South Africa s Chemical and Biological Warfare Programme A Historical and International Perspective.pdf

Journal of Southern African Studies ISSN: 0305-7070 (Print) 1465-3893 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cjss20 South Africa's Chemical and Biological Warfare Programme: A Historical and International Perspective Helen E. Purkitt & Stephen Burgess To cite this article: Helen E. Purkitt & Stephen Burgess (2002) South Africa's Chemical and Biological Warfare Programme: A Historical and International Perspective, Journal of Southern African Studies, 28:2, 229-253, DOI: 10.1080/03057070220140685 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/03057070220140685 Published online: 04 Aug 2010. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 243 View related articles Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=cjss20 Journal of Southern African Studies, Volume 28, Number 2, June 2002 South Africa’s Chemical and Biological Warfare Programme: a Historical and International Perspective* HELEN E. PURKITT AND STEPHEN BURGESS (US Naval Academy and US Air War College) This article describes important historical roots and factors that in uenced the evolution of South Africa’s past covert chemical and biological warfare (CBW) programme, Project Coast. Some of the complex international linkages developed under the auspices of Project Coast are also discussed. The conclusion discusses some of the characteristics of the programme that help to explain these widely varying assessments. Introduction South Africa’s chemical and biological warfare (CBW) programme, Project Coast, was a covert weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programme sponsored by the former apartheid regime. While the evolution and dismantling of South Africa’s nuclear programme was widely discussed, details about Project Coast programmes are still emerging. The primary published accounts to date are testimonies and evidence presented at South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in 1997 and 1998 and the criminal trial of the programme’s director, Dr Wouter Basson, from 2000 until April 2002. In our analysis, we seek to contribute to the emerging understanding of the case by identifying the important historical roots and factors that in uenced the evolution of the programme. We also describe some of the complex international linkages that developed under the auspices of Project Coast. Our account is based on published documents, of cial and off-the-record interviews with of cials and researchers in the United States and South Africa.1 Analysts continue to disagree in their assessments of South Africa’s past covert biochemical programmes. Mangold and Goldberg2 claim that Project Coast was the second most sophisticated after the Soviet Union’s. In contrast, Gould and Folb describe South Africa’s past CBW programme as a modest programme based on pedestrian * This article is based on a research project sponsored by the Institute for National Security Studies at the US Air Force Academy, US Air Force Counter-proliferation Center at the US Air War College, and the Naval Academy Research Council. See S. Burgess and H. E. Purkitt, The Rollback of South Africa’s Biological Warfare Program, INSS Occasional Paper 37 (Colorado, US Air Force Academy, 2001) for the full report. The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily re ect the of cial policy or positions of the United States Government. 1 Several of our interviewees in the United States and South Africa requested that their names not be published. In most cases we were able to cross-check the veracity of information provided during not-for-attribution interviews with other sources. We indicate in the text instances where we relied exclusivel y on unnamed sources. 2 T. Mangold, and J. Goldberg, Plague Wars: A True Story of Biological Warfare (New York, St. Martin’s Press, 1999). ISSN 0305-7070 print; 1465-389 3 online/02/020229-25 Ó DOI: 10.1080/0305707022014068 5 2002 Journal of Southern African Studies 230 Journal of Southern African Studies science and insights developed in the 1950s.3 We discuss some of the characteristics of the programme that may help to explain the widely varying assessments. The Roots of South Africa’s Chemical and Biological Warfare Programme South Africa’s decision to initiate Project Coast in the late 1970s can best be understood within the historical context of a country that participated in early CBW research as a member of the western alliance, but was subsequently isolated from the alliance community due to racial policies. The decision to fund a new CBW programme and accelerate the ongoing development of nuclear weapons and missiles in the early 1980s were responses to the changing status of South Africa within the western world and due to changing perceptions of threat from within the southern African region and at home. Project Coast was the most sophisticated chemical and biological warfare programme undertaken by the South African government. However, it was not the rst South African-sponsored CBW research programme. From 1914–1918 and 1939–1945, South African troops fought in the two World Wars and faced the threat of CBW. During the 1930s, widespread evidence emerged of the ef cacy of biological warfare (BW) based on scienti c work conducted in the USA, the UK and the Soviet Union.4 South Africa’s scienti c and military community was one of several national communities that kept pace with developments in CBW during the inter-war years. South Africa’s involvement in early CBW research and development programmes, much like its involvement in early research on nuclear power, was due to the country’s close ties to the United Kingdom and as a member of the western alliance. In the 1940s, South Africa produced mustard gas for possible use in the Second World War. Since the 1930s, the mining industry had developed explosives that were linked with chemical agents.5 The Anglo-American Corporation, Anglo-Vaal, and other companies were involved. The Director-General of War, H. J. van der Bijl, oversaw the production of chemical weapons and defensive measures that would protect South African troops against chemical and biological attack during the Second World War. As a member of the British War Cabinet, South African Prime Minister Jan Smuts was privy to CBW planning. For example, the War Cabinet, in 1943, planned to retaliate against the threat of Nazi biological warfare on British livestock. The plan was to use anthrax spores, released by 500-pound cluster bombs, each containing over 100 four-poun d spore devices. Trials at Porton Down indicated that the cluster bombs produced effective aerosol concentration of spores that covered nearly 100 acres from impact. The War Cabinet viewed BW as a ‘quick- x’ solution weapon requiring no special munitions or hardware. The British would simply charge ordinary cattle cakes with anthrax spores. This was a neat and simple example of wholly effective, precision deliverance, literally down the throat and into the stomach of targeted cattle. By the end of the Second World War, the South African policy makers learned from the experience that BW was a simple technology that anyone could use and that it could be effective in Africa, under certain conditions.6 3 C. Gould and P. I. Folb, ‘The South African Chemical and Biological Warfare Program: An Overview’, Nonproliferation Review, 7, 3 (2000), pp. 10–23. 4 K. Alibek with S. Handelman, Biohazard (New York, Random House, 1999); Mangold and Goldberg, Plague Wars; J. Prados, ‘All Weapons Great and Small’, Book World, Washington Post, 16 January 2000, p. 7; E. Regis, The Biology of Doom: The History of America’s Secret Germ Warfare Project (New York, Henry Holt, 1999). 5 Interviews with Dr Renfrew Christie, University of Cape Town, conducted by S. Burgess and H. Purkitt, 26 June and 16 July 2000. 6 Ibid. South Africa’s Chemical and Biological Warfare Programme 231 South Africa maintained an interest in military applications of CBN technology after the Second World War. Although South Africa dumped large quantities of mustard gas out to sea in 1946, it did not roll back its military CBW programme. The South African Defence Force (SADF) maintained a small military programme related to CBW research and development until the initiation of Project Coast. South African military of cers continued training in Britain and the United States in chemical and biological warfare strategy and tactics throughout the 1950s.7 South Africa’s CBW research was also supported by research conducted in civilian organisations. The literature on the Second World War programme was maintained and used in civilian research institutions.8 The government funded a modest number of basic research projects in the Afrikaans universities and other government-supporte d institutions. Much of this research was conducted under the umbrella of the Council for Scienti c and Industrial Research (CSIR). A new phase of the chemical warfare (CW) programme was started when a problem with tear gas that was needed to control riots and to deal with militants hiding in the bush arose. In the 1960 Pondoland uprising in Transkei, tear gas was extensively used. That same year, South African scientists were sent for a nuclear, biological and chemical (NBC) warfare course in the United Kingdom. In the 1960s, CSIR continued to work on tear gas and on CX powder for tracking, and Cessnas were tted for the army, to be used in spreading CX powder.9 External trends also prompted South African leaders to maintain CBW research. The Egyptians had used chemical weapons in Yemen, 1962–1967. Former South African of cials worried that the Egyptians might have passed chemical weapons on to the African National Congress. In the mid-1960s, CSIR worked on mustard gas and on gas masks to replace the Second World War-vintage masks of the SADF. The EMAC (electrical, mechanical, agricultural and chemical) Department also worked on innovative weapons, including chemical and biological agents, during the 1960s and 1970s.10 Political unrest at home continued to fuel interest in bio-chemical research and development by former apartheid of cials. After the Sharpeville Massacre of 1960 and the imposition of a United Nations arms embargo, South African leaders developed a heightened sense of isolation, withdrawing from the British Commonwealth in 1961 and distancing South Africa from the West. In the 1960s, the ruling Afrikaner nationalist elite developed a ‘laager’ (or ‘circle the wagons’) complex, especially under President Verwoerd. This complex led Afrikaner nationalists to see themselves as an ethnic and religious minority and as ‘God’s chosen people’, surrounded by ‘black heathens’ and ‘godless communists’ and betrayed by the West. The iconoclastic character of the Afrikaner nationalists had been developed over 300 years of settler history and a series of wars, with African kingdoms and with the British Empire. As the laager complex deepened, a similar process of isolation was developing in Israel, known as the ‘Masada complex’. Like their South African counterparts, Israeli leaders saw themselves as a ‘chosen people’ surrounded by enemies who were attempting to annihilate them. By the late 1960s and early 1970s, the isolation of South Africa and Israel by African and Arab states led both countries to cooperate with each other on armaments development, including nuclear weapons and 7 Interview with General (retired) Jannie Geldenhuys , former Chief of the South African Defence Force, conducted by S. Burgess, 13 June 2000. 8 Interview with Dr Vernon Joynt, Mechem and the Council for Scienti c and Industrial Research, conducted by S. Burgess, 14 June 2000. 9 Ibid. 10 Interview with Dr Torie Pretorius, Prosecutor, Basson trial, conducted by S. Burgess and H. Purkitt, 21 June and 12 July 2000. 