[Marxism] Washington okays sanctionsj-violating DPRKorea arms sale to Ethiopia

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Despite the kvetching by disappointed hawk John Bolton who seems to be
embittered not so much by his own fate, as by the slow retreat of
Bush-Cheney before the traditional State Department conservatives, this is a
sign that the North Korean regime has actually made some headway in
establishing the goal of establishing a more friendly and perhaps even
collaborative relationship with Washington.

This has also been a factor in Seymour Hersh's exposes, with their recent
rather clear reliance on friends and admirers of former intelligence chief
and now State Department bureaucrat John Negroponte.  Negroponte is
sometimes described very loosely as a "neocon" but in fact he is a
traditional conservative hardliner, completely free of "ideological" or
"theoretical" baggage and quite cold-blooded in sizing up the relationship
of forces.  This has evolved unfavorably to Washington's war drives against
Tehran and Pyongyang, or so it seems to me.

We should also keep in mind that this is also the Tehran regime also aims
for a friendly and collaborative arrangement with Washington, as made clear
in their frequent calls for a general agreement to resolve all differences
with the US.

 

So the consequences of defeating the war drives against the DPRK and Iran
will probably be pretty complex, though positive and quite important for
revolutionary struggle overall (as was also true when Washington came to
terms with China and Vietnam).

Under current circumstances, of course, the North Korean arms sales to
Ethiopia indirectly aid Washington's criminal intervention in Somalia, in
which the Ethiopian government and military serve as proxies.
Fred Feldman



April 8, 2007
North Koreans Arm Ethiopians as U.S. Assents 
By MICHAEL R. GORDON and MARK MAZZETTI

WASHINGTON, April 7 - Three months after the United States successfully
pressed the United Nations to impose strict sanctions on North Korea because
of the country's nuclear test, Bush administration officials allowed
Ethiopia to complete a secret arms purchase from the North, in what appears
to be a violation of the restrictions, according to senior American
officials. 

The United States allowed the arms delivery to go through in January in part
because Ethiopia was in the midst of a military offensive against Islamic
militias inside Somalia, a campaign that aided the American policy of
combating religious extremists in the Horn of Africa. 

American officials said that they were still encouraging Ethiopia to wean
itself from its longstanding reliance on North Korea for cheap Soviet-era
military equipment to supply its armed forces and that Ethiopian officials
appeared receptive. But the arms deal is an example of the compromises that
result from the clash of two foreign policy absolutes: the Bush
administration's commitment to fighting Islamic radicalism and its effort to
starve the North Korean government of money it could use to build up its
nuclear weapons program. 

Since the Sept. 11 attacks, as the administration has made counterterrorism
its top foreign policy concern, the White House has sometimes shown a
willingness to tolerate misconduct by allies that it might otherwise
criticize, like human rights violations in Central Asia and antidemocratic
crackdowns in a number of Arab nations. 

It is also not the first time that the Bush administration has made an
exception for allies in their dealings with North Korea. In 2002, Spain
intercepted a ship carrying Scud missiles from North Korea to Yemen. At the
time, Yemen was working with the United States to hunt members of Al Qaeda
operating within its borders, and after its government protested, the United
States asked that the freighter be released. Yemen said at the time that it
was the last shipment from an earlier missile purchase and would not be
repeated. 

American officials from a number of agencies described details of the
Ethiopian episode on the condition of anonymity because they were discussing
internal Bush administration deliberations.

Several officials said they first learned that Ethiopia planned to receive a
delivery of military cargo from North Korea when the country's government
alerted the American Embassy in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia's capital, after the
adoption on Oct. 14 of the United Nations Security Council measure imposing
sanctions. 

"The Ethiopians came back to us and said, 'Look, we know we need to
transition to different customers, but we just can't do that overnight,' "
said one American official, who added that the issue had been handled
properly. "They pledged to work with us at the most senior levels."

American intelligence agencies reported in late January that an Ethiopian
cargo ship that was probably carrying tank parts and other military
equipment had left a North Korean port. 

The value of the shipment is unclear, but Ethiopia purchased $20 million
worth of arms from North Korea in 2001, according to American estimates, a
pattern that officials said had continued. The United States gives Ethiopia
millions of dollars of foreign aid and some nonlethal military equipment. 

After a brief debate in Washington, the decision was made not to block the
arms deal and to press Ethiopia not to make future purchases. 

John R. Bolton, who helped to push the resolution imposing sanctions on
North Korea through the Security Council in October, before stepping down as
United Nations ambassador, said that the Ethiopians had long known that
Washington was concerned about their arms purchases from North Korea and
that the Bush administration should not have tolerated the January shipment.


"To make it clear to everyone how strongly we feel on this issue we should
have gone to the Ethiopians and said they should send it back," said Mr.
Bolton, who added that he had been unaware of the deal before being
contacted for this article. "I know they have been helpful in Somalia, but
there is a nuclear weapons program in North Korea that is unhelpful for
everybody worldwide. 

