N. Korean ship mystery - Panama says it found missile parts behind bags of sugar

Posted on Tuesday, 07.16.13

N. Korean ship mystery: Panama says it found missile parts behind bags
of sugar
BY T IM JOHNSON, JONATHAN S. LANDAY AND MIMI WHITEFIELD
MWHITEFIELD@MIAMIHERALD.COM

Panamanian officials Tuesday sought to unravel the mystery surrounding a
rusty North Korean freighter after finding what experts said were parts
of an obsolete Soviet-era anti-aircraft missile system hidden beneath
sacks of brown sugar in its hold.

Among the unanswered questions: Why would the ship, which has a reputed
history of smuggling, be carrying the decades-old hardware to North
Korea, its apparent destination and why did the captain attempt suicide
and his crew put up a fierce struggle when an armed Panamanian security
team boarded the vessel to inspect it? Finally, who tipped the
Panamanians off to check the ship?

But Tuesday night the Cuban government broke its silence: The ship had
been to Cuba and was carrying "240 metric tons of obsolete defensive
weapons.'' The weaponry, according to a statement from Cuba's Ministry
of Foreign Relations, was being sent to North Korea for repairs.

It included two anti-aircraft missile complexes, nine missiles in parts
and spares, two MiG-21 jets and 15 motors for MiGs, the ministry said.

But late Tuesday, Panamanians still hadn't found the entire cache. The
freighter, identified as the Chong Chon Gang, was tied up in Manzanillo,
a port on the Atlantic Ocean side of the Panama Canal, as crews toiled
to clear all of its cargo holds and searched for more contraband.
Panamanian inspectors said the process could take up to eight days.

"The world should know that one can't transit through the Panama Canal
with undeclared war materiel," President Ricardo Martinelli told RPC
radio late Monday. "Panama is a peaceful country, not a country of war."

The 508-foot-long vessel was detained last Wednesday after it arrived
from Havana at the entrance of the canal in preparation for transiting
to the Pacific Ocean, Security Minister Jose Raul Mulino told Radio
Panama on Tuesday.

Panamanian authorities stopped the freighter after receiving
intelligence that it was carrying a large quantity of narcotics, he
said. Narcotics seizures are commonplace in Panama, which was tops in
Central America for drug seizures in 2012.

Patrick Ventrell, a U.S. State Department spokesman, declined to say at
a daily briefing Tuesday whether the U.S. had been tracking the ship,
shared information with the Panamanians or whether the U.S. was aware of
the vessel's itinerary.

According to a report by Lloyds List Intelligence, the ship departed
Russia's Pacific port of Vostochnny on April 12, bound for Havana, and
transited the Panama Canal on June 1. It left Havana last week to pass
back through the canal and then back across the Pacific, Lloyds said.

The discovery of the weapons cache comes at a time when the United
States and Cuba appear willing to work toward a better relationship and
it's unclear whether the discovery of the weapons cache could put a
chill in the relationship.

After a two-year hiatus, talks between the U.S. State Department and
Cuban Foreign Ministry officials on thorny immigration issues are
scheduled to begin Wednesday.

In June, the two sides held two days of talks on resuming direct mail —
a service that has been cut off between the two countries since 1963.
U.S. officials said the talks went well and other rounds of discussions
are expected to be held.

But Florida Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen called on the State
Department to call off the migration talks until Cuba "provides clear
and coherent answers" about the discovery of the weaponry.

"This incident should serve as a wakeup call to the administration,
which over the past few months has been leading an apparent effort to
normalize relations with Cuba, that it cannot continue to engage the
Castro regime,'' she said.

But Domingo Amuchastegui, a former Cuban intelligence analyst who now
lives in Miami, said he had doubts about the Panamanian version of the
incident.

"I found this story strange for a number of reasons," he said. "Cuba has
nothing to offer the Koreans in the field of missile technology — unless
there is a museum in North Korea interested in weapons from the late
1970s or early 1980s.''

The Chong Chon Gang whereabouts after it left the Panama Canal in early
June was also something of a mystery because it did not have its
location-reporting system turned on for several weeks, said Hugh
Griffiths, a global arms trafficking expert with the Stockholm
International Peace Research Institute.

But it appears the vessel was docked in Cuba at the same time that the
chief of staff of the North Korean armed forces was meeting in Havana
with Cuban leader Raúl Castro, said Griffiths.

MarineTraffic.com places the vessel at a wharf at the port of Cristobal
near the Atlantic entrance to the canal and the Colon Free Zone on
Friday. It started to move away from the dock toward the anchorage where
ships wait their turn to transit the Panama Canal early Saturday
evening. Shortly after that, Panamanian authorities apparently diverted
it to Manzanillo on the other side of the city of Colon.

When an armed security team arrived to inspect it on Saturday night, the
35 North Korean crewmen grew agitated.

"The captain tried to commit suicide. There was a riot among the
sailors," Martinelli said.

The ship, which apparently was built in 1977, was laden with some
250,000 sacks of brown sugar, Mulino said. The 100-pound sacks weren't
on pallets and appeared stacked to hide chambers or containers, he said.

Between the rioting of the crew and the removal of an initial layer of
sugar sacks, the inspection process has been slow, he said, and only two
containers had been opened by Tuesday.

Mulino said that the matter probably would be referred to the U.N.
Security Council, which banned North Korea from trafficking in any
weapons systems after its nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009 and a
successful satellite launch last December.

Several experts who viewed an online video of the weapons found so far
identified what they said was an RSN-75 fire control radar, a
Soviet-designed system that was given the NATO designation of "Fruit
Set" and also is known as Fan Song.

"It's definitely a fire control radar," said Jeffrey Lewis, director of
the East Asia Non-Proliferation Program at the James Martin Center for
Non-Proliferation Studies.

The system, which reportedly was first deployed in strength in the 1960s
by former North Vietnam, was designed for use with the Soviet-designed
SA-2 family of anti-aircraft missiles.

"The Cubans may have been sending it to North Korea to upgrade it,"
Lewis said. "I don't really understand what's going on."

Any cargo of arms "or related materiel" found aboard the vessel would
breach the U.N. sanctions on North Korea, said Ventrell, adding that
"any country that would (be) exporting arms or arms-related materiel to
North Korea" also would be in violation.

The incident also comes at a time when South Korea, which has long
maintained a hostile relationship with its northern neighbor, has been
particularly active in Panama with 17 Korean multinationals in the Colon
Free Zone. Panama is also South Korea's largest trading partner in Latin
America and the Caribbean

Cuban diplomats visited the Manzanillo port over the weekend and are
cooperating, Martinelli said.

Whitefield reported from Miami and McClatchy correspondents Landay
reported from Washington and Johnson from Mexico City. This report also
contains material from El Nuevo Herald's Juan O. Tamayo, who reported
from Miami, and Miami Herald special correspondent Asia Sherman, who
reported from Panama City.

Source: "N. Korean ship mystery: Panama says it found missile parts
behind bags of sugar - Cuba - MiamiHerald.com" -
http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/07/16/v-fullstory/3502832/n-korean-ship-mystery-panama-says.html