Cuba escapes UN sanctions in North Korean weapons transport scheme

Posted on Tuesday, 07.29.14



Cuba escapes UN sanctions in North Korean weapons transport scheme

But it puts a North Korea ship-operating company on its sanctions list.

BY JUAN O. TAMAYO

JTAMAYO@ELNUEVOHERALD.COM



The United Nations has sanctioned a North Korean shipping company but

spared Cuban entities in connection with a Cuban weapons shipment seized

aboard a Pyongyang-bound freighter in violation of a U.N. arms embargo.



Ocean Maritime Management Company, Ltd., a North Korean company that

managed the freighter Chong Chon Gang when it was seized in Panama last

summer, was added Monday to the list of violators of the embargo.



The U.N. Security Council (UNSC) committee that enforces the embargo

said the company "played a key role in arranging the shipment of

concealed cargo of arms and related materiel from Cuba." Inclusion in

the list carries banking and travel sanctions.



But the committee did not add to the list any of the Cuban enterprises

or individuals involved in the shipment of 240 tons of Cuban MiG jet

engines, anti-aircraft missile systems and munitions found aboard the

Chong Chon Gang.



U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power said in a statement that there were

"irrefutable facts that clearly prove Cuba and (North Korea's)

intentions to violate sanctions by employing highly sophisticated

deception and obfuscation techniques."



"The United States remains concerned about attempts by North Korea to

circumvent international sanctions, and strongly condemns any efforts by

nations such as Cuba to assist in the illegal evasion" of the arms

embargo, Power added.



Powell did not explain why no Cuban entities were added to the sanctions

list, and her press office did not reply to El Nuevo Herald's requests

for comment.



Latin American diplomats at the U.N. had predicted earlier this year

that Cuba would escape sanctions because Russia and China, which have

vetoes on the Security Council , are close allies of Cuba.



"It's unacceptable that even as the (UNSC) sanctioned the North Korean

firm that operated the vessel carrying illegal arms from Cuba, it failed

to similarly hold the Cuban regime accountable for its role in this

flagrant violation of U.N. sanctions," Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen said in

a statement Tuesday.



UNSC experts on the arms embargo reported earlier this year that the

shipment violated the embargo, even though Cuba claimed that the weapons

were not being "transferred" to North Korea because they were to be

serviced and returned to Havana.



The experts also reported that Cuba had refused to identify the Cuban

entities and individuals involved in the shipment, saying the contract

with Pyongyang required business privacy.



Ros-Lehtinen, a Miami Republican indicated last week that Power knew the

identities of the Cubans involved and urged the ambassador to push the

UNSC sanctions committee to include them on the blacklist of

"designated" entities.



One of the Cubans allegedly involved is Brig. Gen. Luis Alberto

Rodríguez López-Callejas, in charge of several military enterprises and

the port of Mariel, where the weapons were loaded on the freighter. He's

also a son-in-law of Cuban ruler Raúl Castro.



The Chong Chon Gang docked in Havana June 4-9 of last year to unload

cargo, then loaded the weapons aboard in Mariel and later sailed east to

Puerto Padre to load a cargo of sugar that hid the arms. Its automatic

location reporting system was off during most of its Caribbean sail.



Panama authorities stopped it on July 15, as it prepared to cross the

Panama Canal on a trip to Pyongyang, on suspicion that it carried drugs.

Instead, they found what the UNSC experts described as the single

largest weapons shipment ever seized for violating the embargo slapped

on Pyongyang in 2006 because of its nuclear weapons and long-range

missile development programs.



The freighter and 32 of its crew were released in February after payment

of a $700,000 fine for failing to declare the weapons in its cargo. The

captain and two other officers were freed in June. The weapons remain in

Panama and the sugar is up for sale.



A second North Korean freighter that ran aground off the eastern coast

of Mexico earlier this month after a stop in Havana, meanwhile, was

pulled off the Tuxpan reef on Saturday, according to Mexican news reports.



The 430-foot Mu Du Bong had raised eyebrows because its Caribbean sail

had paralleled somewhat that of the Chong Chon Gang — with stops in

Havana and Mariel and periods when its automatic locator was not working.



The freighter was empty when it ran aground near the entrance to the

port of Tuxpan, one of Mexico's main sugar-exporting ports, according to

Mexican news reports.



Its automatic locator reported that it was near Mariel on June 25 and in

Havana June 29-30, but then went silent for nine days. It started

working again July 10, when it showed the freighter was in Havana and

later that it was sailing west in the Gulf of Mexico.



Source: Cuba escapes UN sanctions in North Korean weapons transport

scheme - Cuba - MiamiHerald.com -

http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/07/29/4261577/cuba-escapes-un-sanctions-in-north.html