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PYONGYANG WATCH
Scuds across the
sea
By Aidan Foster-Carter
First, a question. What makes the news? As of
Wednesday morning, the top story pretty much everywhere
was the interception by Spanish warships and American
inspectors of a North Korean vessel, 600 miles east of
the Horn of Africa. It was carrying a dozen or so Scud
missiles, apparently bound for Yemen.
But what
is the story here, exactly? After all (and I quote),
"this is not exactly a development that is new". Whom do
I quote? None other than US Deputy Secretary of State
Dick Armitage, as he arrived for talks in Beijing -
which will doubtless include how to stop Pyongyang's
recently admitted nuclear program. He went on: "As a
major proliferator, the North Koreans apparently have
been caught."
"Caught" implies "in the act",
suggesting a crime of some kind. But what crime? Indeed,
North Korea has been described as Missiles "R" Us:
possibly the world's leading proliferator of missile
technology. True too, they don't care whom they sell to.
Regular customers include states that the United States
doesn't much care for, such as Iran (where they play a
major role, to Israel's alarm), Libya and Syria. But not
Iraq, you'll be relieved to hear. Evil they may both be,
but no axis links Kim Jong-il to Saddam Hussein. North
Korea took Iran's side in the 1980s Iran-Iraq war, and
Baghdad took umbrage big time.
But equally,
Pyongyang has flogged its merchandise to US allies.
Notably Pakistan, where - as the world now knows, but
you read it here more than a year ago (Nukes and missiles: the Pakistan
connection, June 5, 2001) - they swapped missiles
for nuclear know-how. Also Egypt, which is interesting
because - and not a lot of people know this - it was the
Egyptians, in their wisdom, who gave or sold North Korea
the Scud technology in the first place, back in the
1970s. They of course had it from the Russians, who knew
better than to let Kim Il-sung get his hands on such
stuff.
Clever chaps that they are - if only
they'd put their skills to better use - the North
Koreans reverse-engineered the Scud, and have been
making and flogging them ever since. With precious
little else of world-class quality to sell, missiles are
one of Pyongyang's main earners of hard currency (we
have no hard numbers, needless to say), as well as being
bartered for much-needed oil with Iran and others.
What's more, all this is perfectly legal. True,
it's tempting to assume a priori that Kim Jong-il
is up to no good. It reminds me of a line from the great
Edwardian humorist Saki, who has an imperious mother
ordering her nanny: "Go and find what the children are
doing, and stop them!" But we have to make distinctions
here. Whereas North Korea's nuclear programs, old and
new, are a flagrant violation of a raft of treaties that
Pyongyang has signed up to, it is not a member of the
Missile Technology Control Regime. As such, it breaks no
law by selling missiles. Hey, everyone sells arms.
What's the big deal? I can already predict the shrill
self-righteous tone that North Korea will take about
this seizure.
However, to leave it at that would
be disingenuous. For one thing, there do seem at least
to be prima facie breaches of maritime law. The
Sosan, though clearly North Korean owned and crewed, was
flying no flag and initially refused to respond when
challenged. The Scuds were hidden under 40,000 bags of
cement (well, I guess you wouldn't keep them on deck in
big boxes labeled SCUD, would you?).
All that
seems dodgy, as does the destination. Yemen is nominally
a US ally, but was already censured (but not penalized)
last year over an earlier shipment. Notoriously,
however, Yemen is also where the USS Cole was attacked,
is Osama bin Laden's ancestral home (where some say he
is hiding now), and is in general a black hole with
great swaths of tribal territory where anything goes and
the United States is not loved.
So in the
context of the war on terrorism, you can understand why
the US would worry about missiles. "Horn of Africa" also
recalls Kenya, but these aren't the sort of far smaller
rockets that narrowly missed that Israeli airliner
taking off from Mombasa. Deploying, loading and firing
Scuds is a major operation, every bit as visible to US
spy satellites as was the Sosan's slow progress across
the oceans.
In fact the United States has been
tracking such shipments for many years, decades even.
But I don't think it had ever stopped one before - as
India has, at least once, with a North Korean vessel
heading for Pakistan - presumably because the legal base
is flimsy, and Russia or China might have protested. But
of course all is different now. In general, last year's
September 11 attacks changed everything; and this plus
Pyongyang's nuclear admission means that even its
semi-friends in Moscow and Beijing are openly telling it
to make nice with the US.
As I read it, then,
this is a shot across the bows. As in the recent US
decision to bar further food aid unless North Korea
allows closer monitoring, the implicit message is:
Listen, matey, we've got you covered. We can tighten the
screws any time we want. And we will, if you don't wise
up and play ball.
Trouble is, Pyongyang tends
not to react well to being put on the spot. A former US
president tried a different tack. Bill Clinton was close
to a deal to pay North Korea to give up its missile
programs (plural: proliferation apart, remember when
Pyongyang was No 1 poster child for US missile defense
due to its longer-range rockets, allegedly aimed at
Alaska?) but ran out of time. Enter George W Bush, who
doesn't go in for that kind of bribery - but hasn't any
better idea how to tackle Kim Jong-il. In fairness, the
nuclear admission now makes it real hard to trust North
Korea ever again; unless with ultra-intrusive inspection
and verification (a la Iraq), which it's hard to see
Pyongyang ever permitting.
All in all, another
nice mess to add to the pile. And another thing: What
will they do with the ship? And the Scuds? This one may
run and run ...
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