The Chinese Ship of Death “An Yue Jiang”

HARARE – Despite modern technology and international concern about the Chinese ship of death trying to get its deadly cargo to Robert Mugabe’s military junta for the killing of innocent civilians, nobody knows precisely where it is.
The ship, An Yue Jiang, is playing cat-and-mouse with maritime observers by switching off its transponder so that it cannot be traced.
In the absence of verifiable information, rumours abound. One has it that the ship has docked in Luanda and unloaded its 17-ton cargo, comprising 3 million rounds of AK-47 ammunition, 1500 rocket-propelled grenades and several thousand mortar rounds, which has been air-freighted to Harare by an air cargo company run by a prominent Zimbabwean businessman.
But last week labour bodies throughout SADC pledged that none of their members would take part in off-loading the deadly cargo. However, experts have pointed out that the An Yue Jiang has its own on-board cranes and can therefore off-load its own cargo.
What has also fuelled the rumours is the sudden trip to Luanda last week by the chairman of the Joint Operation Command running Zimbabwe’s military junta, Emmerson Munangagwa, accompanied by former minister of defence Sydney Sekeremayi and the director general of the much-loathed Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO), Happyton Bonyongwe. The trio was joined in Angola by Malawi’s intelligence chiefs, whose role in the saga has not been explained.