In one of the more bizarre news stories to involve Cuba recently, a shipment of "obsolete" arms was confiscated by Panama as the ship passed through the Panama Canal. The ship, containing thousands of tons of sugar, had in its hold, MiG fighter jets, MiG engines, anti-aircraft weaponry, and an assortment of other weapons all of which likely violate UN security resolutions. Cuba claims it was sending the materiel to North Korea for repair. Why Cuba, and North Korea, would risk further alienation and sanctions so one brutal regime could fix the weapons of another (though arguably less brutal) one defies easy explanation. Perhaps this was a test of the world's monitoring of such shipments; maybe it was a gasp of a country with no military to speak of (Cuba) to desperately hang on to the weapons it does have; or maybe this kind of thing happens all the time and Panama and the U.S. decided to make a statement of their own.
Whatever the answer, the fact that ship sailed all the way across the Pacific and to the doorstep of the Atlantic is troubling. This development will certainly not help North Korea in its bid to win any concessions from South Korea, the U.S., or China. Who knows what the next shipment will contain?
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