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Ukraine gets into North Korea illegal arms export mess
Published: 15 December, 2009, 09:35
Edited: 16 December, 2009, 09:50
Ukraine has become embroiled in another arms scandal after a cargo plane carrying tonnes of weapons, allegedly from North Korea, and destined for Ukraine has been seized during a refueling stop at Bangkok airport.
I agree with Sarah. Ukraine would hardly do anything that would jeopardize its NATO aspirations. Ukraine has been recently rewarded for its good services by getting a multi-billion dollar deal for arms sales to Iraq. Since Iraq cannot buy any military supplies without US consent, the deal has a distinct smell of reward for unspecified services. One has to recall the tanks on Ukrainian ship kidnapped by Somali pirates. The story of that being an illegal shipment for Darfur did not hold water. The port of destination was Kenya, and there is no conceivable manner in which Kenya would make a good landing spot for Darfur trade. Such a cargo, if indeed destined for Darfur, depending on the purchaser, would end up in either one of Sudan ports, or on the African West Coast where some countries participate in supplying the Darfur rebellion. The only reason to go to Kenya was to fuel Somali war. North Korean made weapons are handy, as weapons from any other country would cause some unpleasant investigations. But what went wrong here? I suspect that somebody tipped off Thai authorities, and that someone wanted to expose Ukraine and whoever is the patron saint of Ukrainian illicit arms deliveries to conflict zones. A great deal of hot air will be spent talking about North Korea, and its sales skills. However, I hope somebody really focuses on the buyer. Specifically, who is really paying for the weapons, and what was real destination. As the crew said, the ship was supposed to do other refueling stops. One of those was the real port of delivery. This had to have been a result of a tip, otherwise I have a feeling that Thai authorities would not have touched the ship with a hundred foot pole. Once intelligence has been provided, they had no choice but to inspect.
North Korea made weapons have also been used the war in Somalia. In 8 April 2007, Michael R. Gordon and Mark Mazzett wrote an article with the title “Ethiopia bought arms from North Korea with U.S. Assent” in the International Herald Tribune. The article showed how these weapons were fueling the conflict in Horn of Africa. These Korean made weapons were used primarily by the Ethiopian troops who were occupied Somalia between 2006 and 2009 and are still occupying some parts of the Southern Somalia. The article made it clear that these weapons were purchased with U.S funds and this was done by Busha admin to circumvent the U.N arms embargo against Somalia. RT must continue digging deep until it finds where these deadly cargo was going, who paid for these weapons and who they were meant to use them.