Zimbabwe armaments ship flees SA

News24 21/4/2008

Harare - Generals in the Zimbabwean army were to have an emergency meeting on Sunday afternoon to consider alternative ways to bring its shipment of Chinese weapons into the country as soon as possible. Beeld was told by a reliable source that the meeting took place after the governments of Mozambique and Tanzania refused to let the Chinese ship the An Yue Jiang deliver the cargo to one of their ports. The ship fled the Durban harbour on Friday night shortly after the Durban High Court granted a court order to prevent the 70 tons of weapons from being transported through South African territory. The court also ordered that the cargo be off-loaded in Durban for inspection ... The cargo contained, among other things, three million rounds of ammunition, 1 500 rockets and 3 500 mortar bombs and launchers. International political pressure would also put the Angolan government in the spotlight. Nicole Fritz of the Southern African Litigation Centre who was involved in getting an interim high court order in Durban on Friday, said on Sunday that negotiations were already taking place with the Angolan office of a human rights organisation, the Open Society Initiative, to consider further legal steps if the ship docked there ... Insiders thought that because of the controversial nature of the cargo and a fuel shortage, the ship would be forced to dock in one of Angola's harbours south of Luanda. Namibe and Lobito would possibly be used ... If the ship delivered its cargo to Angola, getting it to Zimbabwe would still be problematic because of the lack of train connections between the two countries. The load of about 70 tons might have to be transported by aircraft and would then require at least two flights of an IL 76 cargo plane.