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Dockers refuse to load arms for Saudi Arabia

Sunday 16 June 2019

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In recent weeks, attempts to deliver ammunition for Caesar cannons and other types of armaments to Saudi Arabia have been interrupted by the mobilization of dockworkers in three different ports in France and Italy.

At the beginning of May, a demonstration on the quay at Le Havre where the ship was to dock on 9 May and the by the dockers refusing to load the cargo prevented this delivery for the first time. On May 20, it was the turn of the Italian trade unions to refuse to load goods on a Saudi ship carrying weapons in protest against the war that Riad is leading in Yemen and by declaring their refusal to be complicit in the crimes committed in Yemen. The dockworkers went on strike and refused to work until the ship left the port of Genoa.

At the end of May, a Saudi cargo ship was again prevented from loading the cargo with Caesar canons following the mobilisation of dockworkers in the port of Marseille-Fos. The CGT union in which the dockworkers are organised issued a statement justifying this decision, stating in particular that "Faithful to their history and values of peace[...] they will not load any weapons or ammunition for any war at all".