Lessons learned from dismantlement of South Africa's biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons programs

ABSTRACT

South Africa had active nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons programs during the 1970s and 1980s. South Africa dismantled its nuclear weapon program prior to its 1991 accession to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). Similarly, it terminated its chemical weapons program prior to its 1995 ratification of the Chemical Weapons Convention. Only the dismantlement of Pretoria's nuclear weapons program was subjected to international verification—albeit ex post facto—following a 1993 decision of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) General Conference to verify the correctness and completeness of South Africa's declarations under its NPT safeguards agreement. During the 1980s, South Africa also developed and purportedly used biological weapons, violating its obligations under the 1972 Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on their Destruction, which it had ratified in 1975. This article draws lessons from the verification of the dismantlement of these programs and makes recommendations for future verification work to confirm the elimination of weapons of mass destruction capabilities.

KEYWORDS:

• South Africa
• disarmament
• elimination
• weapons of mass destruction
• Biological Weapons Convention
• Chemical Weapons Convention
• Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons
• verification
• biological weapons
• chemical weapons

Notes

1. IAEA General Conference Resolution GC(XXXV)/RES/567, September 1991.

2. “South Africa’s Nuclear Capabilities,” GC(XXXVI)/1015, September 4, 1992.

3. “The Denuclearization of Africa,” GC(XXXVII)/1075, September 9, 1993.

4. Nic von Wielligh and Lydia von Wielligh-Steyn, Die Bom, Suid-Afrika se kernwapenprogram (Pretoria: Litera, 2014), p. 174.

5. David Albright, “South Africa and the Affordable Bomb,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 50 (July/August 2004), pp. 37-47.

6. David Albright and Corey Hinderstein, “South Africa’s Nuclear Weaponization Efforts: Success on a Small Scale,” Institute for Science and International Security, September 13, 2001, <http://isis-online.org/uploads/isis-reports/documents/safrica.pdf>.

7. Albright and Hinderstein, “South Africa's Nuclear Weaponization Efforts.”

8. Albright, “South Africa and the Affordable Bomb.”

9. Mark Hibbs, “South Africa's Secret Nuclear Program: From a PNE to a Deterrent,” Nuclear Fuel 18 May 10, 1993.

10. Albright, “South Africa and the Affordable Bomb.”

11. “Safeguards Statement for 2011,” IAEA, 2011 <www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/es2011.pdf>.

12. David Albright and Serena Kelleher-Vergantini, “Tracking Inventories of Civil Highly Enriched Uranium: National and Global Stocks, as of End 2014,” Institute for Science and International Security, October 7, 2015, <http://isis-online.org/uploads/isis-reports/documents/Civil_Stocks_of_HEU_Worldwide_October_7_2015_Final.pdf>.

13. It is not clear from the open sources how much and what level of enrichment was used for this purpose.

14. Douglas Birch and R. Jeffrey Smith, “Why SA's nuclear stash worries US,” Mercury, March 17, 2015, <www.iol.co.za/mercury/why-sas-nuclear-stash-worries-us-1832968>.

15. Douglas Birch and R. Jeffrey Smith, “U.S. unease about nuclear-weapons fuel takes aim at a South African vault,” Washington Post, March 14, 2015, <www.washingtonpost.com/world/africa/us-unease-about-nuclear-weapons-fuel-takes-aim-at-a-south-african-vault/2015/03/13/b17389f6-2bc1-4515-962d-03c655d0e62d_story.html>.

16. Stephen F. Burgess and Helen E. Purkitt, The Rollback of South Africa's Chemical and Biological Warfare Program (Maxwell AFB, Alabama: USAF Counterproliferation Center, Air War College, Air University, April 2001), <www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/cpc-pubs/southafrica.pdf>.

17. To cite an example, uranium metal quantities must be consistent with parameters to produce uranium metal. In such a process, uranium tetra fluoride (UF₄) is reduced to uranium metal using, customarily, calcium or magnesium metals. The process produces ashes and slag, which contain calcium or magnesium. The amounts of these elements found in wastes should be in conformity with the uranium metal produced. Furthermore, the amounts of ashes and slag must match the stated amounts of uranium metal produced. Similarly, one can estimate losses in casting and machining of uranium metal components into their final forms. Again, those must match the amount of uranium metal produced. Evaluation of the choke points, for example in the following production chain, provides additional assurances about the completeness of a state's declarations:

yellowcake → (UO₂) → UF₄ → UF₆ → enrichment → UF4 (enriched) → uranium metal

18. According to the provisions of the safeguards agreement, the IAEA Secretariat can disclose information about nuclear material inventories only with the consent of its Board of Governors or the concerned member state. In the case of South Africa, the IAEA has not made public any nuclear material accountancy information due to security reasons.

