On 16 April [2008] news spread around the world of the arrival of a Chinese cargo ship, the An Yue Jiang, owned by China’s state shipping company, in the major container port in Durban, South Africa. The ship included three million rounds of ammunition and 1,500 rockets bound for Zimbabwe, two days drive from the port. The South African government explained to the world that there was nothing they could do: this was a legal transfer of cargo that had already been paid for by a neighbouring sovereign state. The problem was that the sovereign state of Zimbabwe was busy stealing an election and crushing the opposition. The South Africa Transport and Allied Workers Union (Satawu) refused to be browbeaten by claims of legality. The union refused to unload the ship, while Satawu truckers said that they would not transport the cargo by road. The ship was paralysed in “outer anchorage” in “off-port limits”. Within a few days trade unions with members in ports near Zimbabwe followed suit: Mozambique and Namibia also refused to unload the weapons. The ship was forced to sail to Angola, where dock workers “maintained a watch” to ensure that the 77 tons of weapons were not unloaded.

This is a fantastic show of solidarity… Very inspiring… I hope the Suez Canal workers would do the same with the US and British warships passing through the canal on their way to bomb our brothers and sisters in Iraq… There are precedents for that.. In the 1940s, the Suez Canal workers boycotted the Dutch ships heading to Indonesia to suppress the anti-Colonial revolt…

The Harare offices of the International Socialist Organization (ISO) – The Socialist Workers Party’s sister organization in Zimbabwe – were raided yesterday morning by the police.
ISO member Tafadzwa Sando said, “The police wanted to search our offices and said that they had been told the last issue of our Socialist Worker newspaper contained inciting material.
“They took files containing names of our members and contact details. They asked lots of questions, especially wanting to know how the paper is produced and who contributes.
“With the current crack down it is most likely that they are going to be back. We are worried they might arrest us the same way they recently arrested ZCTU (Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions) leaders.
“The regime wants to send a message in the run-up to the rerun elections to intimidate people from voting for opposition. Already we have witnessed more than 40 deaths of the opposition members.”