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South Africa: A victory for workers' solidarity with the Zimbabwean people
By Patrick Craven, COSATU
April 22, 2008 -- The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) welcomes the statement by a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman that the China Ocean Shipping Company which owns the An Yue Jiang, has decided to recall the ship because Zimbabwe cannot take delivery of the 77 tonnes of weapons and ammunition onboard.
If true, this is an historic victory for the international trade union movement and civil society, and in particular for the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union (SATAWU), whose members refused to unload or transport its deadly cargo.
Protest banner being removed from China's Pretoria embassy.
Today's meeting between the COSATU general secretary, Zwelinzima Vavi and the secretary general of the Movement for Democratic Change, Tendai Biti, confirmed beyond all doubt that the people of Zimbabwe are now facing a massive crisis -- a brutal onslaught from a regime that is determined to cling to power by stealing the elections and imposing its will through violence.
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[For more background, go to http://links.org.au/node/352 and check the comments at the end of the article.]
***
In COSATU's view the ``government'' of Robert Mugabe is now illegal and illegitimate. Its term of office expired at the end of March when the people voted. Its has refused to release the results of the presidential
election and has illegally organised a recount of votes in 23 constituencies in which the ruling ZANU-PF lost narrowly to the MDC, long after the time limit of 48 hours had expired. It has even been ``recounting'' the presidential votes in those constituencies before they had been announced.
Combined with this blatant vote-rigging, the ruling party has unleashed a systematic campaign of violence against MDC members and supporters, which has already claimed at least ten lives. Thousands have been
displaced from their homes, five hundred injured and hospitalised and these numbers are increasing by the day.
Meanwhile the ``government'' is continuing to rule illegally, with the former ministers restored to their posts,even those who lost their seats in the parliamentary elections. COSATU demands that the governments of Africa refuse to recognise this despot who is desperately hanging on to power, and to stop inviting him to meetings of the Southern African Development Community or the African Union.
COSATU salutes the stand taken by its transport affiliate SATAWU and other unions around the continent, and now calls upon all its affiliates and Southern African trade union partners, to identify, and refuse to handle, any goods destined for Zimbabwe which could be used to assist the illegal government or be used to oppress the people.
The federation will be holding a meeting with civil society, church and NGO groups on Thursday, 24 April, at which plans will be finalised for a huge protest march in South Africa, in solidarity with the people of Zimbabwe, and to demand the removal of the Mugabe dictatorship and the installation of a government elected by a majority on 29 March 2008.
Congress of South African Trade Unions
1-5 Leyds Cnr Biccard Streets
Braamfontein, 2017
P.O. Box 1019
Johannesburg, 2000
SOUTH AFRICA
Tel: +27 11 339-4911/24
Fax: +27 11 339-5080/6940/ 086 603 9667
E-Mail: patrick@cosatu.org.za
[Patrick Craven is COSATU's national spokesperson. Visit http://www.cosatu.org.za]
Comments
International union: 'return to China only option' for Zim arms
China arms ship update and position. ITF: 'return to China only option'
22 April 2008
Update as of 16:00, 23 April 2008
No assurance has been received from Cosco that the ship will abort its mission and return to China, but we continue to seek to persuade them of the wisdom of this course of action. Meanwhile union preparations continue to block attempts to unload and transport the cargo and any attempt to do so will be met by the strongest possible trade union response. The ship is still off the South African coastline in international waters making around 11 knots on a course that will take it to Lobito around midday on Friday.
Report from 22 April 2008
The ITF, which has mobilised workers across Southern Africa to oppose any transfer of the An Yue Jiang's load of arms, today stated that a return of the ship to China is the only realistic option for the Chinese government to take. The ITF said it believes the vessel is currently off the coast of South Africa en route to the ports of Luanda or Lobito in Angola, traveling at reduced speed to conserve fuel, and likely to arrive later this week (see below for more details of the ship and its position).
According to the London-based global union federation It does not rule out the possibility that the ship could still receive a change of orders to put into a Namibian port to refuel or even attempt transshipment of the goods at sea, and continues to lobby the South African, Angolan and Namibian governments to follow the lead of their own workers and unions and declare that any assistance will be limited to that necessary to return the 28 crew members to their homes - and the cargo of ammunition to its point of origin, thousands of miles from Zimbabwe.
ITF General Secretary David Cockroft commented: "There's only one place for this cargo to be now, and that's China. Its shipment of death has no place in the hands of Zimbabwe's teetering and thuggish government."
He added: "Once again we call on the Chinese authorities to recognise that it's time to bring this ship and its crew home. The ITF are meeting with its owners tomorrow and we hope to receive their promise that they will do the sensible thing - send it to the nearest port to refuel and take on supplies, then get it back to China. "
"Until those assurances are received and we see those arms being removed from Mugabe's grasp, we will continue to organise opposition and to shame those who failed to act, and instead left it to trade unionists, to the Southern African Litigation Centre and to the Southern African Bishops' Conference to do what common decency demanded."
Current position of the An Yue Jiang
The indications are that the ship is making 11 knots coming around the Cape. Extrapolating from this, we believe she would have been just south of Cape Town in the early hours of this morning, and is going to be approximately off the Orange River in South Africa tracking for Lobito in the early hours of tomorrow, probably staying just outside South African territorial waters. We would estimate that she will make Lobito around noon on the 26th April.
Background information on the An Yue Jiang
The vessel is a general cargo ship built in 1986 and sails under the Chinese flag (PRC), with a crew of 28 Chinese seafarers. It has a Gross Tonnage of 11,115 tons, is 149.7m long, and is owned by the China Ocean Shipping (Group) Company (COSCO) and managed by COSCO Guangzhou.
COSCO is a vast company founded in 1961 and has its headquarters in Beijing. It owns some 667 vessels, 147 of them newbuildings. The COSCO website states that it is worth US$17bn and has some 80,000 employees. It specialises in shipping and logistics.
ENDS
The ITF is a global federation of 654 unions from 148 countries representing 4,418,455 workers worldwide.
For more information contact ITF press officer, Sam Dawson.
Direct line: + 44 (0)20 7940 9260.
Email: dawson_sam@itf.org.uk
International Transport Workers' Federation - ITF:
HEAD OFFICE
ITF House, 49 - 60 Borough Road, London SE1 1DS
Tel: + 44 (0) 20 7403 2733
Fax: + 44 (0) 20 7375 7871
Email: mail@itf.org.uk
Web: www.itfglobal.org
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