North Korea uses Mozambique to dodge UN sanctions – CNN report

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North Korea uses Mozambique to dodge UN sanctions – CNN report

12:39 CAT | 05 Feb 2018

CNN

A CNN report accuses Mozambicans of supporting illicit activities by North Koreans designed to break international sanctions. The UN, in a new report, says that Kim Jong-un regime generated US$200 million in 2017.

The North Korean regime is allegedly dodging sanctions imposed by the UN via Mozambique (and several other countries). And, according to a report from the organisation, which has been quoted by several agencies since Friday night, it has managed to generate around US$200 million in 2017 (about 160 million Euros) from the export of products banned under the UN sanctions imposed because of the country’s nuclear programme.

Also Read: Mozambique is implementing all UN sanctions on North Korea – Govt

The accusation is not exactly new and has already emerged in other UN reports under its current leader, António Guterres. The difference is that, this time, CNN decided to investigate the role of Mozambique.

In a one-month investigation, the US television channel “has uncovered a secret network of front companies, military cooperation and elite force-building agreements between North Korea and Mozambique which violate international sanctions, according to researchers at UN”. CNN says it has analysed documents that “show that cooperation is sealed with illegal contracts worth millions of dollars”. The reporters gained access to official communications between Mozambican and North Korean military officials and cite sources who claim that “North Koreans have trained elite forces on a Maputo base for at least two years”. And this, it says, “comes with a price tag”.

CNN says it has not been able to obtain an official comment from the Mozambican Defence Ministry. Alvaro da Silva, director of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, gave assurances that the Mozambican government respects the sanctions imposed on North Korea but does admit that there are North Koreans in Mozambique who are legitimately involved in “social and technical” fields, but says these do not break UN sanctions.

Alvaro da Silva told CNN: “I think we have every reason to believe that our relationship with the United States is great”. This because, according to the Financial Times, Donald Trump’s administration has been pushing African countries that have had good relations with Pyongyang since the Cold War to expel North Korean diplomats and workers. In addition to Mozambique, the newspaper mentions Angola, Namibia, Mali, Botswana, Democratic Republic of Congo, Eritrea, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zimbabwe.

In its investigation, CNN reports that there are two rusting boats at the Maputo Fishing Port, Susan 1 and Susan 2, “which are not ordinary fishing vessels”. They used to fly the North Korean flag, but now the flag of Namibia. The crews are North Koreans and wander freely around Maputo. In addition to the military cooperation mentioned, illegal fishing is another form of cooperation between the two countries that violates sanctions, according to the US television channel. CNN also says it has located the salmon-coloured building on Mao Tse-tung Avenue in Maputo where Haegeumgang once operated. “Some Asians lived and worked there. They left three or four months ago,” a real estate agent told CNN reporters, saying they had no money to pay the rent. Haegeumgang appears in the September 2017 UN report as a company involved in supplying “surface-to-air missiles to Mozambique and Tanzania”.

In its most recent 213-page report, United Nations experts say North Korea has violated sanctions through illicit exports of oil, coal, iron, steel and other products. Pyongyang “used the combination of various avoidance techniques, routes and tactics to export coal shipments to China, Malaysia, South Korea, Russia and Vietnam”. Despite sanctions, the Kim Jong-un regime thus continues to have access to the international financial system. The report also points to the existence of military cooperation between North Korea, Syria and Burma in the development of a ballistic missile and chemical weapons programmes.

Source: Lusa