carries most of North Asia’s oil imports, is projected to grow from 10 million barrels a day in 2002 to 20 million barrels a day in 2020 – much of that oil will be destined for the fast-growing market of China.

Even if it is true that it was Washington’s wink and nudge that emboldened Indian authorities to stake control over the Andaman Sea, other reasons often debated in New Delhi’s South Bloc were no less critical.

As one Indian analyst points out, in recent years, in addition to the US, whose navy has long had a presence in the Indian Ocean and has been stealthily sailing the waters of the Bay of Bengal, China has also shown a considerable interest in utilizing the Andaman Sea as an outlet to the Indian Ocean in the near future.

New command

There is little doubt that the FENC is a well thought out development. Indian naval officers have said that FENC, when fully developed by 2012, will have a chain of small anchor stations and three main bases.

As for models, Russia has a similar base in the Black Sea, and the US naval base at Hawaii comes close. FENC will be larger than the former US base in the Philippines at Subic Bay, spreading from Narcondam to Indira Point. Car Nicobar will serve as the vital link for various FENC stations.

The plan to set up FENC was set in concrete in 1995 following a closed-door meeting in Washington between then Indian prime minister, P V Narasimha Rao, and former US president, Bill Clinton. At the time, Pentagon officials made a formal request to the United Front coalition government in New Delhi to open the base, but for various reasons the Indian government did not respond.

The US is expected to partly fund FENC because it is considered part of a US-led security arrangement for Asia in which India plays a key role. US funding was cleared in 2000 when Clinton visited India.

FENC will have state-of-the-art naval electronic warfare systems that can extend as far as Southeast Asia. Also, the Russian Navy will likely assist in setting up a few armament projects.

The command will include submarines. The upgraded naval ship repair yard at Port Blair already refits minor war vessels. FENC will build and repair bigger ships. This will release more warships for operations and more operational space in alternative ports for fleet ships and submarines.

Observers have recently suggested that the intelligence agencies of Myanmar and Pakistan have developed a good working relationship. There is some evidence that Pakistan’s initial arms shipments to the SLORC in 1989 were facilitated by Pakistan’s powerful Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate, representing senior members of the Pakistan armed forces. It is also possible that these arms were sent to Myanmar without the knowledge of Prime Minister Bhutto, who had some sympathy for Myanmar’s democratic leader, Aung San Suu Kyi.

Pakistan’s price for such assistance would be greater access to information about developments along India’s eastern border. Even if bilateral intelligence ties now amount to little more than periodic exchanges of broad assessments and discussions about the activities of major regional powers, such contacts are still important symbols of shared strategic interests. Myanmar’s military links with Pakistan, Jane’s Intelligence Review, By William Ashton

China bogey?

Some Indian naval authorities who are concerned over the increasing Chinese presence in these waters point out that with China controlling the Myanmar ports of Akyab, Cheduba and Bassein, India’s approaches to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands could be threatened.

China is developing all these naval ports with facilities to handle ships considerably larger and more sophisticated than the Myanmar Navy currently possesses. A host of Indian naval analysts say that if India does not have a strong naval presence in the region, in an emergency China could enforce a sea denial on India by using its warships stationed in Coco and other islands leased from Myanmar.

Coco Island and the northern-most tip of the Andamans are separated by just 18 kilometers of sea. Officials say that Coco is visible from the Andamans, and plenty of Chinese fishermen can be seen in its port.

Others point out that the town of One Pagoda Point, located near the mouth of the Irrawady in Myanmar, is emerging as the main logistic point for the Chinese. One Indian naval analyst goes to the extent of claiming that if China acquired control over the northeastern Sri Lankan port of Trincomalee, Beijing would be in a position “to convert the Bay of Bengal into a veritable Chinese lake”. Whether New Delhi sees the developments in that light is not clear. But it is likely that Washington might.

In New Delhi, there has always been a cacophony of voices concerning how to react to China’s growing presence in Myanmar. While no one in New Delhi denies that China is becoming a significant military power, there are many who see no reason to push to develop an adversarial relationship with China.

They point out that the encroaching Indian naval presence in the Andaman Sea could threaten Beijing and create roadblocks in steadily developing Sino-Indian cooperation. They are not quite sure that measures undertaken by New Delhi to enhance the security of India’s Andaman and Nicobar Islands will not threaten, or antagonize, Beijing even if India’s intent is clearly stated and underlined.

Myanmar can also provide intelligence about developments in Bangladesh. In return, Pakistan can help deflect criticism of Myanmar in multilateral forums like the UN. For example, during the late 1980s Pakistan joined China in opposing resolutions against Myanmar in the UN Human Rights Commission. To a lesser extent, Pakistan can also help protect Myanmar’s interests with the Islamic countries, who have expressed concern about the treatment of Muslims in Myanmar, including the plight of the Rohingyas in Arakan State.

