NKorea arms seizure could hurt US-Cuba detente

Posted on Wednesday, 07.17.13

NKorea arms seizure could hurt US-Cuba detente
BY MICHAEL WEISSENSTEIN AND PETER ORSI
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

HAVANA -- Cuba's admission that it was secretly sending aging weapons
systems to North Korea has turned the global spotlight on a little-known
link in a secretive network of rusting freighters and charter jets that
moves weapons to and from North Korea despite U.N. sanctions.

The revelation that Cuba was shipping the arms, purportedly to be
repaired and returned, is certain to jeopardize slowly warming ties
between the U.S. and Havana, although the extent of the damage remains
uncertain. Experts said Cuba's participation in the clandestine arms
network was a puzzling move that promised little military payoff for the
risk of incurring U.N. penalties and imperiling detente with Washington.

The aging armaments, including radar system parts, missiles, and even
two jet fighters, were discovered Monday buried beneath thousands of
tons of raw Cuban brown sugar piled onto a North Korean freighter that
was seized by Panama as it headed for home through the Panama Canal.

North Korea is barred by the U.N. from buying or selling arms, missiles
or components, but for years U.N. and independent arms monitors have
discovered North Korean weaponry headed to Iran, Syria and a host of
nations in Africa and Asia. The U.N. says North Korea also has
repeatedly tried to import banned arms. What's more, analysts say, it
maintains a thriving sideline in repairing aging Warsaw Pact gear, often
in exchange for badly needed commodities, such as Burmese rice.

"They don't know how to grow rice, but they know how to repair radars,"
said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association,
a private group dedicated to promoting arms control.

"The North Koreans are taking desperate measures to pursue that work.
Despite the best efforts of the international community to cut off arms
transfers to and from North Korea, it will continue in some form."

The surprise for many observers was that the latest shipment of arms
headed to North Korea comes from Cuba, which acknowledged late Tuesday
that it was shipping two anti-aircraft missile systems, nine missiles,
two Mig-21 fighter jets and 15 jet engine, saying they were headed to
North Korea to be repaired there.

The discovery aboard the freighter Chong Chon Gang was expected to
trigger an investigation by the U.N. Security Council committee that
monitors the sanctions against North Korea, and Panamanian officials
said U.N. investigators were expected in Panama on Thursday. Britain's
U.N. Ambassador, Mark Lyall Grant, said that "any weapons transfers, for
whatever reason, to North Korea would be a violation of the sanctions
regime."

If Cuba wanted to send the weapons for repairs and have them returned,
it would have needed to get a waiver from the Security Council committee
monitoring the North Korea sanctions. A spokesman for Luxembourg's U.N.
Mission, which chairs the North Korea sanctions committee, told The
Associated Press that there had been no such request from Cuba.

Democrat Robert Menendez, the Cuban-American chairman of the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee, said the incident "almost certainly
violated" U.N. sanctions and urged the Obama administration to bring it
to the Security Council for review.

"Weapons transfers from one communist regime to another hidden under
sacks of sugar are not accidental occurrences," Menendez said Wednesday,
adding that it "reinforces the necessity that Cuba remain on the State
Department's list of countries that sponsor state terrorism."

Panama's seizure of the freighter, which saw its North Korean captain
try to commit suicide and 35 crewmen arrested after resisting police
efforts to intercept the ship in Panamanian waters, was badly timed for
officials working on baby steps toward a limited detente between the
U.S. and Cuba.

High-ranking Cubans were in Washington on Wednesday for migration talks
that are supposed to be held every six months but have been on ice since
January 2011, as the nations remain at odds on issues like Cuba's
imprisonment of U.S. government subcontractor Alan Gross.

"I don't think you can sugarcoat this," said Ted Piccone, senior fellow
and deputy director for foreign policy at the Washington-based Brookings
Institution. "You have a suspicious cargo of weapons going to a heavily
sanctioned state, and this is bad for U.S.-Cuba relations. The timing,
the same week as the restart of long postponed migration talks, couldn't
be worse."

