Cuba’s Criminal Regime and North Korea

After all the talk about hope and change and reform in Cuba, the old Stalinist regime of the Castros turns out to be in bed with North Korea and to be violating UN sanctions on that other Stalinist regime. Birds of a feather....

Today’s news tells us that a North Korean vessel traveling from Cuba to North Korea was stopped and searched near the Panama Canal. Lo and behold, hidden in the sugar were missile parts. As one news report put it,

Panama’s president says the country has taken control of a North Korean ship that was trying to illegally sneak missile materials from Cuba through the Panama Canal...."We had suspected this ship, which was coming from Cuba and headed to North Korea, might have drugs aboard so it was brought into port for search and inspection," Martinelli said. "When we started to unload the shipment of sugar we located containers that we believe to be sophisticated missile equipment...." After examining images, intelligence officials told Fox News that the equipment is part of a "soviet era" radar system that accompanies the SA-2 surface to air missile.

Hugh Griffiths, an arms trafficking expert at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, said the seized ship is called Chong Chon Gang and has been on the institute’s suspect list for some time....Griffiths also said the institute earlier this year reported to the U.N. a discovery it made of a flight from Cuba to North Korea that travelled via central Africa." "Given the history of North Korea, Cuban military cooperation and now this latest seizure, we find this flight more interesting," he said. "After this incident there should be renewed focus on North Korean-Cuban links."

It is too much to hope that those who have bought the Cuban line about reform on the island would now acknowledge they’ve been hoodwinked. But for the rest of us, and for those wondering why there should still be an embargo on trade with Cuba, this is a reminder of the facts about the Castro regime.