THE SOUTH AFRICA NUCLEAR CONNECTION

Contents: THE ANTI-NUCLEAR MOVEMENT: INTERNATIONAL IMPLICATIONS • SOUTH AFRICA'S NUCLEAR CAPABILITY: FROM FUELS TO BOMBS • US - SOUTH AFRICA NUCLEAR LINKS • SOUTH AFRICA: A NUCLEAR 'OPEC' • WHAT CAN BE DONE • The struggle against nuclear weapons and energy in the U.S. is a struggle of people to control their own lives. Liberation movements on the African continent and elsewhere have similar objectives. South Africa is rapidly becoming a major power in the nuclear industry and a vital link in the global nuclear picture. The country claims possession of 3/4 of the non-communist world's known uranium reserves; it is currently the third largest non-communist producer of uranium, after the U.S. and Canada. The bulk of South Africa's uranium actually comes from Namibia, a territory illegally occupied by South Africa's white minority regime. The uranium enrichment process utilized by South Africa is better suited to weapons production than to energy generation. During the summer of 1977, Soviet and U.S. satellites exposed a nuclear weapons test site in South Africa's Kalahari Desert. U.S. pressure may have helped to prevent detonation, but the U.S. has helped South Africa develop its uranium mining and processing industry in return for a steady supply of uranium. Over 155 U.S. nuclear experts had been sent to assist South Africans and 90 South Africans had been trained at facilities in the US by 1977. The U.S. government had accumulated a stockpile of approximately 50,000 tons of uranium (DOE estimates) purchased from the South African government between 1953 and 1971. Documents leaked last year uncovered a secret uranium cartel in which South Africa played a key role with Australia, Canada and Gulf Oil Corporation. South Africa's attacks on its own people and on Angola and Zaire make its access to nuclear technology extremely dangerous for the people of southern Africa. The leaflet mentions cheap black labor, South African gold mines, uranium oxide, Rossing, power, coal, hydroelectric capacity, U.S. based transnational corporations, a 1957 US/South Africa nuclear cooperation pact, U.S. banks lending to South Africa, the Electricity Supply Commission, South Africa's research reactor Safari I, Allis Chalmers Corp., IBM computers, the Pelindaba Research Facility, Foxboro Corp. computers, the Valindaba Enrichment Plant, Exxon, Union Carbide, Utah Mining, US Steel, Newmont Mining, UN sanctions, PSCo., Yankee Atomic Co., the Seabrook and Yankee nuclear plants, Kerr-McKee, Texas Nuclear, Gulf General Atomic, Edlow International, Beckman Instruments, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Crocker, Union , Security Pacific, Sumitomo, United California, French, and Chartered Bank of London, UN Decree No. 1, South African Atomic Energy Board, the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM), the Organization of Black South African Journalists, and the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The leaflet includes quotes by Martin Luther King, Jr.; Representative Les Aspin; Dr. Roux; former Senator Dick Clark (D-Iowa) for; Albert Louw; the South African Finance Minister; Steven Biko; and Dumisani Kumalo, currently in exile and serving as Coordinator of the Campaign to Oppose Bank Loans to South Africa (COBLSA).