I woke up smiling this morning without knowing when my breakfast would be ready. I did not win a jackpot either. But the news of the rejection of the Chinese ship loaded with assorted arms for the desperate Mugabe government elated me the most. It made my day.
The controversial vessel, An Yue Jiang, like a bad product, has been drifting like a shaft driven by the wave, since South African workers unions protested the shipment. The workers had threatened not to offload its contents ferried in by a Chinese firm. It was laden with ammunition as well as rockets, mortar bombs and mortar tubes ordered by the Zimbabwe’s Ministry of Defence.
The shipment weighed 77 tons and was valued at $1.245 million. The invoice was dated Jan. 21, and the goods left China on March 15, two weeks after the Zimbabwe general elections, whose result is now being unduly delayed. Angered by the shipment, Rubin Phillip, the Anglican archbishop of KwaZulu-Natal, and Gerald Patrick Kearney, public activist, aided by the Southern African Litigation Centre, approached a South Africa’s High Court to halt the transportation of the arms across South Africa and the court granted the request before long.
But on Friday evening, when the authorities went to serve the court order on An Yue Jiang, it pulled up anchor and sailed away. It is being said that the ship might be heading for Congo, Maputo or Beijing. But the Chinese government says it might recall the ship with its contents.
As things are, the best destination for the ship is Beijing and that should be done at once. Zimbabweans need the result of the vote they cast on March 29, 2008 and not weapons of destruction. Enough of Chinese arms build-up in Africa in the name of economic transaction.
The controversial vessel, An Yue Jiang, like a bad product, has been drifting like a shaft driven by the wave, since South African workers unions protested the shipment. The workers had threatened not to offload its contents ferried in by a Chinese firm. It was laden with ammunition as well as rockets, mortar bombs and mortar tubes ordered by the Zimbabwe’s Ministry of Defence.
The shipment weighed 77 tons and was valued at $1.245 million. The invoice was dated Jan. 21, and the goods left China on March 15, two weeks after the Zimbabwe general elections, whose result is now being unduly delayed. Angered by the shipment, Rubin Phillip, the Anglican archbishop of KwaZulu-Natal, and Gerald Patrick Kearney, public activist, aided by the Southern African Litigation Centre, approached a South Africa’s High Court to halt the transportation of the arms across South Africa and the court granted the request before long.
But on Friday evening, when the authorities went to serve the court order on An Yue Jiang, it pulled up anchor and sailed away. It is being said that the ship might be heading for Congo, Maputo or Beijing. But the Chinese government says it might recall the ship with its contents.
As things are, the best destination for the ship is Beijing and that should be done at once. Zimbabweans need the result of the vote they cast on March 29, 2008 and not weapons of destruction. Enough of Chinese arms build-up in Africa in the name of economic transaction.
Links:
No comments:
Post a Comment