What is China's Role in Zimbabwe?

Posted by Indigenious at 10/24/2011 3:32 PM
Categories: Zimbabwe, China


Zimbabwe has been on the verge of political upheaval following last month's elections. Last week a Chinese cargo vessel packed with Chinese made arms docked in Durban, SA, with the intention to offload the cargo that was to be transported on to Zimbabwe. South African Trade Union Workers have since refused to offload the cargo and actually helped block the offloading out of fear the the incumbent Zimbabwe government will use the weapons to attack and intimidate opposition supporters. Today the boat reportedly headed back for China. Following the intended Chinese shipment, we wanted to examine the views of the Chinese, Zimbabweans and opposition sources, some which claim for deeper Chinese involvement in support of the incumbent Zimbabwean government, including the existence of Chinese military personnel in , to see if we can bring some clarity to the role, if any, that China is playing in the current turmoil in Zimbabwe.

Background:
For background summary info see: Opposition ‘Clear Victor’ in Zimbabwe, U.S. Says
For more information, including on a $240M arms deal conducted in 2004 between China and Zimbabwe, see: Chinese Supply of Weapons to Zimbabwe Blocked

Chinese:
Xinhua the official Chinese news Agency has reported scarcely on the Zimbabwe elections. In general they have maintained China's policy not to interfere with other states Sovereign matters and claim this shipment was a "regular" arms shipment. Today they issued the following report Zimbabwe 'free to source arms from any country' quoting a statement by a Zimbabwean minister at a press conference.

Zimbabwe:
The Herald, the voice of Mugabe and Zanu-PF the ruling party, has of course been critical of foreign medias attention to the matter and have asserted Zimbabwe's governments right to the arms, while stressing the strong relationship with China.  As in today's article:  China Clears Air on Arms Shipment, while at the same time reporting on alleged election fraud by the opposition: More ZEC Officials Arrested for Electoral Fraud

Opposition Sources:
This is Zimbabwe, a well written, anti Zanu-PF blog, provides interesting reporting on alleged abuse of the Zimbabwe government/army on opposition. The blog also cites reports from other publications that the arms boat discussed may actually be headed for Angola. However more importantly the blog reports on April 16th of the possible existence of Chinese soldiers in Mutare Zimbabwe: Chinese Soldiers Seen in Mutare.






 

What did you think of this article?




Trackbacks
Trackback specific URL for this post
  • No trackbacks exist for this post.
Comments
Display comments as (Linear | Threaded)

Leave a comment

 Name

 Email (will not be published)

 Website

Your comment is 0 characters limited to 3000 characters.