The story is dramatic. The North Korean 14,000 dwt bulk carrier Chong Chon Gang was stopped by the Panama Canal Authority. A container, believed to carry undeclared military weapons was found hidden in a cargo of bagged sugar. The Korean crew of the ship allegedly violently resisted the Panamanian searchers. The captain of the Korean ship was reported to have attempted suicide when the ship was boarded.
Initially, this story sounds reasonably predictable. North Korea has been caught repeatedly smuggling arms and narcotics in recent years. The case of the Chong Chon Gang, however, quickly get strange. The ship, when arrested, had not come from North Korea, but from Cuba, and the military equipment found aboard was odd. As reported by the New York Times, “Cuba’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement saying the cargo stashed in the vessel, the Chong Chon Gang, consisted of “240 metric tons of obsolete defensive weapons” bound for North Korea, where it was to be repaired and then sent back to Cuba.” They described the equipment as ““two anti-aircraft missile complexes Volga and Pechora, nine missiles in parts and spares, two Mig-21 Bis and 15 motors for this type of airplane, all of it manufactured in the mid-twentieth century”.
But American and Panamanian officials were still trying to understand why the ship’s crew had fought so hard to repel a boarding party as the ship tried to traverse the Panama Canal. After all, the equipment they were protecting would make a nice exhibit in a museum of cold war military artifacts. “We’re talking old,” one official briefed on the episode said. “When this stuff was new, Castro was plotting revolutions.”
“We’re going to keep unloading the ship and figure out exactly what was inside,” [Panama’s president, Ricardo] Martinelli said. “You cannot go around shipping undeclared weapons of war through the Panama Canal.”
There was no comment on Tuesday from North Korea on the vessel’s seizure.
The Chong Chon Gang, a 36-year-old freighter, had its own peculiar history, and this was not the first time the vessel had encountered run-ins with maritime authorities. It had been stopped in 2010 for carrying narcotics and ammunition, Mr. Griffiths said. He also said it had been attacked by Somali pirates
According to IHS Fairplay, a London-based vessel monitoring service, the freighter had not traveled the Western Hemisphere in at least four years. The monitoring data shows it visited Panama in 2008 and Brazil in 2009.
Thanks to Phil Leon for contributing to the post.
Wow, I didn’t know it had all that stuff too.
Old does not mean obsolete. If the North Korean specialized on keeping legacy technology functional and alive, it would work the same way as it did in 1957. The North Korean economy is based to a large extent on recycling discarded legacy technology, hence they probably even understand how to improve on the design and modernize it to some extent. Good evidence is the Unha-3 rocket allegedly based on discarded SS-6N, or perhaps Scuds, which again are based on 50s technology SS-6N. Also operating complex technology requires talent and infrastructure, hence it may not even make sense for North Korea to stock up on modern technology as they could not efficiently utilize it and keep it operational. Imagine you are dropped somewhere in the jungle: what would you rather have? An iPhone or a boat anchor HF radio, provided that you have a power source.