Ethnic Specific Weapons

from SignOfTheTimes WebsiteEthnic Weapons We posted a story on the Signs page that David Kelly was involved with ultra secret work at Israel’s Institute for Biological Research. A report on November 15, 1998 by the Sunday Times suggests that this Institute "is working on a biological weapon that would harm Arabs but not Jews". Israel planning ’ethnic’ bomb as Saddam caves in The London Times November 15 1998 ISRAEL is working on a biological weapon that would harm Arabs but not Jews, according to Israeli military and western intelligence sources. The weapon, targeting victims by ethnic origin, is seen as Israel’s response to Iraq’s threat of chemical and biological attacks. A scientist there said the task was hugely complicated because both Arabs and Jews are of Semitic origin. But he added: "They have, however, succeeded in pinpointing a particular characteristic in the genetic profile of certain Arab communities, particularly the Iraqi people." It is widely accepted that Israel has the largest stockpile of nuclear weapons in the region, and it is assumed that this applies to their stockpiles of biological and chemical weapons. A quick search on the web turned up a long list of articles on the subject, including the following: Report: Secret Israeli chemical tests kill 4, wound 25 Arabic News.Com August 21 1998 Tests carried out by an Israeli secret laboratory recently killed four persons and other 25 have been reported wounded in Neis Zayouna district near Tel Aviv, an Israeli daily reported. Israel flatly denied the report. "No person has ever been killed in a work accident at the Biological Institute since its inception 45 years ago," Prime Minister Netanyahu’s media advisor stated today. This just happens to be the Institute cited above. And if these deaths were due to field tests, they wouldn’t be "work accidents". But it is evidence that something is going on in Israel that could be related to the development of these types of weapons. There is also this comment from Ariel Sharon, while he was still Foreign Minister. His attitude hasn’t changed in the intervening years as his active sabotage of the so-called "Peace Map" shows. Report: Israel developing biological weapons targeting Arabs Regional-Israel, Military, 11/16/1998 Last year the Pentagon warned in a secret report against the possibility of developing biological elements through genetic engineering to manufacture new weapons of mass destruction. Within the same context, Israeli Foreign Minister Ariel Sharon reiterated that, "Israel reserves its right to repel any possible Iraqi attack." At the conclusion of his meeting on Sunday with the US secretary of commerce, Sharon added: "Israel can defend itself and knows how to prevent being attacked." A different type of evidence is found in the following written by the webmaster at www.konformist.com who published a good article on ethnic weapons in 2000 that we will look at later. He is discussing the reader response to the article: What is interesting is that, though I received quite a few Emails from the Zionist community, none denied the accuracy of the story. Instead, they brashly admitted it was true, then added it was necessary because Israel needed to defend itself from its Arab neighbors. What is most telling is that many letters included references to Arabs that were derogatory and dehumanizing. That such a destructive philosophy is accepted by so many uncritically in Israel explains much of the vicious thuggery performed against the Palestinians over the last four months (not to mention the last 33 years). These comments are completely in keeping with Sharon’s, so we can put a high probability that Israel is developing something along these lines. The progress on the Human Genome Project now makes it possible to target specific groups of individuals based upon certain genetic signatures. This is the logical next step in the progression of biological weapons. These weapons have been around for thousands of years. The Romans used to dump dead animals into the water supply of their enemies to inflict disease. The American "settlers" used small pox in blankets to target the Native American populations. The American Native population is still subjected to this type of attack: #16 Human Genome Project Opens the Door to Ethnically Specific Bioweapens In this country, continuing a historic policy toward Native Americans, it has been revealed that the American Indian Health Service (IHS—funded by the Federal Government, who employ the doctors and nurses) coerced Native American men and women into forced sterilizations in the early to mid 1970s. The General Accounting Office (GAO) estimated that 3,400 people (mostly women) underwent the treatment, but their study only covered four of twelve IHS regions for four years. Activists put the estimate much higher, at 60,000 to 70,000. This, coupled with the suspicion raised by the hantavirus outbreak in the Four Corners