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| Africa Subsaharan | |
| Zimbabwe weapons ship from China rerouted through Angola | |
| 2008-04-20 | |
| A Chinese ship loaded with arms and ammunition sailed away from a South African waters and is on its way to Luanda, Angola to unload its cargo bound for Zimbabwe. And China wonders why they're having such a hard time with the Olympics! South Africa's High Court ruled Friday the cargo could be offloaded in the Durban port, but it could not pass over South Africa roads to get to Zimbabwe, a country in crisis because of an election stalemate. Durban's dockworkers also said they would not handle the cargo, fearing the arms would be used by the Zimbabwean government against its own people.
"This union has a proud history of taking action against regimes which it disapproves of in the past, but this is certainly the first time it has gotten involved in an African regime like Zimbabwe," David Cockroft, general secretary of the International Transport Workers Federation, said. "I don't think there's much doubt that the (dock) workers ... are very strongly against the Mugabe regime," he said. Cockroft said that arms had almost certainly been shipped to Zimbabwe through Durban in the past, but the size of this shipment -- "more than a million pounds" and 3.5 million rounds of rifles, small arms, mortar shells and rocket-propelled grenades -- made it more noteworthy. Earlier, South African Revenue Service spokesman Adrian Lackay told CNN "that it is commonplace for landlocked neighboring states in southern Africa to use South African ports of entry for the transshipment of goods." Lackay indicated that the ship had complied with South African regulations requiring it to disclose the contents of the cargo it is carrying. A government spokesman, Thembo Maseko, told CNN, "There were arms on the ship." The Chinese Foreign Ministry issued a statement in a fax to the Reuters news agency saying that China and Zimbabwe have normal trade relations, that the Chinese government takes a "prudent and responsible" position on arms deals and that it does not involve itself in the internal affairs of other countries. And for that very same reason, I think Taiwan needs nukes. | |
| Posted by:gorb |
| #3 AFRICANCRISIS > claims that ARMED CHINESE TROOPS were observed and working alongside Mugabe's as per weapons ship-delivery incident - author fears Zimbabwe has become "A CHINESE COLONY" pro forma??? |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2008-04-20 21:49 |
| #2 No. China wants the stability. It also doesn't care how the nation it extracts the resources from is run, only that its access to resources is unimpeded. |
| Posted by: Pappy 2008-04-20 11:08 |
| #1 That should make things a little easier. Is china bent on destabilizing the entire continent? |
| Posted by: Angalet Barnsmell6064 2008-04-20 09:59 |