The Democratic Alliance on Monday called on the government to answer allegations made last week that South Africa was selling equipment used to develop nuclear weapons to Iraq.
The allegations have been made in two foreign journals — Britain’s The Spectator and America’s Insight on the News, DA representative James Selfe said. Both journals recently ran articles alleging that South Africa was selling aluminium tubes for uranium centrifuges to Iraq, and that the First Secretary at the South African Embassy in Jordan was acting as the local sales representative to Iraqi procurement agents.
Selfe said he had written to the Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Industry and Minerals and Energy asking for clarity on the charges. ”These are serious allegations. South Africa must in no way assist Iraq in its efforts to procure or develop nuclear weapons,” Selfe said.
The South African public also had a right to know whether its government was assisting Saddam Hussein in this way, he added. An article in The Spectator of October 5 reads: ”Mr Mandela’s country has been busy selling aluminium tubes for uranium enrichment centrifuges to Saddam. The first secretary of the South African embassy in Jordan is serving as the local sales rep to Iraqi procurement agents.” This, the article went on to say, was ”…bringing significantly closer the day when the entire Middle East, much of Africa and even Europe will be under the Saddamite nuclear umbrella and thus safe from Bush’s aggression”.
Another journalist, Kenneth Timmerman, writing in Insight on the News in September, said: ”The Iraqi regime is turning increasingly to South Africa to procure nuclear materials and forbidden equipment needed for its weapons programs, INC sources tell Insight. A top Iraqi intelligence official, Nadhim Jabouri, has been dispatched to the Iraqi embassy in Johannesburg to handle contacts with South African nuclear engineers. He also is in touch with Armscor, the state armaments directorate (also known as Denel), which supplied Iraq with advanced 155 mm howitzers during the Iran-Iraq war.”
To speed up the issuing of travel documents, Iraqi procurement agents in Amman, Jordan, were operating through the first secretary of the South African embassy, Shoeman du Plessis, Timmerman alleged.
”The willingness of the South African government to sell nuclear material and weapons to Iraq, and their fear of getting caught, could explain the virulent outburst by former South African president Nelson Mandela, who told Newsweek recently that the US — not Saddam Hussein — presents a threat to world peace,” the article said. – Sapa