South Africa: Union refuses to unload Zim arms

Opposition to a shipment of arms being offloaded in Durban and transported to Zimbabwe increased on Thursday when South Africa's largest transport workers union announced that its members would not unload the ship.

SA Transport and Allied Workers Union (Satawu) general secretary Randall Howard said: "Satawu does not agree with the position of the South African government not to intervene with this shipment of weapons.

"Our members employed at Durban Container Terminal will not unload this cargo neither will any of our members in the truck driving sector move this cargo by road."

He said the ship, the An Yue Jiang, should not dock in Durban and should return to China.

 

"South Africa cannot be seen to be facilitating the flow of weapons into Zimbabwe at a time where there is a political dispute and a volatile situation between the Zanu-PF and the MDC."

"The view of our members is that nobody should ask us to unload these weapons," he said.

Satawu said it planned to engage support from the Congress of SA Trade Unions (Cosatu).

Defence secretary January Masilela on Thursday that the scrutiny committee of the National Conventional Arms Control Committee's (NCACC) scrutiny committee, which he chairs, had approved the conveyance permit on Monday already.

 

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