region of Arizona/New Mexico/Colorado/Utah keeps suspicion and fingers pointed at the federal government and at least some government policies toward the American Indian population. (Hantavirus is one of many "new" diseases that have come under suspicion of having their origins in genetic engineering or biowarfare labs.) As reported in a 1994 Project Censored update, Utah’s Dugway Proving Grounds biowarfare research site was also reopened despite local residents’ protests over fears that the facility was originally closed because of safety concerns. Fort Dietrick, the site of the most notorious CIA drug and army biowarfare research in the United States now houses major research facilities of the National Cancer Institute, raising issues of conflict (or collusion) or interest. But with the development of the chemical industry, bio-warfare took a new turn. Greg Bishop, in the article referred to above, first published at konformist.com, looks at some of the major points: Ethnic Weapons For Ethnic Cleansing Greg Bishop March 2000 [T]his "theoretical possibility" was recognized over 25 years ago, if not before. It was originally brought to the attention of potential customers with the publication of an article in the Military Review of November 1970. This journal for command-level military personnel was published by the US Army Command and General Staff College in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. The feature, entitled "Ethnic Weapons," authored by Carl A. Larson, outlines the history, desirability, and possibilities of engineered biological pathogens which would affect only those races which historically have no natural defense against certain "enzyme inhibitors." Larson is listed as head of the "Department of Human Genetics at the Institute of Genetics, Lund, Sweden" as well as a licensed physician. The Hippocratic oath was apparently not administered in Sweden when Larson received his accreditation. Larson explains that many of the chemical activities and functions within the human body are caused by the interactions of enzymes. One of the more significant activities enabled by enzyme chemical reactions are the contraction and relaxation of muscle tissue. If the activities of these enzymes are blocked, the victim will be paralyzed, even to the point of death by asphyxiation. Not coincidentally, the enzyme-blocking action of compounds called organophosphates were discovered in Germany in the 1930s when experimental insecticides killed the people unlucky enough to have used them. This discovery led to the mass production of a substance named "Trilon," later used to impressive effect in the extermination of groups of people the Nazis considered little more than insects. This substance and others of similar makeup became known as "nerve gas." A concentration of 40 milligrams per cubic meter can kill in about 10 minutes. Stronger agents were later developed which can do the job with a single drop on the skin. [...] Larson is even more explicit in a way that would probably never make it into the mainstream press. In a passage that would make Doctor Strangelove proud, he muses uncontrollably on the possibilities of genetically-sensitive chemicals to subdue enemy populations: "Friendly forces would discriminatingly use incapacitants in entangled situations to give friend and foe a short period of enforced rest to sort them out. By gentle persuasion, aided by psychochemicals, civilians in enemy cities could be reeducated. The adversary would use incapacitants to spare those whom he could use for slaves." This was published in a serious, staid professional journal read by US military strategists. He concludes with the statement that "the functions of life [now] lie bare to attack." According to Charles Piller and Keith Yamamoto in their 1988 book Gene Wars, Larson’s article was the first time that the subject of ethnically targeted CBWs was broached publicly, and that in "the military’s private circles it was old news." The authors further state that in 1951 the Mechanicsburg, PA Naval Supply Depot was the site of a classified test using a benign organism delivered to personnel to mimic the behavior of an actual bioweapon: " According to documents declassified in the late 1970s, the site was chosen because, "Within this system there are employed large numbers of laborers, including many Negroes, whose incapacitation would seriously affect the operation of the supply system." The black workers in the Depot were supposedly more susceptible to a strain of Valley Fever than were whites, but instead of using the actual virus, a substitute fungal organism was used. Valley Fever is more often fatal to blacks than to whites. It was recently revealed that the truth and reconciliation hearings in South Africa had presented witnesses who testified that scientists working for the apartheid regime had pursued efforts along similar lines. Another possible example of field testing of ethnic weapons (or at