The opening scene of the movie Lord of War is a quick life-history of an AK-47 bullet, from the bullet's point of view, taking us from the machine stamping out the brass casings in Eastern Europe, to a guerrilla street battle in some anonymous African country, into the skull of a young boy soldier. As you watch it, you realize soon what is coming, and want to stop it.
Right now, there's a shipment of arms, including three million of those AK-47 bullets, on its way to help Robert Mugabe put down the opposition movement in Zimbabwe. He couldn't even win a rigged election, so the next step was guns.
We, people around the world, are working on doing just that, right now, with one particular shipment of arms, and we may be succeeding. If so, it'll be a small victory, but an important one, and the way this has come together is inspiring. But even this small victory is still not certain, and more daylight, and more international pressure, is needed. This means you.
Please read on for more information, or go to this site to help take action.
Yes, there are very promising developments in this story. But no, it is not over yet. Much of the actual situation is still not clear. Information being the biggest weapon in the hands of anti-authoritarians, obfuscation of the facts in this story is rampant, from Zimbabwe to China.
Background: The March 29 Election.
I'm not going to give a lot of information on this. March 29, 2008 the oppressive government of Robert Mugabe faced its most serious electoral challenge yet. After plenty of voter intimidation and irregularities, the government has refused to release official election results. That very fact, as well as most data that can be gleaned from outside tabulation of local polling station results, indicate that Mugabe lost the election to the opposition MDC's Morgan Tsvangirai.
The obscuring of the election results is the first big obfuscation. For more information on this, see this IDASA report (PDF). Currently, there's a recount going on, which the opposition believes to be a ploy to allow more tampering.
More to the point, it's yet another delaying tactic, giving Mugabe more time to ratchet up the violence and intimidation against the opposition, which has increased constantly since the election. Torture camps have been set up, among many other horrors. Of course, this is not new in Mugabe's Zimbabwe. This is the context into which a shipload of arms is to be injected. On Mugabe's side. Many are warning it will become a bloodbath.
The arms shipment:
I first heard about this on because of a visibility campaign (described in my first diary about this Friday night) which got me to the website of Shortwave Radio Africa, which had at its head a picture of a ship, and an inspiring, chilling story already in progress:
Chinese cargo ship An Yue Jiang carrying 77 tonnes of small arms destined for Zimbabwe.
The ship arrived at the port in Durban on Wednesday. However, South African dockers are refusing to unload the weapons. The union SATAWU says the ship must return to China with the arms on board, and a peaceful solution must be sought to the political instability in Zimbabwe.
The arms, including three million rounds of ammunition suitable for AK47s and 1,500 rocket-propelled grenades, were ordered just before the March 29 election.
The Mugabe regime, it seems, knew in advance it would need more guns when the election was over, and had ordered them from China ahead of time (though the paperwork was apparently finalized only on April 1st). China also seems to have military advisers on the ground in Mutare. But Zimbabwe is landlocked, so the arms had to come through a port in another country. When the ship arrived in the port of Durban, South Africa, on the 14th of April, they got a surprise.
The First Stand: The Durban Dockworkers:
The arms would have gotten to Zimbabwe around April 16th or 17th. The South African government, even at short notice, had no problem with assisting the transshipment across country. But word got out about the shipment, and SATAWU, the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union, took a stand, refusing to unload the ship.
SA Transport and Allied Workers Union (Satawu) general secretary Randall Howard said: "Satawu does not agree with the position of the South African government not to intervene with this shipment of weapons.
"Our members employed at Durban Container Terminal will not unload this cargo neither will any of our members in the truck driving sector move this cargo by road." He said the ship, the An Yue Jiang, should not dock in Durban and should return to China.
South Africa cannot be seen to be facilitating the flow of weapons into Zimbabwe at a time where there is a political dispute and a volatile situation between the Zanu-PF and the MDC."
"The view of our members is that nobody should ask us to unload these weapons," he said.
Their action was the focus of DHinMI's frontpage story Saturday, "An Example of Why Authoritarians Fear Labor Unions." The ship stayed at anchor outside the harbor for four days. Then a judge issued an order requiring the ship to be held. The Sheriff of Durban headed out to the ship to issue the order Saturday evening, but it upped anchor and left just ahead of him. Had it not done so, the arms would be stuck in the port, and given the climate of opposition growing in South Africa, probably stuck permanently.
But it escaped, and people began speculating on where it would next attempt to offload.
Headed for Angola, probably.
The ship had turned off its maritime transponders as it left the Durban, and again, fog enveloped the story. Where would it try next? Rumors and confusion still abound.
SATAWU's umbrella union organization, COSATU called on unions in neighboring countries to boycott the vessel. Petitions from avaaz and iansa, helped out, and international awareness increased as the story spread via the internet, as well as the BBC, and eventually the New York Times and many other papers around the world.
Although it is still conceivable that there is a series of ruses going on to slip the cargo in where no one is looking, all indications are the ship is headed up the west coast of Africa, to a port either in Namibia or in Angola. Angola has strong ties to China, and is a recipient of much Chinese foreign aid. However, to get from Angolan ports to Zimbabwe, the arms would have to pass through Zambia or Namibia, and Zambia's president Levy Mwanawasa issued a statement urging all Zimbabwe's neighbors to boycott the ship, so it's unlikely the arms will make it through there. (Follow that same link for a map to understand the geographical situation better.)
