China gave 800 jeeps to N.Korea before rocket launch: group

A group of former North Korean defectors in South Korea said Friday that the North imported some 800 military jeeps from China between late last month and early this month.

North Korea Intellectuals Solidarity also released a video clip of the jeeps being transported to the North, saying the footage was filmed by one of its members in China. In the video, khaki-colored jeeps are seen being transported to North Korea on a train.

The group said the jeeps are presents given by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to his senior military officers to celebrate the centennial birthday of his grandfather and the North`s founder Kim Il Sung.

The jeeps in the video appeared to be those of the BJ series manufactured by China’s Beijing Jeep Corp. The model is an imitation of the four-wheel drive UAZ military jeep of Russia.

North Korea directly imported the UAZ in the Cold War era, but since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Pyongyang has imported the Chinese model.

In North Korea, jeeps are used solely in military operations and commanders of brigades, regiments or Demilitarized Zone police battalions can ride them. Vehicles patrolling the Sino-North Korean border areas are all Chinese. Many of the North’s military trucks are also from China.

According to a U.S. Congressional Research Service report released Tuesday, China provided 3,000 to 4,000 military trucks and jeeps to the North in aid or export last year alone.

Blocking such transactions is not easy. Though U.N. Security Council Resolution 1874 bans the export of all weapons to the North except small-size firearms, the regulation is not so clear on military vehicles weapons. There is no way to block the transactions if the North claims the vehicles are for commercial purposes.

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told members of the House Armed Services Committee Thursday, “I`m sure there’s been some help coming from China. I don`t know, you know, the exact extent of that. I think we’d have to deal with it in another context in terms of the sensitivity of that information. But clearly there’s been assistance along those lines.”

On the North’s missile capabilities, he warned that the threat is growing because the communist state is capable of at least transporting inter-continental ballistic missiles.

In an interview with CNN, Panetta said of the North Korean threat, "Unfortunately these days, there’s a hell of a lot that keeps me awake. But that’s one that tops the list.”

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