Cuba confirms arms bound for North Korea on ship seized in Panama

Kim Jong un purges North Koreas army chief
Kim Jong-un purges North Korea's army chief - Telegraph

By Julian Ryall, Tokyo
9:35AM BST 30 Aug 2013

Kim Jong-un is apparently keeping up his purge of undesirable elements within the upper echelons of North Korean society with the reported sacking of his hawkish army chief.

Kim Kyok-sik, who is believed to have been behind the sinking of the South Korean corvette Cheonan and the bombardment of Yeonpyeong Island in late 2010, has disappeared from the list of senior regime officials attending public events in recent weeks.

"We are closely watching developments in the North, believing that Kim Kyok-sik has been replaced by Ri Yong-gil, the chief of operations for the Army General Staff," a source in the South Korean government told the Chosun Ilbo newspaper.

North Korean media have also pictured Ri with new four-star insignia.

Analysts believe that Kim Kyok-sik has been replaced as Kim Jong-un attempts to stamp his own influence on the military and replace those who were loyal to his father's regime with his own hand-picked acolytes.

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Sandokan said:

Fidel Castro in a video against the nuclear war on October 15, 2010, said: “Let us have the courage to proclaim that all nuclear or conventional weapons, everything that is used to make war, must disappear.”

The Castroit tyrannical regime is trading brown sugar weapons of destruction with the North Korean government, a state sponsor of terrorism. This is a perfect match and a very dangerous alliance for the rest of the world.

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The Castro Tyranny’s Proliferation Activities and Cooperation with Rogue Regimes Like North Korea Pose a Direct Threat to Our National Security Interests, Says Ros-Lehtinen
The Castro Tyranny

“The U.S. Administration must take concrete steps to hold the Castro regime accountable, such as denying visas to Castro family members and regime officials, and not allowing people to people travelers to stay at luxury resorts that are owned by the Cuban military”

(WASHINGTON) – U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), Chairman of the Middle East and North Africa Subcommittee, made the following statement at a Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere hearing on the latest incident in Cuba’s history of proliferation. Statement by Ros-Lehtinen:

This weapons proliferation violation in our own Hemisphere poses a direct threat to our national security interests. Allowing the Castros to go unaccountable sends a terrible message to allies like Panama, who risked their time and resources to stop this vessel, and also to Venezuela and other rogue regimes who would seek to further cooperate with North Korea or Iran.

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Chairman Salmon's Statement on Cuban Weapons Proliferation
Capitol Hill Cubans: Chairman Salmon's Statement on Cuban Weapons Proliferation

at12:02 AMFriday, September 27, 2013

Opening Statement of Chairman Matt Salmon (R-AZ) at today's Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere hearing, "A Closer Look at Cuba and its Recent History of Proliferation":

Earlier this summer, on July 16th, the Panamanian government discovered and detained the North Korean flagged Chong Chon Gang cargo vessel traveling from Cuba. Found on board were 25 cargo containers of Cuban weapons and other U.N.-sanctioned items bound for the rogue regime in North Korea. In anticipation of the U.N. Security Council Sanctions Committee’s impending report on the incident, I’ve convened our Subcommittee today to investigate further Cuba’s recent history of military proliferation and non-compliance with U.N. sanctions, and to review the options available to the Subcommittee to attempt to hold Cuba accountable for their violations.

The facts in this case are not in dispute. At the time of their discovery, the Cuban foreign ministry said that the tanker was carrying 10,000 tons of sugar and 240 metric tons of “obsolete defensive weapons” including disassembled missiles, two MiG-21 jet fighters, and two disassembled antiaircraft missile complexes, “to be repaired and returned to Cuba.” But here is what the Panamanian officials actually found hidden among the bags of Cuban sugar: night vision equipment, small arms and light-weapons ammunition, rocket-propelled grenades and artillery ammunition for anti-tank guns. This cargo is a clear violation of the U.N. sanctions imposed on North Korea after its series of nuclear-bomb tests.

This is a potentially groundbreaking case where a country in the Western Hemisphere is likely to be found in violation of U.N. Security Council sanctions on weapons proliferation. Many experts believe, and the Castro regime itself has actually admitted to the violation of international sanctions in this case. I am convinced that this case should and would be getting a lot more international attention if not for the daily and deadly news coming out of Syria, and now the heinous Al-Shabaab acts of terrorism at the mall in Nairobi, Kenya.

