In its first report to the UN Security Council (UNSC) committee  on North Korean sanctions, Mozambique this month denied alleged violations and defended ongoing medical field cooperation.

The implementation report, officially dated May 1 but which only became available on the committee’s website in recent days, is the first from the southern African nation after years of missed deadlines under its obligations as a UN member state.

It comes as the country has been accused in past UN Panel of Experts (PoE) reports of engaging in military and other types of cooperation with North Korean individuals and entities in violation of sanctions.

The only North Koreans remaining in Mozambique, the new implementation report said, are nearly 100 medical doctors — who they say do not violate a ban on DPRK laborers abroad but whose contracts will nevertheless not be renewed.

Mozambique said in the report that the government “strictly adheres to the enforcement of the sanctions regime against the [DPRK] imposed by the Security Council,” and sought to directly respond to accusations in the 2018 PoE report.

These were written as alleged violations of “(a) travel restrictions; (b) arms and related material embargo; (c) proliferation of networks that represent the interests of individuals or entities covered by the sanctions; (d) freezing of assets; (e) financial measures; and (f) ban on importing statues from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.”

On supposed defense sector cooperation, Mozambique said they “formally suspended its cooperation with the authorities of the [DPRK] in the field of defence and security in September 2016.”

“Currently, there are no bilateral exchanges in terms of training and capacity-building, or military or paramilitary advisory and consultancy activities with the [DPRK],” it added.

The 2018 PoE report went into extensive detail on contacts and activities of North Korean individuals and entities in Mozambique, notably saying that a Mozambican government-controlled entity was working with the DPRK’s Haegeumgang Trading Corporation on air defense systems.  

Haegeumgang was also said in the 2019 PoE report to have “been engaged in prohibited military activities in Mozambique.”

But in its report this month, the government — without addressing the possibility of past cooperation — said they currently have “no relationship with public or private entities in the [DPRK] that are dedicated to the arms trade or trafficking, such as the Haegeumgang Trading Corporation.”

In terms of other general business ties with North Korea, the report said the government ordered all companies “to suspend, with immediate effect, all commercial operations with that country and ordered commercial banks not to authorize any payments related to companies linked to the [DPRK].”

Further preventative measures and “stepped up enforcement,” including more inspections of banks, were initiated to head off financial transactions with the North of any kind and to prevent Pyongyang from “acquir[ing] resources for its nuclear programme.”

Mozambique also denied any connection to DPRK entities “that specialize in the construction of monuments, statues or medals for decoration, in particular the Mansudae Overseas Project.”

This refers to an accusation in the 2018 PoE report saying a statue of a former president was constructed in the country by Mansudae’s Namibia operation, with plans dating back to 2011 for over $1 million worth of additional projects.

Also denied in the report was any cooperation with the DPRK “in the technical-scientific, teaching, training and capacity-building domains,” or the import from the country of any “prohibited materials.”

The issue of North Koreans earning income abroad, which officially became a prohibited activity under UN sanctions at the end of December, was addressed in the report, with Mozambique claiming extensive, deliberate actions to prevent any violation.

It said the government acted to “suspend and interdict the hiring of labour from” the DPRK and even initiated a “thorough and targeted assessment [of an electronic labor platform] in order to identify” North Koreans.

This review “revealed that, with the exception of medical doctors working under a specific protocol in the health sector, no citizen of that country had been hired since 2015 to date.”

MEDICAL FIELD COOPERATION

Mozambique defended ongoing medical cooperation and North Korea’s contributions as vital towards fulfilling UN Sustainable Development Goals, but did say it would necessarily end in 2021.

The new implementation report said that, at the time it was submitted in April, there were 97 North Korean doctors “of various specialties” working in the country, “mainly active in the provision of primary health-care assistance.” 

Their presence, it added, was “aimed at increasing the doctor-inhabitant ratio, a main handicap and constraint of the National Health System.”

All appear to be allowed to stay until their two-year contracts expire in 2020 and 2021, according to the report, citing waivers in sanctions resolutions on humanitarian cooperation.

But the government “decided to suspend the Protocol of Cooperation in the Health Sector and terminate contracts” after receiving further clarification on the rules from the PoE in late November last year, the report said.

It also addressed the only detail on Mozambique in the latest PoE report released last month, reporting a “clandestine clinic” operated by a North Korean doctor named Jong Il Son was closed in 2019 and he was repatriated.

Mozambique concluded their report with a request that the UN address a vacuum in the medical field created by the ban on DPRK income-earners abroad, and directly provide assistance due to their being responsible for the shortage.

The country asked for support “in securing … Immediate replacement of specialist doctors who have been repatriated” and in local capacity-building in the absence of the North Korean doctors.

North Korea and Mozambique, despite UN sanctions, continue to maintain friendly relations rooted in Cold War camaraderie.

The implementation report said that since an agreement in 1978, bilateral relations have been “characterized by solidarity, cordiality and friendship, including the implementation of economic and social projects.”

Edited by Oliver Hotham