Angola has gone through an ominous epoch, of tribulations and now trials, many can testify to it. Still the cultural foundation that has fascilitated a remarkable resilience and the prolific resourcefulness can never be witnessed in Namibia. Angola is by nature an economic powerhouse that could be clasified with a politically and socially healthy Zim. and RSA. Namibia, in contrast could only benefit from a serious diplomatic ties as well as benefitting from geographic proximity schemes, but never to be considered a capable competitor or a foe. The people of especially RSA are in control, it is also clear that this is the path that Angolans has begun to envision. For Namibia, it is SWAPO that is in control, however. Had Botswana, Zambia and Malawi had a similar political objective then at least namibia could boast of equals within the region. Needlessly, both those neighbouring countries had opted to serve the interests of all their people over parochial politics of greed and licentousness.

Translation of an article on Kosmos.com.na

Last night indications were that the ship was in Namibian waters and was to dock at Walvis Bay for fuel on its way to Lobito. The Namibian government said its infrastructure could be used to transfer the arms to Zimbabwe should such a request be received.

"There are no laws against Zimbabwean in or exports. There are no sanctions and Namibia will not oppose the shipment", Namibian minister Joe Kaapanda said..

Of course they would let it through, wouldn't they? Do we seriously think there are any moral issues at play here for SWAPO? Can we really expect them to do the right thing and block this shipment? I mean, ZANU-PF and Mugabe effectively thwart the will of the Zimbabwean people and steal yet another election and we stand idly by while the regime re-arms itself to inflict further terror on its population. What's so wrong with that? Pretty straightforward! And yet again Namibia exposes itself as one more country that does not walk its talk.......

According to the latest info, the ship may be ordered to return to China without discharging its cargo. It is alleged that a Chinese official told the media this during the course of the morning .......

Death ship update:

"A ship carrying weapons bound for Zimbabwe may be recalled to China after the vessel was prevented from unloading in South Africa, Beijing said today.

But the Chinese Foreign Ministry defended the controversial shipment - which is widely feared to be for use by the Zimbabwean security services against their own countrymen - as “perfectly normal trade”.

Jiang Yu, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, insisted that the weapons sale was agreed last year and was “unrelated to recent developments” in Zimbabwe.

Ms Jiang said the shipment was “perfectly normal trade in military goods between China and Zimbabwe”, but because Zimbabwe was unable to receive the goods, the company involved was now considering recalling it."

An absolutely new twist on the Zim Death Ship!!!


German bank gets impound order for Chinese ship's Zimbabwe-bound cargo

BERLIN: A German bank obtained a court order to impound the cargo of a Chinese ship carrying weapons for Zimbabwe as it tries to recover unpaid debts from the southern African country, officials said Tuesday.

But KfW IPEX-Bank GmbH, a subsidiary of Germany's state-owned KfW development bank, was unaware that the An Yue Jiang was carrying arms when it obtained the order from a South African court last week, spokeswoman Dela Strumpf said.

The Chinese ship has been turned away from South African and Mozambican ports in recent days as officials balked at its cargo of weapons and ammunition for Zimbabwe's government. It is now believed to be headed for Angola, possibly with a refueling stop in Namibia.

On Thursday, KfW IPEX-Bank obtained an court order in Durban, South Africa, to impound the ship's Zimbabwean-owned cargo because the Zimbabwean government still owes the German bank about €40 million (US$63 million at current rates), Strumpf said.

"We did not know at any time that the ship was carrying weapons," Strumpf said. "We would have never accepted weapons."

Strumpf said KfW IPEX-Bank awarded a €40 million loan to the state-owned Zimbabwe Iron & Steel Company in 1998, but the loan was never paid back.

In 2006, the bank obtained an arbitration ruling from the International Chamber of Commerce in London, allowing it to impound Zimbabwean property abroad to recover its losses.

"As is common, we then hired an internationally operating company, in this case Commercial Intelligence, to track down Zimbabwean overseas-property for us and impound it," Strumpf said.

She added that Commercial Intelligence, which obtained the impounding order for the An Yue Jiang on the bank's behalf, also did not know that the Chinese vessel was carrying weapons.

"I don't think the court order was ever delivered to the captain of the ship but it is still valid and, theoretically, if the ship would ever dock again in South Africa, we could still impound parts of the cargo that are not weapons," Strumpf said.

She added that the bank so far has had no success in getting Zimbabwean overseas property impounded.

IHT/AP

By FRANK CHING

HONG KONG — Beijing has suffered a severe setback in Africa, where its standing is normally high, at a time when its image is taking a beating in the West, largely as a result of events in Tibet and the journey of the Olympic Torch around the world.

China has enjoyed much support in Africa in large part because it refuses to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries, such as attaching conditions while doing business or extending aid. Western countries, on the contrary, often attach conditions to loans in an attempt to improve human rights.

But recent events suggest that some African countries are taking a new look at China and its policy of ignoring human rights violations and crackdowns on opposition politicians.

Last month, for example, a shipload of Chinese weapons bound for landlocked Zimbabwe, which is in the midst of a political crisis, was blocked by Zimbabwe's neighbors. They would not allow the freighter An Yue Jiang to unload its cargo.

