It's Official: North Korea Fires Cuban Weapons Smuggler

capitolhillcubans

These dictatorships are so predictable.

Amid a U.N. Security Council investigation into the smuggling of Cuban weapons to North Korea, which is in blatant violation of international sanctions, Castro and Kim have moved swiftly to pass the blame to so-called "hard-liners" within their totalitarian regimes.

(In an old propaganda trick, if they focus the media narrative on labeling others within their regime as "hard-liners," they -- by default -- must be considered "soft-liners.")

Taking no risks whatsoever, the chief of Cuba's air force and air defense systems, General Pedro Mendiondo Gomez, died (was killed) over the summer in a mysterious car wreck.

So much for the "soft-liner" approach.

Meanwhile, today, the Kim dictatorship made it official (as we'd posted over a month ago) that its military chief, General Kim Kyok-sik (pictured lovingly above with General Raul Castro), has been officially replaced.

Pass the hand sanitizer, please.

From The New York Times:

North Korean Leader Tightens Grip with Removal of Top General

North Korea’s state media on Thursday confirmed the removal of a hard-line general as its military chief, the latest sign of a military overhaul in which the country’s supreme leader, Kim Jong-un, has replaced nearly half of his country’s top officials in the past two years, according to South Korean officials.

The firing of Gen. Kim Kyok-sik and the rise of Gen. Ri Yong-gil to replace him as head of the general staff of the North’s Korean People’s Army was the latest in a series of high-profile reshuffles that Kim Jong-un has engineered to consolidate his grip on the North’s top elites.