However, to the SLORC, and now the SPDC, perhaps the greatest practical benefit arising from Myanmar’s ties with Pakistan is that of having a willing (albeit secret) supplier of ammunition and spare parts for the Tatmadaw’s varied inventory of Chinese and Western arms. Both countries are heavily reliant on Chinese military technology, arms and equipment. Many of the weapon systems used by Myanmar and Pakistan are the same. The arms inventories of Myanmar and Pakistan are also similar in that they both contain German automatic rifles, light machine guns and ammunition – all manufactured locally.

Both countries still use (and in some cases manufacture) older US and UK arms and ammunition, a legacy of their shared colonial heritage and former links to the West. Because of these similarities, and because of its more advanced technical development, Pakistan is also in a position to provide Myanmar’s armed forces with the kind of specialist technical training no longer on offer from the Western democracies. Myanmar’s military links with Pakistan, Jane’s Intelligence Review, By William Ashton

The increased activities of Pakistan along the Myanmar coast have also troubled Indian authorities. According to Jane’s Defence, Pakistan has supplied Myanmar with several shiploads of ordnance and other military hardware, such as 106mm M40 recoilless rifles and various small arms over the past decade, and regularly trains Myanmar’s soldiers to operate Chinese tanks, fighter aircraft and howitzers.

Myanmar’s officers attend Pakistan’s Military Staff College at Quetta in Balochistan province. Since 2001, a full-time Pakistani defense attache has been posted in Yangon.

In 2001, three Pakistan Navy ships, including a submarine and a destroyer, called at Yangon, and this was followed by President General Pervez Musharraf’s visit to Myanmar. The joint communique issued at the end of the visit mentioned the Jammu and Kashmir issue, raising concern in New Delhi as Myanmar, rarely, if at all, comments on third countries.

Security sources said that Pakistan was negotiating to build an airstrip in the Chin region of Myanmar, which is contiguous to Mizoram.

Indian naval intelligence also claims that it is through these waters that guns are run into south Bangladesh and the northwestern coast of Myanmar, to arm Naga insurgents in India and the Rohingiyas of Myanmar along the Arakan Coast, as well as the Karens and the Kachins of northern Myanmar.

In addition, India’s northeast, which has remained in deep turmoil for decades, has nurtured secessionist rebels using the waters of the Bay of Bengal and Andaman Sea. Neighboring Myanmar has a number of powerful insurgent groups that are interlinked with the Indian northeastern rebels.

A large portion of illegal lethal weapons that come into northeast India originate in Cambodia. The underground route to South Asia is said to begin on the Ranong islands off the Thai coast, from where the arms are shipped through the Andaman Sea to Cox’s Bazaar along the Bangladesh coast. From here, the weapons are divvied up into smaller consignments and carried to various destinations in Myanmar and northeastern India through different routes.

In early April 2004, on a tip-off, Bangladeshi joint forces seized 10 truckloads of submachine-guns, AK-47 assault rifles and other firearms and bullets in a swoop on the Karnaphuli coast in the port city of Chittagong. It was the largest-ever arms haul. Police and coast guard forces found the new submachine guns, AK-47 rifles, submachine carbines, Chinese pistols, rocket shells and launchers, hand grenades and bullets stuffed in about 1,500 wooden boxes.

But long before the big haul was reported, it was widely known that international arms smugglers were active in the coastal belts in Chittagong and Cox’s Bazar. The vast coastline in the bay near Ukhia in Cox’s Bazar and border points between Bangladesh and Myanmar had become a sanctuary for arms smugglers, mainly in the absence of an adequate security watch. The smugglers were bringing in sophisticated firearms, including pure military hardware such as AK-47 and M-16 rifles, long-range pistols, revolvers and grenades, among other items.

Naval diplomacy

But India’s strengthening of its presence in the Andaman Sea is not just derived from negative developments in the region. New Delhi’s interest in and involvement with Southeast Asia has been growing steadily over the past decade, and its concern for development of the Andaman basin has grown accordingly.

An agreement was signed in 2003 in Yangon by the foreign ministers of India, Myanmar and Thailand to develop transport linkages between the three countries. When complete, a 1,400-kilometer road corridor will be a highway of friendship linking the peoples of South Asia and Southeast Asia. India also reached agreement in principle with Myanmar and Bangladesh on the construction and operation of a pipeline that will bring natural gas from Myanmar to India via Bangladesh, according to reports by the Alexander Gas & Oil company newsletter.

The pipeline, which is likely to cost more than US$1 billion, will carry natural gas from the Shwe fields in Myanmar’s Rakhine or Arakan state, through the Indian states of Mizoram and Tripura, and into Bangladesh before finally crossing back into India, all the way up to Kolkata.