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Cuba Ignoring Panama, U.N. Requests for Info on N. Korea Arms Shipment
Cuba Ignoring Panama, U.N. Requests for Info on N. Korea Arms Shipment | Global Security Newswire | NTI

By Global Security Newswire Staff
October 18, 2013

Cuba is not responding to requests from Panama and the U. N. Security Council for more details about an arms shipment that was interdicted on its way to North Korea, which Havana originally claimed was to have been returned after the weapons were repaired, Reuters reported on Friday.

Panamanian Foreign Minister Fernando Nunez Fabrega said there has been no communication between Havana and Panama City since an investigation into the weapons, discovered in July on the Chong Chon Gang North Korean freighter, revealed they were "obviously not obsolete" -- as the Cuban government originally claimed.

Cuba called off a planned September meeting with Panama at the United Nations and has ignored all other Panamanian requests for contact.

"It was like talking to a brick wall," Nunez Fabrega said in an interview.

The Security Council subcommittee with oversight on North Korean sanctions also has been unsuccessful in its requests for information from Cuba about the interdicted shipment of 25 containers of undeclared weapons, according to Reuters. U.N. sanctions experts already have inspected the arms and are preparing an official report on the matter.

Security Council sanctions forbid all U.N. member states from engaging in any weapons dealings with Pyongyang.

An analysis by independent experts has concluded the arms shipment was much greater in size than Havana originally admitted and that a number of the armaments were in "mint condition." The report states the weapons -- including two Soviet-era MiG fighter jets, anti-aircraft missiles and anti-tank guns -- were meant for North Korea's military.

"Of the 15 [discovered] jet engines, 10 were in immaculate condition," Nunez Fabrega said.
Panama has decided to soon allow almost all of the 35-member North Korean ship crew to go free, as they appear to have been unaware they were transporting weapons, the minister said. The freighter's captain and his first mate could face prosecution.

The Chong Chon Gang also will likely be released to its owner, he said.

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Panamanian official mum on NK ship carrying arms
Panamanian official mum on NK ship carrying arms

THE KOREA TIMES
Posted 11/03/2013

A Panamanian official’s visit to South Korea last week had drawn attention after a North Korea cargo ship was caught carrying military equipment in the Panama Canal in July.

Yet, Alfonso Castillero from the Panama Ship Registry did not have much to say except this: “When the U.N. Security Council resolutions came out years ago, we decided to avoid registration of ships coming from the Iran register, North Korean register, Iran ownership and North Korean ownership.”

North Korea’s rusting Chong Chon Gang sailed under a North Korean flag. When caught, the ship was carrying two disassembled MIG jets, 15 MIG engines and nine antiaircraft missiles.

Cuba claimed the missiles were transported for maintenance and were to be returned. North Korea has not made any comment.

The news of the seizure took many countries by surprise, including Panama.

“You probably have heard how furious the Panamanian President was about this ship getting ready to transit this canal. You realize the ship itself the way it was loaded and that was packed, could have caused a catastrophe in the canal? It was an actual threat to the canal,” said William Newcomb, a member of a panel of experts on the United Nations sanctions against North Korea, earlier this month at the Korea-Middle East Cooperation Forum in Seoul.

“There was fuel in the tanks. This sugar that was covering the load was combustible. What would have happened to the global economy if the Panama Canal was put out of action for a week or two weeks or three weeks?”

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US Commends Panama for Capture of North Korean Ship Carrying Cuban
US Commends Panama for Capture of North Korean Ship Carrying Cuban Weapons - Havana Times.org

By Café Fuerte
November 18, 2013

HAVANA TIMES — This past Wednesday, Washington praised Panamanian authorities for seizing the North Korean vessel Chong Chon Gang and its illegal cargo of Cuban weapons, calling it a “very important” decision and thanking the country for continued cooperation with the United States.
“[We] have a lot of cooperative efforts with Panama, obviously a critical nation in terms of both its interests, its values, our work we do together, as well as its location,” said US Secretary of State John Kerry during a press conference in Washington. Kerry commended Panamanian authorities for “their very important seizure of a North Korean ship with illicit cargo.”


