For a massive ship that carries tons of ammunition and has its own cranes on board, the controversial Chinese ship carrying arms for Zimbabwe is about as easy to pin down as a cockroach in a dark, damp cellar.
The An Yue Jiang is carrying three million rounds of ammunition for AK-47s, 1 500 rocket-propelled grenades and several thousand mortar rounds. The cargo was destined for Zimbabwe, where the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) says violence is at its worst since the country became independent.
Maritime and arms-control experts could only speculate on the whereabouts of the Chinese Ocean Shipping Company (Cosco) cargo ship this week, which was meant to be heading back to China. It has managed to stay under the radar after leaving South African waters, but was spotted near the Angolan coast on April 25.
On Wednesday the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) said the An Yue Jiang was still outside the port of Luanda but had neither docked nor shown signs of returning to China.
”It appears that the ship slowed right down over the weekend, probably while it awaited orders. The fact that it then made full speed for Luanda suggests that it got them. We trust that they will be for it to take on fuel and make their way home and that no attempt will be made to land any of its cargo of arms.
Given the lack of any definitive promise from Cosco or the Chinese government to this effect, we can promise that the world will be watching what happens next,” ITF general secretary David Cockroft said.
Lloyds Maritime Information Unit (Lloyds MIU), which monitors shipping worldwide, told the Mail & Guardian on Wednesday that according to its tracking records the vessel docked at Luanda airport, refuelled and then set sail again.
This series of events is supported by the Angolan government, which insists the ship docked in Luanda but was allowed only to offload construction material destined for Angola.
The exact location of the ship could not be given by Lloyds MIU as the captain repeatedly switches off the vessel’s transponder, which can be detected by maritime authorities.
There is some scepticism about a promise by Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos that the arms would not be offloaded in Angola.
Newspaper reports this week said that Malawian and Zimbabwean intelligence officials and politicians made their way to Angola to meet Dos Santos.
The M&G has learned that Mugabe’s right-hand man, Cabinet minister Emmerson Mnangagwa, was accompanied by the country’s top spy, Happyton Bonyongwe, and other security figures on his quest to deliver a ”special message” to Dos Santos this week.
”I think people also underestimate the basis of some of our alliances in the region,” a senior Zimbabwean diplomat who was involved in the Mnangagwa mission said. He pointed to a decade-old ”military pact” between Zimbabwe with Angola and Namibia.
Many top government officials this week said they believed Mnangagwa would lean on these old military alliances to persuade Angola to allow the release of arms held aboard the An Yue Jiang.
In an earlier version of this article we quoted unnamed sources speculating that ”Chinese air cargo company MK Air might be involved in transporting the An Yue Jiang’s arms to Zimbabwe”. We accept that this claim was inaccurate and false. MK Airlines has told us that it is in fact a British registered company, with strong and proud links to the African continent, and that it played no role in transporting weapons to Zimbabwe. Any imputation to the contrary is regretted and we apologise unreservedly.