19. Carey Sublette, “Report on the 1979 Vela Incident,” Nuclearweaponarchive.org, September 1, 2001, <http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Safrica/Vela.html>.

20. Ibid.

21. Seymour M. Hersh, The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy (New York: Random House, 1991).

22. Jürgen Dahlkamp, Georg Mascolo, and Holger Stark, “A.Q. Khan's Nuclear Mafia: Network of Death on Trial, Part II: Khan's Worldwide Network,” Der Spiegel, March 13, 2006, <www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/a-q-khan-s-nuclear-mafia-network-of-death-on-trial-a-405847-2.html>.

23. Burgess and Purkitt, The Rollback of South Africa's Chemical and Biological Warfare Program.

24. “Memorandum on South African Military Policy on Biological and Chemical Warfare, and accompanying attachments,” September 29, 1987, History and Public Policy Program Digital Archive, South African National Defence Forces Archive, MI 306/3, vol. 1, 45, <http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/116788.pdf?v=14945b26c86765e4a33cca6f01a9b90e>.

25. Chandré Gould and Peter Folb, Project Coast: Apartheid's Chemical and Biological Warfare Programme (Geneva: United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research, 2012).

26. Phosgene oxime, or CX, is an organic compound with the formula Cl₂CNOH. Sulfur mustard is an organic compound with the formula (ClCH₂CH₂)₂S.

27. Gould and Folb, Project Coast.

28. Following the collapse of the apartheid regime, South Africa established a Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 1995 as “a necessary exercise to enable South Africans to come to terms with their past on a morally accepted basis and to advance the cause of reconciliation.” See Official Truth and Reconciliation Commission Website, <www.justice.gov.za/trc/>. Archbishop Desmond Tutu, chair, “The Truth and Reconciliation Commision of South Africa Report,” October 29, 1998, <www.justice.gov.za/trc/>. See, in particular, Volume 2, chapter 6.

29. South Africa acceded in 1930 to the 1925 Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or Other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare, and in 1972 signed the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological and Toxin Weapons and on Their Destruction (the BWC), which it ratified in 1975. See Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation, “Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or Other Gases, and of Bacgeriological Methods of Warfare (Geneva Protocol),” US Department of State, <www.state.gov/t/isn/4784.htm> and Kelsey Davenport, “Biological Weapons Convention Signatories and States-Parties,” Arms Control Association, <www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/bwcsig>.

30. Burgess and Purkitt, The Rollback of South Africa's Chemical and Biological Warfare Program; Chandré Gould and Peter Folb, “The South African Chemical and Biological Warfare Program: An Overview,” Nonproliferation Review 7 (Fall/Winter 2000), pp. 10-23; Jerome Amir Singh, “Project Coast: Eugenics in Apartheid South Africa,” Endeavour 32 (March, 2008), pp. 5- 9; Gould and Folb, Project Coast.

31. Delta G Scientific was later renamed Syntheta (Pty) Ltd, a subsidiary of Sentrachem, Ltd, the main business of which is chemical products. In 1997, the Dow Chemical Company acquired most of Sentrachem.

32. Kelsey Gregg, “‘Dr. Death’–Head of South Africa's Biological & Chemical Weapons Program,” Federation of American Scientists, May 28, 2010, <http://fas.org/blogs/fas/2010/05/dr-death-head-of-south-africas-biological-and-chemical-weapons-program/>.

33. According to Dr. Renfrew Christie, an anti-apartheid scientist imprisoned for passing on nuclear-weapon plans to the African National Congress (ANC), the United States, “backed by Israel and the United Kingdom, had issued a ‘hostile nation warning’ to South Africa in January 1990 to destroy its nuclear weapon program in order to keep it out of ANC hands.” In his 2000 interview, Christie claimed that, “in the 1980s, Israel had been involved in South African NBC programs, and the United States and United Kingdom did not object to South Africa developing those programs.” Burgess and Purkitt, The Rollback of South Africa's Chemical and Biological Warfare Program, pp. 110-11.

