The Chinese weapons-carrying ship bound for Zimbabwe, as mentioned in last week’s post, is apparently returning to China with its load, after dropping its Angola-bound cargo (but none of its Zimbabwe-bound cargo) in Angola. When the ship anchored in South Africa to discharge its cargo bound for Zimbabwe, the government said that it would do nothing to stop a legal transaction between two sovereign States. The people thought otherwise. Newspapers and radio shows discussed how the weapons were likely to be used by the government of Zimbabwe against its own people. Dock workers refused to handle the cargo. Demonstrators threatened to block its passage.
A judge issued an injunction preventing the cargo being transported across South Africa; Zambia’s President Levy Mwanawasa called on all of Africa’s coastal states to prevent the ship from entering their waters, and finally the ship seems to have been recalled by China, possibly fearing more protests in the lead-up to the Beijing Olympic Games. Concerted action by the people seems to have had a successful outcome, despite the opposition of the political authorities.
The Secretary General of the Council of South African Trade Unions, Zwelinzima Vavi, says that the older political leaders see themselves as representatives of the liberation movements, and they fear that power is passing to trade unions and civil society. Zimbabwe’s opposition party, Movement for Democratic Change, is led by trade unions and civil society, and politicians in southern Africa are therefore reluctant to speak out about what is happening in Zimbabwe.