James Gibney, Columnist

Cuba's Brown Sugar of Mass Destruction

Did Cuba collude with North Korea on illegal arms shipments?

July 16, 2013 at 6:56 PM UTC

James Gibney is an editor for Bloomberg Opinion. Previously an editor at the Atlantic, the New York Times, Smithsonian, Foreign Policy and the New Republic, he was also in the U.S. Foreign Service from 1989 to 1997 in India, Japan and Washington.

Provide news feedback or report an error

Site feedback:

Take our Survey

This article is for subscribers only.

To paraphrase Ricky Ricardo, "Raul Castro, you got some 'splainin' to do!"

Panama's president, Ricardo Martinelli, revealed yesterday in a radio interview and in Twitter posts that Panama had found "sophisticated missile equipment" on a North Korean ship bound homeward from Cuba. Such shipments would be a clear violation of United Nations Security Council resolution 1718, adopted in 2006 after one of North Korea's three nuclear tests. It forbids the import from or export to North Korea of most weapons systems besides small arms.