South Africa: US and Britain demanded dismantling of Project Coast — Daily Maverick
In South Africa, on the eve of the first democratic elections in 1994, the United Kingdom and the United States demanded the complete dismantling of Project Coast, the secret offensive chemical and biological weapons program of the apartheid era. As Daily Maverick reports, on April 11, 1994, British Ambassador Sir Anthony Reeve and US Ambassador Princeton Lyman delivered the relevant diplomatic demarche to the last apartheid president, Frederik Willem de Klerk.
Demand before the elections
London and Washington feared that the program’s lethal technologies and secrets could fall into the hands of rogue states or terrorist groups. The demarche was delivered while Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress were preparing for the elections held on April 26–29, 1994. The ANC received 62.9% support in the country.
Project Coast was initiated by de Klerk’s predecessor, Pieter Willem Botha, and Defence Minister Magnus Malan. On February 26, 1990, de Klerk ordered the dismantling of six completed and one partially completed nuclear weapons, as well as the closure of the offensive areas of the chemical and biological programs.
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International obligations
South Africa signed the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention on April 10, 1972, and ratified it in November 1975. At the same time, the offensive components of Project Coast violated the provisions of this agreement. After dismantling its nuclear weapons, the country acceded to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons on July 10, 1991, and signed the Chemical Weapons Convention on January 14, 1993.
In 1993, South Africa’s parliament adopted the Weapons of Mass Destruction Non-Proliferation Act, which provided for control over such armaments and the establishment of a Non-Proliferation Council. Nelson Mandela and the leadership of the African National Congress supported the country’s denuclearization and the termination of Project Coast.
