The
Hero’s Acre statue in Namibia, pictured above, carries in one hand, a
Kalashnikov rifle, while in the other hand, he appears to be throwing what
looks like a Soviet-era stick grenade. This is no coincidence. This
communist-style design was built by a North Korean firm.
Apparently,
across Africa, governments have quietly been doing deals with the North Korean
state for years. And as North Korean leader Kim Jong Un marches closer to
arming an intercontinental ballistic missile with a nuclear warhead, the US and
the United Nations are paying more attention on the connection North Korea is
having with these African countries. The North Korean company that is making
these deals is called Mansudae, a state-owned enterprise that is running large construction projects
abroad, including ammunition factories, presidential palaces, and apartment
blocks. Sometimes they even build monuments, such as liberation heroes and
independence movements, which look fairly similar to the statues of Kim II Sung
or Kim Jong II. These contracts have been making quite some money for the North
Koreans.
When
asked about the contracts, Mansudae refuses to respond whereas the Namibian
government admits they had contracts, but also say that they did nothing wrong.
This is a grey zone, where the Namibians could indirectly be helping the North
Koreans acquire financial support which could indirectly support the
development of nuclear weapons, yet the verification that the two countries
still have a connection is still unclear. UN policies are very strict, though,
and it is still unclear whether Namibia has broken these regulations. The
country could also be employing North Korean workers to build weapons for the
Namibians. The investigation is ongoing.
References:
-Mark Buckup
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