And here is how the EU community sends a serious msg to China:
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German bank gets impound order for Chinese ****p's Zimbabwe-bound cargo
The Associated PressPublished: April 22, 2008
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/04/22/europe/EU-GEN-Germany-Zimbabwe-Chi=
nese-****p.php
BERLIN: A German bank obtained a court order to impound the cargo of a
Chinese ****p carrying weapons for Zimbabwe as it tries to recover
unpaid debts from the southern African country, officials said
Tuesday.
But KfW IPEX-Bank GmbH, a subsidiary of Germany's state-owned KfW
development bank, was unaware that the An Yue Jiang was carrying arms
when it obtained the order from a South African court last week,
spokeswoman Dela Strumpf said.
The Chinese ****p has been turned away from South African and
Mozambican ****ts in recent days as officials balked at its cargo of
weapons and ammunition for Zimbabwe's government. It is now believed
to be headed for Angola, possibly with a refueling stop in Namibia.
On Thursday, KfW IPEX-Bank obtained an court order in Durban, South
Africa, to impound the ****p's Zimbabwean-owned cargo because the
Zimbabwean government still owes the German bank about =8040 million (US
$63 million at current rates), Strumpf said.
"We did not know at any time that the ****p was carrying weapons,"
Strumpf said. "We would have never accepted weapons."
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Strumpf said KfW IPEX-Bank awarded a =8040 million loan to the state-
owned Zimbabwe Iron & Steel Company in 1998, but the loan was never
paid back.
In 2006, the bank obtained an arbitration ruling from the
International Chamber of Commerce in London, allowing it to impound
Zimbabwean property abroad to recover its losses.
"As is common, we then hired an internationally operating company, in
this case Commercial Intelligence, to track down Zimbabwean overseas-
property for us and impound it," Strumpf said.
She added that Commercial Intelligence, which obtained the impounding
order for the An Yue Jiang on the bank's behalf, also did not know
that the Chinese vessel was carrying weapons.
"I don't think the court order was ever delivered to the captain of
the ****p but it is still valid and, theoretically, if the ****p would
ever dock again in South Africa, we could still impound parts of the
cargo that are not weapons," Strumpf said.
She added that the bank so far has had no success in getting
Zimbabwean overseas property impounded.
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