Zimbabwe arms ship heads for Angola: Mozambique

A Chinese ship carrying arms to Zimbabwe which was turned away from South Africa is heading to Angola in hopes of docking there, the transport minister of Mozambique said today.

The ship left South African waters yesterday after a court refused to allow the weapons to be transported across South Africa. Mozambique's Transport and Communications Minister Paulo Zucula says Mozambique has been monitoring the movements of the ship since it lifted anchor and left South Africa. "We know that it registered its next destination as Luanda because here we wouldn't allow it into Mozambican waters without prior arrangements", he said.

The An Yue Jiang, a Chinese ship, had been at anchor off Durban on South Africa's Indian Ocean coast since Monday, turning into a flashpoint for trade unions and others critical of President Thabo Mbeki's quiet diplomacy toward Zimbabwe.

Post-election stalemate
The 300 000-strong South African Transport and Allied Workers Union (Satawu) refused to unload the weapons because of concerns Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's government might use them against opponents in the post-election stalemate.

Zimbabwean officials have failed to issue results of a March 29 presidential election. Movement for Democratic Change leader Morgan Tsvangirai says he won the presidential poll and his party took a majority of parliamentary seats. Mugabe and his supporters are preparing for a run-off as well as challenging some of the parliamentary results. A South African government spokesperson confirmed weapons were aboard the ship but said the government would not interfere with what it regarded as a trade matter between China and Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwe's deputy Information Minister, Bright Matonga, said yesterday that no party had the right to stop the shipment. China's Foreign Ministry said in a short faxed statement to Reuters that it had seen the reports about the ship, but "did not understand the actual situation". - Reuters