Burma’s Trading Neighbors Offering Military Gifts

While New Delhi desperately sought to gain a foothold in Burma’s gas and oil exploration and other infrastructure projects, India annually provided free weapons and ammunition to the regime, according to media sources.

Truckloads of equipment moved secretly across the border between Manipur State and Burma via Moreh, the main newspaper in the state capital Imphal, The Sangai Express, reported last week.

Citing military sources, the paper said annual military shipments worth millions of US dollars have been sent to Burma since 2003, with the largest transfer occurring this year.
 
“The Government of Manipur was never informed of the arms and ammunition transported through the State,” said the newspaper report.

The equipment, including artillery shells, bullets and guns was provided free as a trade sweetener, the newspaper said.

Meanwhile, there are reports of increased shipments of Chinese made-military trucks into Burma from China’s Yunnan Province, via the Muse-Ruili border crossing.

The news agency Mizzima says it had received reports that dozens of new Chinese trucks capable of carrying troops or towing heavy armor were driven across the border in the past two weeks.

They are said to be part of a larger truck consignment which has been moving across the border since January.

The Indian report comes shortly after the Burmese junta Vice Snr-Gen Maung Aye visited New Delhi to sign an agreement to let Indian companies spend US $120 million redeveloping Burma’s western port of Sittwe and upgrade connecting road and river links from the coast through to the Indian state of Mizoram.

India’s federal minister of commerce, Jairam Ramesh, was quoted by Mumbai’s Financial Express last week saying New Delhi had plans to open a string of cross-border trading points with Burma, linking with the Indian states of Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland, as well Mizoram.

India’s northeastern states are plagued with rebel ethnic bands pursuing independence and harassing Indian attempts to develop the region.