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People power: How civil society blocked an arms shipment
Nicole Fritz, South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA)
July 2009

http://www.saiia.org.za/occasional-papers/saiia-occasional-paper-no.36-july-2009-english.html

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Introduction

In April 2008, a Chinese ship, the MV 'An Yue Jiang', attempting to offload a consignment of arms for the Zimbabwean Defence Force, became a rallying point for civil society action in southern Africa and a focal point for world attention.

This paper describes how civil society successfully opposed the transfer of the arms across southern African territory and analyses how this rare, co-ordinated and regionwide civil society mobilisation came about. Specifically, it examines why the campaign was successful and discusses the broader geo-political context. It also attempts to identify lessons for similar efforts in future.

Background

Presidential and parliamentary elections were held in Zimbabwe on 29 March 2008. The political opposition, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), had been subjected to sustained and systematic persecution by the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union - Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF) for several years, and with increasing intensity since 2000.

However, it was believed that concessions by Zimbabwean authorities relating to vote counting and election monitoring, under the Southern African Development Community-sponsored mediation process, offered a greater prospect of free and fair elections than had been the case for several years. This possibility provoked widespread interest. As it happened, initial results posted at ballot stations indicated that the ruling Zanu-PF had been defeated. Apparently confirming this, the posting of initial results was quickly shut down and weeks went by without official results being announced.

Instead, Zanu-PF unleashed an intensified campaign of violence against the political opposition - targeting grassroots organisers and punishing communities in which it had suffered defeat. This campaign against Zimbabwean citizens was systematically planned by army, police and Central Intelligence officials. It was speculated in this interregnum, and subsequent events bore it out, that election results were being manipulated to deny the MDC an outright majority and to force a run-off election for president between Zanu-PF's Robert Mugabe and the MDC's Morgan Tsvangirai. Zanu-PF's campaign of violence was thus not only intended as retribution but as a means to intimidate voters into supporting Mugabe in the run-off poll on 27 June 2008.

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