A few days after the United States released the North Korean ship that carried 15 Scud missiles from North Korea, Yemen received the shipment. The Spanish Navy in the Arabian Sea had earlier intercepted the North Korean ship So San and declared that it carried 15 Scud missiles, 15 conventional warheads and 85 drums of unidentified chemicals hidden under cement bags. The Spanish ships Navarra and Patino stopped the So San east of the island of Socotra and called US authorities for assistance. The Spanish navy boarded the ship after its crew refused to identify themselves. The North Korean captain of the Sosan initially told the Spaniards that the ship was carrying cement. The missiles were discovered shortly afterwards. The So San first arrived in Yemen at Al Mukalla port on the Arabian Sea after the United States ordered its release, admitting that North Korea was not violating any law by transporting its missile cargo. Yemen claimed the Scud missiles and warheads were aimed at boosting its defenses in a troubled region. They had been bought in 1999 at the height of border tensions with nearby Saudi Arabia and Eritrea. Both disputes have been resolved since.
The So San was eventually unloaded at the port of Hodeida. Its release defused a potentially explosive situation in a region where tensions have been high since the United States made clear it was prepared to go to war with Iraq over its suspected weapons of mass destruction. The Scud is a crude, Soviet-designed ballistic missile, which can carry nuclear, chemical or biological weapons. Scuds are inaccurate, but this does not matter when the warhead is a weapon of mass destruction.
Yemen is trying to shed an image as a haven for Muslim militants and has arrested dozens of al-Qaeda suspects in a major crackdown as part of the US-led war on terror. It inherited an unspecified number of Scuds from South Yemen after it united with the pro-Western North in 1990. Southern rebels used them against the North in the civil war of 1994.
Earlier US White House spokesman Ariel Fleischer said there is no provision under international law prohibiting Yemen from accepting delivery of missiles from North Korea, though there is authority to stop and search, so the ship is being released. He added that the US has no complaints against Yemen, which is a sovereign state and a reliable partner in the US-led war against terrorism. "I think that Yemen understands the United States' commitment to making certain that terrorist regimes in the area do not receive weapons."
The decision to release the ship came after US Vice-President Dick Cheney tried to persuade President Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen to give up the battlefield-range missiles, which Yemen bought from North Korea. Cheney then consulted with President Bush and the Yemeni ruler was told that the whole cargo would be released to him. Administration officials said Saleh had agreed to retain control of the missiles and not pass them on to either Iraq or terrorist groups. The State Department spokesman, Richard Boucher, said Secretary Powell had received assurances from Saleh that no more Scuds would be bought from North Korea. Administration officials acknowledged that it was impossible not to yield to Yemen's request for the missiles because of its strategic location and its cooperation in the American war against Al-Qaeda. Asked whether the US had thought Iraq - which has no history of buying from North Korea - was the intended recipient of the missiles, American officials said that the possibility had been considered. Had Iraq had been the buyer, not only would confiscating the shipment have been legal under United Nations resolutions, but Iraq would also have been in material breach of those resolutions. The missiles would have given the United States grounds for war.
However, a senior official described President Bush as "a very, very unhappy man" after he deciding to send the ship on its way to Yemen. In August, the Bush administration imposed sanctions on the North Korean Changgwang Sinyong Corporation for selling Scud missile parts to Yemen. The US and other countries interested in preventing proliferation of weapons of mass destruction are cooperating under the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) to discourage exports of such technology.
Under the US sanctions, Changgwang Sinyong will be barred for two years from obtaining new export licenses through the departments of Commerce or State for any controlled MTCR items. The sanctions have little practical effect, because there is very little commerce between the United States and North Korea. But they reinforce the President's message that North Korea spreads dangerous technology.
"It is necessary to heighten vigilance against the US strategy for world supremacy and `anti-terrorism war,'" North Korea's official newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, said in an editorial. "All countries are called upon to build up... military power by their own efforts."
Yemen has been a nominal ally in the global war on terrorism despite its occasionally strained relations with Washington. Yemen is Osama bin Laden's ancestral homeland. It was the site of the bombing of a US warship and has vast areas where Al-Qaeda and other terrorists are believed to hide.
North Korea shocked US officials by admitting in October that it had a secret program to enrich uranium for the production of nuclear weapons. The US administration has vowed to try to solve the problem through diplomacy, though Bush already had named North Korea as part of a three-country "axis of evil" and administration officials are worried that the Communist dictatorship has become a seller of missiles to states such as Iran and Libya. The US reaction, however, was measured, not mentioning how much concern the matter raised among American officials or the range of options for a response. A White House spokesman said the United States would enlist the help of US allies in the region to fashion its next move - a decidedly diplomatic, and possibly slow, approach. "This is an issue of concern. We are working with other governments to figure out the next step."
Yemen may have to pay a high price for its 15 Scud missiles and warheads from North Korea in terms of strained diplomatic relations. Japan said it might consider freezing economic aid to Yemen in protest against the North Korean shipment. A spokesman for the Japanese Government said this would be part of Japan's policy of fighting proliferation of mass destruction weapons. The Japanese Foreign Ministry summoned Yemen's ambassador Mohammed Al-Hothi and told him that North Korea's development, deployment and exports of missiles were a menace to the world.
