Zimbabwe arms cargo may go back to China
A shipload of Chinese arms intended for Zimbabwe may have to return home undelivered after sparking an international outcry.
The freighter was still at sea tonight having been turned away from four countries in southern Africa.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry said today that although its cargo of guns and bombs was a “legitimate” trade it might have to return without delivering it.
The ship arrived in South Africa last week, and human rights groups and others said they feared the arms could be used by president Robert Mugabe’s regime to clamp down on its opposition.
A South African group persuaded a judge to bar the weapons from going through the country to landlocked Zimbabwe.
The An Yue Jiang then sailed away from South Africa, and private groups and government officials in Mozambique, Angola and Namibia also objected to the weapons, though Namibia said the ship could refuel there if necessary.
“As far as I know, the carrier is now considering carrying back the cargo,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said.
Although she offered no details, the move appeared to indicate a backdown in the face of refusals by Zimbabwe’s neighbours to allow the weapons to be offloaded and taken through their territory.
There is no international arms embargo against Zimbabwe, and China is one of Zimbabwe’s main trade partners and allies. But China’s relationship with Mugabe is often pointed to as an example of its willingness to deal with authoritarian regimes in order to secure commodities and markets in Africa.
Although China’s global weapons exports are considered tiny, Beijing is a principal exporter of cheap, simple small arms blamed for fuelling violence in Sudan and other parts of Africa.
Zimbabwe’s government has refused to publish the results of the presidential election held more than three weeks ago, and the opposition says that is part of a plan to steal the vote. There are reports of increasing violence against the opposition.
Mugabe’s deputy information minister Bright Matonga said his country had the right to acquire arms from legitimate sources.
Nelson Chamisa, a spokesman for opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, said he was welcomed news that the ship would not land its cargo.
“It would be pleasing to the people of Zimbabwe to note that there has been solidarity on the continent to stop the arming of the (Mugabe) regime at the expense of the people,” Chamisa said.
“Instead of importing guns, we should be importing syringes, books for kids. We should be importing food for the people,” Mr Chamisa said. “We are not at war. If anything we have to have a war against hunger, poverty, a lack of democracy, dictatorship.”
US intelligence agencies were tracking the Chinese vessel and American diplomats have been instructed to press authorities in South Africa, Mozambique, Namibia and Angola not to allow it to dock.
Meanwhile today Zimbabwean church leaders issued a joint statement calling for international intervention to help end the country’s election crisis, saying people were being tortured, abducted and some murdered in a campaign against opposition supporters.
The leaders of all church denominations in Zimbabwe also called for the immediate announcement of results from the March 29 presidential election.
Mr Chamisa, the opposition spokesman, said he had visited a hospital in south-eastern Zimbabwe and seen a pregnant woman who had been stabbed. He said he also saw an 85-year-old women whose legs had been broken.
