the rollback of south africa's biological warfare program

program.
This monograph analyzes the origins and development of the South
African CBW program, as well as its rollback. It concludes with a profile of
South Africa as a state that produced weapons of mass destruction and with a
list of outstanding questions. More than twenty policy lessons, based on the
South African case, are presented, which should be considered in future CBW
non-proliferation studies.
THE ORIGINS OF THE BIOLOGICAL WARFARE PROGRAM
In 1981 or earlier, the South African government initiated Project Coast, a
sophisticated chemical and biological warfare (CBW) program. The focus here
is on the biological aspect of the program, which was especially sophisticated,
and how it developed.
Project Coast was not the first CBW program that the South African
government had developed. From 1914-1918 and 1939-1945, South African
troops fought in the two World Wars and faced the threat of CBW. Although
the 1925 Geneva Conventions banned the use of chemical and biological
weapons in warfare, Japan and the Soviet Union employed such weapons in
WWII. As early as the 1930s, widespread evidence emerged of the efficacy of
biological warfare (BW) based on scientific work conducted in the U.S.,
United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union. 1 The South African scientific and
military communities kept pace with the various developments in CBW.
In the 1940s, South Africa produced mustard gas for possible use in
WWII. According to Dr. Renfrew Christie, 2 the mining industry had
developed, since the 1930s, explosives that were linked with chemical agents.
The Anglo-American Corporation, Anglo-Vaal, and other companies were
involved. The Director-General of War, H.J. van der Bijl, oversaw the
production of chemical weapons and defensive measures that would protect
South African troops against chemical and biological attack during the Second
World War.
2