South Africa’s Nuclear Weapons Programme Openly Declared

South Africa’s Nuclear Weapons Programme Openly Declared

On 24 March 1993, apartheid South African President F.W. de Klerk announced the existence of a South African nuclear weapons programme as well as the fact that the apartheid regime had successfully constructed six indigenous nuclear devices. South Africa had initiated this programme to deter what it considered “a major Soviet threat” to its sovereignty and to prop up the apartheid regime.

After having spent millions of Rands developing the technologies necessary to enable the production of nuclear weapons, the apartheid regime then completely dissolved and disassembled the entire programme in the twilight of the negotiations between the apartheid state and the national liberation movements. De Klerk’s reforms also required a re-assessment of the nuclear weapons programme. De Klerk stated that from the mid-1980s he had moral qualms about the nuclear weapons programme and believed nuclear weapons to be a burden, as it had lost its deterrence purpose following the end of hostilities in Angola.

When questioned about the timing of the announcement, De Klerk said the apartheid government feared that revealing the existence of its nuclear arsenal earlier could have led to confrontational IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) inspections similar to those occurring in Iraq. De Klerk’s announcement before Parliament followed growing international and domestic pressure to reveal the programme, which had been widely suspected in any case, especially by the main adversary to the regime, the African National Congress (ANC). De Klerk acknowledged this pressure in his speech, citing allegations in the media and by some countries that South Africa had not fully revealed its stock of HEU (highly-enriched uranium).

Apartheid South Africa’s ambitions to develop nuclear weapons began in 1948 after giving commission to the South African Atomic Energy Corporation (SAAEC), the forerunner corporation to oversee the country’s uranium mining and industrial trade. In 1957, South Africa reached an understanding with the United States (US) after signing a 50-year collaboration under the US-sanctioned programme, Atoms for Peace. The treaty concluded the acquisition of a single nuclear research reactor in 1965, the SAFARI-1, and an accompanying supply of highly enriched uranium (HEU) fuel, located in Pelindaba.

In 1967, South Africa decided to pursue plutonium capability and constructed its own reactor, SAFARI-2 reactor, also at Pelindaba. However, in 1969, the project was abandoned by the apartheid government as it began to focus on the success of its uranium enrichment programme, since the country was able to mine uranium ore domestically. The motivation was on using aerodynamic nozzle enrichment techniques to produce weapons-grade material.

In 1969, a pair of senior South African scientists met with Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood, a nuclear engineer from Pakistan, to conduct studies, research and independent experiments on uranium enrichment. In the 1970s South Africa also capitalised on sufficient experience gained with the US government’s Peaceful Nuclear Explosions (PNE) programme and in 1971, transformed it into a weapons programme.

The apartheid government collaborated with West Germany, France and Israel in the development of nuclear weapons during the 1970s, and it was enabled to develop a small finite deterrence arsenal of gun-type fission weapons in the 1980s. South Africa only produced an operational weapon after ARMSCOR took over production, and in 1982 it built the first operational weapon. The Atomic Energy Board (AEB) selected test sites in the Kalahari Desert at the Vastrap weapons range north of Upington. These were detected by Soviet intelligence, which in August 1977 alerted the US, and the existence of the test site was confirmed.

The warheads were originally configured to be delivered from one of several aircraft types then in service with the Air Force (SAAF). Concerns about the vulnerability of the ageing aircraft to the Cuban anti-aircraft defence network in Angola subsequently led to the investigation of missile-based delivery systems, based on the RSA-3/-4 launchers that had already been built for the space programme.

South Africa ended its nuclear weapons programme in 1989. All the bombs (six constructed and one under construction) were dismantled, and apartheid South Africa voluntarily acceded to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1991. Although the pre-emptive elimination of nuclear weapons was said to make a significant contribution toward regional stability and peace, and also to help restore South Africa’s credibility in regional and international politics, the main reason was to ensure that the nuclear weapons capability did not fall into the hands of a future black majority government.

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Castro Khwela
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