Collision Course? U.S. Navy Tracking N. Korean Ship
Less than a week after the passage of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1874, the U.S. Navy is tracking a North Korean ship off the coast of China. The ship is suspected of carrying prohibited cargo:
Officials said the U.S. is monitoring the voyage of the North Korean-flagged Kang Nam, which left port in North Korea on Wednesday. On Thursday, it was traveling in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of China, two officials said on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence.
What the Kang Nam was carrying was not known, but the ship has been involved in weapons proliferation, one of the officials said.
The ship is among a group that is watched regularly but is the only one believed to have cargo that could potentially violate the U.N. resolution, the official said. [AP, Anne Gearan and Pauline Jelinek]
Fox News adds that the destination appears to be Singapore, and quotes a “senior U.S. official” as saying that the ship is believed to be “of interest.” Navy aircraft have the ship under 24/7 watch.
What about the Kang Nam’s notorious history? It’s hard to say. Comparing the photograph in the Fox story to this one in the Daily NK, the Kang Nam being pursued now looks like the same ship as the 2,035 ton Kang Nam I. Then again, I don’t have a photograph of the Kang Nam III, which was detained in Tokyo harbor in 2004 for safety violations, or the Kang Nam V, which was detained in Hong Kong in 2006, also for safety violations, but while under U.S. Navy suspicion for carrying prohibited cargo of some kind. Judging their very different tonnages, however, the Kang Nam V probably doesn’t look much like the Kang Nam I.
That same year, the Kang Nam I was also detained in Hong Kong, also for (you guessed it) safety violations … and outdated nautical charts. A Navy ship, the USS Gary, had followed the Kang Nam I there, but when Hong Kong port authorities searched the ship, they found it empty. (A big hat tip to the excellent Flags of Convenience blog for assembling a lot of this information.)
To make this even more confusing, the North Koreans have a habit of renaming and reflagging their ships constantly. Take the case of the North Korean dope smuggling ship Pong Su:
The Pong Su sailed from North Korea to Singapore in 2003 under a North Korean flag. The vessel then switched its registration to Tuvalu and sailed on to Australia, where witnesses saw a dinghy coming ashore with what proved to be the shipment of heroin. [N.Y. Times]
It’s frighteningly easy to do this:
[W]eapons could be loaded on a North Korean ship flying its own flag, and the registration of the ship could be altered after it left port. “In the middle of the night, they could change the name and change the flag,” said Gary Wolfe, a maritime lawyer at Seward & Kissel, a New York law firm. [….]
Changing the registration of a ship — and therefore its flag — is fairly simple. A ship owner simply sends the necessary paperwork to a country’s ship registry, along with a fee of as little as $1,000. The vessel is not required to visit the country where it is registered, or even go to port.
North Korea had previously favored flagging its ships with Cambodia. As of 2006, it preferred landlocked Mongolia and Tuvalu.
I don’t know how many of you guys have heard of it, but the DPRK’s actions and developments over the past few months are eerily similar to the plot of the videogame Mercenaries.
1. In the game, North Korea develops a nuclear arsenal, with ICBM launch capability.
The most recent nuclear test demonstrated that the Koreans have a working nuclear weapon’s capability. Their upcoming launches of ICBM missiles could provide them with a worldwide reach.
2. General Song leads a military coup against his father, who is attempting to normalize relations.
While nobody can say that Jong-il is a great peacemaker, or that his son is attempting a coup, the succession issue is causing some serious shakeups in the government.
3. The Allied Nations (games version of the UN), starts sanctioning NK, they get very belligerent, General Song (in-game version of Jong-il) becomes very aggressive, threatening nuclear launch.
See latest threats.
4. China joins the AN in the fight against the KPA.
While this is not a guarantee, the latest threat of ICBM launch has Beijing on edge. Seeing as Russia has stated that they will shoot down missiles headed their way, China is in a position to join up or be the odd man out.
5. Lastly, the whole thing that sets off the war between the AN and the DPRK is a ship. Basically, an Australian ship encounters a disguised DPRK vessel they suspect to have contraband. They board the ship, find nuclear material, and war is declared.
I just wanted to point this out for anyone who knows anything about the game. It’s funny how a fictional story from January 2005 is becoming reality in 2009.
Failing to thoroughly check the NK ships (the rogue supplier) will bring high-yield explosives and other nuke-related material closer to Iran and other black-market buyers.
Playing blind-eye to dissemination is not an option. Remember Hitler and the nazi regime, with each conquest it grew bigger and defiant and finally he became to big to be chased only by a single nation. This should be a concentrated effort carried by every UN member country.
I know a lot of other bloggers are still complaining about the UN resolution without teeth…..but hey, this is a great sign……US has upped the ante.
It’s the 1st time that I’ve seen (within the past 3 years) that a bitchin 1st class technologically advanced US naval ship is following a NK ship around until it runs out of fuel.
Just remember that the administration has decided it won’t board any ships by force. The won’t be a replay of the So San or Pong Su incidents, and if North Korea’s smuggling ships have sufficient range to make it to Tartus or Bandar Abbas non-stop, there isn’t much we seem willing to do about that.
If we had a President who had some moral fibre, and a CIA that could keep its mouth shut and not blab everything to the New York Times, I would propose that this ship falls under the purview of Operation Lemony Snickett: in which a whole series of unfortunate events occur to North Korea and its leadership.
I mean, who knew that the ship was such a leaky, dangerous rust-bucket?
I like the way you think.
If the US isn’t willing to board the ships, and given the amount of evidence of the dirty stuff NK does with its shipping, I have to think eventually this just tracking Pyongyang’s ships will come back to bite the US and others on the bum…
…It has the potential to make the world community look weak and NK look strong.
Here NK is testing nukes whenever it feels like it and tossing up ICBMs and doing all kinds of lucrative black market and weapons deals right in front of our eyes…
…and the best we come up with is tagging along with the next shipment of missiles, drugs, fake US dollars, or some other tainted cargo.
Just shadowing NK’s illegal shipments will cause global media attention but that will just highlight our impotence – unless that coverage pressures us to board the ships…