Nuclear weapons — proliferating nonsense (7)
Conspicuous, at Mandela’s burial, was President Barack Obama—whose country had a complex relationship with the pariah state. The U.S. provided heavy water and up to 100 kilograms of weapons-grade uranium. But it stopped in 1976 and obstructed alternative supplies.
Ostensibly, HEU was for power generation. But, as with Iran under the Shah, it is doubtful that any Western power was deceived. This includes France, whose nuclear fabricator, Framatome, built two civilian reactors, which were installed at Koeberg.
The U.S.A. occasionally rapped South Africa’s knuckles. But this was largely Cold War posturing, since Communist Bloc countries strongly supported the anti-apartheid struggle. Cuba, for example, sent troops to defend Angola against South African incursions.
Also, African American leaders warned the State Department repeatedly, about its strategic entanglement with apartheid and against sending American soldiers, to attack African freedom fighters and the armies of frontline countries.
These warnings were not wasted on Henry Kissinger, who met with South African Prime Minister, John Vorster, in 1976—becoming the first U.S. Secretary of State to do so, in 30 years.
Kissinger reportedly reminded Vorster that 50 percent of U.S. combat soldiers were black. “He was explaining,” Amir Oren said, “why the United States could be expected to intervene, militarily, against Cuban forces but not in a civil war or other local conflict between African forces”.
The Israeli delegation was another ironic presence—a thought Oren also picked up on, in Haaretz. “Today,” he wrote of Shimon Peres, then head of state, “he eulogizes Nelson Mandela, but…as defense minister after the Yom Kippur War he played a central role in Israel’s clandestine relations with South Africa”.
After the war, Oren recounts, Israel posted several senior military officers in South Africa. These included Navy Rear Admiral Bini Telem and brigadier generals Yaakov Stern, Giora Zorea, Giora Lev, Amos Katz and Haggai Regev. Some officers were disguised as “agricultural attachés.”
With Israel’s assistance, South Africa developed an expansive nuclear complex, centred at Pelindaba. “Israel,” says Nuclear Weapons Archives.Org, “is believed to have provided technical advice about bomb design”. A sophisticated weapons production programme materialized in 1977.
According to Astronautix.Com, the collaboration also encompassed a weapons delivery system. “Substantial facilities for assembly, test, and launch of the rockets,” it reports, “were built at the Overberg Test Range at the tip of Africa. Overberg was also used for Israeli Jericho-2 test flights”.
Israel’s “jerico-2” rocket served as a model for the RSA (“Republic of South Africa”) series—ballistic missile prototypes, developed under cover of a “space transport programme”. Three of the four vehicles constructed, were launched into suborbital trajectories in the late 1980’s.
South Africa’s real aim was to develop missile carriers for its nuclear warheads. Not only was the West aware, but according to Astronautix, Britain, Sweden and the Czech Republic even made use of the Overberg Test Range.
With Mandela’s release, and majority rule, imminent, South Africa cancelled its weapons programme in 1989. Ballistic missile work ended too, in mid-1993: And key dual-use facilities were destroyed, under American supervision.
Says Astronautix, “Prime Contractor Houwteq had to dismantle its…RSA rocket components, and retrieve… technical data from its subcontractors. Propellant manufacturer Somchem, eliminated the RSA solid propellants and rocket casings that remained in stock”.
On reading this, I wondered if the Boer officials and their U.S. accomplices wore masks while committing their robbery—dispossessing the people whose plundered resources had paid for the assets they wantonly destroyed.
Then, I thought of Information Minister Connie Botha’s visit to The Los Angeles Times. His face was not covered physically. But he was masked nevertheless: Hiding South Africa’s deceitful agenda, behind a smile and a “Black Power” handshake.
TO BR CONTINUED
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