232 Journal of Southern African Studies missile programmes. It is suspected that they also cooperated on chemical and biological warfare research and development. The senior generals of the former South African Defence Force asked the CSIR in the early 1970s for ‘aggressive’ chemical and biological warfare agents. The generals wanted a CBW industry started. W. de Villiers objected to the use of CBW because he felt that Africa was not the kind of continent for CBW and that it was too ‘complex’ and too expensive to develop. In 1974, de Villiers wrote a ten-page report, in which he gave a R500 million (more than $500 million in 1974 dollars) estimate to build a CBW programme. Finally, de Villiers concluded that the Soviet Union was too well armed with CBW and would retaliate against any CBW attack.11 De Villiers’ scepticism re ected a widespread concern among military analysts about the usefulness of chemical and biological weapons in Africa given the heat, and the possibility that shifting winds could blow chemical agents onto one’s own troops, or spread biological agents into one’s own population through food and water. These widely shared concerns among military and political leaders temporarily slowed the momentum for initiating a sophisticated CBW programme. The SADF postponed its plans to develop an offensive CBW programme and supported a minimal CBW research and development programme, which was never well developed. By 1980, it consisted of only one individual who worked on CBW at the Special Forces complex in Pretoria.12 In contrast, the momentum to develop South Africa’s covert nuclear weapons and medium and long-range missiles continued unabated throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Counter-insurgency and CBW in Southern Africa Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, South Africa’s former apartheid leaders increased their support and involvement in counter-insurgency programmes in several neighbouring states. The experiences in uenced the direction that South Africa’s CBW development took in the 1980s. Involvement in neighbouring counter-insurgency programmes provided training opportunities, strategies, and tactics that South African defence and police special covert units might use against political opponents as unrest increased at home in the 1980s and 1990s. In the early 1960s, South Africa’s response to developing guerrilla movements and a changing regional security environment was to increase security force cooperation with Portuguese forces ghting guerrilla insurgencies in the former colonies of Angola and Mozambique, and with Rhodesian police and defence forces. Increased involvement in security operations in southern African states was part of a national security strategy designed to counter communist-inspired guerrilla campaigns. The apartheid regime also wanted to be in a position to launch attacks on African National Congress (ANC) and Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC) military training camps in Zambia and Tanzania (Analysis of the TRC (1998) and The Military in a Political Arena (2000)). The South African military was also anxious to obtain rst-hand experience with counter-insurgency techniques and to explore the potential usefulness of unconventional chemical and biological weapons. 13 11 Interview with Helmut Heitmann of Jane’s Defence Weekly, Cape Town, South Africa, conducted by S. Burgess and H. Purkitt, 26 June and 17 July 2000. 12 Interview with Mark Malan, former SADF of cer and senior researcher at the Institute for Strategic Studies–South Africa, conducted by H. Purkitt, 3 July 2000. 13 There was a general awareness during the 1960s of the potency of anthrax and other biological agents as counter-insurgenc y weapons. In the 1960s, comic books featured ‘Captain Devil’ who poured anthrax into the Orange River and killed communist guerrillas, according to Dr Ian Phillips, ANC defence expert. Interview with Dr Ian Phillips, ANC defence analyst, conducted by S. Burgess, 13 June 2000. South Africa’s Chemical and Biological Warfare Programme 233 The Portuguese military were the rst to use chemical and biological warfare for counter-insurgency warfare in Sub-Saharan Africa. Portuguese troops poisoned wells and threw drugged prisoners out of aircraft. South African military of cers were dispatched to Portuguese Army units in Angola to gain experience in counter-insurgency warfare. In general, South African military personnel were not impressed with the overall effectiveness of Portuguese counter-insurgency programmes. The one exception was the Portuguese ‘protected village’ concept. In planning for the long-term possibility of guerrilla activity, the South African government moved to expand the Bantu homeland policy to Lebowa and Venda and instituted policies to depopulate northern areas of South Africa. Homeland policies were inspired in part by the Portuguese experience with protected villages. Implementation of homelands was viewed as a more effective way of handling future problems and de ecting external critics with a promise of eventual independence for the ten designated homelands.14 South African of cers who worked in Angola also learned rst-hand how the Portuguese military used defoliants and napalm, mined trails, and poisoned water holes as tactics to counter their guerrilla enemies without having to engage in direct combat.15 In the 1960s, South African police and military personnel also started helping the former Rhodesian government deal with an increased ‘terrorist’ threat. In 1967, the South African Police (SAP) sent a contingent to help with border patrols, as ANC and Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU) guerrillas in ltrated into the county from Zambia. The SAP were sent to train Rhodesian intelligence personnel and, later, the Selous Scouts, in mine laying and other counter-insurgency techniques. The SAP, who acquired some of their techniques from the French in Algeria, ended up learning a great deal from their experiences in Rhodesia as well.16 Tensions between South African Police personnel and their Rhodesian counterparts led to a reduction in the size of the police contingent in Rhodesia. However, the involvement by South African defence force personnel and South African nancing for the counterinsurgency campaign in Rhodesia continued to grow. In the mid-to-late 1960s, South African (SADF) military advisers assisted with the interrogation of captured ANC guerrillas. The South African military was interested in gaining experience in bush warfare and establishing the enhanced intelligence monitoring capabilities of ANC and PAC political and guerrilla activities in neighbouring states. A detachment of Corps of Signals of the SADF Monitoring Division known as ‘V Troop’ started intercepting and deciphering coded radio transmissions of Zambian police in 1968. After the high-pro le withdrawal of SAP forces in early 1975, SADF personnel remained behind, maintaining a low pro le. Their presence and nancial support were increasingly important to Rhodesian security. From 1973 to 1979, SADF personnel participated in several counter-insurgency operations conducted by the Selous Scouts in Rhodesia, Mozambique and Zambia.17 The Selous Scouts experimented with the use of poisons; for example, to impregnate toxins into blue jeans slated for guerrillas of the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (ZANLA) and Zimbabwe People’s Revolutionary Army (ZIPRA) guerrillas. The Scouts also experimented with poisoned pens to assassinate guerrilla leaders, and with 14 Interview with Rocklyn Williams, Institute for Strategic Studies, conducted by S. Burgess and H. Purkitt, 12 June and 5 July 2000. 15 J. Marcum, The Angolan Revolution: Exile Politics and Guerrilla Warfare, 1962–1976 (Cambridge, Massachusetts, MIT Press, 1978), pp. 116–118. 16 Interview with Phillips. 17 Interview with Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) of cials, 2000; see also H. Ellert, The Rhodesian Front War: Counter-Insurgenc y and Guerrilla War in Rhodesia 1962–1980 (Gweru, Zimbabwe, Mambo Press, 1989); P. Stiff, See You in November (Alberton, South Africa, Galago, 1985). 234 Journal of Southern African Studies bacteriological cultures that they introduced into the Ruya River near the Mozambique border in 1976. Former top Rhodesian intelligence operative, Henrik Ellert, claimed that a Selous Scout operation poisoned the water supply of a town in Tete province, Mozambique in an attempt to kill ZANLA guerrillas who were reported to be operating in the area.18 Other accounts allege that Rhodesian military forces experimented with cholera to contaminate rivers and with the seeding of anthrax spores in farming areas used by ZANU and ZAPU in an effort to poison guerrilla food supplies.19 Rhodesian forces poisoned wells and were suspected of using chemical and biological agents, especially in Rhodesia’s Eastern Highlands and across the border in Mozambique.20 As the 1970s developed, the Rhodesian government became increasingly dependent on South Africa for nancial support and military hardware. By the end of the 1970s, SADF military intelligence was a principal source of funding for the Rhodesian counter-insurgency programme, including the Selous Scouts. Although the Rhodesian defence budget was very small, reports indicated that the regime had one rudimentary chemical and biological warfare plant. South Africa provided nancial aid for this facility and for researchers who reportedly worked on CBW and land mine projects.21 After the political transition in Zimbabwe in 1980, entire units of Rhodesia’s elite counter-insurgency forces, including members of the Special Services and Selous Scouts, moved to South Africa. The forces were quickly integrated into special units of the SADF and SAP. Among the former Rhodesians were individuals with experience using CBW. A few of the individuals played key roles in incidents where South African Special Forces and police used CBW agents against opponents during the 1980s and 1990s.22 The Rhodesian experience with CBW had an important effect on the tactics used by the former South African Defence Force. SADF Special Forces and SAP of cers stationed in Rhodesia studied the organisational structures and tactics used by the Selous Scouts, including the use of chemical and biological agents. Similar tactics were used in Namibia and Angola by personnel assigned to the 5th Reconnaissance Commandos, by the SAP security branch ‘crowbar’ (koevoet) unit, and by the SADF Special Forces D40 unit. They were also employed in covert support operations for the Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) and in Operation Barnacle in the 1970s and 1980s.23 The Civil Cooperation Bureau (CCB) in South Africa employed many of the same tactics against political dissidents in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Towards the end of the apartheid era, the use of poisons against dissidents became routine CCB practice. By the time Eugene De Kock took charge of the CCB in 1988, he had a working relationship and regular contacts with Wouter Basson, the director of the CBW programme, Project Coast. Whenever the CCB wanted ‘special tools’ for interrogations or to eliminate political dissidents, Basson was available to supply customised orders.24 18 Ellert, The Rhodesian Front War. 19 Mangold and Goldberg, Plague Wars, pp. 214–218. 20 Interviews with Jakkie Cilliers, Director of the Institute for Security Studies (ISS), conducted by S. Burgess and H. Purkitt, 12 June and 4 July 2000. 21 Interview with Peter Stiff, journalist and defence author, phone interviews conducted by S. Burgess and H. Purkitt, 12 July 2000. See also Ellert, The Rhodesian Front War. 22 Interview with former Selous Scouts, 2000. See also Ellert, The Rhodesian Front War and Mangold and Goldberg, Plague Wars, pp. 218–223. 23 From 1978 until independenc e the South African intelligence service stepped up their efforts to recruit experienced Rhodesian Special Forces. See Ellert, The Rhodesian Front War, p. 90. 