In the past those discussions have provided a rare opportunity to
discuss other issues informally in one of the few open channels of
dialogue between the countries.

U.S. and Cuban representatives last month also sat down for talks on
resuming direct mail service. Earlier this year, a U.S. judge allowed a
convicted Cuban intelligence agent to return to the island rather than
complete his parole in the United States. And there have been whispers
that Washington could remove Cuba from its annual list of state sponsors
of terrorism.

On Tuesday, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Florida Republican, urged a
suspension of the migration talks.

"At a minimum this development will decrease the chances of any change
in U.S. policy," Piccone said. "Or at least postpone changes that have
been discussed quietly and publicly for some time in Washington."

State Department deputy spokeswoman Marie Harf said Wednesday that
Washington had told Cuban officials that it would discuss the seized
ship with them soon, but that it would not be a focus of the one-day
migration talks.

Panamanian officials said Wednesday that the ship's crew was the subject
of a criminal investigation that could lead to charges, adding that two
North Korean diplomats based in Havana had been issued visas to travel
to Panama to talk with authorities about the case. Panamanian
authorities said it might take a week to search the ship, since so far
they have only examined two of its five container sections.

North Korea's Foreign Ministry said Wednesday that Panama should release
the crew because no drugs or illegal cargo were aboard, reiterating
Cuba's explanation that, "this cargo is nothing but aging weapons which
are to be sent back to Cuba after overhauling them according to a
legitimate contract."

Experts said the equipment found aboard the North Korean vessel does not
pose a military threat to the United States or its allies.

Like other aspects of Cuba's economy and infrastructure since the
collapse of the Soviet Union, the island's armed forces rely greatly on
aging technology that requires frequent maintenance and parts that are
difficult to obtain.

North Korea has a robust capability to repair and upgrade such
Soviet-era military equipment, and a track record of doing that in
exchange for commodities such as sugar. Soviet-built air-defense
missiles, radar systems and MiG-21 fighter jets are complex enough to
periodically require a factory repair in addition to regular maintenance.

North Korea is also known to be seeking to evade sanctions and get spare
parts for its own weapons systems, particularly Mig jet fighters. That
raises the possibility that in lieu of cash, Cuba was paying for the
repairs with a mix of sugar and jet equipment, experts said.

"We think it is credible that they could be sending some of these
systems for repair and upgrade work," said Neil Ashdown, an analyst for
IHS Jane's Intelligence. "But equally there is stuff in that shipment
that could be used in North Korea and not be going back."

"Upgrading, servicing and repairing, that's what the North Koreans do,"
added Hugh Griffiths, arms trafficking expert at the Stockholm
International Peace Research Institute. "It is military equipment
prohibited under U.N. sanctions, so whether payment is made in the form
of barter trade or foreign currency, it still constitutes a violation."

The private defense analysis group IHS said satellite tracking data
showed that another North Korean vessel had made a similar trip last
year, crossing the Panama Canal on its way to Cuba, then crossing back,
although there was no evidence yet that it had been carrying arms.

Griffiths also said his institute earlier this year reported to the U.N.
a discovery it made of a flight from Cuba to North Korea that traveled
via central Africa, a flight it said should now be receiving new scrutiny.

Under current sanctions, all U.N. member states are prohibited from
directly or indirectly supplying, selling or transferring 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 inside or
transiting through their territory that originated in North Korea. It
also lets countries inspect cargo destined for North Korea if a state
has credible information the cargo could violate Security Council
resolutions.

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Weissenstein reported from Mexico City. Edith M. Lederer at the United
Nations, Malin Rising in Stockholm, Foster Klug in Seoul, South Korea,
Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow and Juan Zamorano in Panama contributed to
this report

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

Follow Peter Orsi on Twitter at http://twitter.com/Peter-Orsi

Source: "HAVANA: NKorea arms seizure could hurt US-Cuba detente -
Technology - MiamiHerald.com" -
http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/07/17/v-fullstory/3503885/cuba-calls-weapons-on-north-korean.html