Where we are now:
The most promising news on the arms shipment came yesterday, surprisingly, from the Bush Administration. They're applying diplomatic pressure to get the southern African nations to turn the ship away (h/t MT Spaces):
The Bush administration is intervening with governments in southern Africa to prevent a Chinese ship carrying weapons for Zimbabwe's security forces from unloading its cargo).
[...]
U.S. intelligence agencies are tracking the vessel, the An Yue Jiang, and American diplomats have been instructed to press authorities in at least four nations — South Africa, Mozambique, Namibia and Angola — not to allow it to dock, the officials told The Associated Press. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss delicate diplomatic talks.
The most hopeful thing about this is that, if the US is watching carefully, it may be hard for the ship to transfer cargo at sea to another ship, or to offload surreptitiously. But even if they see it, will they tell the world, or do anything about it? Maybe, now the story's out. But things are still up in the air.
Early this morning came news that the ship had asked permission to refuel at Namibia's port of Walvis Bay. The reaction from the Namibian government so far is not promising.
[Namibian Minister of Information, Joel Kaapanda] noted that Zimbabwe was a landlocked country and often used Walvis Bay.
"I don't understand why this ship is so special," he said.
I haven't seen news on this since. It is possible this is a ploy to get into port, where they may have arrangements to unload more or less surreptitiously. Or they could be just asking to refuel. They could have refueled and be gone by now, on their way to Angola. [update: according to the BBC they're not there yet, but off the Cape of Good Hope this morning, so presumably they're calling well ahead] Or they could even be giving up and refueling for a return to China.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said the weapons were ordered last year and were "perfectly normal".
But she said the ship's owners were considering bringing the ship back.
Ms Jiang said this was because it was proving impossible for Zimbabwe to receive the arms but this has not been confirmed by the Chinese shipping company.
Again, promising, but most people who are involved in fighting this are highly skeptical. Sadly, there is apparently another shipment on its way, and this one will be harder to block, since it's coming by plane. Pressure needs to be maintained, from as many angles as possible.
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Enough is Enough. Taking Action:
The Zimbabwe Civic Action Support Group's site Sokwanele.com, has been tracking this story from the beginning, and is one of the best sources for links to stories about it. According to the site, "Sokwanele" means "Enough is Enough."
Their action page has become the central location for people to brainstorm about actions to be taken, and report stories. It is still the place to go for current news, and to learn how to take action. You will find there addresses for Angolan and Namibian embassies, maritime ministries, and unions, and much else. There is a letter on that page in Portuguese and English to send to people you're talking to in Angola or its embassies. People have been looking into hiring safari bush pilots to go out and track the ship themselves.
I love this post by scotchcart on the Sokwanele action page, about how this is being done by so many interested people, coming together from around the world:
It works so well, doesn’t it?
One person tells another, people contribute, and the word gets out. People take heart and do some more. We never know what will be contributed next. It arrives unbidden!
[...]
Sokwanele, you are doing a fantastic job! Now to find some aviators. Shippers, we want to find that cargo.
[...]
If you aren’t a shipper or an aviator or an internet whiz, then petition like mad. Raise awareness with decision makers. Get newspapers to ask the right questions (comment on line - tell them the questions!). Comment on blogs.
And let the ENABLERS know we understand exactly who they are and what they are enabling. Get the information into the public domain. It spreads like wild fire.
So along with going to the Sokwanele site and looking up action items, here are some other thoughts on what we can do to help:
Contact your Congressional representatives, and make sure they're aware of the situation, and are working on it. You could even contact the White House and State Department, since they seem (gasp!) to be on the right side of this. If you can get their attention right now, ask Senators Obama and Clinton (and McCain, for that matter) what they're doing about it (and what they'd be doing about it if they were President today...).
The ILWU is worth talking to as well: they have been following the matter from the beginning, and are working closely with SATAWU, at least. Probably they are also working on the unions in Namibia and Angola. Encourage them, and ask them to post more information publicly.
Pressure on China generally seems to spill like water off a duck's back, but it might work. The state-owned company COSCO, which owns the An Yue Jiang, stonewalls when contacted, and says it's chartered, etc. - more obfuscation. But public pressure, on top of the unions and the diplomatic pressure, may help.
Talk to the Angolan and Namibian (and even yet the Mozambican) embassies. Angola is very unresponsive at the moment: see the post by distraught about his/her call to the Angolan embassy. (Also take a look at distraught's diary about Obama and the Zimbabwe elections from last week.)
South Africa and Zambia should be encouraged in their current stands, too. SA at least was unwilling to stop the shipment until its hand was forced.
I already mentioned the petitions on avaaz and being circulated by the The International Action Network on Small Arms. Update: There's a new avaaz petition specifically about the arms shipment.
SW Radio Africa also has a Telephone Campaign, flooding Zimbabwean embassies with calls.
Oh, and drive with your headlights on. Maybe someone else will have their curiosity piqued, and get their consciousness raised.
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This is a people-powered movement if ever there was one. And I know how strongly this community believes in them. With the internet, we can mobilize across the globe, and quickly. Quickly enough, it may well be, to help stop a bullet. Or three million of them.