24 Interview with Dr Gavin Cawthra, Centre for Defence Management, Witswatersand University, conducted by H. Purkitt, 4 July 2000; See also J. Pauw, Into the Heart of Darkness (Johannesburg , Jonathan Ball, 1978); Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa Report (Cape Town, The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, 1998). South Africa’s Chemical and Biological Warfare Programme 235 Perceptions of a Soviet and Cuban ‘Threat’ Changes in the regional environment in the 1970s triggered increased interest among South African military and political leaders in CBW capabilities for defensive and offensive military purposes. The collapse of Portuguese colonialism during 1974–1976 led to the takeover of Angola and Mozambique by revolutionary communist regimes, backed by the Soviet Union and Cuba, and the South African decision to intervene militarily into Angola. One of the more lasting effects of this military intervention was a sense of abandonment by western allies among senior South African leaders. Magnus Malan, the SADF Chief of Staff from 1975–1980 and South African Defence Minister (1980–1991), summarised this prevailing view when he noted that the US encouraged the SADF to enter Angola in October 1975, and then abandoned South Africa to face Cuban forces alone.25 Suddenly, South African leaders found themselves facing Soviet-backed Cuban troops alone. South African defence experts knew that the Soviet Union possessed nuclear, biological and chemical (NBC) weapons. Moreover, South African of cials had gained some indications of the scale and sophistication of the Soviet programme during and after negotiations surrounding the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention (BWC). Former President P. W. Botha and Malan proceeded to approve a new and more sophisticated CBW programme. Senior South African of cials also approved an acceleration of the nuclear weapons and missile R&D programmes. However, the motivations of senior apartheid of cials in developing CBW capabilities were complex and multi-faceted. On one hand the of cial rationale provided by former South African leaders and generals for developing NBC capabilities has been the need to ‘counter the communist onslaught’. Malan, Meiring and others claim that the CBW programme was intended to counter the Soviets and Cubans and ANC and SWAPO guerrilla groups, who might have used CBW in the 1970s and 1980s.26 General (retired) Georg Meiring, former SADF Chief of Staff, commented that SADF sought protection against BW in the 1970s, as biological weapons became known as the ‘poor man’s atomic bomb’ and as the possibility of BW by Soviet-trained SWAPO and ANC/MK guerrillas increased.27 However, the acceleration of NBC and missile programmes during this era was also fuelled by the sense of abandonment by former allies. As General (retired) Bill Sass, former State Security Council member and SADF Chief of Operations, noted,28 the nuclear weapons programme was developed to induce a Soviet nuclear threat that would attract the attention of the US and the West.29 Gould and Folb summarise the of cial rationale of senior past South African of cials 25 Interview with Magnus Malan, former South African Defence Minister, conducted by S. Burgess, 23 June 2000. 26 During Operation Savannah, South African forces in Angola received an urgent cable from Unita commander s asking for help because they had been attacked by Cuban troops who wore ‘pig face masks’. Interview with Brigadier General (retired) Phillip Schalkwyk, South African Democratic Party MP and senior military adviser to DP party, conducted by H. Purkitt, 12 July 2000. 27 Interview with General (retired) Georg Meiring, former Chief of the SADF Army and Chief of the SANDF until 1998, conducted by S. Burgess, 3 July 2000. 28 Interview with General (retired) Bill Sass, former State Security Council member and SADF Chief of Operations, conducted by S. Burgess and H. Purkitt, 12 and 24 June 2000. 29 This rationale for developing nuclear weapons is the one most frequently mentioned by former SADF generals and some former politicians. For a further discussion of other rationales that have been provided by South African of cials during and after the apartheid era see N. Badenhorst, South Africa’s Nuclear Programme (unpublished manuscript, May 2000); P. Liberman, ‘The Rise and Fall of the South African Bomb’, International Security, 26, 2 (2001), pp. 45–86; H. E. Purkitt, ‘The Politics of Denuclearization : The case of South Africa’, paper presented at the Defence Nuclear Agency’s Fourth Annual International conference on Controlling Arms, Philadelphia, PA, 21 June 1995. [Earlier draft presented at Institute for National Studies (INSS), United States Air Force Academy, Colorado 9 November 1994]; M. Reiss, Bridled Ambition: Why Countries Constrain Their Nuclear Capabilities (Washington DC, Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 1995); and W. Stumpf, ‘South Africa’s Nuclear Weapons Program: From Deterrence to Dismantlement’, Arms Control Today, December–January, 1996). 236 Journal of Southern African Studies at the TRC related to the need to develop defensive CBW capabilities due to the Soviet backing of Cuban forces in Angola. However, the evidence to date suggests that South Africa continued to divert substantial resources to developing CBW capabilities after their intervention into Angola for both defensive and offensive purposes.30 De nitive conclusions about the most important factors in uencing the initiation of South Africa’s covert NBC programmes must remain open to question until of cial South African documents from the 1970s are released. Dif culties in Identifying and Documenting CBW Attacks: Lessons Learned Despite an incomplete historical record, some signi cant policy lessons have already emerged from the continuing charges and counter-charges of possible use of CBW agents in military operations in Angola, Namibia, and Mozambique, as well as inside South Africa. One such lesson from the South African case is extensive documentation of how dif cult it can be to con rm that a CBW attack has occurred and to identify the initiator. The problems and increased costs incurred by the South African defence forces once they were confronted with reports of possible CBW use, illustrate some of the complications that can be introduced quickly into a military theatre. From the late 1970s onwards, South Africa stepped up its military activities, by supporting UNITA in Angola and the Mozambican Resistance Movement (RENAMO) in Mozambique. Operation Barnacle was launched, aimed at the ANC and Umkhonto we sizwe (MK) throughout southern Africa. In May 1978, SADF launched the Cassinga raid, in which 800 people were killed. In the wake of the raid, SADF soldiers and paratroopers were accused of using chemical warfare. The Cassinga raid highlights the dif culties involved in verifying CBW incidents. The TRC concluded that this alleged use was developed under auspices of Project B. A report on the Cassinga attack was prepared by a joint United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) and World Health Organisation (WHO) mission in 1978 and reproduced as an appendix in a UN document in 1979. However, observers who arrived 30 minutes after the attack found no evidence of chemical weapons use.31 Uncertainty about what agents were used in the Cassinga attack and reports coming out of Rhodesia and Mozambique of CBW usage, led the Cubans, Angolans, and Mozambicans, as well as the liberation movements, to suspect that South Africa possessed an offensive CBW programme. During the 1980s, South African troops in Angola faced increased costs and manoeuvrability problems once they were confronted with the prospect of wearing defensive CBW masks and uniforms. CBW uniforms had to be changed daily. SADF troops also routinely had to avoid local water supplies in Angola and parts of Namibia because they had little intelligence about whether water supplies had been poisoned by SADF Special Forces secret operations or by guerrillas of the South West African Peoples Organisation (SWAPO), ANC/MK or UNITA.32 The SADF also experienced repeated dif culties verifying alleged use of CBW gas by Cuban-backed Angolan government forces and were unable to irrefutably rebut allegations that SADF forces used chemical agents against SWAPO and refugee camps in Angola and Namibia. In addition, reports persisted that, in early 1989 in Angola, SADF was testing organophosphates, new generations of teargas, and new battle eld missile warheads. 30 Gould and Forb ‘The South African Chemical and Biological Warfare Program’. 31 Interviews with former SADF special forces of cers and defence analysts, 2000. 32 Interviews with former SADF Special Forces of cers, 2000. South Africa’s Chemical and Biological Warfare Programme 237 Supposedly, the warheads were being designed to deliver chemical, biological agents, and possibly even a miniaturised nuclear device.33Also, in early 1989, UNITA forces in Angola reportedly experienced ‘huge losses’. Some sources alleged that the deaths were due to SADF testing of chemical gases. Other sources close to SADF claimed that the deaths were due to an ‘unexpected shift in the wind’ that blew chemical gases onto the UNITA troops.34 The question of who used what type of agents in Rhodesia, Namibia, Angola, and Mozambique raises important issues. If South African forces were involved in offensive CBW in southern Africa in the 1970s, several international commitments were violated. These included the 1925 Geneva Conventions, which South Africa acceded to in 1963, and the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological and Toxin Weapons and on their Destruction (BWC), which South Africa signed in 1972 and rati ed in 1975. Moreover, if the former apartheid regime already had chemical and biological weapons and used them, then claims that Project Coast was developed in the 1980s as a ‘defensive’ programme, in reaction to the ‘Soviet and Cuban threat’ in Angola and Mozambique loses credibility. The South Africa regime in power in the 1970s would be viewed as even more an ‘outlaw state’, willing to break conventions and subject black victims to inhuman deaths, than it is today. If proven correct, these acts support a more general proposition; regimes already isolated in the international community will continue to violate their commitments to international law, as perceived threats to their survival grow. ‘Total Onslaught’ and Project Coast While South Africa’s military involvement in Angola was one set of factors fuelling the development of CBW capabilities, concern about the increasing domestic unrest at home during this same time period also fuelled a sophisticated CBW programme.35 Starting in the mid-1970s, concerns about increased domestic political unrest and opposition to apartheid stimulated the research and development of exotic means to neutralise opponents, largescale offensive uses of the programme, and ‘weaponisation’. Available evidence indicates that weaponisation plans were not operationalised. However, the combined pressures of military involvement in Angola and growing political instability at home ensured that the decision-making processes that authorised Project Coast activities would be secretive, controlled by the military, and not subject to routine oversight or accounting procedures. In 1976, the Soweto uprisings triggered a new wave of unrest in South Africa, after more than a decade of relative calm. The 1976 wave of rebellion continued into 1977. Unrest persisted until 1984, when an even greater uprising commenced and lasted for more than two years and reverberated until 1990. The 1976 uprisings led the apartheid regime to search for ways, including the use of chemical agents, to control or incapacitate large groups of people. At the same time as the Soweto uprisings, the ‘Muldergate’ scandal erupted.36 This scandal demonstrated that corruption was eating away at the formerly unquestioned strength of the apartheid regime. Informal norms had become entrenched by the mid-1970s that 33 Ibid, Interviews 2000. See also P. Hounam and S. McQuillen, The Mini-Nuke Conspiracy: Mandela’s Nuclear Nightmare (London, Faber & Faber, 1995); Purkitt, ‘The Politics of Denuclearization ’. 34 Interview with Dr G. Scharf, former Director of Medical Hospital One (Pretoria) and SADF Special Forces MD, conducted by H. Purkitt, 6 July 2000: Interview with Heitmann, 2000. 35 While most former senior military leaders continue to stress the importance of concerns that Cubans might use CBW in Angola, little time was spent during this period on defensive CBW training in the SADF. From the mid-1970s to late 1970s only a few hours during one day was devoted to CBW for SADF infantry personnel. Instead, most of these sessions focused on how to use CS gas to counter urban violence. Interview with Mark Malan, 2000. 36 E. Rhoodie, E, The Real Information Scandal (Pretoria, South Africa, Orbis, 1983). 