The ship's name may appear to be the North Korean cargo ship, Jin Jon 2, but don't be fooled: it's still the Arctic Sea.
(Part Four, in an apparently never ending series.)
The last time we left off the saga of the Arctic Sea, the crew had been freed by the (once again mighty?) Russian navy–after a bizarre incidence of piracy in European water. But now, you’d think with the alleged pirates thrown into the slammer, the story would end. And yet …
What exactly befell the ship, called the Arctic Sea, is still largely unknown. In fact, nearly eight weeks after it was supposedly liberated by the Russian Navy, the ship is said to remain at sea under military control and has yet to make port for needed repairs. Four members of the ship’s crew have not been able to leave, despite repeated calls by their families for their release.
As if that wasn’t strange enough, one more bizarre tidbit has leaked out: the hijackers tried to change the name of the ship to “Jon Jin 2.” It just so happens that the name, as well as the corresponding identification number, belong to a North Korean general cargo ship. Which looks nothing like the Arctic Sea, and was docked in Angola at the time.
Photographs from the Russian Prosecutor General’s Investigative Committee document the new name, painted on the ship:
The Arctic Sea's masquerade.
The second in in command insists there was nothing but lumber on the ship.
“There was only lumber on board,” Mr. Falin said. “I was personally in all areas and in the ballast tanks. There was nothing else in there. I can say this with 100 percent certainty.”
Perhaps. Hijackers, what do you have to say for yourselves?
The hijackers … continue to deny any wrongdoing, maintaining that they were ecologists conducting research in the Baltic Sea when they encountered inclement weather and sought refuge aboard the Arctic Sea.
Well, I bet those Russian government officials and investigators will give us the straight truth. The government, naturally, maintains that there was nothing but lumber aboard as well, but why would the wayward “ecologists” commandeer this ship in heavily trafficked/policed European waters? Why would Russia send warships on a frantic chase … three weeks after the hijacking? And why would they not let the crew go over a month later, nor let the ship dock? The Russian government line and Choose Your Own Ending to the Tale, after the jump.
This month, Andrei A. Nesterenko, a Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman, said Russian officials had finished inspecting the Arctic Sea and planned to hand the ship over to its owners.
“Given the end of the investigation, Russia does not see the necessity in detaining the ship and does not have those intentions,” Mr. Nesterenko said.
Yet, Mr. Matveyev said the navy had given little indication that it would make good on such promises. Twice, he said, company representatives have sought to board the ship after getting permission from Russian investigators. “Nevertheless, the ship was not handed over,” he said.
A Russian Navy official, who agreed to speak openly on the condition of anonymity, suggested that any delay was the ship owner’s fault and that the navy had “fulfilled our task: we liberated the ship from these hijackers.” The official said that the owners had been having financial difficulties and that Mr. Matveyev was stalling a final resolution in order to avoid costly port fees. When told about the comments, Mr. Matveyev denied the accusation.
That’s certainly believable, at least compared with the conspiracy theorists accusatoins:
In September, a secret visit to Russia by Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, set off fresh talk among some analysts, who suggested, without any proof, that Israeli intelligence agents had uncovered a plot to smuggle missiles or other weapons aboard the Arctic Sea to a so-called rogue country.
The end to this story is a sort of choose-your-own-misadventure. Think of all the different paths we can go down with a North Korea connection! Cold War (2)! Nuclear proliferation!”Rogue” states! How about this one: Russia is proliferating (nuclear?) arms/technology to Israel, but tries to cover its tracks by pinning it on North Korean sales to some nefarious African/Arab state? Or, Russia hopes to provoke another Korean War to pin down the U.S.? Or Putin thought the Black Sea fleet was getting bored and needed some action? Or two Russians, two Latvians, and four Estonians just thought they could get rich quick, Somali-style, with a simple hijacking/ransom payoff, only to catch the Russians in a resurgent mood?
Really, endless possibilities.
(HT: Tom Dolan)
Tags: Arctic Sea, Israel, Jin Jon 2, Middle East, Netanyahu, North Korea, proliferation, Russia