Remember the shipload of Chinese weapons bound for Zimbabwe?

by jayp | June 26, 2008 at 10:27 pm | 297 views | 6 comments

[CNN] Zimbabwe marks independence as tension mounts

China: Ship carrying weapons to Zimbabwe may head home

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The "Ship of Shame" loaded with Chinese weapons bound for Zimbabwe at the height of the March election drama captured a huge amount of international attention. But what ever happened to those weapons? Press reports told us that the ship was denied docking privileges in Maputo, Mozambique and then the news item disappeared. A bit of searching turned up the following paragraphs published in May after the weapons had arrived at their destination. No doubt they've played a part in the recent violence against MDC supporters.

After dockworkers in the South African port of Durban refused to unload the vessel, the An Yue Jiang attempted to drop its cargo at the Namibian port of Walvis Bay. But Namibian civil leaders and union pressure obliged the government—normally friendly to Mugabe—to deny the ship landing rights, and it was forced back out to sea.

After a several-week odyssey, however, ZANU-PF officials boasted that they had finally taken delivery of the cargo. The An Yue Jang reportedly unloaded the weapons in May in the Angolan port of Lobito. From there, the cargo traveled by train to the Democratic Republic of Congo, where it was loaded onto regular military supply flights and flown to Harare.

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amyjudd

at 22:30 on June 26th, 2008

good stuff:

jayp, I like this story. It's good stuff.

Good digging - thanks for the update!

julianw

at 22:50 on June 26th, 2008

good stuff:

jayp, thanks for this. Its funny that the weapons-ship just disappeared from the media after it got turned away from S.A.

eastvanray

at 01:54 on June 27th, 2008

I wonder how much the bribe was?

Maireid Sullivan

at 03:19 on June 27th, 2008

good stuff:

jayp, I like this story. It's good stuff.

Thank you very much for this update!

I was hopeful that the Chinese would take them back, in some kind of humanitarian gesture, as suggested in the earlier report!

How naive of me!

zichi

at 03:47 on June 27th, 2008

China which is frequently accused of exporting weapons to the wrong countries, like in the recent attempted shipment of arms to Zimbabwe, is only about tenth in the league of table of weapon exporters which is now topped by the UK followed by the USA who sold weapons to Iraq, some of which killed our own soldiers?