Edited by request to put the important stuff first.
Right now there's a ship with a cargo of armaments, trying to deliver them to Zimbabwe, pretty clearly with the intent of helping Mugabe put down the opposition after the elections he apparently couldn't win by hook or by crook. They've been turned away in South Africa, but they'll try again by way of Mozambique or elsewhere. I'd intended to hold off posting this till tomorrow morning, but the situation is dire and progressing, and action may help, so I'm posting it now.
UPDATE: The New York Times just posted a more thorough article on this even than the BBC's report. (Thanks to The Distillery for noticing it.)
UPDATE Saturday morning: The ship may be on its way to Angola now. See the end of the diary for more information and a link to the story.
More below the fold...
To me, an important factor in this story is how I found out about it. If you want to skip to the facts, go down below the first big blockquote to the boldface headline "The Arms Shipment." Otherwise, for a lesson in consciousness raising, bear with me a bit.
Friday morning as I drove to work, I started noticing something unusual: as soon as I got out onto the main streets, I started seeing people with their headlights on. At eleven a.m. on a sunny day. After a minute of this, seeing more than made any sense, I started counting, and soon became convinced something was up. Twenty minutes later, when I reached work, I'd counted 53 cars with lights on, not including buses and motorcycles and other things that normally have lights on. I would guess this was better than one in ten of the cars I saw driving.
Was it a protest I hadn't heard about? How could that be? I'd been on Daily Kos all morning! A local thing, about violence in Oakland, maybe? But there were at least as many such cars in Berkeley when I got there. And I'd heard nothing about it. Well, that's what the internet is for.
A Google news search "headlights on" told me it was not local, but about something halfway round the world. I already knew something about the situation in Zimbabwe, but because of the headlights, I actually looked, and found out things may be about to get far worse.
The second Google news hit told me what I was seeing:
SHINE YOUR HEADLIGHTS FOR PEACE
Dear Friends, Politicians & our Caring World.
This is an urgent appeal for a peaceful solution in Zimbabwe. Love has met and always will meet every human need. Let's show the world that we have the sense to work out our differences around a table, that there is NO need for violence. Let's uplift each other, we are one family and blood shed is only going to end in disaster with loss of loved ones on both sides.
SHINE YOUR HEADLIGHTS FOR PEACE
Please drive with your headlights on until a peaceful solution has been achieved in Zimbabwe, this will symbolize:
an appeal to leaders, soldiers and police to come from a space of love and unity
a gesture of love for each other and towards Zimbabweans to keep hopeful for brighter days
symbol of lighting the way forward in a peaceful manner
This message can be expressed by all parties, ZANU PF, MDC and others, it is not against anyone, only for peace.
Shining Love & Light for Zimbabwe
Please forward this on, let's start a global procession of lighting the way forward with love.
Obviously from the phrasing, this was sent out as an e-mail to people who cared about Africa, were on Free Zimbabwe mailing lists, and were concerned about the tense and worrisome state of the country, and the e-mail was forwarded virally. And boy, had it gotten results, here in the politically aware East Bay, the day after it was published (at least according to the date on the SW Radio Africa page).
Now, I get most of my news from Daily Kos, NPR, and occasional glances at newspapers at work. I knew a bit, in a general way, about Mugabe's tyranny, and his current bid to steal the election which has apparently gone against him despite everything he could do. A couple of days ago, there was a good diary about it by distraught. Frankly, though, even with all the progress democracy has made in Africa in the last fifteen years or so, I'm inclined to say "Here we go again" and turn back to the battle to restore democracy here in the US. I hadn't gone and sought out more information about Zimbabwe's current crisis or her recent history. It took a little mystery of headlights to make me go out and track this down.
So I started, as any good netizen would, by looking at the homepage of the site which posted that call for shining your headlights for peace. Shortwave Radio Africa bills itself as "The independent voice of Zimbabwe." What did I see on that front page? Two stories immediately caught my eye. First, a provincial elections agent has recently disappeared. I suppose this is not a huge surprise coming from Mugabe. But it is chilling.
The Arms Shipment
Second, and much bigger, a Chinese ship has been waiting in the harbor at Durban, South Africa, with a load of armaments - tons of small-arms ammunition and RPGs - destined for Zimbabwe, for Mugabe's forces. There was only a tiny story on the front page of the SW Radio Africa about this, but it was both chilling and inspiring. I've boldfaced both the inspiring and the chilling notes:
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.
I figured I'd better check against some larger news organization. Well, on the front page of the BBC news site the lead stories were all about Zimbabwe, and the ship story was one of them.
And the details are not nice reading. The BBC refers to an original piece in the South African Mail&Guardian, which includes the details:
The documents, which the M&G has obtained, show that six containers of weapons destined for the ZDF were shipped to Durban by the Chinese government-controlled conglomerate Poly Technologies for onward transport to Harare. The consignment comprises three million rounds of AK-47 ammunition, 1 500 rocket-propelled grenades and more than 3 000 mortar rounds together with mortar tubes.
[ZDF=Zimbabwe Defence Force]
Indications are that the consignment is a rushed delivery. It left China on March 15, days before the Zimbabwean elections, and apparently arrived off Durban on April 10 without the necessary documents to allow its entry into port.
Yes, Mugabe knew in advance he'd need more bullets once this election thing went through. Guns, RPGs, and mortars. That's his idea of democracy.
