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  About Mr. Mafole Mokalobe

Mr Malole Mokalobe is a researcher with the Centre for Conflict Resolution in Cape Town, South Africa. His areas of expertise include security, demobilisation, disarmament, mediation in civil-wars and conflict resolution. He is a co-manager of the Centre's Project on Mediation in African Civil Wars. Mr Mokalobe has presented and published numerous papers in his areas of research. He is also a member the Centre for Conflict Resolution's "Track Two" journal editorial board.

Statement by Mr. Mafole Mokalobe

Science and Scientists: Lessons from Learned from South Africa’s Chemical and Biological Warfare Programme

On one account or another, a segment of the white scientific community played a prominent role in the South African Chemical and Biological Warfare (CBW) programme. This programme, code-named, “Project Coast”, which was established by the South African Defence Force (SADF) in 1981, became the hub of production of weapons of mass destruction.

Here, balancing professional ethics and good science was never an issue for scientists involved in Project Coast. Instead, science became much part of the broader apartheid government war machine. Science was consumed under the rubric of politics and became slave to politics of apartheid. Scientists devoted their energies in developing chemical and biological weapons with less concern about their use and implications. In short, scientists involved in Project Coast compromised science.

On 11 April 2002, the apartheid government CBW programme chapter was closed with the acquittal of Dr. Wouter Basson, Project Coast officer, on all criminal charges against him. Nonetheless, this experience provides plenty of lessons to be learned. Fashioned by its particular experience and the apartheid legacy, this paper asks what lessons can be learned from the South African CBW programme. Emphasis is on the involvement and role of scientists in Project Coast, and how they compromised professional scientific ethics.

Other documents in this section: Focus > Biotechnology and weapons