India’s planned building of a deep-sea port in Dawei in Myanmar, together with a new highway connecting it to Kanchanaburi in Thailand, will no doubt contribute further toward closer trade and commercial links between the two regions.

India’s economic ties with Sri Lanka and Thailand, meanwhile, are growing. The Indo-Sri Lanka Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement spanning trade, services and investment will advance this further. A land bridge has been proposed across the Palk Strait that separates India from Sri Lanka. This could also carry transmission lines to hook up Sri Lanka to India’s Southern Region Electricity Grid, with the Kudankulam nuclear power plant serving as a base-load station, an observer pointed out.

These developments can also be put under India’s broad “Look East” policy involving the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the “rim” states farther a field – like Japan and South Korea. It can be argued that India’s diplomatic success with these nations is in large part due to India’s naval diplomacy.

Eye in the Sky

Last month, the Malacca Strait’s littorals – Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia – together with Thailand launched a joint air patrol initiative called “Eye in the Sky” over the strait.

While the initiative signals the continuing determination of the Malacca Strait’s littorals to take care on their own the patrolling of this strategic waterway, countries such as India, which have stakes in the strait, believe that they have a role to play in its security system.

The Eye in the Sky initiative is part of the larger Malacca Strait’s Security Initiative (MSSI). India is among the countries that are keen to participate in the MSSI.

After all, India is very much a part of the Malacca Strait security system, points out Vijay Sakhuja, a former officer in the Indian Navy and now senior fellow at the Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation.

Sakhuja draws attention to the fact that although India might not be a littoral, it is contiguous to the strait. Indira Point – the southern tip of India’s Andaman and Nicobar Islands – is about 90 nautical miles from Indonesia’s Banda Aceh.

The Indian Navy has been exercising with its counterpart in Singapore for more than a decade, with the Indonesian Navy since last year and with the Thai Navy since August. The naval exercises with Indonesia were held at the mouth of the Malacca Strait.

In a briefing paper “Cooperative Security in the Strait of Malacca: Policy Options for India” brought out in August, Sakhuja draws attention to the positive impression that India’s naval patrolling has had on the Malacca littorals. “Many regional countries have seen the Indian Navy’s vessels patrolling the Malacca Strait and are confident about its cooperative approach and its capability to challenge forces inimical to the safety and security of maritime enterprise in the Strait of Malacca. The Indian Navy has managed to play a highly positive and balanced role, fully cooperating with and augmenting the regional efforts, but always, as it were, from behind – from a secondary position. In fact, the Indian Navy’s adaptable approach has won the confidence of the regional nations on the viability and the efficacy of coordinated patrols with the Indian Navy.”

This positive impression and its close naval engagement with these countries notwithstanding, India has been moving cautiously with regard to carving a larger role for itself in the security of the Malacca. Sakhuja told Asia Times Online that the Indian government’s approach has been to impress on the littorals that India will not force itself on them but will be “ready to provide assets when asked for”.

Outlining the kind of role that the Malacca littorals would like India to play, Lawrence Prabhakar, associate professor at the Madras Christian College and research fellow at the maritime security program at the Institute for Defense and Strategic Studies in Singapore, points out that they would prefer joint exercises with the Indian Navy and Coast Guard in the region.
“Such an Indian role would have to be non-intrusive, cooperative and benign in operations,” he told Asia Times Online, adding that this “would be most preferred in the event of a contingency or crisis resulting from maritime terrorism/piracy incidents rather than a staying presence”.

Sakhuja said there were several ways in which India could contribute to the MSSI that would not threaten the sovereignty concerns of the Malacca littorals. Drawing attention to the outdated radar equipment for reconnaissance that is currently in use in the Malacca Strait, he suggested that India, which manufactures this electronic equipment, could supply it to the littoral states.

What it needs now is an invitation from the Malacca Strait littoral countries, not just the US.

Expanding reach

Indian naval diplomacy has now gone beyond the western shores of ASEAN. The October 3 visit to New Delhi by a Vietnamese defense delegation led by Lieutenant General Nguyen Thinh, head of the Vietnamese Defense Research Center, opened up new possibilities. Thinh is expected to ask for Indian help and technical assistance in acquiring a missile production capability.

Should India agree, what it would ask in return is a moot question. One analyst claims that Hanoi should be persuaded to allow the Indian Navy a basing option in Cam Ranh Bay, the finest natural deep water harbor in Asia.

All these developments underline the strategic importance – and, in particular, its recognition in New Delhi – of India’s island territories, more particularly the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, which command the Malacca Strait and the sea lanes that carry vast quantities of Gulf oil to Pacific destinations. Additional reporting by Sudha Ramachandran, an independent journalist/researcher based in Bangalore. This article appeared in Asia Times on October 19, 2005. Posted at Japan Focus on October 27, 2005. India Bids to Rule the Waves: From the Bay of Bengal to the Malacca Strait By Ramtanu Maitra

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