Sugar with Weapons and Hidden Truths

Sugar with Weapons and Hidden Truths
Posted on July 28, 2013

I wasn't there, but then they told me and later I read that on July 11
the Panamanian authorities stopped a North Korean freighter sailing
through the Caribbean to the Panama Canal. Bear with me, but I think
that with that name (Chong Chon Gang) would have stopped anyone; knowing
that today the infamous and raggedy boat had sailed from Cuba and its
final destination, written on its "Road Map" (or the log of the sailing,
according to the former inspectors of the whereabouts of the 32) was
nowhere democratic and, much less popular, the Democratic People's
Republic of Korea.

The cargo found set off a huge diplomatic dust-up; and this, in turn, a
genuine media orgy that flared up when a little more than 24 hours after
the Panamanian announcement, the Cuban Foreign Ministry (MINREX) issued
an official statement that tried to minimize the central fact using the
hackneyed ploy of playing with the details, while North Korea maintained
a kind of "silence" on the matter in which 35 of its citizens were
detained at sea.

That Havana would hide its arsenal under tons of sugar, and they were
sending them to Pyongyang to repair them there, is logically credible
but leaves questions.

It's normal that over some determined period of time, planes, radar
systems, anti-aircraft missiles or some other military or civic
equipment, requires repair or heavy-duty maintenance. But, in this
particular case, and seeing as this equipment was made in Russia, the
question would be, why didn't they send them to Russia if — according to
what I understand — Cuba and Moscow maintain and even nourish a fluid
communication at the highest levels.

To save money. That could be an answer that too many seems likely and
offers a certain credibility. It is known that Kim Jong-Un accepts
barter and that, as a common practice, North Korea repairs and
modernizes this type of equipment in exchange for Cuba's sugar or
Myanmar's rice. However, we can't forget that at the moment when the
unsayable Chong Chon Gang was stopped, the military park in questions
(the two missile complexes Volga and Pechora, the new missiles in parts
and pieces, the two MIG-21 Bis planes and the 15 engines for this type
of airplane — made in the middle of the last century — traveled hidden
under 10,000 tons of sugar.

Some people, looking to be argumentative, allege that all these military
goods were very well camouflaged because of the two United Nations
Security Council resolutions that prohibit its member states from
transferring to, supplying, and servicing arms for Pyongyang. I'm sorry
to rain on their parade and that absurd justification; but if the
Island's government (respectful like so much cackling about its
commitments to peace, disarmament and respect for international law)
would like to send its deadly toys to North Korean to be repaired there
and then to be returned, all they have do to is to apply for the
required permission from the commission that oversees that sanction in
the Security Council.

All of which leads me to think that among those sacks of sugar, more
than weapons, hidden truths were traveling, that were neither going to
North Korea nor even thinking about coming back.

26 July 2013

Source: "Sugar with Weapons and Hidden Truths | Translating Cuba" -
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