Project Coast

From 1975 onwards, the South African Defence Force (SADF) was embroiled in conventional battles in Angola as a result of the South African Border War. The perception that its enemies had access to battlefield chemical and biological weapons (CBW) led South Africa to begin expanding its programme, initially as a defensive measure and by researching vaccines. As the years went on, research shifted to offensive uses. In 1981, Botha ordered the SADF to develop CBW technology for use against South Africa's enemies. In response, the head of the South African Medical Service division, which was responsible for defensive CBW capabilities, hired Wouter Basson, a cardiologist, to visit other countries and report back on their respective CBW capabilities. He returned with the recommendation that South Africa's programme be expanded. In 1983, Project Coast was formed, with Basson at its head. To hide the programme and its procurement of CBW-related substances, Project Coast formed four front companies: Delta G Scientific Company, Roodeplaat Research Laboratories (RRL), Protechnik and Infladel. Ben Raubenheimer was appointed as CEO. According to later witnesses during the trial of Dr. Wouter Basson in 2002, the initial plan was to poison Mandela with thallium shortly before his release in 1990. Project Coast created a progressively larger variety of lethal offensive CBW toxins and biotoxins, in addition to the defensive measures. Initially, they were intended for use by the military in combat as a last resort. To that end, they copied Soviet techniques and designed devices that looked like ordinary objects but could poison those targeted for assassination. Examples included umbrellas and walking sticks that fired pellets containing poison, syringes disguised as screwdrivers, and poisoned beer cans and envelopes. In the early 1990s, with the end of apartheid, South Africa's weapons of mass destruction programmes were stopped. Despite efforts to destroy equipment, stocks, and information from those programmes, some still remain, leading to fears that they may find their way into the possession of terrorist networks. In May 2002, Daan Goosen, the former head of South Africa's biological weapons programmes, contacted the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and offered to exchange existing bacterial stocks from the programmes in return for , together with immigration permits for him and 19 other associates and their family members. The offer was eventually refused, with the FBI claiming that the strains were obsolete and therefore no longer a threat. ==Unusual features==

The South African chemical weapons programme investigated all the standard CBW agents such as irritant riot control agents, lethal nerve agents and anticholinergic deliriants, which have been researched by virtually all countries that have carried out CBW research. The South African programme differed from the CBW programmes of many countries in its focus on developing non-lethal agents to help suppress internal dissent. analogues of the compounds were prepared and studied. Both methaqualone and MDMA (along with the deliriant BZ) were manufactured in large quantities and successfully weaponised into a fine dust or aerosol form that could be released over a crowd as a potential riot control agent. It was later discovered that Basson was also selling large quantities of MDMA and methaqualone as tablets on the black market. The amount manufactured was far larger than what was sold, but the court accepted that at least some genuine weaponisation and testing of the agents had been done. However, a later report by the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research found that no documents indicated that MDMA had been researched as a crowd control agent, and that it was "extremely unlikely" MDMA was ever intended for this use. A black mamba and its extracted venom were also part of the research, as were E. coli O157:H7 bacteria genetically modified to express some of the toxins made by Clostridium perfringens bacteria. == Employment ==

In 1985, four SWAPO detainees held at Reconnaissance Regiment headquarters were allegedly given a sleeping drug in soft drinks, taken to Lanseria International Airport northwest of Johannesburg, and injected with three toxic substances supplied by Basson. Their bodies were thrown into the Atlantic Ocean. The Civil Cooperation Bureau operative Petrus Jacobus Botes, who claimed to have directed bureau operations in Mozambique and Swaziland, asserted that in May 1989 he was ordered to contaminate the water supply at Dobra, a refugee camp in Namibia, with cholera and yellow fever organisms supplied by a SADF doctor. In late August 1989, he led an attempt to contaminate the water supply, but it failed because of the high chlorine content in the treated water at the camp. == Component of genocide ==

Research on birth control methods to reduce the black birth rate was one such area. Goosen, the managing director of Roodeplaat Research Laboratories between 1983 and 1986, told Tom Mangold of the BBC that Project Coast had supported a project to develop a contraceptive that would have been applied clandestinely to blacks. Goosen reported that the project had developed a 'vaccine' for males and females, and that the researchers were still searching for a means by which it could be delivered to make black people sterile without them being made aware. Schalk van Rensburg stated that “fertility and fertility control studies comprised 18% of all projects”. Testimony given at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission suggested that Project Coast researchers were also looking into putting birth control substances in water supplies. Despite strong links to Israel and Libya, no country has been directly implicated for involvement in the project, however, the project would not have been able to develop without some form of international support. == See also ==