South African Dock Workers Refuse to Offload Goods from Israeli Ship; Cosatu, PSC Launch Week of Action in SA

Cape Argus, Independent Online (South Africa), February 3, 2009 - Satawu (South African Transport and Allied Workers Union) Durban dock workers are expected to refuse to off-load an Israeli ship as part of a week of action against "apartheid" Israel, Cosatu and the Palestine Solidarity Committee (PSC) said on Tuesday.

Cosatu spokesperson Patrick Craven and PSC spokesperson Salim Vally said dock workers would refuse to off-load the ship arriving [in Durban, South Africa] on Sunday, February 8, as part of a refusal to support oppression and exploitation across the globe.

SA Transport and Allied Workers' Union (Satawu) general secretary Randall Howard said the union's members were committed to not handling Israeli goods.

Last year, Durban dock workers refused to off-load a shipment of arms from China that was destined for Zimbabwe.

The arms would have been used to "prop up the Mugabe regime and to intensify the repression against the Zimbabwean people", Craven said.

"In 1963, just four years after the Anti-Apartheid Movement was formed, Danish dock workers refused to off-load a ship with South African goods.

"When the ship docked in Sweden, Swedish workers followed suit. Dock workers in Liverpool and, later, in the San Francisco Bay Area also refused to off-load South African goods," he said.

Western Australian members of the Maritime Union of Australia supported the "campaign for boycotts, divestment and sanctions" against Israel and had called for a boycott of all Israeli vessels and all vessels bearing goods arriving from or going to Israel.

"This is the legacy and the tradition that South African dock workers have inherited, and it is a legacy they are determined to honour, by ensuring that South African ports of entry will not be used as transit points for goods bound for or emanating from certain dictatorial and oppressive states such as Zimbabwe, Swaziland and Israel."

Cosatu called on other workers and unions across the globe to follow suit and to do all that is necessary to ensure that they boycott all goods to and from Israel until Palestine was free....

See also: Week of Protest Action Planned (Palestinian Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of Israel, Media Statement, February 3, 2009)