http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/23/world/africa/23zimbabwe.html
This story was covered on the CBC local news this morning, and really made my day: Dock workers across Africa are declaring their refusal to unload the Chinese ship loaded with arms destined for (and to be used against) Zimbabwe. The trade unions in North America have been getting on my nerves of late, and it’s easy to forget that they can still play a huge and important role such as organising protests like this.
And note the whopper of a quote in the second paragraph – the dock workers have fully earned my now-ironic “boat-rockers” tag. Fabulous!
The impromptu coalition of trade unions, church leaders and organizations trying to stop the delivery gained an important ally on Monday when Levy Mwanawasa, the president of Zambia, who heads a bloc of 14 southern African nations, called on other countries in the region not to let the ship dock in their ports.
“He actually said that it would be good for China to play a more useful role in the Zimbabwe crisis than supplying arms,”