West Germany/South Africa: nuclear cooperation
South Africa is now able to produce its own nuclear weapons - thanks to intensive cooperation with the Federal German Republic, which swops nuclear technology for uranium, This came out at a conference on German-South African nuclear cooperation held in Bonn on November 11 - 12 by the German anti-apartheid movement The SPD (the ruling social-democratic party) forbade its members to take part; German journalists were asked by the authorities not to write about the conference, and almost nothing was published.
Facts that emerged were:
the uranium comes from Namibia, where it is mined, by the German Aran-gesellschaft, British Nuclear Fuels and two S.A. companies.enrichment is at Pelindaba (S.A.) using the German jet-nozzle process plus elements from the ultra-centrifuge process supplied by Urenco.
It was last year that both Russian and American spy satellites recorded preparations for atomic bomb testing in the Kalahari desert.
Namibian uranium is also due to be enriched, from 1980, in the enlarged Urenco plant at Almelo. The Dutch movement is calling for a ban on this enrichment.
Contact: Anti-Apartheid Bewegung
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53 Bonn 1
ph. 211 1355