Verifying the Dismantlement of South Africa's Nuclear Weapons Program

Introduction

In its 2010 Annual safeguards statement, the IAEA determined that - for 58 states where both the Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement (CSA) and Additional Protocol (AP) are in force - it ”found no indication of the diversion of declared nuclear material from peaceful nuclear activities and no indication of undeclared nuclear material or activities. On this basis, the Secretariat concluded that, for these States, all nuclear material remained in peaceful activities.“[1] This rolling safeguards report that provided a yearly review of the status of IAEA member states’ nuclear activities was noteworthy as South Africa was, for the first time, included to the above group of states[2].

In September 1991, South Africa concluded a comprehensive safeguards agreement (CSA) with the IAEA, and submitted its initial declaration on facilities and nuclear material inventories (A summary of South Africa’s nuclear program prior to its conclusion of a safeguards agreement is at Annex). The same year, the IAEA General Conference requested the IAEA Director General to “verify the completeness of the inventory of South Africa’s nuclear installations and material and to report to the Board of Governors and to the General Conference”.[3] This request was made following South Africa’s safeguards entry into force and previous long standing claims made regarding the existence of a possible nuclear weapons program.

While Pretoria had already taken the political decision and had dismantled its nuclear weapons program prior to signing a safeguards agreement with the IAEA, it was only in March 1993 that President W. de Klerk dislosed South Africa’s nuclear weapons program. South Africa’s initial nuclear material inventory submitted to the IAEA in 1991 had not contained any reference to its past nuclear weapons program. The IAEA Secretariat’s first verification report submitted to the General Conference in September 1992[4] did not mention any indications of a weapons program either, though it concluded that there were “apparent discrepancies” in calculated U-235 isotope balances at the Pilot Enrichment Plant and Semi-Commercial Enrichment Plant.

Following Pretoria’s disclosure, the IAEA’s verification work was extended from 1993 to confirm dismantlement and to put in place mechanisms that would allow for early detection should the weapons program be reconstituted.  Parallel to this, inspectors initiated a more extensive examination of nuclear material flows, and verification of the historical production of low and high enriched uranium. By the time of the next verification report in September 1993, the Secretariat was able to conclude that amounts of high enriched uranium (HEU) that could have been produced by the Pilot Enrichment Plant, were consistent with the amount declared in the initial report  as a result of tallying up prior unreported HEUs that were used for the weapons program.[5] However, at that stage, work for the verification of the completeness of low enriched uranium production continued.

[1] Safeguards Statement for 2011 and Background to the Safeguards Statement, IAEA, http://www.iaea.org/safeguards/es/es2011.html.

[2] South Africa concluded a Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement in 1991 and adopted the Additional Protocol in September 2002.

[3] General Conference Resolution GC(XXXV)/RES/567, IAEA, September 1991.

[4] The Denuclearization of Africa, GC(XXXVI)/1015, IAEA,4 September 1992.

[5] The Denuclearization of Africa, GC(XXXVII)/1075, IAEA, 9 September 1993.

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