AFRICA AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

On 13 February 1960, France detonated its first atomic bomb in the Algerian Sahara desert. The test, ordered by Charles De Gaulle, generated a cloud contaminated with caesium-137 and iodine-131, which was carried by the wind as far as western Sicily. In the midst of the Algerian War of Independence, France did not reveal what had happened and continued its experiments in the province of Adrar. From that 13 February until 1966, 16 more nuclear explosions were carried out in the Sahara desert, with devastating consequences for the local population, the surrounding environment and beyond. The first four nuclear tests conducted in the atmosphere at Reggane (a district located in the Tanezrouft plain, about 1,000 km from Algiers) were followed by 13 underground explosions at In-Ekker. The first atmospheric test, Gerboise Bleue, had a yield of about 70 kilotons, almost four times that of the Hiroshima bomb; the other three tests, named Gerboise Blanche, Rouge and Verte, marked France’s entry into the club of nuclear powers.

The French tests were not limited to the colonial period. Even after Algeria’s independence, the experiments continued under confidential agreements between Paris and the Algerian revolutionary provisional government, which in return obtained recognition of its sovereignty. Few documents remain of these experiments, but some studies indicate that the short- and long-term consequences included an increase in cancer, congenital malformations and other diseases linked to radiation exposure. After each atmospheric test, radioactive particles were dispersed southwards to sub-Saharan Africa or northwards towards the Mediterranean and Europe, depending on the winds.

The underground Beryl test on 1 May 1962 was particularly disastrous: the explosion caused a radioactive leak that also contaminated senior French officials present at the site, including members of the Ministerial Commission, some of whom died of leukaemia in the following years. French military personnel were also exposed to radiation, suffering serious health damage.

France never worried about the devastating effects that atomic bombs could have on local populations, who were never provided with places to shelter from radiation. There is no exact number of deaths or people suffering from radiation sickness, but in southern Algeria, doctors and NGOs continue to report the recurrence of suspicious diseases and ailments that were virtually unknown in these areas before radioactivity contaminated the desert sands. Thyroid, skin, lung and breast cancer, leukaemia and birth defects are now commonplace among Saharan families in these areas. Outside Algeria, Sahara sandstorms have carried tonnes of fine dust to Europe, much of which has been found to be contaminated with caesium-137, generated by the radioactive decay produced by those explosions. In western Sicily, contamination was detected several times between 1960 and 1966, and in the Canary Islands, the University of Tenerife detected radioactive decay products in Saharan sand carried by the winds. France has never carried out any clean-up of the explosion sites, to the extent that even today, staying in those places is considered highly risky. In 1966 and until 1996, France transferred its tests to the Mururoa and Fangataufa atolls in French Polynesia, where there were almost 200 explosions.

Fortunately, there is also a story that is very different from that of Algeria: that of the South African atomic bomb. This is a unique story because South Africa, after acquiring military nuclear capability, decided to backtrack and abandon the programme: a unique case in the world! The story begins in 1957, when South Africa sought cooperation with the United States and Great Britain for the transfer of nuclear technology in exchange for its large reserves (and sales) of uranium. In the mid-1960s, the first research reactor was built in Pelindaba, and in 1974 an agreement was signed (with France) for the construction of a production plant near Cape Town. At the same time, the race to build a nuclear arsenal began, fuelled by the lack of protection due to diplomatic isolation caused by the apartheid regime and fears linked to the civil war that broke out in Angola and Mozambique after Portugal’s withdrawal and the intervention of Cuban troops supported by the Soviet Union. It was the Soviet Union that reported the presence of a test site in the Kalahari Desert in 1977. In 1978, South African President Vorster decided to acquire an arsenal of six nuclear weapons by the mid-1980s as a deterrent. But in 1982, militants from the African National Congress (the opposition party to the apartheid regime) carried out an attack on a nuclear facility near Cape Town, creating a sense of danger on the home front. Meanwhile, Cold War tensions eased: the Cubans withdrew from Angola and South Africa withdrew from Namibia, which gained independence.

These changes rendered the decision to acquire a nuclear arsenal, which had never been openly declared, meaningless. In 1989, the new president, De Klerk, proceeded with the dismantling of the nuclear deterrent (which was completed by 1991 with the destruction of fissile material and weapons) and signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The history of nuclear power in South Africa is unparalleled to this day. Although some believe that the decision to “roll back” was taken for racial reasons – i.e. dictated by the fear of a government composed of the African population possessing nuclear weapons – the South African case remains an unparalleled example of virtue.