238 Journal of Southern African Studies permitted an extensive level of corruption within the Afrikaner-dominated bureaucracies. The corruption was an important pre-condition that allowed Wouter Basson and other top of cials to use the CBW programme in the late 1980s and early 1990s as a cover for their personal gain. In the wake of these regime-shaking events, the Defence Minister, P. W. Botha, replaced B. J. Vorster as President in 1978 and initiated his vision of the ‘total strategy’. Botha differed from his predecessor in the degree that he was oriented towards the military (and special forces), especially because of his years of service as defence minister. He initiated a range of reforms, combined with the widespread use of coercive power, to ensure the survival of the regime. Power was increasingly consolidated in the hands of the military and taken away from civilians. In particular, Botha favoured the development of advanced weapons projects and covert operations that would give South Africa additional advantages against its adversaries. South Africa initiated a series of internal and external military and paramilitary operations. These included assassinations, torture and smuggling, as well as forgery, propaganda, and subversion. All were de ned as ‘legitimate’ weapons against the ‘total onslaught’ of ‘red’ and ‘black’ forces. These practices were established at the top and legitimised deviant behaviour throughout the military, police and intelligence services.37 Within the ‘any means necessary to survive’ framework, preparations began to develop a chemical and biological warfare programme, called Project Coast, which would counteract and even rival the Soviet programme. P. W. Botha and SADF Chief, Magnus Malan directed the Surgeon General, Major General Nieuwoudt, to launch the programme.38 Nieuwoudt enlisted a young military doctor, Wouter Basson, to be his lieutenant and programme director. In the late 1970s, they approached South African university scientists and specialists in weapons development to determine if they would be willing to participate in, and even lead, the different components of a CBW programme.39 They also began to make contacts in the international scienti c community. The Organisational Context of Project Coast The decision to locate the new chemical and biological warfare programme, Project Coast, within the SADF Medical Service (SAMS) would have important consequences for both the way the programme was managed and the direction of research and development over time. At the time Project Coast was launched, SAMS existed as a separate medical branch of the South African military that had joint ties with Special Forces. The close connection with covert Special Forces operations provided a highly secret and loosely managed organisational context for the new chemical and biological warfare programme. Weak managerial oversight and accountability quickly led to personal abuse of authority and corruption by Project Coast manager, Wouter Basson. South Africa’s involvement in Angola in the 1970s and 1980s resulted in important organisational changes within the military that ensured that the new CBW programme was controlled by the military. Between 50 and 80 per cent of all SADF military-related deaths in Angola were due to dif culties encountered in getting immediate treatment for combat injuries, accidents, or treatment for diseases. There was already a long-standing appreciation among military leaders of the importance of immediate eld treatment for SADF soldiers, 37 A. Seegers, The Military in the Making of Modern South Africa (New York, St. Martin’s Press, 1996). 38 Interview Magnus Malan, 2000. 39 Interview with Joynt, 2000. Dr Joynt claims that Surgeon-Genera l Nieuwoudt sent Major Wouter Basson to him in 1978 and offered him the directorship of a chemical weapons programme. While Joynt refused, many scientists and specialists accepted research projects by Nieuwoudt and Basson, and many did not tell their superiors. South Africa’s Chemical and Biological Warfare Programme 239 which can be traced back to the large number of casualties incurred in the Anglo-Boer War.40 The importance of immediate battle eld medical attention was the primary rationale used to justify elevating and re-organising the South African Medical Service, as a new and separate fourth branch of the military. The new medical corps branch was placed on an equal footing in terms of operational command and administrative matters with the three existing branches of the service (army, navy and air force). SAMS received a mandate to develop defensive capabilities and to train to protect the South African Defence Force (SADF) from all types of attacks, including biological and chemical warfare. This mandate was the principal reason why managerial oversight and responsibility for the new CBW programme was given to the 7th Battalion of the South African Medical Service. SAMS’s mission changed and became more ambiguous, as SADF forces shifted from battle eld operations to policing functions at home. The fact that the 7th Battalion was accorded a large degree of autonomy from its inception and operated on a strict ‘need-to-know’ basis meant that relatively few SADF of cers, including the majority of senior SADF generals, had detailed knowledge of the activities of the 7th Battalion throughout its existence.41 Another important organisational factor that permitted the head of the 7th Battalion, Dr Wouter Basson, to have an unusual degree of decision latitude and autonomy was the fact that this was the medical support organisation for special services operations. SAMS’s medical personnel (e.g. doctors and orderlies) were also Special Forces of cers who underwent special service training. During the period of South African involvement in Angola, many of these medical personnel served as members of small (i.e. four-man) Special Forces covert action teams. While the military Surgeon General was responsible for the operations of seven medical battalions, the secret nature of 7th Battalion operations during incursions into Angola meant that this unit had a high degree of operational autonomy. This autonomy and latitude for independent action continued throughout the 1980s, even though new types of Special Forces operations at home gradually replaced the combat-related functions of the unit. As the SADF increasingly undertook policing and internal suppression of political dissidents at home, SAMS conducted new basic research projects and the development of new chemical and biological weapons that might assist. Major General Nieuwoudt, the Surgeon General and head of SAMS, recruited Major (Dr) Wouter Basson, a respected young cardiologist and personal physician of P. W. Botha, to head Project Coast. Although Project Coast was run by the military, Basson proved to be a highly successful entrepreneur who played a key role in de ning the research and development agenda. He capitalised on the secret nature of this unit to establish a number of new projects and as a rationale for acting alone. From the start, Basson was a highly charismatic and effective recruiter who was apt at identifying and enlisting some of the most promising and highly skilled medical researchers from the military and from the larger civilian scienti c community. Basson also proved to be a master manager of people. He was able to inspire loyalty and respect from employees. Many of these researchers and scientists joined the programme because they were intrigued by the intellectual challenges and opportunities to participate in path-breaking research in one of several related disciplines, e.g. chemistry, anatomy, and virology. Almost all were Afrikaners who shared a sense of patriotic duty, a nationalistic zeal for the importance of the work, and a sense that their research was critical for maintaining national security.42 40 Seegers, The Military in the Making of Modern South Africa; S. A. Watt, ‘The Anglo-Boer War: The Medical Arrangements and Implications thereof during the British Occupation of Bloemfontein: March-August, 1900’, Military History Journal, 9, 2 (August 2000). South African Military History Society. [www document [email protected]]. 41 Interview with Scharf, 2000. 42 Interview with Phillips, 2000. 240 Journal of Southern African Studies Project Coast (1981–1993) The of cial purposes and principles that were supposed to guide research and activities under the auspices of Project Coast have been publicised. From 1979 through 1981, the State Security Council, led by President Botha and Malan, and leaders of the SADF discussed the principles that might apply to the CBW programme. Several possible missions were identi ed for the new CBW programme. It became clear that a programme designed to defend against a Soviet CBW attack could only be built if the Soviet offensive programme was emulated and then tested.43 Once the need for offensive CBW capabilities was identi ed, discussions began concerning the possible uses for such a programme. Malan proposed that signs of a chemical warfare attack in Angola would force the Cuban and Angolan forces to don suits, which would cut combat effectiveness in half. In 1981, General Constand Viljoen, SADF Chief of Staff, requested that the CBW programme provide SADF with agents for crowd control in South Africa. Other possible uses considered included counter-insurgency, assassinations, and black population control. It is noteworthy that, during the process of launching the CBW programme, no delegation from South Africa appeared at the 1980 review conference for the 1975 Biological Weapons Convention. In April 1981, a top-level SADF committee meeting nalised the principles for Project Coast.44 One principle was that chemical and biological warfare should be treated as a top-secret matter, because it was susceptible to deception by adversaries. Another was that, since the West had supposedly fallen behind the Soviet Union, South Africa had to fend for itself in the CBW arena. The SADF committee decided that secrecy was essential and that South Africa would use front companies to research and produce chemical and biological weapons in top-secret installations. The desire for secrecy resulted in the exclusion of the state arms producer (ARMSCOR) from the initial phases of the project. ARMSCOR would only be brought in during the weaponisation phase of the programme. As Malan suggested, South Africa would experiment with a strategy of forcing the enemy in Angola to don protective suits (interview 2000). The CBW programme would also investigate means of dealing with massive demonstrations, insurrection, and insurgency, as well as black population growth. Another principle was that biological warfare (BW) had to be used with caution. BW could be devastatingly effective and, therefore, attractive. However, the regime was concerned that BW was dif cult to control and that it could cause tremendous, plague-like damage. In May 1981, the Surgeon General and head of SAMS, Major General Nieuwoudt, formally established Project Coast. The Minister of Defence, Magnus Malan, and the Minister of Finance, Barend du Plessis, approved the programme.45 Nieuwoudt made Dr Wouter Basson the Project Coast director, as well as specialist adviser to the Surgeon General. Basson also became a lieutenant colonel, joined the 7th SAMS Battalion, and began making trips to Angola with the SADF. In addition, he continued making trips abroad to make contacts with scientists and to procure supplies for Project Coast. In August 1981, the SADF launched Operation Protea in Angola. During the operation, evidence was discovered that the Cubans might be preparing for chemical warfare.46 43 Interview with Magnus Malan, 2000. 44 Truth and Reconciliation Commission, 1998. 45 C. Oppermann , ‘How the taxpayer footed the bill for Project Coast’, Weekly Mail and Guardian archive, 27 June 1997. 