A couple of days ago I blogged with some jubilation about South African dock workers who were blocking a large shipment of Chinese arms destined for Zimbabwe. Perhaps realizing that they were unlikely to offload their weapons, and had entered the eye of a media feeding frenzy, the vessel pulled anchor and left the port of Durban, South Africa. It was speculated, and even reported that the ship was headed for Maputo, Mozambique, but that appears not to be the case. Although the ship’s destination is unknown, The Cape Argus observed,
naval intelligence sources confirmed that at 5pm yesterday the ship was spotted steaming south past Cape St Francis - ‘heading towards Luanda.’
But will the An Yue Jiang actually make it to Angola or will the ship be forced to stop and refuel first? This is Zimbabwe offers interesting commentary on that and everything else. Whoever is at the helm probably hopes to make it to Luanda without a messy pit stop. Angola would be a prime place to dock and offload the weapons, considering that the government doesn’t seem to see much need for continued work on the human rights front.
What to do about this sad turn of events? The International Action Network on Small Arms has set up a “Stop the Zimbabwe Arms Shipment” petition. They also have a map that tracks the position of the An Yue Jiang. I’m not quite sure how they’re doing that, since I read that the ship’s transponder was disabled. But whatever. In the absence of other information, the map is kind of cool. Finally, This is Zimbabwe has a button that you can link to, to inform others about action alerts and the IANSA petition.
4 responses so far ↓
tumwijuke // April 22, 2008 at 12:11 am
Thank you for the IANSA link.
Either way, this Zimbabwe arms shipment deal is going to end badly. At least we can thank the stars that the deal was exposed and that those with a sliver of support for the Mugabe government will begin to think twice (hopefully).
amanii // April 22, 2008 at 5:33 pm
No problem.
I totally agree. Those weapons are going to end up somewhere, and most likely they’ll make their way to Zimbabwe. At least there’s been a serious outcry over this, leaving little chance it will get swept under the rug. It’s great that this came to light, but it also makes me wonder what other plans ZANU PF is working on, that we don’t know about.
propaganda press // April 24, 2008 at 11:06 am
china has called home the ship and weapons
spread the word
http://propagandapress.org/2008/04/24/an-yue-jiang-called-home-by-chinese-government/
amanii // April 24, 2008 at 3:02 pm
Don’t break out the party hats and confetti yet. The An Yue Jiang is probably still headed to Angola. Rather than rehash the latest news here, I’ll just suggest that you visit This is Zimbabwe (see link in blogroll at right). To my knowledge, they have the best updates available.
International Action Network on Small Arms is also tracking the ship, and they show it moving significantly closer to Angola.
This is kind of a tricky situation, because trusted press sources have made incorrect statements on the whereabouts of the vessel. At this point, I’m more inclined to believe citizen journalists and bloggers who live in the region where this is happening. I’ll be sitting on this until I feel like there’s some information that’s backed up by solid proof.
Leave a Comment