China, schijnt het, heeft nooit een conflict in Afrika gezien het niet aan pret wilde. Voor Peking, betekent het slechte bestuur soms goede zaken, aan wrok`westelijke' democratie.
De verwerping van een verzending van wapens aan Zimbabwe drie weken geleden bevestigt de race van China om in het exploiteren van het potentieel van Afrika in te halen. De Aziatische reus wil olie, gas, koper, ijzer, vissen en hout. En het is soms klaar om deze met wapens uit te wisselen.
De tendens van China om zijn timing, vooral met de wapensuitvoer verkeerd te krijgen, is legendarisch. Darfur tapt af aangezien China viert. Voor gewone burgers van Darfur, is China zo veel een vijand zoals de Arabische junta in Khartoum. De junta, de van wie bron van wapens China is, is beschuldigd van de financiering van de militie Janjaweed die villagers in Darfur doodt.
De handel van wapens
De Week en de Ruimte het dagboekrapporten China hebben van de luchtvaart van de Technologie de Islamitische overheidswapens en de waarde $100million van Shenyang vechtersvliegtuigen, met inbegrip van 12 supersonische F-7 stralen verkocht. Gunships van de helikopter die naar verluidt wordt gebruikt om burgers in Darfur te terroriseren kunnen van China geweest zijn.
Tijdens hun grensoorlog tussen 1998 en 2000, verkocht China naar verluidt wapens aan Ethiopië en Eritrea. In Januari en Februari, oogstte Kenia dat als China wordt afgetapt. There was an excuse of “wrong timing” for the legitimate business of exporting arms.
Zimbabwe moans as China enjoys an arms export boom. International Broadcast Bureau says China provided a radio-jamming device to Zimbabwe that allows the Robert Mugabe regime to block broadcasts of independent sources like Radio Africa from a military base outside Harare.
In 2000, China is reported to have swapped a shipment of small arms for eight tonnes of ivory. Those arms may be in the hands of ‘war veterans’ who terrorise civilians for change.
China does not mind inflaming conflicts provided there is a business opportunity. After all, the West exploited conflicts in Africa during classical imperialism.
Now it is China’s turn.
Three weeks ago China was caught with its pants around its heels trying to export arms to Zimbabwe to prop up a drowning Mugabe.
The Zimbabewean despot is drowning under an avalanche of pro-democracy votes, whose outcome he was too embarrassed to publish. Mugabe, a former liberator, could not believe he is no longer wanted. But even the vote recount that confirms he lost, even after rigging, has not opened the dictator’s eyes to the reality of rejection. Instead he is scheming to rig a runoff with his thrasher Morgan Tsvangarai, the Movement for Democratic Change presidential candidate.
Military generals who have always supported Mugabe are restless. Cushioning war veterans and generals against a dead economy as Mugabe has always done, won’t help.
A former Mugabe ally and Minister for Information Prof Jonathan Moyo, was quoted, as saying: “The generals around Mugabe experience (economic problems) in ways that are different. They have access to subsidised fuel. They have State vehicles, they get subsidised foreign currency so they are able to live in a fantasy world within hell for everyone else.”
Mugabe hangs on, and wants to move on, because he holds the instruments of power and violence. But it is dockworkers of South Africa who exposed China’s plot inflame abuse of human rights in Zimbabwe. The workers refused to unload weapons from a Chinese ship.
Reuters quoted Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Jiang Yu, saying: “To my knowledge, the Chinese company has decided to recall the ship and the relevant goods bound for Zimbabwe.”
The ‘relevant’ goods aboard the ship, An Yue Jiang were 77 tonnes of ammunition, mortars and rifle grenades. The ship arrived amid claims Mugabe is mobilising against the people. A number of these people have been brutalised in anticipation there could be a runoff.
Again China’s timing was wrong, as did the arrival of such goods in Kenya in January when the country was bleeding. But that is China, increasingly known for cutting deals with bad governments and arming them to subvert ‘western’ democracy.
China was a late starter in the arms trade, and especially its trade ties with Africa are nascent. But the haste to catch up, and beat the West at its own game, should not justify blatant complicity in human rights abuses, under the guise of official policy that de-links business from politics. But the business of selling arms is always political.
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