Dear Peace Activists,

In your five minutes for peace this week, please send an email to the Angolan Embassy and the President of Namibia to encourage their governments to support labor unions and discourage violence in southern Africa by refusing to accept a shipment of arms bound for Zimbabwe.

In late March, when election results began to show that Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, the 28 year incumbent, may have lost, the government stopped announcing election results. In the weeks since, thousands of Zimbabwean residents have fled allegedly government-sponsored violence. According to the opposition, the Movement for Democratic Change, more than 400 of its supporters have been arrested, 500 attacked, 10 killed and 3,000 families displaced.

Local trade unions, church leaders and nongovernmental organizations have formed an impromptu coalition to stem the violence by stopping a shipment of arms to the Zimbabwean government.

On Friday, the High Court of South Africa refused to allow 77 tons of military supplies, including mortar grenades and bullets, worth $1.245 million, to be transported across South Africa to land-locked Zimbabwe. An Anglican archbishop argued that the arms, purchased from a private arms company in China, were likely to be used to crush the Zimbabwean opposition.

On Monday, Levy Mwanawasa, President of Zambia and head of a block of 14 southern African nations, called on other countries in the region to foolw the South African example. “He actually said that it would be good for China to play a more useful role in the Zimbabwe crisis than supplying arms,” said an unnamed spokesman for the Zambian government. “We don’t want a situation which will escalate the situation in Zimbabwe more than what it is.”

Mozambique has since refused the hip passage as well.

As of Tuesday afternoon, the arms company appears to be trying to arrange delivery through either Angola or Namibia. Both are allies of Mr. Mugabe’s and neither has transport trade unions affiliated with the International Transport Workers Federation, which is coordinating efforts to block the unloading of the arms.

Please use your five minutes for peace this week to send two emails:

• To Josefina Pitra Diakité, the Ambassador of the Republic of Angola to the U.S.: sadriano@angola.org.
  


• To Hon. Hifikepunye Pohamba, President of Namibia:
  info@onamibianembassyusa.org.

Please ask them both to support the work of the International Transport Workers Federation and encourage stability in the region by refusing to allow additional arms to enter Zimbabwe through their territory.

As always, thanks for all you do.

In Peace,

Cheryl Wertz
Executive Director, Peace Action Fund of New York State
info@panys.org