[olympiaworkers] The Working Class Takes a Stand: Stop Chinese Arms Shipment to the Zimbabwean Regime!

from http://anarkismo.net

by Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Front - ZACF Friday, Apr 18 2008, 2:52pm
zacf@zabalaza.net address: Postnet Suite 47, Private Bag X1, Fordsburg,
2033, South Africa phone: 00 27 (0) 82 334 6665 or 00 27 (0) 84 946 4240
southern africa / imperialism / war / feature

We welcome and support the decision by the South African Transport and
Allied Workers Union for their workers neither to unload nor transport the
shipment of Chinese-made armaments destined for Zimbabwe. This is a very
encouraging sign of working class solidarity and internationalism, and we
hope that such actions will indeed prevent this weapons consignment from
reaching its destination - the Zimbabwean Defence Force.

At the same time, if the transport workers should fail, if President
Robert Mugabe's friends should find a way to bypass their resistance, all
who stand with the Zimbabwean people should be ready to take a stand.
Should the action taken by Satawu fail to prevent the armaments from being
transported across South African territory to Zimbabwe, we call on all
progressive elements across the country to intervene.
[Türkçe] [Deutsch]

The Working Class Takes a Stand: Stop Chinese Arms Shipment to the
Zimbabwean Regime!

We welcome and support the decision by the South African Transport and
Allied Workers Union for their workers neither to unload nor transport the
shipment of Chinese-made armaments destined for Zimbabwe. This is a very
encouraging sign of working class solidarity and internationalism, and we
hope that such actions will indeed prevent this weapons consignment from
reaching its destination - the Zimbabwean Defence Force.

At the same time, if the transport workers should fail, if President
Robert Mugabe's friends should find a way to bypass their resistance, all
who stand with the Zimbabwean people should be ready to take a stand.
Should the action taken by Satawu fail to prevent the armaments from being
transported across South African territory to Zimbabwe, we call on all
progressive elements across the country to intervene.

On 29 March 2008, parliamentary, presidential and local elections were
held in Zimbabwe. This represented the last-gasp attempt of the Movement
for Democratic Change to oust the 28-year-old regime of incumbent
President Robert Mugabe, after a series of contestations since 2000 had
resulted in an impasse.

The results of the parliamentary election show that the MDC has a narrow
majority, but the results of the presidential election have been
unaccountably delayed – presumably to allow Mugabe's regime to reassert
its authority over the masses of the people who have been brutalised and
impoverished.

These facts are well known to the world's progressive forces and to those
who struggle for economic, social and political justice and equality. Now,
in the hour of Mugabe's ultimate betrayal, a new threat has arisen in the
form of a shipment of Chinese armaments – including rocket-propelled
grenades, AK-47 assault rifle rounds and mortars – which, we fear with
justification, will be used to forcibly suppress the democratic forces in
Zimbabwe, and could lead directly to the murder of thousands of Zimbabwean
people.

We are fully aware of the heroic resistance of the Zimbabwean people to
racist domination and their successful defeat of the regime of Ian Smith
in 1980. This resistance was both pluralistic via the guerrillas of both
Zanla and Zipra, and multiracial – even if the majority of white
"Rhodesians" chose to abandon their country after independence.

But we are equally aware of the grievous injury done to the cause of the
people by Mugabe's paranoia over the years – even if this paranoia was
well-founded on apartheid attempts on his own life – and the dead of
Matabeleland [1] and the displaced of Operation Murambatsvina [2] cry out
for social justice.

Now, with the whole world watching – and the Southern African Development
Community vacillating as predicted in its usual ineffective "engagements"
– Mugabe has again stolen not only a march on the opposition, but the
future of his people.

Journalists are being expelled and election observers have already fled
the roost, allowing blood to flow in the streets unseen and unchecked:
scanty reports now emerge of torture, murder, evictions, dispossessions
and beating.

And now we have caught, red-handed, a Chinese shipment of arms to this
regime, a regime that by all accounts is in terminal decline, with the
highest inflation rate in the world and an elite that is already
displaying the most grotesque elements of social decay imaginable.

We call on all progressive groups, organisations and individuals to
physically prevent, whether peacefully or with necessary force, the
shipment of arms to one of the world's most despised pariah dictatorships.
This call extends to the progressive world community to do whatever they
can to bring this to public attention and to prevent possible massacre.

This could include:

* Targeting and putting pressure on South African Port Authorities not
to allow the consignment to come onto land.
* Targeting South African, Chinese and Zimbabwean embassies and
diplomatic missions with pickets, protests and other non-violent
direct actions - against representatives of these governments - and
not the ordinary citizens of these states. (We will not tolerate any
actions against Chinese, Zimbabwean or South African people on the
basis of their ethnicity and/ or nationality).
* Gathering intelligence about the whereabouts, planned route and mode
of transport for the armaments, and publicising these.
* Blockading these routes in a non-violent manner with an eye to
preventing the armaments from reaching their destination.
* Blockading the South African border with Zimbabwe should the
armaments reach it.
* Supporting and sustaining the transport workers in their refusal to
unload and transport the weapons.
* Defending the transport workers and anyone else who faces repression
as a result of their efforts to stop the weapons reaching their
destination.
* Link this struggle directly to global opposition to China's campaign
to suppress the Tibetan people and turn the 2008 Olympics into a
replica of the 1936 Olympics in Nazi Germany – where nationalist
sporting events were used as a cover for gross human rights abuses.

What we know:

* A Chinese ship, An Yue Jiang - owned by the parastatal Chinese Ocean
Shipping Company - carrying armaments destined for Zimbabwe has
anchored at Durban harbour.
* The shipment contains almost three million rounds of ammunitions for
small arms and AK-47s, about 3 500 mortars and mortar launchers, as
well as 1 500 rockets for rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs), and is
valued at R9,88million.
* The ship's cargo documentation was allegedly finalised just 3 days
after the Zimbabwean elections.
* The South African Transport and Allied Workers Union has refused to
unload or transport the arms consignment, although this does not mean
someone else won't.
* About 10 Chinese soldiers armed with pistols have been seen with
Zimbabwean military officials in Harare.

THIS SHIPMENT WILL BE STOPPED BY THE DIRECT ACTION OF THE PEOPLE!

MUGABE WILL FALL! BUT WE, THE AFRICAN PEOPLE, WILL STAND IN HIS STEAD!
Footnotes:

[1] The Matabeleland Massacre, between 1982 - 1983 was an attempt by
ZANU-PF on the ethnic cleansing of people of the Ndebele ethno-political
group living in the Matabeleland region. An estimated 20 000 people were
murdered.

[2] Known in English as Operation Drive Out Trash, Operation Murambastvina
was a large scale government campaign to forcibly clear out slum areas,
effectively displacing an estimated 2.4 million people. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Murambatsvina

http://www.zabalaza.net

add your comments