An estimated 150 households belonging to three villages near a uranium mining site in Rubyland Mongok (Mogok in Burmese), 200 kilometres north of Mandalay are to be relocated next year for the project’s security, local sources said.

The targeted households are mostly of the Lisu ethnic nationality, a Lisu businessman from Mogok said. “Each village has around 50 households.”

The military junta has been drilling for uranium in the area for a long time. But the discovery has never been publicized and the place remains off-limits to the non-military. In addition, there has been no information as to which company is in charge of the mining, he said.

Besides, the existing Mandalay-Thabeikkyin- Mogok Road is also to be closed when the new road Mandalay- Pyin Oo Lwin (Maymyo)- Nawngkhio- Mogok, which is still under construction, is completed, the businessman said. “It is expected to be completed next year.”

The military regime has been building the new road since last year in order to stop people using it except for carrying the uranium. The road is 60 miles long.

“I heard the military regime will close the road next year because they will come to build a nuclear reactor there,” said another local resident from Mogok.  

A Burmese Army missile expert Maj Sai Thein Win, the source of the latest exposé of the ruling military junta’s nuclear weapons programme in February claimed that the military has a nuclear battalion near Theabeikkyin on the Irrawaddy River, where the regime is trying to build a nuclear weapon.  

In 2007, most of the companies working on gold mines in Thabeikkyin, 96 kilometres (60 miles) north of Mandalay were ordered to close following discovery of uranium deposits near the area.

Early in the current decade, the Burmese regime confirmed publicly that uranium deposits had been found in five areas: Magwe, Taungdwingyi, Kyauksin, Kyaukphygon and Paongpyin in Mogok Township. The ore is supposedly transported to a Thabeikkyin refinery.

The Yale Global reported that the five uranium deposits have been found with the help of Russians. In May 2007 Russia´s Atomic Energy Agency and the junta signed an agreement to build a 10 megawatt nuclear reactor in Burma.

In Kachin State, there is a Russian-Burma joint venture company the Victorious Glory International Ltd, that has been drilling for uranium in Hawng Pa village in Hpa Kant Township, about 80 miles west of Myitkyina since February 2007.

According to Dictator Watch, the junta is mining and refining uranium and then bartering the final product the "yellowcake", to North Korea and reportedly to Iran, in return for missiles and technical assistance for its own nuclear weapons programme.