Workers' Liberty

Two days after the polls closed in Zimbabwe's presidential election, 77 tonnes of mortars, rockets and ammunition were dispatched from China. South African dock workers, led by the Transport and Allied Workers Union, have refused to unload the ship.

China is a leading supplier of arms to African states - its willingness to arm the despotic Mugabe regime demonstrates its reactionary international agenda. Mugabe's planned crackdown on Zimbabwe's democratic opposition has been stalled by working-class solidarity - this solidarity can and must spread.

Sprite, a member of the SATAWU in Durban, spoke to Solidarity:

"At the moment, nothing is moving here - the workers are still outside. The union has had many meetings with workers federations, COSATU [the South African equivalent of the TUC] and the courts. We are holding these meetings to put the position of our union. That position is that our members will not handle containers which are full of weapons that will be used against the Zimbabwean people. Our intention is to force the ship to return to China.

"We realised yesterday [17th April] that this ship was full of weapons - it was in the newspapers and on television. We knew that the Zimbabweans had just had their elections, we knew that the results had not been released. It was clear to us that these weapons would be used to put down the democratic opposition.

"The port authorities are part of the government. They could try to force the unloading of the ship, there are rumours this could happen. They have released a statement saying that the South African government has nothing to do with the action. There's a trade agreement between Zimbabwe and South Africa. They want to keep this agreement. But we don't care what the government says. We will maintain our position as a union. We will not unload the weapons."

UPDATE:

Sprite reports that the ship has now left Durban and is on traveling towards Angola (Luanda). As soon as this is confirmed Sprite will get on a plane to speak to dock workers and urge them to replicate the action in Durban.

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