Panamanian Foreign Minister Fernando Nuñez Fabrega and US Secretary of State John Kerry during a press conference in Washington last Wednesday

Kerry also underscored that Panama has been working hard to meet its commitments and to be a cooperative partner of the United States, thanking the country sincerely for this.

The Chong Chon Gang freighter was intercepted by Panamanian naval forces on July 15. On its deck, they found 240 tons of Cuban armaments, buried beneath 10 thousand tons of sugar. The incident sparked off a diplomatic crisis and prompted a UN investigation into a potential violation of the sanctions imposed on North Korea by the Security Council in 2006.

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Biden: Cuba-North Korea Arms Smuggling Threat to Global SecurityCapitol Hill Cubans: Biden: Cuba-North Korea Arms Smuggling Threat to Global Security

Capitol Hill Cubans
Tuesday, November 19, 2013

The questions remain:

Will Cuba suffer any consequences for this violation of international sanctions and threat to "global security"?

Or will it continue to be "business as usual"?

Excerpt from today's remarks by U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden in Panama City:

As we streamline the travel and trade, we're also working together to stop illegal trafficking. Panama has interdicted 175 metric tons of cocaine. Cooperation between our law enforcement agencies is excellent and been at a peak that hasn't existed before. And Panama is rising and in some cases exceeding its responsibilities not only to us, but to the region.

And so last July, a vessel traveling through the Panama Canal from Cuba to North Korea claimed it was carrying sugar. Well, it was a sweet cargo, but it wasn't sugar. It wasn't sugar. And Panama did something we haven't come to expect everywhere in the world -- it stepped up. It stepped up where others might have stepped back. We think it's a violation of U.S. sanctions. But, nonetheless, Panama stepped up. You found and confiscated weapons heading from Cuba to North Korea.

The United States is thankful for your taking on that international responsibility. And you made a significant contribution for real to global security, not just U.S. security. We are pretty well capable of handling our own security. But you contributed to global security. That is what responsible nations do and that's what you have done.

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Panama Releases Crew Of Ship Transporting Arms From Cuba To North Korea
Panama Releases Crew Of Ship Transporting Arms From Cuba To North Korea | Fox News Latino

Published November 27, 2013
Fox News Latino

PANAMA CITY (AP) – Thirty-two of 35 crew members and a North Korean ship seized for carrying hidden arms from Cuba can be released, a Panamanian prosecutor said Wednesday.

Three of the crew members, including the captain, will be detained and face charges of arms trafficking, said organized crime prosecutor Nathaniel Murgas.

"The 32 are being released because they didn't know about the cargo," Murgas said.

He said the ship was legally free to go. But according to the officials with the Panama Canal zone, the ship cannot move until the North Koreans pay a $1 million fine levied because the ship's crew threatened the canal's security by not declaring it was transporting weapons. So far the fine has not been resolved, said canal legal adviser Alvaro Cabal.

A North Korean delegation arrived last week to negotiate the return of the ship and crew.

The ship, Chong Chon Gang, was headed from Cuba to North Korea when it was seized in the canal July 15 based on intelligence that it may have been carrying drugs.

The manifest said it was carrying 10,000 tons of sugar, but Cuban military equipment was found beneath the sacks. Crews unloading the North Korean-flagged ship found planes, missiles and live munitions on board.

U.N. sanctions state that member states shall prevent the direct or indirect supply, sale or transfer of all arms and material to North Korea, and related spare parts, except for small arms and light weapons.

A U.N. panel of experts monitoring sanctions against North Korea visited Panama in mid-August to investigate the arms seizure.

The Panamanian Security Ministry said a preliminary report by the panel determined "without a doubt" that the Cuban weapons violated sanctions restricting weapons trading with North Korea.

Cuba's Foreign Ministry acknowledged that the military equipment belonged to the Caribbean nation, but said it had been shipped out to be repaired and returned to the island. It said the 240 metric tons of weaponry consisted of two Volga and Pechora anti-aircraft missile systems, nine missiles "in parts and spares," two MiG-21s and 15 engines for those airplanes. The ministry never mentioned the live munitions and has yet to comment to about them.

North Korea claimed it had a legitimate contract to overhaul aging weapons to be sent back to Cuba.
Panamanian officials say the ship carried two Cuban fighter jets in perfect condition, contradicting Cuba's explanation that the cargo included "obsolete defensive weapons."

The crew was being been held in a former U.S. military base in Colón, near where the ship was being held.

