the rollback of south africa's biological warfare program

June 1998. However, several weeks before these hearings started the Gauteng
Attorney General expressed concerns that the appearance of key witnesses at
these hearings might jeopardize their impending criminal prosecutions.
Defense, NIA and representatives of President Mandela's Office all supported
the position that much of information must remain classified, including
information about SA collaboration with foreign countries, as it would pose a
proliferation threat. Several members of the SANDF lobbied to not hold the
hearings at all.
At a hastily called meeting of representatives of various agencies at the
end of May 1998, two main objections were raised. One objection to the TRC
hearings was that information disclosed during these hearings could lead to the
proliferation of weapons of mass destruction that would cause South Africa to
violate its international obligations. A second concern was that revelations of
the involvement of various foreign governments in the CBW program could
jeopardize international relations. South African government officials told the
participants that Britain and the U.S. had voiced the strongest objections to the
hearings. 189 Dr. Peter Folb, the TRC’s scientific adviser, disagreed with the
official assessment during this meeting, “because much of the science involved
in Project Coast was pedestrian.” 190
The compromise that was reached was to have a small group of
representatives from the meeting go through every document in the TRC’s
possession and decide together which could be placed in the public domain at
the hearing. Commissioner Orr, Dr. Folb, and TRC investigators Gould and
Jerome Chaskalson represented the TRC. Knobel, his lawyers, NIA officials,
and other SANDF members, represented the government. Documents were
placed into one of three categories: (1) no restrictions (i.e., ones to be referred
to in the hearing and released to the media); (2) ones to be referred to but not
released; and, (3) those that would not be mentioned at all.
The President’s office did not accept the TRC’s decision to hold the
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