"Never underestimate the strength of 'clientitis' at the State Department,"
said Mr. Bolton, using Washington jargon for a situation in which State
Department officials are deemed to be overly sympathetic to the countries
they conduct diplomacy with. 

Sean McCormack, the State Department spokesman, declined to comment on the
specifics of the arms shipment but said the United States was "deeply
committed to upholding and enforcing U.N. Security Council resolutions."
Repeated efforts to contact the Ethiopian Embassy were unsuccessful. 

In other cases, the United States has been strict in enforcing the Security
Council resolution. For instance, late last year, American intelligence
agencies tracked a North Korean freighter suspected of carrying illicit
weapons and pressed several nations to refuse to allow the ship to dock.
Myanmar, formerly Burma, allowed it to anchor and insisted that there was no
violation. 

North Korea conducted its first nuclear test on Oct. 9, and the Security
Council resolution, adopted less than a week later, was hailed by President
Bush as "swift and tough," and a "clear message to the leader of North Korea
regarding his weapons programs."

Among the biggest sticking points during the negotiations over the
resolution were Chinese and Russian objections to language requiring
inspections of ships leaving North Korea. The United States repeatedly
pressed China and Russia to agree to the inspections, saying they were
essential to enforcing the resolution's embargo on North Korea's sale of
dangerous weapons, like ballistic missiles. In addition to the ban on the
purchase of weapons from North Korea, the resolution also called for a ban
on the sale of luxury goods to it and the freezing of its financial assets
in banks worldwide.

The measure had special relevance for several African states that have long
purchased low-cost military equipment from North Korea. Ethiopia has an
arsenal of T-55 tanks that it acquired years ago from the Soviet Union and
Eastern European nations. For years, it has turned to North Korea for tank
parts and other equipment to keep its military running. 

The Ethiopians bought the equipment at a bargain price; the North Koreans
received some badly needed cash. In 2005, the Bush administration told
Ethiopia and other African nations that it wanted them to phase out their
purchases from North Korea. But the Security Council resolution put an
international imprimatur on the earlier American request, and the
administration sought to reinforce the message. 

"They really are one of the larger conventional arms purchasers from North
Korea, and we're pressing them hard and saying, 'Let's get you out of that
business,' " said the American official. 

Another American official, who is involved in Africa policy, said: "These
are cash on the barrel transactions. The Ethiopians know that they can get
the best deal in Pyongyang," a reference to North Korea's capital.

In late January, the Central Intelligence Agency reported that an
Ethiopian-flagged vessel had left a North Korean port and that its cargo
probably included "tank parts," among other military equipment. 

American officials said that the ship, the Tekeze, a modern vessel bought
from a company in Montenegro and named after an Ethiopian river, unloaded
its cargo in Djibouti, a former French colony where the United States has
based Special Operations troops and other military forces. From there, the
cargo was transported overland to Ethiopia. 

The Security Council resolution's list of prohibited items included spare
parts. Because the cargo was never inspected, some administration officials
say the United States cannot say for certain that the shipment violated the
resolution.

It is not clear if the United States ever reported the arms shipment to the
Security Council. But because the intelligence reports indicated that the
cargo was likely to have included tank parts, some Pentagon officials
described the shipment as an unambiguous Security Council violation.

American officials said the Ethiopians acknowledged that the ship was en
route and said that they needed the equipment to sustain their Soviet-era
military. Ethiopia has a longstanding border dispute with Eritrea, but of
more concern to Washington, Ethiopia was also focused on neighboring
Somalia, where Islamic forces that had taken over Mogadishu, Somalia's
capital, six months earlier and were attacking Baidoa, the seat of a
relatively powerless transitional government that was formed with the
support of the United Nations. 

The timing of the shipment was extremely awkward, as the Ethiopian military
was preoccupied with Somalia and also quietly cooperating with the United
States. Ethiopia began an offensive in Somalia to drive back the Islamic
forces and install the transitional government in Mogadishu late last year.
The United States was providing it with detailed intelligence about the
locations of the Islamic forces and was positioning Navy ships off Somalia's
coast to capture fighters trying to escape the battlefield by sea.

On Jan. 7, American AC-130 gunships launched two strikes on terrorist
targets from an airstrip inside Ethiopia, though it did not appear that the
casualties included any of the few top operatives of Al Qaeda American
officials suspected were hiding in Somalia. 

After some internal debate, the Bush administration decided not to make an
issue of the cargo ship. 

American officials insist that they are keeping up the pressure on Ethiopia.
While Ethiopia has not provided an ironclad assurance that it will accept no
more arms shipments from North Korea, it has told the United States that it
will look for other weapons suppliers.

"There was a lot going on at that particular moment in time," said the
senior American official. "They seem to have the readiness to do the right
thing."




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