Chinese soldiers help military junta

The first groups of Chinese soldiers were said to have been seen in Mutare in March and investigations have revealed a secret deal between the Mugabe regime and the Chinese government, part of which was the deployment of Chinese soldiers to Zimbabwe before the elections.
Representatives from China visited Zimbabwe in August last year. The visitors included military experts who held talks with Robert Mugabe, his ministers of defence, state security and intelligence officials. The meetings are thought to have culminated in a deal under which China would provide Zimbabwe not only with arms but also soldiers.
Reliable government sources have told The Zimbabwean on Sunday that the Chinese agreed to provide Zimbabwe with 150 tonnes of weapons – a consignment that is understood to have included the 77 tonnes of arms aboard the ship recently blocked at Durban – and also the deployment of Chinese soldiers before the elections.
Whilst officials at the Chinese embassy and in the Zanu (PF) regime refused to answer questions on the subject, an elaborate network of sources at the Civil Aviation Authority of Zimbabwe (CAAZ) and Air Zimbabwe helped unearth the facts.
A group of 40 Chinese soldiers arrived through Harare International Airport on March 21, a week before the elections, flying from China on an Air Zimbabwe flight.
They were received at the airport by government officials and in a manner similar to the way in which Israeli spy agents were discreetly ushered into the country. They did not use the public arrival port or go through normal formalities.
Only the top CAAZ officials were involved and aware of the arrival of the Chinese but, as you may expect, the information leaked and created a lot of interest here, a senior CAAZ official said.
After briefly patrolling the streets of Mutare, Harare and Bulawayo in the company of local security agents just before the elections, the Chinese soldiers then disappeared from view, resurfacing at the Independence Day celebrations presided over by Mugabe in Harare last month. They were in uniform and took up positions that indicated they were providing a special security or monitoring service.
Sources at the army headquarters in Harare told The Zimbabwean on Sunday that the other purpose of the Chinese soldiers’ presence in the country was to train local people in the use and handling of some of the weapons recently brought in from China.