But what's kept them in port for a week? The longshoremen at Durban. The Union has refused to unload those arms for transshipment inland to Zimbabwe.
BBC:
With continuing tension in Zimbabwe over the failure of the authorities to issue results from the presidential election three weeks ago, the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union (Satawu) said it would be "grossly irresponsible" to allow the cargo through.
"The South African government cannot be seen as propping up a military regime," said Satawu General Secretary Randall Howard.
Heroes. Yes, heroes. That shows what a properly leaked story, and political awareness in the right quarter, can do. The dockworkers' union is way out ahead of the South African government on this. But in fact, after this standoff had gone on for a bit,
a South African judge ruled that the cargo of rocket-propelled grenades, mortar rounds and ammunition could not be transported overland.
When I read it Friday morning after getting to work, that's where the story rested. By evening, though, the parties to the arms deal - China, Zimbabwe, and whatever middlemen - had begun their next ploy. Stymied by the union, by international pressure, and by the judge in South Africa, the ship pulled out of the harbor, and turned off its transponder.
According to the South African news agency Sapa, the ship upped anchor between 1800 (1600 GMT) and 1900 (1700 GMT).
[...]
The transponder aboard the An Yue Jiang was not responding on Friday evening, the BBC's Adam Mynott reports from Durban.
The head of an independent human rights group monitoring the vessel said it was heading for Mozambique, en route to landlocked Zimbabwe.
It seems likely that, as usual, the arms will find their way to the violent regime one way or another. In South Africa, the state-owned company Armscor was ready to transport them, and the government got very Pilate-ish about the whole thing:
South African Defence Secretary January Masilela said the country's National Conventional Arms Control Committee had given approval for the transit of the weapons.
"If the buyer is the Zimbabwean sovereign government and the seller is the Chinese sovereign government, South Africa has nothing to do with that," he said.
M&G continues:
Asked whether consideration had been given to NCACC [National Conventional Arms Control Committee] policy, which discourages weapons exports to conflict zones and countries involved in the "systematic violation or suppression of humanitarian rights and fundamental freedoms", Masilela said he could not take account of "allegations".
He said there was no United Nations or African Union embargo on the supply of weapons to Zimbabwe, nor was there a Cabinet decision, as in the case of Israel.
Though the BBC adds:
Several Western countries have banned arms shipments to Zimbabwe, as has the European Union.
And, of course, China typically says that no one should interfere with perfectly normal arms trafficking with violent regimes commerce:
For its part, China says the shipment is part of normal trade relations with Zimbabwe, adding that "one of the most important principles is not to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries".
...
So where does that leave us? Probably by Saturday morning, the ship will be in Maputo, possibly already unloading. Will Mozambique's government cooperate in (or turn a blind eye to) transshipping the arms to Zimbabwe?
Or will there be another group there to resist, another group that is politically aware like the South African dockworkers of SATAWU? How much more pressure is Mugabe under for the extra four or five days' delay because of a leaked cargo manifest and a principled stand by this union? Will these delays be enough, or will he hold out and get those guns somehow? If he does, will a new reign of terror keep him in power a little longer? It's worked so often in the past, in so many places.
But here we are in the twenty-first century. Halfway 'round the world, I heard about this because I met curiously many people on the roads with headlights on in full daylight. I had heard some about it before, but I was spurred to find out more because of a simple, unexplained, symbolic action - simpler even than wearing a t-shirt. "Visibility" is what they call it in the campaigns we spend so much time talking about here.
It's also like a candlelight vigil. It seems so small and ineffectual a thing to do, even if inspiring in its way. I say this as one who grew up in Berkeley, with anti-nuclear protests in my blood, and a feeling that all protests are worthwhile, but who has become more than a bit cynical about their effectuality over the years. But this one, strange act, repeated by enough people who were ahead of me in finding out about what's going on, and caring enough to do one small thing, raised my consciousness about this. It got me searching, and finding out more about just what's going on, and what might be brewing.
And what can we do about it?
I welcome suggestions if anyone has links to groups or addresses to write to or call. Here are a few I've run across in researching this:
There's of course a petition.
There's a vigil ongoing in London, if you happen to be there.
SW Radio Africa also has a Telephone Campaign, flooding Zimbabwean embassies with calls.
Amnesty International has issued a statement calling on Mugabe to stop the violence against the opposition, but I've not found action items yet on their site, oddly.
The International Action Network on Small Arms is all over this, and was one of the principal sources of pressure on the South African government not to allow the arms to be transported across their country. As I write, they don't have a new action item up to start talking to Mozambique.
If that ship indeed goes to Mozambique, perhaps a call or e-mail to the embassy of Mozambique would be in order, asking them also to deny passage to the armaments.
The BBC article cited above said the Southern Africa Litigation Center is going to be working on Mozambique. I don't know if they can use help in this. Nothing up on their front page yet.
I strongly doubt pressure on China will have any effect, judging by their past and current reactions to protests about their more direct actions, but if anyone can think of a good way to apply it, I'm all ears.
And then, it might also be nice to salute and thank SATAWU for what they did.
Oh, and drive with your headlights on. Maybe someone else will get their curiosity piqued, and get their consciousness raised.
More suggestions welcomed.
Update Saturday morning: Reuters is reporting that Mozambique claims the ship is not headed there, and would be turned away if it were. This is good news if it's true, but they'll try somewhere else. The Mozambiquan official says they think Luanda, Angola is the next destination. The Angolan Embassy might be worth e-mailing about this.