According to two nuclear scientists who formed part of the team that dismantled South Africa’s nuclear bombs in 1990/91, they were impressed with what we achieved in total secrecy. Six nuclear bombs and a seventh near completion, and the world knew almost nothing of it. They reminisce about how they discovered that South Africa developed not only nuclear weapons but also biological and chemical weapons.
With the advent of the tumultuous 1990s and the fall of the Berlin Wall one year prior, the world needed to change; and change it certainly did. Communism had died a slow and painful death and a new era was beckoning. Apartheid South Africa no longer needed to be supported to fight the “Rooi Gevaar” and certainly needed to change its ways; and with it allow for black majority rule.
But, we certainly cannot have them lay their hands on nuclear bombs, and so a process was needed to ensure that these weapons of mass destruction were systematically dismantled before a general election could take place, which was certainly going to elect a black leader as the first democratic president.
The USA and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) worked around the clock to make sure these weapons don’t fall into black hands. Not only did they destroy our weapons but they also destroyed a new spy satellite, and our entire missile and rocket technology as this was to be the delivery vehicles for such weapons. This certainly pushed us back a few decades in just under three years. When it was all done, the apartheid regime was now ready to agree to a date for the first democratic elections.
The ANC leaders tried to give it a positive spin and announced to the world that we had voluntarily given up our weapons. The first and only country to do so. How mighty gracious of us. Now the world’s failing superpower, with a mad man at its helm, is raining hellfire on the world. Kidnapping presidents, threatening to steal Greenland, bombing Nigeria, and of late, picking a fight with Iran, and we are next in line.
If there is anything the Iran chapter has shown the world is the fact that the IAEA spied on Iran and shared vital information with the USA with regards to the Iranian nuclear programme. This is why the Persian state has withdrawn from the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and indicated that it will not cooperate with the
agency henceforth.
It is rather apparent that if you are a nuclear power, whether declared or not, larger economies like the US and others don’t dare to attack you.
I think the time has come for South Africa to reconsider its posture on the matter of nuclear weapons. We have the technology and know-how, we have the necessary facilities, and we still have enriched uranium. If Japan can publicly announce that if threatened by China or North Korea, they will develop a nuclear bomb in six months, what’s to say we can’t do it in a year or two?
I wish I could say that the world is a better place from where it was during the Cold War period but it seems Trump has reminded us that might is right and international law does not matter at all. The UN and all its institutions don’t matter. So, why would we still want to think of what others will say or think of us? This is the single most important decision for our national security and sovereignty. No need to do it secretly; we must announce it to the world and proceed to develop it.
The same European countries that will immediately talk of sanctions against us will not come to our rescue when a crazy hegemon wants to blow us to kingdom come. They will protest but do nothing. Israel is committing an ongoing genocide in Gaza, and the EU, Canada, Australia and others are complicit. So don’t preach to us about not needing a nuclear weapon.
This is about national security and our constitutional democracy.
- Dr Van Heerden is a senior research fellow at the Centre for African Diplomacy and Leadership at UJ
