Cuba calls weapons on North Korean ship 'obsolete'

Posted on Wednesday, 07.17.13

Cuba calls weapons on North Korean ship 'obsolete'
BY JUAN ZAMORANO AND PETER ORSI
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

PANAMA CITY -- Cuba said military equipment found buried under sacks of
sugar on a North Korean ship seized as it tried to cross the Panama
Canal was obsolete weaponry from the mid-20th century that it had sent
to be repaired.

Panamanian authorities said it might take a week to search the ship,
since so far they have only examined one of its five container sections.
They have requested help from United Nations inspectors, along with
Colombia and Britain, said Javier Carballo, Panama's top narcotics
prosecutor. North Korea is barred by U.N. sanctions from importing
sophisticated weapons or missiles.

Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli said Tuesday that the ship
identified as the 14,000-ton Chong Chon Gang, which had departed Cuba en
route to North Korea, was carrying missiles and other arms "hidden in
containers underneath the cargo of sugar."

Martinelli tweeted a photo showing a green tube that appears to be a
horizontal antenna for the SNR-75 "Fan Song" radar, which is used to
guide missiles fired by the SA-2 air-defense system found in former
Warsaw Pact and Soviet-allied nations, said Neil Ashdown, an analyst for
IHS Jane's Intelligence.

"It is possible that this could be being sent to North Korea to update
its high-altitude air-defense capabilities," Ashdown said. Jane's also
said the equipment could be headed to North Korea to be upgraded.

North Korea has not commented on the seizure, during which 35 North
Koreans were arrested after resisting police efforts to intercept the
ship in Panamanian waters last week, according to Martinelli. He said
the captain had a heart attack and also tried to commit suicide.

But Cuba's Foreign Ministry released a statement late Tuesday
acknowledging that the military equipment belonged to the Caribbean
nation, saying it had been shipped out to be repaired and returned to
the island.

"The agreements subscribed by Cuba in this field are supported by the
need to maintain our defensive capacity in order to preserve national
sovereignty," the statement read.

It said the vessel was bound for North Korea mostly loaded with sugar —
10,000 tons of it — but added that the cargo also included 240 metric
tons of "obsolete defensive weapons": two Volga and Pechora
anti-aircraft missile systems, nine missiles "in parts and spares," two
Mig-21 Bis and 15 engines for those airplanes.

It concluded by saying that Havana remains "unwavering" in its
commitment to international law, peace and nuclear disarmament.

The U.N. Security Council has imposed four rounds of increasingly
tougher sanctions against North Korea since its first nuclear test on
Oct. 9, 2006.

Under current sanctions, all U.N. member states are prohibited from
directly or indirectly supplying, selling or transferring all arms,
missiles or missile systems and the equipment and technology to make
them to North Korea, with the exception of small arms and light weapons.

The most recent resolution, approved in March after Pyongyang's latest
nuclear test, authorizes all countries to inspect cargo in or transiting
through their territory that originated in North Korea, or is destined
to North Korea if a state has credible information the cargo could
violate Security Council resolutions.

"Panama obviously has an important responsibility to ensure that the
Panama Canal is utilized for safe and legal commerce," said Acting U.S.
Ambassador Rosemary DiCarlo, who is the current Security Council
president. "Shipments of arms or related material to or from Korea would
violate Security Council resolutions, three of them as a matter of fact."

Panamanian authorities believed the ship was returning from Havana on
its way to North Korea, Panamanian Public Security Minister Jose Raul
Mulino told The Associated Press. Based on unspecified intelligence,
authorities suspected it could be carrying contraband and tried to
communicate with the crew, who didn't respond. Martinelli said Panama
originally suspected drugs could be aboard.

"Panama being a neutral country, a country in peace, that doesn't like
war, we feel very worried about this military material," Martinelli said.

In early July, a top North Korean general, Kim Kyok Sik, visited Cuba
and met with his island counterparts. The Cuban Communist Party
newspaper Granma said he was also received by President Raul Castro, and
the two had an "exchange about the historical ties that unite the two
nations and the common will to continue strengthening them."

The meetings were held behind closed doors, and there has been no
detailed account of their discussions.

"After this incident there should be renewed focus on North Korean-Cuban
links," said Hugh Griffiths, an arms trafficking expert at the Stockholm
International Peace Research Institute. Griffiths said his institute
told the U.N. this year that it had uncovered evidence of a flight from
Cuba to North Korea that travelled via central Africa.

"Given the history of North Korea, Cuban military cooperation and now
this latest seizure, we find this flight more interesting," he said. "

The Chong Chon Gang has a history of being detained on suspicion of
trafficking drugs and ammunition, Griffiths said. Lloyd's List
Intelligence said the 34-year-old ship, which is registered to the
Pyongyang-based Chongchongang Shipping Company, "has a long history of
detentions for safety deficiencies and other undeclared reasons."

Griffiths said the Chong Chon Gang was stopped in 2010 in the Ukraine
and was attacked by pirates 400 miles (640 kilometers) off the coast of
Somalia in 2009.

Griffiths' institute has also been interested in the ship because of a
2009 stop it made in Tartus — a Syrian port city hosting a Russian naval
base.

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Follow Michael Weissenstein on Twitter at http://twitter.com/mweissenstein

AP writers Michael Weissenstein from Mexico City, Arnulfo Franco in
Manzanillo, Panama, Malin Rising in Stockholm, Peter Orsi in Havana, and
Edith M. Lederer and Ron DePasquale at the United Nations contributed to
this report.

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