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Peter Hounam and Steve McQuillan: The Micro-Nukes Conspiracy - Mandela's Nuclear Nightmare (Faber & Faber, London, Sept 1995). 300pp.
When President de Klerk announced in March 1993 the abandonment by S.Africa of
its tiny nuclear weapons arsenal (6 warheads), most obsesrvers assumed they were
being told the whole story. Nothing could be further from the truth, according to an
alarming new book published by two respeded journalists. Their sensational report
makes a number of disturbing allegations.
It would appear that S.Africa had a far more advanced nuclear weapons programme
than it admitted. With help from the lsraelis and others, it manufactured thermonuclear
weapons deliverable via the "Hento" glide-bomb/missile, intercontinental ballistic
missile and a so-called "clean" bomb (advanced neutron bomb with minimal fallout)
and other mini-nukes capable of being fired as shells from a howitzer-type gun.
These nuclear weapons were tested in various underwater and aboveground locations
during the 1970s and 1980s, and some were deployed in Angola during the conflid
with Soviet- and Cuban-backed forces.
S.Africa had a sophisticated international procurement programme known as
Operation Shampoo, involving Armscor and front companies and agents all over the
world. Chief among its imports was the notorious and controvesial red mercury, used
in nculear weapons triggers, in the "clean bomb" and for other top·secret military
pulposes. A string of grisly murders were uncovered, involving arms dealers in the red
mercury trade. Later S.Africa manufactured its own red mercury.
Some of the warheads not declared in the de Klerk annoucement are alleged to be
under the control of one or other of the armed right wing groupings who still plan a
military takeover of the country, or to use their weapons to blackmail the govemment
into agreeing to a whites-only Volksstaat.
Hounam and McQuillan's claims have been rejected by Mandela. But they are far from
being unsubstantial. They have had access to "deep throats" inside the some of the
world's most secret installations, the S.Africa police, and technical experts such as Dr
Frank Barnaby. By any account it is a very courageous and impressive piece of
investigation.
The ramifications are extremely far reaching. What is extraordinaly is the almost
complete silence of the media (even arms control publications) on the subject of these
sensational allegations and their implications. Is it too much to suspect another
conspiracy? Certainly key sections of the arms business will play down the impact of
this information, since it is political dynamite. Once again they will tly to deflect the
intrusive gaye of the general public into the secret worl of the weaponeers.
Colin Archer, lntemational Peace Bureau
Negotiations
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