34. Burgess and Purkitt, The Rollback of South Africa's Chemical and Biological Warfare Program.

35. See Joshua Sinai, “U.S.-Libya Relations: A New Era?” Hearing before the Subcommittee on Africa of the Committee on International Relations, 106th Cong., 1st sess., July 22, 1999.

36. Ibid.

37. Gould and Folb, “The South African Chemical and Biological Warfare Program.”

38. Burgess and Purkitt, The Rollback of South Africa's Chemical and Biological Warfare Program.

39. Ibid.

40. The BBC was one of several media outlets that had dubbed the former Project Coast chief with the moniker. See, for example, “South Africa's ‘Dr Death’ Basson found guilty of misconduct,” BBC, December 18, 2013, <www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-25432367>; and “Dr. Death and Prime Evil,” Economist, January 31, 2015, <www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21641303-when-forgive-when-not-forget-dr-death-and-prime-evil>.

41. Burgess and Purkitt, The Rollback of South Africa's Chemical and Biological Warfare Program.

42. Ibid., pp. 46, 89.

43. Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, “Report of the Organisation on the Implementation of the Convention (1 January 1998 - 31 December 1998),” C-IV/5, July 2, 1999, <www.opcw.org/fileadmin/OPCW/CSP/C-IV/en/C-IV_5-EN.pdf>; Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, “Draft Report on the Implementation of the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and their Destruction,” EC-79/5 C-20/CRP.1, July 9, 2015, <www.opcw.org/fileadmin/OPCW/EC/79/en/c20crp01_ec7905_e_.pdf>.

44. “Libya: Stockpiles of Chemical Weapons Found,” Telegraph, October 27, 2011, <www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/8851973/Libya-stockpiles-of-chemical-weapons-found.html>.

45. “Syria Conflict: ‘Mustard gas used’ in Marea Attack,” BBC, November 6, 2015, <www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-34743311>. The Syrian case has also brought to the attention of the international community the use of chemical weapons by subnational groups and terrorists. The March 28 letter from the Secretary-General addressed to the president of the Security Council contains two alarming messages. First, the OPCW Executive Council expressed its concerns about the inability to fully verify the declarations and related submissions of the Syrian Arab Republic on its chemical weapons program as accurate and complete. In addition, the OPCW has not been able to resolve incidents that could have involved the use of chemical-weapon agents. See Letter from the Secretary-General addressed to the President of the Security Council, S/2016/285, United Nations Security Council, 29 March 2016 <www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=S/2016/285>. In addition, there are recent claims that the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant has acquired chemical weapons. Kristina Wong, “ISIS used chemical eapons against the Kurds, US officials say,” The Hill, February 16, 2016, <www.thehill.com/policy/defense/269551-isis-used-chemical-weapons-against-the-kurds-us-officials-say>.

46. Article IX of the CWC provides for consultation and clarification between state parties if concerns about possible noncompliance arise. Together with the Verification Annex, Article IX provides for short-notice challenge inspections by the OPCW, upon request from a state party, of any facility or location on the territory, or anywhere under the jurisdiction, of any other state party, to clarify and resolve questions regarding possible noncompliance.

47. The Secretary-General's Mechanism to carry out prompt investigations in response to allegations brought to his attention concerning the possible use of chemical and bacteriological (biological) and toxin weapons was developed in the late 1980s. Triggered by a request from any member state, the secretary-general is authorized to launch an investigation including dispatching a fact-finding team to the site(s) of the alleged incident(s) and to report to all United Nations member states. This is to ascertain, in an objective and scientific manner, the facts of alleged violations of the 1925 Geneva Protocol, which bans the use of chemical and biological weapons, or other relevant rules of customary international law. “Secretary-General's Mechanism for Investigation of Alleged Use of Chemical and Biological Weapons,” UN Office for Disarmament Affairs, <www.un.org/disarmament/WMD/Secretary-General_Mechanism/>

48. Singh, “Project Coast.”

49. Burgess and Purkitt, The Rollback of South Africa's Chemical and Biological Warfare Program.

50. Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, “Report of the Advisory Panel on the Future Priorities of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons,” S/951/2011, July 25, 2011.