Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
was to be a military operation, under the nominal guidance of the sur-
geon general via the South African Medical Service (the medical wing of
the military).
Very few military documents exist in the public domain dating back to
the initiation of the CBW program, and none of these provides a contem-
poraneous explanation of what motivated those who set it up. How-
ever, such documentation as is available, together with testimony from
those involved in the decision-making process, leaves little doubt that
the principal motivation was the need to provide South African Defence
Force troops fighting in Angola with protection against chemical weap-
ons (CW). A subsidiary goal was the provision of novel crowd-control
agents to the South African police. 5 Neither of these aims, however, pro-
vides a persuasive reason for establishing the biological component of the
program.
Documents assessing the threat to South Africa in the late 1970s spe-
cifically note that there was no immediate or envisaged threat from bio-
logical warfare. 6 The BW program itself appears to have had only a lim-
ited defensive component; most of the evidence suggests that the aim was
Angola
Zambia
Zimbabwe
Roodeplaat
Research labs
Namibia
Botswana
Pretoria
Johannesburg
Lesotho
Midrand/
Delta G
South Africa
CapeTown
Figure 9.1 Major sites involved in the South African BW program.
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