JOHANNESBURG , South Africa ( CNN ) -- A Chinese ship loaded with arms and ammunition sailed away from a South African waters and is on its way to Luanda , Angola to unload its cargo bound for Zimbabwe . South Africa 's High Court ruled Friday the cargo could be offloaded in the Durban port , but it could not pass over South Africa roads to get to Zimbabwe , a country in crisis because of an election stalemate . Durban 's dockworkers also said they would not handle the cargo , fearing the arms would be used by the Zimbabwean government against its own people . A South African government source told CNN the China-flagged An Yue Jiang had sailed away from Durban Friday evening before the High Court 's order could be served to the ship 's captain . The ship was headed to the port of Luanda , Angola , according to the South African Department of Transport . Zimbabwe is in turmoil after elections last month that saw the opposition Movement for Change party win a majority of seats in the parliament , although Mugabe 's ZANU-PF party has contested 16 seats , claiming the MDC cheated . The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission began a recount of 23 of those districts Saturday morning . The presidential election , however , has sparked much more concern . The government of President Robert Mugabe , who has been in power since Zimbabwe won its independence in 1980 , has refused to release results of that vote before a recount . The MDC says its candidate , Morgan Tsvangirai , won the election , but ZANU-PF has claimed the MDC engaged in election tampering . The delay in releasing the vote sparked violence and a government crackdown on opposition members . `` This union has a proud history of taking action against regimes which it disapproves of in the past , but this is certainly the first time it has gotten involved in an African regime like Zimbabwe , '' David Cockroft , general secretary of the International Transport Workers Federation , said . `` I do n't think there 's much doubt that the ( dock ) workers ... are very strongly against the Mugabe regime , '' he said . Cockroft said that arms had almost certainly been shipped to Zimbabwe through Durban in the past , but the size of this shipment -- `` more than a million pounds '' and 3.5 million rounds of rifles , small arms , mortar shells and rocket-propelled grenades -- made it more noteworthy . Earlier , South African Revenue Service spokesman Adrian Lackay told CNN `` that it is commonplace for landlocked neighboring states in southern Africa to use South African ports of entry for the transshipment of goods . '' Lackay indicated that the ship had complied with South African regulations requiring it to disclose the contents of the cargo it is carrying . A government spokesman , Thembo Maseko , told CNN , `` There were arms on the ship . '' The Chinese Foreign Ministry issued a statement in a fax to the Reuters news agency saying that China and Zimbabwe have normal trade relations , that the Chinese government takes a `` prudent and responsible '' position on arms deals and that it does not involve itself in the internal affairs of other countries . E-mail to a friend . CNN 's Nkepile Mabuse and Bridget Fallon contributed to this report .
Arms ship heads towards Angola . - The US and USSR are at war with each other, so the Soviet Union is in a position to invade Cuba if it wanted to. Ship sailed away away from Durban , union leader says .