When a North Korean ship carrying Cuban arms was seized last week in Panama on suspicion of smuggling drugs, Cuba first said it was loaded with sugar for the people of North Korea, according to a Panamanian official familiar with the matter. Cuban officials were quick to request the ship be released, pledging there were no drugs on board, and made no mention of the weapons which two days later were found hidden in the hold under 220,000 sacks of brown sugar, the official told Reuters.
"They said it was all a big misunderstanding," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Cuba declined to comment on the official's account. Questions still surround the cargo of sugar and what Cuba called "obsolete" Soviet-era weapons which it said it was sending halfway around the world to be repaired in North Korea.
The discovery has put the already isolated Asian nation under increased diplomatic pressure because the cargo is suspected of being in breach of a UN arms embargo against Pyongyang over its nuclear and ballistic missile program. For Cuba, the benefits of smuggling out-of-date weapons to North Korea did not seem to make up for the potential pitfalls, experts said. "It's baffling. It's hard to believe Cuba would risk so much for so little," said Frank Mora, the Pentagon's senior official for Latin America during president Obama's first term. Panamanian officials say the shipment was probably part of an arms-for-sugar exchange aimed at refurbishing Cuba's aging air defenses.
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