A curious event this week threw open the door to the inner secrets of Cuba's military.
A cargo ship full of sugar was seized in Panama. Inside the vessel were found two missiles and two cold war era MIGs that were partially disassembled.
The vessel was North Korean. So powerful is the dictator's grip on its people, that the vessel's captain immediately tried to commit suicide.
Hard times have befallen Cuba. For more than 4 decades, the embargo has crippled Cuba's economy. The infrastructure and everything in between is crumbling.
Cuba's painful statement that the two aircrafts were being sent to North Korea for repairs was probably a honest admission. So beat up and obsolete are these fighter jets, that they are in disrepair, and Cuba has no way to fix them, due to the embargo. Desperate, it has disassembled them like toys and hid them in a sugar shipment to North Korea.
Panama for now has custody of the ship.
The MIGs, two of the MIG21 class, are so obsolete they go back to the 1950s. The antiradar equipment in them is also completely outclassed by modern technology.
The reason why Cuba chose North Korea to repair its MIGs, some surmise, is probably due to the fact that they could barter on some product, while Russia, no longer coddling the island, would require hard cash to do the same.
Source: CNN/ 7.18.13
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