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The Cuban connection
Cuban relations with North Korea: The Cuban connection | The Economist

Dec 15th 2013, 6:15 by Economist.com

THIS is not the best time to be a confidante of Jang Sung Taek, the uncle of Kim Jong Un, North Korea’s leader, who was executed in Pyongyang this week. One man who is apparently already counting the cost of close association with Mr Jang is the North Korean ambassador to Cuba.

Ambassador Jon Yong Jin is a veteran diplomat who boasted what were considered, until very recently, impeccable credentials: he is married to Mr Jang's elder sister. South Korean officials say he was ordered back home on around December 6th. (Another diplomat to be recalled to Pyongyang was North Korea’s ambassador to Malaysia, a nephew of Mr Jang’s.) Mr Jon’s appointment in February 2012, together with a high-profile five-day visit in June 2013 to Havana by the head of the North Korean army's general staff, General Kim Kyok Sik, had been seen as a sign of closer alliance between two enduring communist powers.

Despite a broadly-shared ideology, Cuba and North Korea have had their differences. President Kim Il Sung, a proponent of the non-aligned movement, was apparently unimpressed by Fidel Castro's admiration of the Soviet Union. Castro only visited Pyongyang once, in 1986. His decision that no statues to living persons (ie, himself) would be put up in Cuba appeared to be an attempt to distance Cuba’s version of communism from the personality cults of North Korea. In the 1980s Cuba did receive (apparently for free) 100,000 AK47s from North Korea, but trade had been minimal until recently.

Under Raul Castro (who formally took over the Cuban presidency in 2008), military and commercial co-operation appears to have increased. The nature of the relationship was dramatically exposed in July, when the Panamanian authorities intercepted a North Korean ship carrying arms from Cuba. The ship had plied the same route at least once before. Cuba initially described the intercepted cargo as nothing more than aid in the form of sugar. When weapons were discovered under the bags of sugar, the authorities in Havana then attempted to dismiss the cache as "obsolete" items that were en route to North Korea for repairs (the UN prohibits all arms transfers to North Korea).

But a thorough inspection suggests that was not the case. The vessel was carrying 25 shipping containers with military equipment inside. The cargo included two Mig-21 jet fighters. The jet fuel inside their tanks, along with maintenance logs, indicated that they had recently been flown. Ammunition and 15 apparently new MiG engines were also discovered. Panama’s foreign minister, Fernando Nuñez Fabrega, says he believes the shipment was "part of a major deal" between the two countries. The United Nations is preparing a report on the episode.

Shortly after the ship’s interception, General Kim Kyok Sik, the army chief who had met Raul Castro in August, was dismissed (although some reports suggest his appointment was always temporary). In its unprecedented character assassination of Mr Jang before his summary execution, North Korea said, among other things, that he "stretched his tentacles" into areas where he should not have been interfering. Whether the arms deal with Cuba was an example of that may never be known. But it does seem likely that North Korea will need a new man in Havana.

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Panama accuses Cuba of refusing to cooperate
Panama accuses Cuba of refusing to cooperate - Americas - MiamiHerald.com

BY JUAN O. TAMAYO
JTAMAYO@ELNUEVOHERALD.COM
POSTED 01/21/2014

Panama will send a low-ranking official to a summit of hemispheric leaders in Cuba to signal its displeasure with Havana’s refusal to cooperate over a shipment of Cuban weapons seized aboard a North Korean freighter, sources said Tuesday.

Floreal Garrido, the fifth-ranking official in Panama’s Foreign Ministry, will represent his government at the Summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), a knowledgeable ministry source told El Nuevo Herald on Tuesday.

Garrido, whose official title is Director of Foreign Policy, will be attending a Jan. 28-29 gathering where many of the 33 other countries’ delegations will be led by presidents, prime ministers or foreign ministers. The U.S. and Canada are not part of CELAC.

“We will send them our fifth-ranking official to Havana to show our displeasure with their total lack of cooperation on the matter of the North Korean ship,” said the source, who asked to remain anonymous.

Relations between the governments of Panama and Cuba cooled significantly after Panama authorities seized the North Korean ship loaded with Cuban weapons in July as it prepared to cross the Panama Canal westbound from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

Investigators for the U.N. Security Council have been trying to determine whether the weapons — 420 tons of anti-aircraft radars and missile parts, MiG jets, motors for the warplanes and other munitions — violated the arms embargoes slapped on North Korea for its nuclear weapons and missile development programs.

