Swiss helped SA make nuclear weapons

[Judi Lynn]

Swiss helped SA make nuclear weapons
27/10/2005 21:26 - (SA)

Geneva - Neutral Switzerland played a key role in building the nuclear weapons of the former apartheid regime of South Africa, a government-sponsored report said on Thursday.

"Swiss industry got around the arms embargo that the UN had imposed on South Africa in grand style," said Peter Hug, a historian who produced one of the reports in the Swiss national science foundation's six-year investigation into Swiss-South African relations.

Germany was among the countries that also played a role, Hug said, but he gave no details on their involvement.

"The fissionable material needed for this originated from the uranium enrichment that South Africa had built up with technical support from Switzerland, Germany and other countries," Hug, a history professor at the University of Bern, wrote in his 11-page report for the project.
(snip/...)

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_1824944,00.html

[arcos]

1. I had no idea South Africa had nuclear weapons...

What do they want them for?

[Cornjob]

2. I read that they no longer have them

The former govt dimantled them and 86'ed the whole project.

[Tesha]

4. Why does anyone want them? Same reasons, I guess. (NT)

[oneighty]

5. Google

this subject then ask yourself; "Did they really have a workable fission bomb?"

It is an interesting subject.

180

[Taxloss]

3. "What makes a man turn neutral?"

"Lust for gold? Power? Or were you just born with a heart full of neutrality?"

/Zapp Brannigan

Neutral Alien: Your neutralness, it's a beige alert.
Neutral President: If I don't survive, tell my wife 'hello'.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

6. Hee-hee

That's my favorite Futurama...

[Davis_X_Machina]

7. If it made money...

...for Swiss firms -- I'm thinking Asea Brown Boverei (ABB) -- then it was legal in Switzerland.

Their approach to such things is refreshingly free of hypocrisy, usually because it's refreshingly free of principle.

[emad]

8. Telegraph:

SNIP:

"Swiss industry got around the arms embargo that the UN had imposed on South Africa in grand style," said Mr Hug, a historian at the University of Bern.

His report cited a deal worth at least 100 million Swiss francs (£44 million) which was brokered in 1977 and involved the supply of "highly sensitive technology".

Mr Hug said that Swiss industry violated the UN arms embargo and even flouted rules on arms exports defined by Switzerland.

In the mid-1980s most western countries, including the United States, imposed sweeping embargoes to try to bring an end to the policies of white domination.

But Switzerland refused to join the ban, arguing that it was incompatible with its neutrality and would have few practical results other than worsening the population's plight.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/10/29/wswiss29.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/10/29/ixworld.html