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Zim weapons ship doubles back
Louise Flanagan, The Star (SA)
April 23, 2008

http://www.thestar.co.za/?fSectionId=&fArticleId=vn20080423053820926C293726

The container ship carrying weapons for Zimbabwe has been spotted off Cape Town, as rumors grow of its attempts to dock. The An Yue Jiang had apparently abandoned its attempt to dock in Namibia or Angola, and turned around to head back around the South African coast. "The vessel is 57 nautical miles south of the Cape of Good Hope," said Lloyd's MIU assistant manager in the casualty department, Stephen Olley, when it was spotted yesterday afternoon. "It looks as if she's heading eastbound, possibly towards Dar es Salaam." Hours later he said the ship was "steering a steady course towards the Cape of Good Hope" and was 40 nautical miles off the Cape. Late yesterday an official at port control in Cape Town said the An Yue Jiang had not contacted the port to request docking facilities. The Ministry of Defence would not say where the ship was. Also yesterday, Sapa-dpa reported that a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said the ship's owners, the China Ocean Shipping Company, had decided to recall the vessel because Zimbabwe could not take delivery of the cargo. Spokesperson Jiang Yu said the delivery was "completely normal" and the contracts for the shipment were signed last year. The ship has been trying to find a harbor to offload its cargo of 77 tons of weapons for the Zimbabwe government since it left Durban on Friday to avoid being served with a Durban High Court order blocking transport of the load through SA. The order, brought by Bishop Rubin Phillip, effectively blocks the ship from South African harbors. A second court order granted in Durban gives Germany's KfW development bank the right to seize the cargo in respect of an unpaid Zimbabwean government debt, according to German-based The Local website.

The ship had been expected to try to dock in Namibia or Angola, if not to offload then at least to refuel. However, the vessel was not listed on logs of ships in harbour or due to dock in Angola, Namibia or Mozambique. While the An Yue Jiang has been difficult to track, so has its load. Cargo can usually be tracked through shipping websites. However, shipping documents for the An Yue Jiang's load in The Star's possession show Zimbabwe ordered its weapons shipment from China at least two months before its disputed election. Documents show the Zimbabwe Ministry of Defence was billed for the consignment on January 21 by Poly Technologies in Beijing. Phone numbers for both buyer and seller on the documents are either faulty or don't exist. The 77 tons of weapons were loaded into 3 080 cases, then put into six shipping containers and loaded onto the An Yue Jiang in the Chinese port of Tianjin. The vessel sailed on March 15 - two weeks before the election. Three-quarters of the cases contain 1-million rounds of 7,62x54mm and 2-million rounds of 7,62x39mm ammunition, which are used in machineguns and AK-47s. The rest of the cases have 1 500 RPG7 rockets, 3 224 mortar bombs of different sizes and 31 mortar tubes for firing the bombs. The bill was $1 245 508 (about R9,5-million) and the payment terms were "T/T" - meaning telegraphic transfer of funds and indicating the cargo was prepaid. The An Yue Jiang arrived off Durban last Wednesday, and once news of its cargo broke, it sailed on Friday without docking.

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