46 According to Helmut Heitmann, Jane’s Defence Weekly and defence expert, the evidence was not conclusive. Heitmann was among the rst journalists to raise questions about South African allegations that the Cubans had used chemical weapons in Angola and highlighted the dif culty of verifying the source of alleged CBW attacks. Interview with Heitmann, 2000; see also H. R. Heitman, South African War Machine (Johannesburg , Central News South Africa’s Chemical and Biological Warfare Programme 241 Although the evidence was sketchy, top SADF generals chose to take action to counter CBW anyway. Defence Minister Malan took SADF generals to Angola to examine CBW protective suits and demonstrate problems that they created during combat. Afterwards, Malan reiterated his proposal that the SADF take measures that would force the Cubans rather than the South Africans to don suits. Accordingly, the SADF developed a strategy of deception, by ring ‘smoke’ that would achieve such a result. In addition, Malan proposed that the CBW programme be developed to counteract the ANC and its military wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), which was in the process of escalating a revolutionary war with more than 3,000 guerrilla forces. During this period, the SADF obtained evidence that some of the ANC/MK troops had been trained in the Soviet Union in CBW techniques. 47 Basson was ‘tasked’ to develop Project Coast by a ‘kitchen cabinet’, composed of Minister of Defence Malan, SADF Chief (General C. Viljoen), the Commanding Of cer of Strategic Intelligence and Special Forces (General K. Liebenberg), SAP Commissioner van der Merwe, and the Director General of the National Intelligence Service (NIS). Basson was placed in charge of managing all aspects of Project Coast, including defensive and offensive measures.48 The annual budget for Project Coast was estimated to be $10 million, with a staff of 200 involved. 49 Members of the Project Working Group included Surgeon-Genera l Nieuwoudt and his deputy and successor, Dr Niels Knobel. They were supposed to supervise Project Coast, but Knobel has claimed that they would rarely visit the front companies for fear of compromising their cover. Basson decided with the scienti c researchers on requirements and costs. Much of Basson’s efforts went into circumventing sanctions against the sale of military-related items to South Africa and into black market, sanctions-busting activities. All procurement was undertaken by Basson and signed off on by Nieuwoudt and by his successor, Knobel, who has claimed that he and Nieuwoudt were only told after the fact about Basson’s activities. The procurement processes used by SADF during this period lacked civilian leadership and supervision. The SADF was still supplied with uniforms using 1930s regulations. A Special Defence Account was established by the SADF that precluded access by the Auditor-General. While Wouter Basson was required to provide records of nancial expenditures for Project Coast activities, there was no effort throughout this period to match these records with those of covert special operations.50 The rationale of the need for secrecy for covert programmes and Basson’s unsupervised activities would lead Project Coast into a morass of corruption. In 1982, the Delta G Scienti c Company began work on chemical warfare agents for Project Coast. The chemicals that Delta G developed for testing were divided into lethal, incapacitating, and irritating agents. Roodeplaat Research Laboratories (RRL) then tested the biological effects of the agents from Delta G. RRL was the company that was primarily responsible for biological warfare. Protechnik Company was to develop the protective CBW equipment. In 1983, RRL opened and started research on biological agents and on the biological effects of chemical agents. Daan Goosen became the rst head of RRL and served until 1986. South Africa developed a sophisticated and dispersed project. Project Coast was not Footnote 46 continued Agency, 1985); H. R. Heitman, War in Angola: The Final South African Phase (Gibraltar, Ashanti Publishing, 1990); W. Steenkamp, South Africa’s Border War: 1966–1989 (Gibraltar, Ashanti Publishing, 1989). 47 Interview with Magnus Malan, 2000. 48 Interview with Chandre Gould, formerly of the TRC, conducted by S. Burgess, 29 June 2000. 49 Mangold and Goldberg, Plague Wars, p. 236. 50 Interviews with Philips and Williams, 2000. 242 Journal of Southern African Studies just one individual and was not just RRL.51 There were a number of different research and testing centres at universities and companies, and scientists in various parts of South Africa assisted Project Coast. Anthrax, cholera, botulinum, and a variety of pathogens were collected and/or developed at RRL and elsewhere for testing. Apparently, a principal objective was to collect and test a range of biological agents in order to develop protection from a Soviet BW attack. In 1984, Dr Schalk van Rensburg joined RRL and started the cholera research programme. By the end of 1984, Project Coast and RRL had tested a range of BW toxins and had developed counter-measures to ricin and botulinum. Reportedly, they had acquired anthrax, Plague, cholera, E. coli, staph, necrotising fasciitis, ricin, botulinum, gas gangrene, anti-matter bacteria, and the Ebola, Marburg, and Rift Valley viruses. Eventually, according to a number of sources in the US and South Africa, Project Coast developed pathogens that had never before been seen. Project Coast managed to obtain the Soviet-developed esh-eating bacteria, necrotising fasciitis, as well as the antidote. In 1994, the South Africans surprised the Americans by revealing that they had the bacteria and then gave it to the USA.52 However, claims by Basson and former Surgeon-Genera l Knobel that South African espionage agents penetrated Soviet Russian programmes during 1980s remain to be proven. Project Coast claimed its rst victims at the end of 1982, when ‘Operation Duel’ was launched. The aim of this operation was to eliminate hundreds of SWAPO prisoners and SADF informants.53 Col. Johan Theron, Counter-intelligence Of cer in the Special Forces, testi ed at the Basson trial that he received muscle relaxant pills from Basson in December 1982 and killed approximately 200 SWAPO prisoners, then dumped their bodies from aeroplanes out to sea. Also in Namibia, the Soviet Union accused South Africa of using herbicides. Napalm and phosphorou s were allegedly used by the SADF in Angola during the 1980s, which is a violation of the Geneva Conventions. Basson was allegedly involved in the use of CBW against regime opponents in Dukuduku in KwaZulu-Natal in 1983. He is also alleged to have supplied poisoned tea and oranges that killed Special Forces member Lance Corporal Victor de Fonseca in a military hospital in Pretoria. Fonseca is said to have started ‘talking’ about clandestine operations after developing brain cancer. These acts were part of the 16 murder charges introduced on 26 March 1999, prior to the October 1999 opening of Basson’s trial in South Africa.54 Mass action political uprisings spread throughout the country in 1984 were far more widespread, violent and deadly than in 1960 or after 1976. The nationwide scope of these protests intensi ed concerns over crowd control and fuelled ongoing efforts to develop weapons, including chemical and biological agents, to deal with the unrest. SADF Chief of Staff General Constand Viljoen, as well as Generals Liebenberg and Meiring, were seeking an offensive CBW substance that would weaken rioters and was weaker than tear gas. They consulted Basson and Project Coast. In addition, the SADF sought a chemical that would colour the skin for about two weeks and allow the identi cation of frontrunners in the violence.55 In response to General Viljoen, Delta G Scienti c developed a ‘New Generation Tear (NGT) Gas’, also known as CR gas. The NGT gas was designed to be more powerful than conventional CS tear gas and to incapacitate without lethality or excessive irritation (Gen. 51 52 53 54 55 Interview with Meiring, 2000. Mangold and Goldberg, Plague Wars, pp. 241, 243. According to Chandre Gould, formerly of the TRC in a presentation in South Africa, 29 June 2000. See the 1999 prosecution charge sheet against Basson. Interviews with General (retired) Chris Thirion, SADF, conducted by S. Burgess, 13 June 2000; interview with Geldenhuys , 2000. South Africa’s Chemical and Biological Warfare Programme 243 (retired) Meiring 2000). NGT (CR) gas was intended to counteract rolling mass actions led by the ANC or its surrogates. NGT (CR) gas was used rarely and only on the Chief of the Army’s orders. When NGT (CR) gas was used, it was usually mixed with CS gas and dissolved in water to be used by water cannon. Although South African military leaders developed rules to control the use of NGT gas, these restrictions did not change the fact that South Africa, as a subscriber to the Geneva Conventions, could not develop lethal CW agents. After a state of emergency was declared in South Africa in June 1985 the government’s perceived need for crowd control agents intensi ed. One proposal was for a ‘third force’, which would supposedly combine the military functions of the SADF and the police role of the SAP in suppressing unrest.56 Another proposal was to use non-lethal chemical weapons, particularly in the form of the new tear gas (NGT or CR), which Project Coast had developed. General Liebenberg revealed that chemical agents were being developed to make people passive and to render equipment unusable. Gen. Lothar Neethling, South African Police forensics commander, ordered the development of tear gas, gas grenades and tranquillising drugs for use in pacifying rioters. Neethling was also an expert in the use of CBW for assassination and worked closely with Basson, who supplied poisons to get rid of individuals. By 1986, the state of emergency led to massive waves of arrests and detentions in South Africa. In response, the ANC/MK vowed to ‘make the streets ungovernable’. The SADF proceeded with efforts to develop and apply CBW agents to counteract the ‘black onslaught’ individuals.57 These preparation included plans to build a large-scale anthrax production facility at RRL. The anthrax could have been used either outside or inside South Africa, particularly where guerrillas were present. According to former RRL scientist, Mike Odendaal, who testi ed in the Basson trial, those plans were nearly operationalised by 1985. The 1984–1986 township unrest also produced antipathy between military and civilian departments. In essence, the State Security Council, the SADF, and SAP took over the state. Civilian departments were subordinated to the State Security Council. Even the Education departments began to take orders from the SSC. At this time, the security forces perpetuated the doctrine of ‘plausible denial’. Security forces carried on activities in secret, which allowed civilians to deny knowledge.58 In 1986, the Civil Cooperation Bureau was created, drawing on the ‘dirty tricks’ experiences of the Selous Scouts and D-40. The CCB became one of the cornerstones of an alleged ‘third force’ that was dedicated to preventing the ANC/MK from taking power. There was a consensus in the Botha government that unconventional methods were needed, according to Malan’s testimony before the TRC. Malan admitted personally approving the establishment of CCB but said he never gave it instructions to have anyone killed. Malan denied the existence of a third force and refused to apply for amnesty from the TRC. Malan said he would apply for collective responsibility with the ANC leadership for acts committed during the violence that started in 1960. Similarly, former Air Force General Tienie Groenewald said he would apply for amnesty for ‘clandestine operations’ of the Afrikaner Volks Front. He acknowledged this body had connections with pre-1994 election bombings but that his involvement was limited to military operations.59 By 1987, the uprisings in South Africa had largely come to an end. At the same time, ANC/MK guerrillas stepped up their armed campaign, which came to include 56 Interview with Thirion, 2000. 57 Interview with Thirion, 2000 and interview with Geldenhuys , 2000. 58 Interview with David Steward, Executive Director, De Klerk Foundation and President de Klerk’s chief of staff (1989–94), conducted by S. Burgess and H. Purkitt, 26 June and 17 July 2000. 59 Interviews, 2000; H. Hamann, Days of the Generals (Cape Town, Zebra Press, 2001). 