least an interesting case for study by those interested in their development) may be the famed "Four Corners" virus, which seems only to affect Native Americans living in northern New Mexico and Arizona. Most reports identified or compared the disease to the Hantavirus, which killed victims relatively quickly following the occurrence of a prolonged fever and fluid which rapidly filled the lungs and asphyxiated the patient. Supposedly contracted through deer mice droppings, the mystery disease has claimed at least a dozen victims in the last ten years. The most recent outbreak occurred this last summer [1999], coming on the heels of El Niño, which the major news media blamed for the renewed threat. Some area residents believe that the virus may have been released either accidentally or intentionally from a bioweapons cache at Fort Wingate, an army facility a few miles east of Gallup. The munitions storage at Wingate is now officially closed. We learn that the work on such weapons was begun in Nazi Germany. The victims of these weapons were largely Jews. When Larson published his paper in 1970, "the military’s private circles it was old news." Which means it had been discussed for a long time by the US military, most likely with the Nazis brought into the US after World War II via Operation Paperclip. Tests were carried out as far back as 1951 on Blacks working at the Mechanicsburg, PA Naval Supply Depot. For more information on tests carried out by the US government against its own citizens, refer to our timeline. An early form of ethnic specific weapon were the malororants, developed to control crowds (of people dissenting against the Bush Reich, perhaps?). Pentagon Tests Ethnically-Targeted Crowd Control Weapons Sunshine-Project 19 February 2002 Almost sixty years ago, the US developed a nauseating ’bathroom odor’ chemical for use as a weapon. But according to the Army, the old malodorant will not work outside of the US and Western Europe, because "it was found that people in many areas of the world do not find ’fecal odor’ to be offensive, since they smell it on a regular basis." Therefore, according to the Army, new agents are needed for overseas missions. These new malodorants are to be specifically adapted for their victims. According to a 1998 document: "The objective of this work is the development of a comprehensive set of [malodorants] that can be applied against any population set around the world to influence their behavior." The documents describe the Army research procedure. A group of subjects selected "based on a diversity of geographic origins and cultural heritage" is systematically exposed to candidate malodorants to develop "culture-response data" based on ethnic categories. That data is aggregated into "odor response profiles" that suggest the types and quantities of malodorants necessary to "elicit a favorable behavioral response" (i.e. incapacitation, panic, or flight) when used for crowd control on a particular ethnic group. [...] Whether the malodorants work or fail, research on any ethnic weapon raises serious legal questions and could set a very dangerous precedent. If the Pentagon saw any major legal barriers to ethnic weapons it would not have approved the malodorant research. The Pentagon’s conclusion that ethnic weapons are permissible must be challenged. As horrible as these weapons are in their practice and in what they reveal about the people developing them, it was the work on the Human Genome that really opened the door to a new generation of bioweapons, weapons that could be fine-tuned to one’s genetic make-up. We have been subjected to reams of paper and hours of air-time discussing the benefits of genetic research, the ability to target individual genes to "repair" them. Look at the flip-side: GE Biological "Ethnic" Weapons Loom on the Horizon Date: Thu, Jan 21, 1999 By Patricia Reaney Reuters The designer weapon works on a similar principle to gene therapy but instead of replacing faulty genes that don’t work it exploits genetic variations to target its victims. For example, micro-organisms could be genetically engineered to attack known receptor sites on the cell membrane or viruses could be targeted at specific DNA sequences inside cells. This is the technology that Israel is using. But it did not originate in Israel: Biowar and the Apartheid Legacy By Salim Muwakkil, In These Times June 6, 2003 A two-part story in the Washington Post on April 20 and 21 revealed that biological agents developed by the South African government during its apartheid days have fallen into private hands. Written by Post reporters Joby Warrick and John Mintz, the piece noted that unique, race-specific strains of biotoxins were available on the world market – for the right price or the right ideology. [...] The top-secret program that Basson directed was called Project Coast, and it lasted from 1981 to 1993. The South African National Defense Force created it at a time when the white-minority