I'm well aware that could be a nyceve diary title; it's true in many ways, in all too many places. But this diary is about Zimbabwe.
Many here read DHinMI's story applauding the refusal of the Durban dockworkers to unload a shipload of Chinese arms for transshipment to Zimbabwe at the height of that country's election crisis, when its ruling regime is cracking down on the opposition with violence.
Last week, news outlets were celebrating that China had said it would recall the arms, and that China's and Zimbabwe's friend Angola (where the ship headed next) had said the arms would not be unloaded. The press declared victory, celebrated people/union power, turned off the mikes, and went home.
But guess what? Arms dealers lie.
Weapons will always find a way to those who want them, at least when public vigilance slackens, even for a minute.
Please tell the media to get back on the job. More information below, or at Sokwanele.
In my most thorough diary on the arms shipment last week, I started with a reminder of the movie Lord of War. The strongest lesson from that movie is that the arms trade is as insidiously unblockable, and as pestilential, as a plague of rats. When the South African dockworkers stopped the shipment, and the judiciary of the country started to get in on the act, there was a brief chance this particular 77 tons of weaponry might get stopped and impounded in Durban. But the ship, as was to be expected, slipped out just ahead of the delivery of a detention order. It then disappeared for a while, though we are told the US and South Africa were tracking it.
Finally, it asked permission to dock at Luanda, Angola. The Angolan authorities at first said basically "what's the big deal?" even as Zimbabwean officials came to meet the ship, or at least negotiate with Angola to come to some mutually beneficial arrangement about it. Then they said the ship could refuel and unload only things which were coming to Angola itself, not the arms.
The unions in Angola had of course gotten pressure from South African and international union groups to refuse to unload. But once it was in port, the unions said they had no way of knowing what was in the containers they were unloading. [Note: The original story reported in the above-linked comment is here, in Portuguese. I've done a Babelfish translation, aided by my own knowledge of other romance languages, but if anyone here can do a real translation, it would be excellent - post relevant portions here or, more importantly, on sokwanele's action thread. The Portuguese speakers involved at Sokwanele are really busy talking to Angola.]
Today, there's more news. As almost everyone involved (except, it seems, the international media) expected and assumed, the arms have in fact been unloaded in Luanda. Now arrangements are being made to ship those arms from Luanda to Harare by air, by way of Malawi, whose government is also very tight with Mugabe and with China.
Malawi government has sent a top three man national intelligence experts to Angola to look at ways of helping Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe clear the weapons aboard the beleaguered Chinese ship that has docked in Luanda, Angola, Nyasa Times has learnt.
[...]
The delegation left the country on Sunday through Kamuzu International Airport via South Africa to Luanda, Angola's capital to assess the means of clearing the arms in disguise as if they have been donated to Malawi by the Chinese Defence Forces.
"Malawi Secret Intelligence Services (SIS) was approached by the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) of Zimbabwe to help in clearing the arms if the ship docked in Angola," said a State House source speaking on condition of anonymity.
Malawi leader Bingu Mutharika is a staunch supporter of the 84 year old Zimbabwean dictator and has been providing supplies to his household and ‘donated’ 400 000 tonnes of maize to ZANU-PF to buy votes during the March 29 disputed general elections.
China and Zimbabwe want to clear the weapons as a donation to Malawi under recently signed US$4 million China-Malawi defence cooperation. The weapons are further to be smuggled into Zimbabwe.
"The plan is to clear the arms as if they are to be used by Malawi while in real sense they will be passed over to Zimbabwe using trucks ferrying maize being sold to Zimbabwe by the president," added the source.
(my emphasis)
So not just the triumph of the unions, but the diplomatic triumph celebrated by the media, uniting Zimbabwe's neighbors (some rather tepidly) against Mugabe, was also a case of speaking - and declaring victory - too soon.
Meanwhile, the situation in Zimbabwe is more confused all the time. A group of opposition activists seem just to have been released after being arrested several days ago. The high court, it seems, thought they had to be charged or released.
The opposition Movement for Democratic Change on Monday won a High Court order that its activists should be either released or charged on Monday.
"The police had no basis to hold them for this long. I am angry because they need not have been arrested at all," Alec Muchadehama told Reuters news agency.
How 'quaint'. A ray of hope, though. At the same time, the situation, especially in rural areas, seems to be getting grimmer and more violent.
Our Mutare contributor reports that rival political activists have been engaged in running battles in the poor Sakubva district, following reports that two houses have been burnt down.
He also quotes an official from the Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (PTUZ) as saying that 9,000 teachers are afraid of reporting for duty at the start of the new term, following attacks by ruling party supporters.
Teachers at two schools in the western Lupane districts have also refused to work, while soldiers are using their schools as bases for attacking opposition supporters, a BBC contributor in the area says.
There has been increasing intimidation of journalists in Zimbabwe, as well. A broader article on this, from africasia.com last week, has expired, and they don't seem to archive them, weirdly. It has been preserved on this page, though (search the page for africasia):
Media groups in Zimbabwe on Wednesday deplored a government crackdown that has led to the jailing and beating of journalists as a bid by the regime to spread fear after disputed elections.
"The security and safety of journalists is under serious threat in this
country, judging by the trends in recent weeks," said Takura Zhangazha,
spokesman for the Zimbabwe chapter of the Media Institute of Southern
Africa.
"We condemn the deliberate attempts to muzzle the media," he said.
Foster Dongozi, secretary general of the Zimbabwe Union of Journalists
(ZUJ), said: "Journalists have been abducted, beaten and illegally detained and we condemn this abuse of power."
The crackdown was "to strike fear in the hearts of journalists," he said.
::
What to do now?
I'm not going to go through and give all my previous action links. Refer to my previous diaries, especially this one, for more background and action links.
For more information, always, go to Sokwanele.com; their blog is a clearing-house for information related to the Zimbabwe crisis. This post and thread is for information on how to take action about the arms shipment, and to report results. They have also compiled an action contact database to assemble all the information about whom to speak to and how.
But the biggest thing that needs doing is to alert the international media, and tell them they failed, dropped the ball, and need to pick it up again, shine their spotlight on the Malawi connection and get world attention on where those arms are now. And where they'll be in a day or two. And whom they'll be used against.