SOUTH AFRICA AND WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION: NUCLEAR/ BIOLOGICAL/CHEMICAL (NBC) by Tercio Oculus
From the 1960s to the beginning of the 1990s, South Africa pursued research into and developed weapons of mass destruction and their delivery systems, including nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons and missiles. Six nuclear bombs were assembled. Before the anticipated changeover to a majority-elected African National Congress–led government in the 1990s, the South African government dismantled all of its nuclear weapons, the first state in the world which voluntarily gave up all nuclear arms it had developed.
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The country has been a signatory to the Biological Weapons Convention since 1975, as well as the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons since 1991, and the Chemical Weapons Convention since 1995. In February 2019, South Africa ratified the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons thus becoming the first country to have had nuclear weapons, that disarmed them and then went on to sign the trea-
The Republic of South Africa's ambitions to develop a nuclear industry began in 1948 with the setting up of the South African Atomic Energy Corporation (SAAEC), the forerunner corporation to oversee the nation's uranium mining and industrial trade. In 1957, South Africa reached an understanding with the United States after signing a 50-year collaboration under the U.S.-sanctioned programme called Atoms for Peace.
NUCLEAR WEAPONS AND DELIVERY SYSTEMS / MISSILES
PHOTO 1 (Bottom left) Bomb casings at South Africa's abandoned Circle nuclear bomb assembly facility near Pretoria. These most likely would have accommodated a gun barrel-type nuclear package for air delivery.
The treaty resulted in the South African acquisition of a single nuclear research reactor and an accompanying supply of highly enriched uranium (HEU) fuel, located in Pelindaba.
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