244 Journal of Southern African Studies the bombing of civilian targets. While the Botha government sought ways of eliminating the guerrilla threat, negotiations between the apartheid regime and Mandela continued. In response to the ANC/MK and other perceived threats, Basson worked closely with the CCB. The CCB had of ces in the same building as did Basson, so it was convenient for Basson to supply them quickly with CBW poisons for assassination purposes. The Steyn Report also found that Basson and the CCB were receiving instructions from Malan and other superiors. However, Basson and the CCB interpreted the instructions as they saw t.60 Plans for Weaponisation and more Sophisticated Chemical and Biological Weapons By 1985, several Project Coast programme directors were planning a massive escalation of the chemical and biological warfare programme. The plans would have resulted in a sophisticated weapons programme. At Wouter Basson’s trial, RRL scientist Mike Odendaal testi ed that he received instructions to start a factory where biological agents would be produced in mass form, and 200,000 Rand ($100,000) had already been spent on the plans.61 A new wing had been added to Roodeplaat Research Laboratories for a productionscale laboratory, with fermenters that could produce 300 litres and upward of anthrax and other biological agents and a P-4 level laboratory. For the rst few years, Project Coast used P-2 to P-3 facilities, and RRL only used two 10-gallon fermenters for the growth medium. In 1985, when the new wing for RRL was built, a P-4 facility was added. Basson and his superiors in the SADF (Generals Liebenberg, Nieuwoudt, and Viljoen, as well as Magnus Malan) approved the up-grade. According to RRL scientist Schalk van Rensburg, when Basson wanted the safety level raised to level four, two British scientists, on an unauthorised visit from Porton Down, UK (which had been privatised) helped and advised Project Coast scientists. British intelligence, MI-6, opened a le on Basson after he attended the Second World Conference of Toxicologists in Ghent, Belgium, where he reportedly met with scientists, including some from Porton Down.62 Consequently, both American and British intelligence agencies knew of Basson’s activities during this time but did little against him. However, there is no evidence, besides Basson’s claims, that Basson ever visited Porton Down.63 In the end, the directors of Project Coast decided not to fund the larger fermenters. According to Odendaal, senior SADF of cials decided that biological agents would be used in low intensity regional skirmishes and assassinations, but not on a more massive scale.64 In comparison to the USSR, which had scores of big fermenters, the South African programme was quite small in size and scale. However, South African scientists developed several novel processes and procedures and examined a wide variety of pathogens under the auspices of Project Coast research. These characteristics of Project Coast may be why several American and South African experts with rst-hand knowledge of Project Coast 60 Interviews with former South African of cials. 61 South African Press Association (SAPA, 2000); See also C. Gould and M. Burger, Weekly Trial Reports of the South African Chemical and Biological Warfare Program (Cape Town, Centre for Con ict Resolution, University of Cape Town, 2000/2001). [www document http://ccrweb.ccr.uct.ac.za/cbw/cbw index.html]. 62 Mangold and Goldberg, Plague Wars, pp. 242–243. 63 Dr Basson told Mangold in 1998 that the reason why a detailed investigation by Britain’s MI-6, the Security Service, failed to substantiate the allegations that he visited Porton Down is because he used false names and passports for his frequent visits. Another possibility is that Basson met with former Porton Down employees. See Mangold and Goldberg, Plague Wars, p. 442, note 443. Several former employees of Porton Down report that they were asked to pose as employees after reporting contacts with Wouter Basson to British authorities. M. Evans, ‘South Africa May Have Ordered British Deaths’, The Times, 14 July 1998, p. 7. 64 Testimony by Dr Odendaal, 24 May 2000. See also South African Press Association (2000). South Africa’s Chemical and Biological Warfare Programme 245 have described South Africa’s CBW programme in terms of the range of biological agents possessed and the science involved as the ‘second most sophisticated programme’, next to the Soviet’s programme. Several of these experts emphasised that the South African programme was more sophisticated than the Iraqi programme that was uncovered in 1995.65 Weaponisation began in cooperation with ARMSCOR, which developed unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and missiles that had the capability to carry chemical and biological agents.66 All of this was top secret, and the Americans and British only discovered weaponisation in 1994. They did not insist that weaponisation be included in the chemical and biological memorandum because they had no hard evidence upon which to make such a demand. 67 The South African Ministry of Defence still denies that weaponisation took place. There are also reports that the former South African government tested battle eld weapons capable of carrying biological agents and chemicals. These reports could not be con rmed; although there is evidence that such weapons were developed. Basson, much like his counterparts in other countries (e.g. Iraq), had dif culties developing effective delivery systems for the use of biological agents as a weapon of mass destruction. While Project Coast researchers undertook conceptual studies in the aerosolisation of biological agents, the evidence available to date indicates that sophisticated aerosolisation delivery systems were not developed. However, conceptual studies of such systems were well underway at the time Project Coast was shut down. Much more progress appears to have been achieved in developing sophisticated artillery warheads and tactical missiles that were capable of delivering NBC warheads. What types of missiles and warheads were built, possibly tested and sold abroad remain among the most important questions related to South Africa’s CBN programmes still to be answered. Efforts to Control Population Growth: a Black Bomb? Other lines of research seem to con rm that Project Coast from the start was not just a ‘defensive’ programme.68 In the early 1980s, fears of a ‘black tidal wave’ prompted white scientists to try to develop other more exotic means to ensure the survival of white South Africa. One approach supported by Project Coast was genetic engineering research. Project Coast scientists asked Basson to obtain a peptide synthesiser outside of South Africa that would assist in genetic engineering efforts. While many details of this line of research remain unknown, it is known that that some research efforts under the auspices of Project Coast were dedicated to producing a ‘black bomb’, using bacteria or other biological agents that would kill or weaken blacks and not whites. The black bomb could be used to wipe out or incapacitate an entire area where an insurrection was taking place. Lots of rumours have surfaced since the early 1980s but few details have emerged.69 65 Interviews in South Africa and the United States, 2000. 66 The head of South Africa’s former nuclear weapons programme con rmed in 1994 that several of the missiles developed by ARMSCOR were capable of carrying CBN warheads but refused to elaborate on the division of labour between ARMSCOR and other covert activities such as Project Coast. See Purkitt, ‘The politics of denuclearization’. 67 Ambassador Princeton Lyman, e-mail to S. Burgess, 18 September 2000. Ambassador Princeton Lyman backtracked somewhat from earlier statements made in a 31 August 2000 interview about claims that weaponisation took place. Donald Mahley of the United States State Department, who was part of the delegation to South Africa after the demarche of 11 April 1994, also downplaye d evidence of weaponisation in a 30 August 2000 interview. See interview with Ambassador Princeton Lyman, US Ambassador, conducted by S. Burgess, 31 August and e-mail correspondence , 18 September 2000. 68 Magnus Malan indicated as much in a 23 June 2000 interview. 69 For example, Dr Rocklyn Williams debriefed a SADF sergeant in 1983 who talked about the development of a ‘black bomb’. See interview Williams, 2000. 246 Journal of Southern African Studies Project Coast scientists were reportedly worked on controlling black fertility, as part of efforts to limit black population growth. One approach involved research on birth control methods to reduce the black birth rate. Daan Goosen, the managing director of Roodeplaat Research Laboratories between 1983 and 1986, told Tom Mangold of the BBC that Project Coast supported a project to develop a contraceptive that would have been applied clandestinely to blacks.70 Goosen claimed that Dr Knobel knew all about this project and that those scientists had been told that this was the most important research on which they could work. Goosen reported that the project had developed a vaccine for males and females and that the researchers were still searching for a means of delivery to make blacks sterile without their knowledge. Another line of research focused on developing a (unnamed) product that could be given without the knowledge of the person receiving it, either orally or in some sort of injection.71 Testimony given at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission suggested that Project Coast researchers were also looking into putting birth control substances in water supplies. Project Coast’s International Links Project Coast research and development activities bene ted from collaboration with several nation-states from the outset. Details of many of these national collaborations remain classi ed. What is clear from the historic record is that Project Coast research relied heavily on open sources of research, cooperative exchanges with foreign government’s of cials and scientists at professional conferences, and the purchase of chemical agents that were legal and largely uncontrolled substances in the early years of the project. As sanctions against South Africa increased in the 1980s, Basson used procurement specialists paid by the former South African Armament and Munitions Corporation (ARMSCOR) and built his own international network, which included procurement agents, South African and foreign operatives, an American accountant, and medical researchers and other individuals in the United States and Europe. This personal network allowed Basson to move millions of Rand offshore and fund a wide range of illegal activities, including the manufacturing of large amounts of Mandrax and Ecstasy. The extent to which some of these illegal activities were unauthorised activities for personal gain or were run as government-sanctioned covert operations was a central issue at the criminal trial of Wouter Basson. From 1981 onwards, Basson and Project Coast scientists intensi ed their international contacts, particularly at conferences on CBW. South African delegations made visits to the USA, Britain, Taiwan, Israel and Germany. Basson attended a conference on biological warfare in San Antonio in 1981. From 1981 to 1986, the Reagan administration followed a policy of ‘constructive engagement’. Reagan administration of cials sent signals to the Botha regime that the USA was willing to turn a blind eye to American industries and scientists as the South Africans built up their defence industries. Under-Secretary of State William Clark went one step further and welcomed South African defence of cials and experts to Washington and facilitated their interaction with American counterparts. The attitude of Clark and others enabled South Africa to gain access to American scientists. At the same time, Basson’s trip to San Antonio reportedly attracted the attention of American intelligence, and he was barred entry to the USA for scienti c purposes.72 Additional trips 70 Mangold and Goldberg, Plague Wars, p. 244. 71 ‘Plague Wars: Frontline Transcript: A report on biological weapons threats and how the Soviet Union secretly amassed an arsenal of bio-weapons ’. PBS Online and WGBH/FRONTLINE Television show transcript (1998). [www document http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/plague/sa/]. 