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S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 02 RANGOON 001100 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/26/2014 TAGS: PARM, PINR, PREL, KNNP, BM, KN SUBJECT: ALLEGED NORTH KOREAN INVOLVEMENT IN MISSILE ASSEMBLY AND UNDERGROUND FACILITY CONSTRUCTION IN BURMA Classified By: CDA, A.I. RON MCMULLEN FOR REASON 1.5 (A/C). 1. (S) SUMMARY: North Korean workers are reportedly assembling "SAM missiles" and constructing an underground facility at a Burmese military site in Magway Division, about 315 miles NNW of Rangoon, according to a local embassy employee. The FSN's source is his cousin, an army captain assigned to an engineering unit purportedly working near the alleged site. This unsolicited account should not be taken as authoritative, but it tracks with other information garnered and reported via DAO and various other channels. End Summary. 2. (S) A Foreign Service National employee who has worked for Embassy Rangoon for five years related to a group of embassy officers on August 26 an account of North Korean activity that the FSN heard the prior week from his cousin. This cousin (who the FSN refused to name) is said to be an army captain attached to an engineering unit (designation unknown) based near the Irrawaddy river town of Mimbu in west-central Burma. The captain, reportedly posted in the Mimbu area for a month or two, was recently in Rangoon, where he met with his FSN cousin and recounted the following. The FSN described his cousin as "proud and boastful" of his exploits as an engineer, adding that the captain had been drinking when the FSN wheedled details from him. 3. (S) According to the captain's account, some 300 North Koreans are working at a secret construction site west of Mimbu, Magway Division, in the foothills of the Arakan Yoma mountains. (Comment: the number of North Koreans supposedly working at this site strikes us as improbably high. End comment.) The captain claims he has personally seen some of them, although he also reported they are forbidden from leaving the construction site and that he and other "outsiders" are prohibited from entering. The FSN was confident that his cousin had the ability to distinguish North Koreans from others, such as Chinese, who might be working in the area. The exact coordinates of the camouflaged site are not known, but it is reportedly in the vicinity of 20,00 N, 94,25 E. 4. (S) The North Koreans are said to be assembling "SAM missiles" of unknown origin. When we asked the FSN if his cousin specified "SAM missiles," he said yes. As the captain's reported account continues, the North Koreans, aided by Burmese workers, are constructing a concrete-reinforced underground facility that is "500 feet from the top of the cave to the top of the hill above." He added that the North Koreans are "blowing concrete" into the excavated underground facility. 5. (S) The captain's engineering unit is supposedly engaged in constructing buildings for 20 Burmese army battalions that will be posted near the site. Of these, two battalions are to be infantry; the other 18 will be "artillery," according to this account. 6. (S) After hearing this account from the FSN, emboffs asked why he had taken the extreme risk of engaging in such a conversation with his cousin. He said that nothing the North Koreans were doing in Burma could be good for his country, and that he felt a loyalty to report this information to the embassy. Emboffs thanked him for his efforts and asked him to be very careful, not doing anything further on this topic unless specifically so instructed. 7. (S) COMMENT: The FSN's second-hand account of North Korean involvement with missile assembly and military construction in Magway Division generally tracks with other information Embassy Rangoon and others have reported in various channels. Again, the number 300 is much higher than our best estimates of North Koreans in Burma, and exactly how the captain allegedly came to see some of them personally remains unclear. Many details provided by the captain's account, as relayed by his FSN cousin, match those provided by other, seemingly unrelated, sources. 8. (S) COMMENT CONTINUED: We cannot, and readers should not, consider this report alone to be definitive proof or evidence of sizable North Korean military involvement with the Burmese regime. The captain's description made no reference at all to nuclear weapons or technology, or to surface-to-surface missiles, ballistic or otherwise. We deem the FSN to have honestly and reliably related the account of his boastful cousin, but we have no way of knowing whether the cousin was honest, or was a plant or fabricator. This account is perhaps best considered alongside other information of various origins indicating the Burmese and North Koreans are up to something ) something of a covert military or military-industrial nature. Exactly what, and on what scale, remains to be determined. Post will continue to monitor these developments and report as warranted. McMullen