Solidarity action was taken, however, by railworkers and by dockers, who were both threatened with dismissal if they refused to handle coal.
On the other side of the hawser was a hostile knot of young dockers.
The dockers are coming out on strike for higher wages.
Dress the part: this is no time for dockers and starched shirts.
Such a view was clearly not shared by the dockers, who greeted the release of their colleagues as a triumphant victory, and carried them through the streets shoulder high.
And Mr Mugabe's Chinese friends, foiled by southern African dockers who recently stopped a shipload of arms from reaching him, may be keeping their distance too.