72 Mangold and Goldberg, Plague Wars, p. 242. Scepticism still surrounds Basson and Knobel’s claims about Basson’s international activities. According to several interviewees, it is highly doubtful that Basson ever penetrated Porton Down or United States and Soviet facilities. South Africa’s Chemical and Biological Warfare Programme 247 may have been unnecessary because, in 1984, the US Center for Disease Control sent eight shipments of the Ebola, Marburg, and Rift Valley viruses to South Africa. Suddenly, South Africa possessed viruses that could be used with devastating effect in surrounding countries. Details of the extent and importance of South African cooperation with Israel in CBW research have not been disclosed. The two countries started working together on covert research related to nuclear weapons after the Second World War. These links had developed into a mature working relationship by the 1970s. Bilateral cooperation between the two states proved especially fruitful in developing nuclear weapons and testing a number of increasingly sophisticated missiles. Israel and South Africa also cooperated closely in the production of the G-5 artillery gun to ght a conventional war.73 This line of research, which cost millions of Rand, also explored the feasibility of using NBC warheads for the G-5, and later the G-6 gun. The Israelis also helped South Africa with armoured cars and tanks and the Cheetah (a Mirage offshoot). Given the breadth and depth of cooperation, it is quite possible that Israel and South Africa cooperated on NBC efforts. It is signi cant that Basson went to Israel several times during the 1980s.74 New details about the apartheid government’s international connections and interest in biological warfare and birth control methods surfaced in early 2000, after Pat Riley, one of the owners of a southern California biotech rm, BioFem, was shot and his partner, Dr Larry Ford, committed suicide. The Irvine, California police had questioned Dr Ford about his partner’s shooting and, after Ford’s suicide, found documents in his house that led them to dig up his backyard. Published accounts to date indicate that the police removed automatic ri es from a concrete bunker and tubes of cholera and typhoid fever germs from a freezer in the Ford house. At the time of his death, Ford was working on a ‘microbicide’ form of birth control that he had patented in 1997. Ford claimed that his product, ‘Inner Con dence’, could prevent millions of people from dying of AIDS, especially in Africa, and in the process make investors extremely wealthy. His microbicide contraceptive was a vaginal suppository that contained chemicals that kill germs transmitted through sex, as well as sperm. The potential advantage of this type of contraceptive would be to protect the user from HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases. To date, no microbicide product has been approved for marketing. There was little interest in this birth control approach until the late 1990s, as several technical problems remained unsolved. The results of several small-scale trials, and one large-scale publicised study of another microbicide, found that the chemicals in the microbicide damaged the lining of the vagina, making the user more, rather than less susceptible to HIV infection.75 Local authorities and the FBI, who launched a ‘weapons of mass destruction’ investigation into this case, began investigating claims Ford made to his associates and friends that he served as a consultant to the SADF and had close ties with the CIA. Former South African Surgeon General, Dr Niels Knobel, initially stated that he met Ford at a conference in San Diego, California in the late 1980s and that they had remained friends ever since. Knobel explained that they shared an interest in AIDS, because they both knew that the epidemic was going to have a devastating impact in Africa. However, Knobel recently acknowledged that he met with Ford and his associates during one of their many visits to the South African trade representative’s of cial residence in Los Angeles.76 73 Interview with Brigadier General (retired) Sass, 2000; see also Purkitt, ‘The politics of denuclearization’. 74 Interview with Sass; Interviews US of cials, 2000. 75 A. Allen, ‘Mad Scientist’, Salon.com, 26 June 2000 [www document http://salonmag.com/health/feature/2000/06/ 26/biofem]; A. Allen, ‘Vaginal Detergent’, Salon.com, 9 August 2000 [www document http://salonmag.com/ health/feature/2000/06/26/biofem]. 76 J. Collins, ‘Suspects all visited the home of a South African trade of cial, police say’, Orange County Register, 18 July 2000. 248 Journal of Southern African Studies Others reports indicate that Ford visited South Africa several years earlier than Dr Knobel acknowledged. According to Dr Scharf, the former head of Military Hospital One in Pretoria, Ford visited in the mid-1980s as a guest of the South African Surgeon General. Dr Scharf remembered a visit by Ford to his hospital as the guest of Knobel in 1984 or 1985. Knobel insisted that Ford be given VIP treatment (at the hospital’s expense). Scharf was offended by Ford’s request for human placenta that he wanted to use in his research. Scharf refused to cooperate and claimed that he threw Ford out of his of ce, after warning him that such activities would be very controversial, if they became public, due to the fact that all Africans viewed babies as sacred.77 Recently, Knobel con rmed to American reporters that he helped Ford establish protocols to test his product in South Africa but said he did not know if those trials were ever carried out. According to microbiologist Mike Odendaal, a senior researcher at RRL, Ford also visited South Africa again in 1987 to instruct scientists working with a SADF front company on how to turn teabags, doilies, and pornographi c magazines into ‘weapons’ that could be used against the ANC by using species of clostridium bacteria. Odendaal reported that the scientists found much of Ford’s advice confusing and some went so far as to call him a fraud.78 Police investigating this case have been unable to corroborate many of Ford’s claims made before his death. For example, Ford claimed that he parachuted into southern Africa during the apartheid era to take blood samples from dead guerrilla ghters in order to help the US government determine the biological warfare agents against which the Soviets were vaccinating their allies.79 Another long-time Ford associate, Jerry D. Nilsson, also came under investigation. Nilsson claimed that he and Ford travelled to Africa together. In 1988, Nilsson organized a group of doctors, including Ford, to buy a defunct Los Angeles hospital. The plan was to turn it into a state-of-the-art infectious disease research centre, the Lake View Terrace Institute. Nilsson told the Los Angles Times that the facility was to be ‘one cog in a complex, far-reaching project’ with related facilities in Africa, Germany, Italy and Britain. The scheme opped when research groups denied they were backing the venture. The nature of Nilsson’s relationship with Ford remains unclear. Police seized considerable material when they raided Nilsson’s house and storage lockers but did not release details of the searches. Nilsson’s friends claimed that he and Ford stashed chemicals and germs at several locations in southern California. Police acknowledged that the evidence strongly suggested that Dr Ford was deeply involved in a conspiracy and that he would be in custody today were he alive. Another long-time associate of Ford claimed that only about one per cent of the story of Ford’s activities in Africa has been disclosed.80 At the time of Basson’s arrest, investigators found several trunks in his possession that contained documents and items related to Project Coast. The investigators also found a great deal of personal correspondence between Basson and individuals in Switzerland, the United Kingdom and other countries in the trunks and among Basson’s personal effects. One letter was from an individual in the UK, who lived near Heathrow Airport. This letter described what Basson should do if he needed to leave South Africa quickly. The letter said he should contact ‘them’ when he arrived at Heathrow and that ‘we will collect you’. Other letters, from individuals in other countries, described similar emergency exit plans. The identity of 77 Interview with Scharf, 2000. 78 Allen, ‘Mad Scientist’; J. Collins, ‘Ford advised South Africa on warfare devices’, Orange County Register, 15 March 2000. 79 Allen, ‘Mad Scientist’. 80 Ibid; A. Bluth and T. Saavedra, ‘Surgeon says he doesn’t know why he was subjected to a search’, The Orange County Register, 5 April 2000; A. Bluth and T. Saavedra, ‘The materials are collected at the home of Jerry Nilsson, who was questioned and released’, The Orange County Register, 2 April 2000. South Africa’s Chemical and Biological Warfare Programme 249 this letter writer and others was not known by the investigators representing the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the South African President’s of ce, or the National Intelligence Agency (NIA), who were all present at the time after the trunks were found. The contents of the trunks were itemised, and the National Intelligence Agency took control of them for security reasons. Senior TRC investigators never learned whether these letters were from private individuals or representatives of governments.81 The documents are interesting, given statements made by Juergen Jacomet, a former Swiss military intelligence agent, who worked with Basson on money-laundering for Project Coast in Europe. He spoke of a right-wing conspiracy and alluded to the existence of an information organisation of individuals, including Americans.82 The death of Dr Ford and revelations of his South African involvement, and his failed effort to establish the Lake View Terrace Institute raised again the possibility of a right-wing international network, united by a vision of a South Africa once again ruled by whites. No evidence to date has been found to substantiate concerns expressed by some about possible linkages between Project Coast programmes and the intentional use of HIV or microbicide contraceptives. However, recent reports of American doctors’ involvement are consistent with reports that the former South African government was already concerned about the future impact of the AIDS epidemic by the mid-1980s. In the 1980s, as the South African government became more aware of the magnitude of the impending AIDS epidemic, the SADF started testing thousands of SADF soldiers for HIV. The secret right-wing Afrikaner organisation, the Broederbond, also recently acknowledged that they had completed population projections during the mid-1980s. They suggested that whites would be in the majority in the future due to the devastating effects that AIDS was projected to have on the black population of South Africa.83 Despite the lack of evidence linking Project Coast research with the intentional use of AIDS, allegations that the policies of the former South African government were motivated by AIDS considerations are likely to increase in the future as the rate of HIV infections peaks in South Africa. This type of allegation was made by at least one researcher at the International AIDS Durban conference in July 2000. In a conference paper, one researcher suggested that projections of huge losses in the black population through AIDS were the real reason why de Klerk had started the transition process. Basson continued his foreign visits and interaction with experts from the US, Britain and other countries throughout the 1980s. Most contacts between scientists and consultants working on Project Coast programmes and foreign experts appear to have been legal ones. Most of the substances and knowledge relevant to biological weapons were not controlled in the 1970s and 1980s as there was not the same level of concern with the possible use of biological agents and chemical substances that emerged during the 1990s. However, Basson and Knobel have subsequently claimed that Basson visited Iraq and Iran, the Philippines, North Korea, Croatia, and met with members of Colombian drug cartels, making contacts and collecting information. What was obtained or exchanged during these visits has not yet emerged. Corruption and the Deterioration of Project Coast Basson took advantage of the loose nancial oversight and accountability requirements to ensure that he would acquire large sums of money from the project several years before the 81 Interviews, 2000. 82 Mangold and Goldberg, Plague Wars, pp. 277–278. 83 Interviews with South African reporters, and former South African governmen t of cials, 2000. 