Photograph by Cycling Man
Weeks of calm and quiet following the North Korea saga was broken today, when a North Korean flagged ship from Cuba was detained in Panama when attempting to cross the Panama Canal.
The Chong Chon Gang vessel was stopped near the port of Manzanillo, on the Atlantic side of the Panama Canal early Tuesday afternoon. The ship was initially stopped by Panamanian authorities who were apparently tipped off earlier that the craft might be carrying drugs.
The Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli said that the ship was carrying “undeclared weapons of war” and that “we’re going to keep unloading the ship and figure out exactly what was inside.” President Martinelli went on to further state that “you cannot go around shipping undeclared weapons of war through the Panama Canal.”
Video footage inside the ship showed weapons including missiles and other non-conventional arms found hidden in containers of brown sugar.
The ship’s crew which consisted of 35 North Koreans including the captain of the ship were taken in custody after they disconnected crane cables aboard their ship. The ship’s captain attempted to commit suicide after the vessel was stopped. Jose Raul Mulino, Panama’s Minister of Security called it an act of “rebellion and sabotage.”
According to Hugh Griffiths, an arms trafficking expert at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, the ship has previously been suspected of smuggling drugs and small arms ammunition.
North Korea is banned under United Nations sanctions from the export and import of all weapons except small arms. Sanctions were tightened after the North Korean government conducted its third nuclear test in February of this year. North Korea continues to develop its missile programme. In July 2009, a North Korean ship heading to Burma was turned back by the US Navy on suspicion of transporting weapons.
Following this discovery, there have been calls for renewed focus and scrutiny of North Korean-Cuban relations. It is still unclear what Cuba would stand to gain by helping North Korea, given that it risks incurring the wrath of the Americans by assisting the North Koreans. Neither Cuba nor North Korea has commented on the incident.
Panama who is a close ally of the US has been running the 82 km waterway since the handover from the US in 1999 and is the country’s main source of revenue.
Written by Gaanashree Wood
