Title of paper

1.4 The South African bomb programme

In the late 1970s, the apartheid government authorised the building of nuclear weapons firstly at Pelindaba, outside Pretoria on land owned by the Atomic Energy Board (now NECSA). Later the manufacture of the weapons was moved to another site a few kilometres away under the control of the military. The apartheid government hoped that the newly independent countries of Angola and Mozambique, assisted by Cuba and the Soviet Union, would cease their support for SWAPO and the ANC if they knew South Africa possessed the bomb. To enable the bomb programme to happen, South Africa built an enrichment plant at Valindaba, adjacent to the Pelindaba complex. Although they claimed that the enrichment would be for peaceful purposes, the Koeberg power station only came on line some years later. The price of enrichment and weapons helped to weaken the apartheid economy. By 1990, the apartheid state had agreed to the independence of Namibia and to a deal with the ANC at home. The last apartheid president, F W de Klerk, cancelled the weapons programme. By then, the arms industry was busy making nuclear weapon number 7. The government closed down the costly conversion, enrichment and fuel fabrication factories. After that, fuel for Koeberg was purchased on the global market. South Africa was the first country to give up its nuclear weapons. It joined the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and took up its former seat at the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna.

1.5 The Treaty of Pelindaba

This is a solemn agreement between the countries of Africa not to allow nuclear weapons on their soil. The treaty was first signed in Cairo in 1996 and came into force in 2009 when Burundi became the 28^th state to ratify. Namibia was the 35^th state to ratify in 2012. Africa has become a nuclear weapons free zone.

2. Weapons of mass destruction and the Cold War

Today nations more readily condemn the use of weapons of mass destruction. These are weapons spreading nuclear, radiological, biological or chemical contaminants which have the capability of destroying people in large numbers, as well as ecosystems and property.

2.1 Assessing the destructiveness of nuclear weapons

Since Hiroshima and Nagasaki (6 and 9 August 1945) are the only nuclear weapons ever used in a military attack, we look to them to assess how destructive the weapons were. By the end of the year 1945, over 210,000 victims had died of acute radiation syndrome in the two cities. The city centres were completely destroyed for a radius of over 6 km². Tests of further weapons also demonstrated their highly destructive power.

2.2 Impacts of the Cold War

After WWII, the US, Britain and France became hostile to their former allies in the war, the USSR and China. They feared the spread of communist ideology in the West. Before the global split, some US and UK scientists who had been involved in developing the bomb felt it should be placed under the control of the United Nations. However, the main victors of the war became suspicious of each other’s motives very quickly and gave up any plans to internationalize weapons. Each of them attempted to develop its own nuclear arsenal. The USSR made its first nuclear weapon in 1949, and China’s first tests were in the 1960s.

The war between the two sides never formally broke out, and for this reason it was called the Cold War. However there were great tensions between the two sides, including flashpoints in Berlin and Cuba and full scale conflicts in Greece, Korea, Vietnam, the Middle East and Angola. Both sides engaged in a race to possess the most powerful nuclear weapons. They built up arsenals of thousands of these. This put the whole planet at risk.

2.3 Fear of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction

The nuclear powers by the 1960s consisted of USA, Great Britain, France, USSR and China. They were nervous that the weapons technology would spread or proliferate to other countries. The weapons countries got the rest of the world to sign the Treaty of Nuclear Non-Proliferation (NPT 1968) trying to get the other countries not to create weapons programmes of their own.

Some countries like Israel, India, Pakistan and South Africa refused to sign the NPT. They believed that they should be allowed to develop nuclear weapons of their own. Later, North Korea left the treaty and built its own bomb. In 1990, South Africa gave up its nuclear weapons and signed the NPT.

Today, we have nine countries that have nuclear weapons.

Today’s nuclear arsenal
Country	No of weapons
USA	7 700
Russia	8 500
UK	225
France	300
China	250
India	110
Pakistan	120
Israel	80
N Korea	›10
Total	17 300

The USA and Russia have given up many of their weapons, but need to bring down the amount further through arms limitation talks. The Cold War is over, and people deserve to get some benefits from the new world order.

Great Britain is thinking about giving up its weapons.

There are a number of weapons free zones in the world: Antarctica, the outer space, Latin America, the seabed, South Pacific, South-East Asia, Mongolia and Africa.

There is an international campaign to abolish nuclear weapons (ICAN). So far, Namibia is not represented in this campaign. Recent meetings in Norway and Mexico have involved governments and civil society in condemning such weapons.