Saturday, October 12, 2019

The DPRK vessel Wise Honest before she was hijacked on the high seas by Indonesian authorities at the request of the United States.

S peaking of provocations, Yonhap yesterday reported: WASHINGTON, Oct. 9 (Yonhap) -- A North Korean vessel that was seized by the United States for suspected sanctions violations has departed American Samoa under tow to be transferred to its purchaser, the U.S. Coast Guard said. The 17,061-ton Wise Honest, one of the North's largest bulk carriers, was seized by the U.S. in May after it was intercepted by Indonesian authorities for allegedly transferring coal and machinery in violation of United Nations sanctions on the regime. The ship has since been docked in American Samoa. "Following a five-month stay in the port of Pago Pago, American Samoa, the 580-foot motor vessel Wise Honest, a 17,061-ton, single-hull bulk carrier ship connected to U.S. sanctions violations, departed under tow Monday," the Coast Guard said in a press release published on its website Tuesday evening. "This action comes after an investigation by the Department of Justice and the sale of the ship in a Southern District of New York Federal Court-directed auction," it said, without elaborating on who bought the vessel and for what price. The Yonhap report says the Wise Honest is the first DPRK vessel seized by the U.S. This is technically correct, but the seizure of the Pong Su by Australia in 2003 was also almost certainly done at U.S. request. In a wholly gratuitous insult to the DPRK, which is continously cited for its "self-imposed isolation" and "poverty," the Australian lackeys used the Pong Su for target practice. If Trump was anything but a semi-literate Mafia capo he would have halted the sale of the Wise Honest and announced an investigation into the Pong Su incident before last Saturday's Stockholm meeting with the DPRK. That none of this took place is evidence that the U.S. "opening" to the DPRK is just a standard "bait-and-switch" negotiating tactic which is, itself, part of a U.S. imperialism regime change operation.