The weapons shipment was hidden under 10,000 tons of Cuban sugar that had to be unloaded by hand after the crew of the bulk carrier Chong Chon Gang sabotaged the ship’s loading cranes. The 508-foot ship, crew, sugar and weapons remain in Panama.

The Foreign Ministry official in Panama said the Cuban government has not replied to any of Panama’s requests for information on the sugar or the weapons and why they were being shipped to a country under a U.N. arms embargo.

Cuba’s only public comment on the weapons so far has been to say that they were going to be refurbished in North Korea and then returned to the island.

Cuban officials met in Havana last year with some of the U.N. Security Council Investigators to give their side of the weapons shipments, but the investigators have not made public their findings.

Cuban ruler Raúl Castro and 13 other heads of state and government did not attend the IberoAmerican Summit in Panama in October.

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Report claims N. Korea executed relatives of purged uncle
Report claims N. Korea executed relatives of purged uncle

Calum MacLeod, USA TODAY
4:13 p.m. EST January 27, 2014

BEIJING — After executing his powerful uncle last month, North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un took his purge to an extreme degree by putting to death almost all the uncle's direct relatives, including children, said an unconfirmed report by the South Korean news agency Yonhap.

If the wave of killings is ever confirmed, it suggests Kim's brutality exceeds even that of his father and grandfather, his predecessors in power, said one North Korea expert Monday. The move also reveals Kim's fear of opposition forces, said Hong Kwan-hee, a professor in the Department of North Korea Studies at Korea University.

Citing multiple but unnamed sources, Yonhap said Kim ordered the killings, which took place after the Dec. 12 execution of Jang Song Thaek, husband of Kim's aunt, the daughter of the regime's founding father Kim Il Sung. Jang's removal surprised most North Korea watchers, as he was considered the second most powerful figure in the highly repressive and isolated state.

"The executions of Jang's relatives mean that no traces of him should be left," one source told Yonhap. "The purge of the Jang Song-thaek people is under way on an extensive scale from relatives and low-level officials."
The relatives killed include Jang's sister,Jang Kye-sun; her husband Jon Yong-jin, North Korea's ambassador to Cuba; Jang Yong-chol, ambassador to Malaysia; a nephew of Jang Song Thaek; and Jang Yong-chol's two sons, said Yonhap. All had been recalled to Pyongyang in early December. The sons, daughters and grandchildren of Jang's two deceased elder brothers were also executed, sources told Yonhap.

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Sandokan said:

Look that some of the recent executions and purges in North Korea leadership were punishment for getting caught smuggling weapons from Cuba. Cuba's air force chief, General Pedro Mendiondo, was "killed" in a mysterious car crash in August 25 after a team of UN experts doing the investigation had requested permission to question the general. In August 29, North Korea's Army Chief General Kim Kyok-sik who led the North Korean delegation to Havana early in July, where the illegal weapons smuggling deal was arranged and met with Raul Castro, was purged from his post and reported killed. And the former North Korea ambassador to Cuba, Jang Yong-chol, also has been put to death. A conspiracy to conceal the true nature of the weapons smuggling? Naaa pure coincidence of course.

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Mr.Nick said:

We should invade and overthrow Cuba... Cuba has absolute ZERO purpose other than to honor our enemies - or at least communist nations or pseudo-communist/capitalists that view the United States as an enemy.

The US could take Cuba easily - not only that but Russia won't do anything about it nor will China. Of course the UN will disagree but who gives a **** what the UN says anyways - no one has ever respected the UN in the first place.

The simple fact Cuba has such loyalty to the bigger communist/fascist/authoritarian/totalitarian nations around Geo concerns me.

Cuba could potentially be a main tourist attraction for US citizens like it was before 1959 when Castro and Guevara couped the joint.

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Del Zeppnile said:

The best way to change Cuba is to keep them isolated. Invading Cuba now would only give China an excuse to invade Taiwan. What we need to do in the USA is compel the Canadians and other European trade partners to curtail tourism to Cuba. Today Cuba ranks as one of the number one destinations for sex tourism in the world, most of the tourists being men seeking to have sex with children. So much for Castro's noble revolution, now he is nothing more than a pimp.

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