Zimbabwe, which has an annual inflation rate of 100,000 percent, has been in crisis mode for weeks. A presidential election was held March 29, but no results were announced for over a month, leading the opposition Movement for Democratic Change to claim that its candidate, Morgan Tsvangirai, had won.

But the Election Commission announced May 2 that the incumbent Robert Mugabe had won 43.2 percent of the vote against Tsvangirai's 47.9 percent, with 8.9 percent going to independent Simba Makoni. It called for a runoff, which many fear would be rigged by Mugabe, who has led the country since independence in 1980.

There are reports of people being tortured, abducted and murdered in a campaign of retribution against opposition supporters. Into this tinderbox, the Chinese freighter was going to dump 3 million rounds of ammunition, 1,500 rocket-propelled grenades and thousands of mortar rounds and mortar tubes.

Interestingly, the blockage of the An Yue Jiang, dubbed the "Ship of Shame" by some in the media, was the result of a combination of nongovernmental as well as governmental actions.

When the ship first anchored outside Durban on April 17, the South African government refused to act. However, dockers refused to unload the ship. Randall Howard, of the Transport and Allied Workers Union, said the union "does not agree with the position of the government not to intervene with this shipment of weapons." A court order was obtained preventing the ship's cargo from being sent overland to Zimbabwe.

The ship then headed for Walvis Bay, but Namibia, where protesters demonstrated outside the Chinese Embassy, denied it permission to dock.

President Levy Mwanawasa of Zambia, who is the head of the 14-nation Southern African Development Community, called on leaders in the region not to allow the cargo to be delivered. Mozambique also denied the ship unloading facilities.

Angola, whose government is normally close to Mugabe, let the ship unload other cargo but not the arms bound for Zimbabwe. Frustrated, Cosco, the ship's owners, apparently decided to recall the An Yue Jiang to China.

China's Foreign Ministry defended the shipment as "normal military product trade between the two countries."

Hopefully, this experience will cause China to ponder its arms sales to unstable Third World countries, where the weapons may be used against protesters or members of the opposition.

This experience also puts the doctrine of noninterference in internal affairs in a new light. If a regional organization, such as the South African Development Community, decides that weapons should not be sold to one of its members, is it right for an outside country such as China to defy the community?

While China can argue that what goes on in Zimbabwe is that country's internal affairs, cannot the SADC take the position that what goes on in southern Africa is its internal affair, and that no country outside the region, including China, should interfere?

At the very least, China will in the future have to take into account the reaction of neighboring countries when it is thinking of selling arms to a country.

We may not have heard the last of the An Yue Jiang and its shipment. Lawyers from the East Africa Law Society and the Law Society of the Southern Africa Development Community are seeking to take legal action against the Chinese government over arms sales to Zimbabwe before the International Criminal Court. China, though, does not accept the jurisdiction of the court.

Frank Ching is a Hong Kong-based journalist and commentator (Frank.ching@gmail.com)

The weapons destined for Zimbabwe have arrived in Harare, The Weekender reported on Saturday.

The report said the Zimbabwean government confirmed that three million rounds of assault rifle ammunition, 3 000 mortar rounds and 1 500 rocket-propelled grenades - ordered from the Chinese government - had arrived in Harare.

The South African government denied media reports that it assisted in the delivery of the arms by fuelling the Chinese vessel, An Yue Jiang, that was transporting the arsenal.

There were fears that Robert Mugabe was planning to use force to storm back to power in the presidential run-off election to be held on June 27.

He had deployed the army, police and intelligence units across Zimbabwe to campaign for him through intimidation and coercive tactics, the report said.

The Weekender quoted a Mozambican online newspaper, which reported that the ship had been refuelled by the SAS Drakensberg off the coast of South Africa before sailing north to offload its deadly cargo.

It reported that the ship was offloaded at Ponta Negra in the Democratic Republic of Congo. However, Zimbabwean government officials said it was offloaded in Angola.

The report said that President Thabo Mbeki gave “a direct instruction” to Deputy Defence Minister Mluleki George to send the SAS Drakensberg to refuel the An Yue Jiang.

Presidential spokesperson Mukoni Ratshitanga dismissed the reports, saying “it seems that the season of propaganda is upon us”.

George said he had no instruction from Mbeki to dispatch the SAS Drakensberg and that the allegations had no substance.

However, the online article also said the arms were flown to Harare in an Ilyushin Il-76 belonging to Avient Aviation, a freight charter airline based in Zimbabwe but registered in the UK. This was confirmed by government officials in Harare, The Weekender said.

Zimbabwe’s Deputy Information Minister Bright Matonga confirmed the weapons have been delivered.

The Angolan government’s assistance came after an appeal by the Southern African Development Community (SADC) chairperson, Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa, to member states to bar the delivery of the ammunition to Zimbabwe, saying the arms could deepen the country’s election crisis.

The US and British governments had also exerted concerted pressure on the SADC and China to stop the ship from docking in the region.

The ship has been spotted off the coast of Port Elizabeth, The Weekender said.

Bye-bye, Tsvangirai
Mugabe is having another try!!!!!!!!!