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Arms ship ‘returning to China’: ITF response
24/04/08
The ITF, which has helped mobilise workers across Southern Africa to block the An Yue Jiang’s cargo of arms, has given a cautious welcome to indications by the Chinese Foreign Ministry that the ship is likely to return home without attempting to unload.
However, the London-headquartered global union federation noted that the Chinese government has again deferred the final decision to Cosco, the ship’s owners, and that the company has not yet made a definite announcement that the arms mission is being aborted. It did however welcome Cosco’s assurance to the ITF, received today, that Cosco ‘has been actively resolving this matter’.
ITF General Secretary David Cockroft commented: “We hope that this will bring this affair to a close, and are ready, if appropriate, to stand down the international trade union operation to stop this deadly shipment reaching Zimbabwe.”
He continued: “There’s a lesson here: that when governments refuse to do what they should, it’s in the power of ordinary people – in the ITF, our member unions, the ITUC, the Southern Africa Litigation Centre and the churches – to do what has to be done. We will draw on that experience if we learn that any further attempts are being made to hand Mugabe’s thugs the weapons they would doubtless use against the people of Zimbabwe.”
The ITF is a global federation of 654 unions from 148 countries representing 4,418,455 workers worldwide. At the same time as it has been organising a mass rejection by trade unionists of the An Yue Jiang’s cargo, and pressuring the Southern African governments to prohibit its transhipment, it has also been seeking to ensure that the seafarers caught up in this affair are not put in danger and to persuade Cosco of the wisdom of calling off the abortive attempt to deliver the cargo to Zimbabwe.
Background information on the An Yue Jiang
The vessel is a general cargo ship built in 1986 and sails under the Chinese flag (PRC), with a crew of 28 Chinese seafarers. It has a Gross Tonnage of 11,115 tons, is 149.7m long, and is owned by the China Ocean Shipping [Group] Company (Cosco) and managed by Cosco Guangzhou. Cosco is a vast company founded in 1961 and has its headquarters in Beijing. It owns 667 vessels, 147 of them newbuildings, and states that it is worth US$17bn and has some 80,000 employees.
ENDS
For more information contact ITF press officer, Sam Dawson.
Direct line: + 44 (0)20 7940 9260.
Email: dawson_sam@itf.org.uk
International Transport Workers' Federation - ITF:
HEAD OFFICE
ITF House, 49 - 60 Borough Road, London SE1 1DS
Tel: + 44 (0) 20 7403 2733
Fax: + 44 (0) 20 7375 7871
Email: mail@itf.org.uk
Web: www.itfglobal.org
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