ACCESSION NUMBER:343938
FILE ID:AFS411
1ATE:05/12/94
TITLE:SOUTH AFRICA'S OTHER DEADLY LEGACY (05/12/94)
TEXT:*94051209.FFA SUB:SOUTH AFRICA
*AFS411 05/12/94
SOUTH AFRICA'S OTHER DEADLY LEGACY
(New York Times 5/12/94 editorial) (470)
The new government in South Africa will have its hands full trying to
overcome decades of apartheid and the hatreds and divisions it engendered.
But South Africa has another legacy to get rid of -- the remains of its
secret nuclear weapons program. With all the urgent tasks before it,
Pretoria might need timely help from Washington to lay that legacy to rest.
Under former President F.W. de Klerk, South Africa became the first nation
to ban its bombs after building them. In 1989 de Klerk halted construction
of an atomic bomb and ordered the dismantling of the six bombs already
built. In 1991 South Africa signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, and
two years later publicly acknowledged the existence of its weapons program.
Although the treaty does not oblige signatories to reveal details of
previous nuclear programs, Pretoria has granted inspectors from the
International Atomic Energy Agency access to its old nuclear sites and has
volunteered extensive data on its uranium production.
South Africa did much of its bomb-making with machine tools and other
technology produced indigenously, according to a report by David Albright
of the Institute for Science and International Security.
But it also had help from abroad. Pretoria has so far refused to identify
its foreign suppliers. Identifying them would allow the United States to
put pressure on them not to sell to other would-be proliferators.
South Africa has other leftovers that could fuel proliferation elsewhere.
Some 400 kilograms of uranium extracted from dismantled warheads, most of
it 90 percent enriched, remains in South Africa, albeit under international
safeguards. A stringent new law regulating the export of nuclear and
missile technology has been enacted, but not fully instituted.
And weapons experts are being laid off; one group of 16 specialists recently
threatened to sell secrets to the highest bidder unless they received a
million-dollar severance package.
Washington can help in three important ways to remove these deadly remains,
as it is doing with Russia and Ukraine.
The United States can buy South Africa's leftover weapons-grade uranium, or
blend it down and return it to South Africa for use or sale as fuel for
power plants.
It can offer Pretoria technical assistance to train customs officials in the
latest techniques for detecting and preventing the export of weapons
technology. And it can establish joint projects to put the skills of South
Africa's bomb-builders to peaceful use. In return, it can seek more
information about South Africa's nuclear and missile supply network.
These steps would go a long way to end lingering unease, in South Africa and
elsewhere, about Pretoria's nuclear legacy. They could also help President
Nelson Mandela fulfill his pledge to abide by the Nonproliferation Treaty
and make all of Africa nuclear-free.
NNNN
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