250 Journal of Southern African Studies actual decisions were made to privatise these state-owned corporations. Starting in the mid-1980s, if not before, Basson was reported to have offered his friends and trusted employees the opportunity to invest in a number of these of cial front corporations. Basson and other early investors made overnight fortunes when these corporations were privatised in the late 1980s.84 The magnitude of these pro ts, perhaps more than any other action, caught the attention of a non-military agency, the Of ce of Serious Economic Offences, who started investigating the nancial ows associated with Project Coast soon after these corporations’ shares were sold on the open market. Basson was the central gure in coordinating the funds and the whole programme. He was the central point of contact between the scientists, the army, and the government sponsoring Project Coast. As the project expanded into sophisticated research into genetic engineering and the manufacturing of large amounts of Mandrax and Ecstasy (which may have been sold on the black market), millions of dollars were siphoned off into a series of elaborate holding companies. While Basson continues to maintain that the large amounts of Mandrax and Ecstasy that were produced by state-owned companies were authorised products intended for use in crowd control, few observers, including the prosecution in his criminal trial, believe this story.85 Instead, a mystery remains about why so many drugs were produced and where they went. As Basson and his closest associates skimmed millions of dollars from Project Coast activities, he and his American accountant, David Webster, developed an elaborate web of foreign shell companies to launder the money. Several offshore holding companies, such as WPW Investments, which was incorporated in Cayman Island in 1986, sold initial share offers at low prices (e.g. US$4.00 per share) to Basson. In this company, as in numerous others, Basson’s accountant, David Webster, was the Director while Basson maintained indirect control as a member of the Board. Towards the end of Project Coast, new companies were being incorporated and large amounts of assets were being transferred from existing companies to the new ones over a 24 or 48 hour period.86 The investigation of the South African forensic auditor, Hendrik Bruwer, took nearly seven years to complete. After travelling to the USA, UK, Belgium, Switzerland, Croatia, and Luxembourg, Bruwer produced an 800-page report that highlighted serious illegalities in the SADF and former government. Obtaining permission from foreign governments delayed the investigation, as did ongoing investigations by other national and provincial bodies (e.g. the Transvaal Auditor General’s of ce). Basson’s American accountant, David Webster, who had acted as a nominee for Basson, at rst refused to hand over papers in his possession to South African investigators. He was eventually forced to do so by an American court. The international and transnational character of this case was highlighted by the fact that the Basson trial took the unusual step of holding sessions of the trial in Jacksonville, Florida, during the autumn of 2000, in order to establish the exact nature and extent of David Webster’s involvement in the case. These business transactions were so complex that the prosecution believed when 84 Interview with Scarf, 2000. 85 Interview with Pretorius, 2000. 86 Af davits and memoranda on le at the Freedom of Expression Institute, Johannesburg , South Africa and interview with Laura Polleciett, Executive Director, Freedom of Expression Institute, conducted by H. Purkitt, 7 July 2000. Prosecutors in Wouter Basson’s trial introduced documents found in Webster’s possession that indicate that the WPW group was started in the early 1980s by a group of South African doctors. According to these documents, they were tasked by southern African health authorities to set up clinics in various African countries. The state alleges that Basson set up the companies to create a cover for himself as a successful businessman (Business Day, 2000). See Gould and Burger, Weekly Trial reports of the South African Chemical and Biological Warfare Program for summaries of evidence presented to support fraud charges in the Woulter Basson trial to date. South Africa’s Chemical and Biological Warfare Programme 251 the trial started that it would take them nearly two years to present evidence to support fraud charges against Basson.87 Project Coast ground to a halt in 1988, due to corruption by Basson and others. According to interviews with Project Coast scientists, between 1982 and 1987, Project Coast was advancing as a sophisticated programme.88 Coast had acquired anthrax, cholera, botulinum, and other biological agents, was planning to add a wing to RRL to produce massive amounts of anthrax, and was proceeding with genetic engineering research to produce germs that would harm blacks and not whites. However, as the communist threat receded in 1987–1988 and as it seemed possible that the apartheid regime’s days were numbered, Basson and others diverted large amounts of money intended for Project Coast programmes to their own accounts. Elsewhere in government, top of cials were taking funds on a large scale. As the biological warfare programme stopped, Basson and others began to plan how to roll Project Coast back in such a way that would be advantageous to them. By 1988, President P. W. Botha, Magnus Malan and Wim de Villiers of ARMSCOR had initiated the privatisation and liberalisation of the defence industry. They envisaged a transfer of power to Mandela and the ANC and saw the need to keep the defence industry out of their hands. The privatisation process opened the door to the type of corruption exhibited by Basson and his colleagues. In 1988, Basson was supposed to have bought a sophisticated peptide synthesiser for $2.2 million from clandestine sources. Project Coast researchers were attempting to make signi cant advances in the eld of peptides to alter brain function, which was a key to creating a biological weapon that would affect blacks and not whites. However, at the trial of Basson, Dr Lucia Steenkamp refuted claims that Basson had bought the peptide synthesiser, and the prosecution alleged that Basson defrauded SADF by pretending he needed the synthesiser but actually used the money for overseas business deals.89 Colonel (retired) Johann Smith believes that Basson and others took advantage of the South African government’s preoccupation with political negotiations with Mandela and international parties to end the Angolan con ict to get rich. Smith argues that Basson was able to deceive top generals and salted away millions. Smith was certain that Basson turned to dealing Ecstasy and other drugs, because his money was in Swiss banks, and he still needed to raise cash in South Africa. In contrast, most apartheid generals stressed that Basson had done nothing wrong because he was ‘only following orders’. Several apartheid generals were predicting even before Basson’s trial had opened that he would not be convicted.90 While many questions related to who, if anyone, authorised Basson’s actions at the end of the 1980s remain unanswered, the public record clearly indicates that Project Coast scientists appeared to be in the business of manufacturing drugs towards the end of the project. In August 1988, Delta G scientists arranged for 1,000 kg of methaqualone to be produced. The production manager at Delta G approached Dr Philip Mijburgh, managing director of Medchem Consolidated Investments, and asked him to produce the methaqualone. What happened to the methaqualone and whether or not it was encapsulated remains unknown.91 The explanation given by witnesses at the Truth and Reconciliation 87 The state tried to prove that Basson set up the companies to create a cover for himself as a ‘successful businessman ’. Business Day, 14 June 2000. 88 Interview with Pauw, 2000. Pauw interviewed several senior Project Coast scientists, including Andre Immelman, Schalk van Rensburg, Mike Odendaal , Daan Goosens, and Peter Lourens. 89 Interview with Colonel (retired) Johann Smith, conducted by S. Burgess, 30 June 2000. See also Gould and Burger, Weekly Trial Reports of the South African Chemical and Biological Warfare Program. 90 Interview with Sass, 2000. 91 The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, p. 514 252 Journal of Southern African Studies Commission hearings in 1998 was that the methaqualone was to be mixed into NGT (CR) gas and used for crowd control purposes. General Lothar Neethling testi ed that, on three occasions, he had been requested to provide Dr Basson with Mandrax tablets con scated by the South African Narcotics Bureau. He claimed that he had given Dr Basson approximately 200,000 tablets in total as well as quantities of LSD and dagga (marijuana), on the understanding that they would be investigated to determine whether they would be appropriate crowd control weapons. None of the witnesses could provide the TRC with any information about tests that had been conducted in this regard and at least one witness stated that these drugs would not be suitable for such a purpose. Medchem’s role is noteworthy given the fact that Defence Minister Malan’s nephew, Dr Mijburgh, was on the board. Mijburgh bene ted from privatisation of both Medchem and Delta G Scienti c in the early 1990s. In 1988, Dr Knobel became Surgeon General, after Dr Nieuwoudt died. Basson briefed Knobel, claiming that he had penetrated facilities in the USSR, Libya, the USA, and UK (Porton Down), as well as in Belgium, France, Switzerland, Germany and Israel. Knobel still believes Basson’s claims. However, in retrospect, Knobel found that Basson’s activities were not suf ciently monitored and that the working group committee approach to supervision was a mistake.92 As the 1980s proceeded, Project Coast continued to be managed by committee, which left it susceptible to mismanagement and corruption. Geldenhuys attended the steering committee for Project Coast on one or two occasions from 1985–1990. Usually, Geldenhuys was replaced by Surgeon General Nieuwoudt and, from 1988–1990, by Knobel. He also attended meetings of the satellite programme on missiles. The problem was that a committee could not control Basson. According to Geldenhuys, General Liebenberg was convinced that the Project Coast steering committee (of which he was a member) was supplanted by the ‘Small Command Council’, especially in review of nances and in working with Basson. The Small Command Council was controlled by Malan and supervised secret projects on a ‘need to know’ basis. In contrast to his TRC statements about Project Coast, General (retired) Geldenhuys now claims that, as SADF Chief of Staff, he monitored nances and that his chief of nance was good. He claimed that there was not disproportional spending on Project Coast and that secret funds were audited. Geldenhuys pointed out that, in the 1980s, South Africa was the ‘skunk’ of the world. This led to an ‘unconventional arms trade’ and to the use of middlemen and secret funds. However, the Of ce of Serious Economic Offenses (OSEO) objected to secret funds, as well as ‘safe houses’, clandestine front companies and clandestine ights.93 Conclusions The pro le of South Africa that emerges from this deeper historical perspective and broader international context is of a state that developed a CBW programme, along with nuclear weapons and long-range missiles, in response to isolation from its former western partners. In addition, South Africa faced hostile regimes and movements in neighbouring states that were aided by the Soviet Union, which had a formidable CBW capability. Over time, the Afrikaner-led regime also felt increasingly threatened by the majority of the country’s black citizens who increasingly refused to accept harsh minority rule. One response of the apartheid regime to changing threat perceptions in the region was 92 Interview with Dr Niels Knobel, former Surgeon General of the South African Military Service and the South African National Defence Force, conducted by S. Burgess, 2000. 93 Interview with Geldenhuys , 2000. South Africa’s Chemical and Biological Warfare Programme 253 to develop a CBW pro

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