Hiroyasu Ando, who is the head of the ministry's Middle East bureau, reminded the Yemeni envoy that Japan pays "full attention to exports and imports of weapons" when considering its official aid to developing countries. He called the missile delivery an "extremely regrettable incident" and asked the ambassador to convey Tokyo's demand that it would not be repeated. Japan had given $21 million in so-called official development assistance (ODA) to Yemen during fiscal year 2000/2001. Al-Hothi promised to convey the message to his Government.
Whatever the reaction of other countries, there are plenty of critics in the US calling the American wobbling about missiles to Yemen a case of high irony. The irony is that the United States - the world's largest weapons seller - is complaining about North Korea shipping 15 Scud missiles to Yemen. Peace activists say that for Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to call North Korea the "single largest proliferator" of missile technology is like the pot calling the kettle black. "I guess you've got to remember that irony is essentially dead in the United States,'' said Scott Lynch, from Washington-based Peace Action. "But even so, this one has got to be seen as highly ironic. One could even move up to hypocritical." "The audacity of the administration never fails to shock me. The US needs Yemen as a partner in the region,'' added Lynch. With President George W. Bush pushing for a second war against Iraq, it cannot afford to alienate Yemen. "At the end of the day, the administration deigns unto itself the right to make the rules for everybody."
On Capitol Hill yesterday, several lawmakers also saw a certain irony in US criticism of North Korea, followed by an abrupt and red-faced announcement that the shipment would not be stopped. Massachusetts Democratic Representative Edward Markey accused Bush of being "dangerously inconsistent'' for allowing the Scuds, along with 15 conventional warheads and drums of chemicals, to proceed to Yemen: "(He's) tough on Iraq, diffident on North Korea, ineffective in Iran, and hypocritical at home in initiating the development of 'mini-nuke' weapons, plutonium pits and other signs of our insincerity towards curtailing our own [weapons of mass destruction] technology,'' he told Reuters.
Bruce Campbell, from the Center for Policy Alternatives, an Ottawa-based think tank, said that the Scud controversy was an example of "do as I say, not as I do." According to UN statistics for 1996-2001, the US dominated the global arms bazaar, delivering 45 per cent of conventional weapons sales. In 2000, the US netted $14 billion in arms sales, double its closest competitors, Britain and Russia. "It just seems as if they want to protect their territory from up-comers like North Korea," said Campbell. "It's a double standard. It's about proprietary rights rather than outrage about what's actually being sold... The view of the US administration appears to be that it is our God-given right to police the world, and never mind the contradictions."
US policy is certainly awash in contradictions, agrees Steven Staples, arms and security expert for the policy group Polaris, based in Ottawa, Canada. "They are preparing to go to war with Iraq, even though no substantive link has been found between Iraq and Al-Qaeda. Meanwhile, North Korea admits it has a weapons of mass destruction program, and the US isn't doing anything. Furthermore, the US has been arming the Middle East for decades. In fact, the United States helped arm Saddam himself." He was referring to the 1980s when Saddam was a US ally in the region and Iran was considered the biggest threat. Many of Saddam's war crimes, now cited by Bush as reasons to go to war, were committed during the days of friendly ties with Washington.
"The US is in no position politically or ethically to bring peace to the region,'' said Staples. "My strongest hope is that the United Nations will hold out against the war. We are literally dangling by a thread between peace and war now with the UN in the balance. "Staples believes it will be a particularly difficult situation for Canada if the US goes to war without UN support because Canadian warships are already in the region as part of an international coalition under American leadership to enforce sanctions against Iraq. "It's much trickier politically to actually pull your forces out, than to join a campaign,'' he said. "It will be very interesting to see what Ottawa will do."
At Washington's Center for Arms Control, analyst Eric Floden agreed that Washington has no business criticizing other countries for doing what it does: "The bottom line is that the US doesn't want any country to buy weapons from anybody else, and it wants to dictate who can buy weapons and who can't." For example, Bush administration officials said the US will sell equipment to the military-backed Government of Algeria to help it combat Islamic militants. This makes Algeria the most recent nation in a long list of countries that buy arms from the US despite criticism from human rights groups.
Richard Sanders, coordinator of the Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade, says it's unfortunate that the people do not perceive the irony of the US position. "To us, it's mind-boggling. The US sells the world's largest volume of weapons to more countries than anybody else, they have 11/2 million troops stationed around the world, they spend more than $500 billion a year on the military budget ... they just fought a war against Afghanistan and they are ready to bomb Iraq. I guess it's not the kind of irony you laugh at."
Final comment must go to Toronto's Matthew Behrens. "We find the situation very ironic, given that we went to jail." On Tuesday, Behrens, along with 25 anti-war protesters from Raging Grannies to a 7-year-old, showed up at the gates of Wescam Inc. in Burlington, Ontario, Canada. The company makes communications equipment with military applications, and is being purchased by L-3 Communications Holdings Inc., a major supplier to the US Defence Department. The aim, according to Behrens, was to "conduct a citizens' weapons inspection of the facility," just as UN inspectors are inspecting installations in Iraq. It wasn't even a surprise visit, according to Behrens, whose organization, Homes Not Bombs, sent a letter to the company last week. But when they showed up, police cruisers were on the site and Behrens and two colleagues were taken to the regional police station in Halton and charged with trespassing.
"While UN inspectors have enjoyed unfettered (and often unannounced) access to a host of suspected Iraqi weapons productions sites," the Canadian protesters ended their attempted inspection with a "free ride in handcuffs to the local police station," the group said yesterday. "It was a clear indication of the hypocrisy that underscores the demands of nations which are armed... to the teeth that only one nation be disarmed."