regime was under increasing threat by indigenous black South Africans. Daan Goosen, the former director of Project Coast’s biological research division, told the Post he was ordered by Basson to develop ways "to suppress population growth among blacks" and to "search for a ’black bomb,’ a biological weapon that would select targets based on skin color." [...] The Washington Post even noted, "Goosen says many scientists kept copies of organisms and documents in order to continue work on ’dual-use’ projects with commercial as well as military applications." A May 2002 story on Project Coast in the Wall Street Journal reported that Goosen said he has been "visited by scores of people looking for ’stuff to kill the blacks.’" Race-specific weapons naturally are in hot demand among racists, so it’s no surprise that South Africa’s race-specific research is highly coveted. [...] Reported links between Israel’s ethnic weapons and South Africa’s Project Coast are tentative; some would say tenuous. But the possibility of such links is terrifying, and justifies as much scrutiny as was focused on Iraq’s imaginary arsenal. It also appears that the anthrax incidents of 2001, in which five people died and 13 were sickened, may also have a South African connection. The Post noted that officials found evidence in a Frederick, Maryland, pond that may explain how the perpetrators of the deadly attacks used water to handle the lethal toxin without infecting themselves or loosing the anthrax spores. On May 11, the Post said the water theory is the result of the FBI’s interest in one person, Steven J. Hatfill, a medical doctor and bioterrorism expert who formerly worked for the U.S. Army, and who lists South African diplomas in diving and underwater medicine on his résumé. A June 2002 article in the Hartford Courant reported that Hatfill also worked with a guerilla unit of the white-supremacist Rhodesian army from 1978 to 1980, when "an anthrax outbreak killed hundreds and sickened thousands of villagers." He also lived in South Africa, "where he completed various militarymedical assignments." The Apartheid regime in South Africa. Israel. The United States. Not the most progressive regimes in the world. Note the reference to the Great Anthrax Scare following 9/11, the ability to manipulate the anthrax virus without getting infected. And the connection of this to Steven J. Hatfill. Curious, isn’t it, how the anthrax story just died when it was discovered that the strain used to attack Americans wasn’t from a foreign source but came from a military base in Maryland? Anthrax Attacks Pushed Open an Ominous Door 22 September, 2002 PURCHASE, N.Y. -- On this first anniversary of the anthrax attacks, a number of conclusions can be drawn even without an arrest by the FBI. First, the strain and properties of the weaponized anthrax found in the letters show that it originated within the U.S. biodefense program, where the necessary expertise and access are found. Government officials recognized that the anthrax source was domestic less than two weeks after they learned of the letters, and nothing in their investigation has led them to say otherwise since. One can also conclude that, given the origin of the anthrax and the warnings contained in the letters, the perpetrator’s motive was not to kill but rather to raise public fear and thereby spur Congress to increase spending on biodefense. In this, the attacks have been phenomenally successful.[...] Although biodefense has gotten a shot in the arm, it is important to understand that the goal of defending against bioweapons is not primarily public protection--which is largely impossible, as last year’s attacks demonstrated. It is rather "to allow the military forces of the United States to survive and successfully complete their operational missions ... in battlespace environments contaminated with chemical or biological warfare agents," according to the annual report of the Department of Defense’s Chemical and Biological Defense Program. [...] Two weeks ago, I attended an informal meeting in Geneva where diplomats from six continents struggled in the face of U.S. Intransigence to map out a joint strategy for combating the global biological threat. The United States had demanded that a formal Biological Weapons Convention conference, scheduled to take place during two weeks in November, should instead disband in one day with only an agreement not to meet again until 2006. To make sure that the American resolve prevails in this setting where international consensus is de rigueur, the U.S. demand was accompanied by an overt threat to disrupt any further proceedings with accusations that would make productive international action impossible. At that Geneva meeting, the assembled diplomats, representing the political spectrum from our closest allies to declared enemies, were uniformly frustrated. They find it hard to comprehend why a country that has just been the victim of bioterrorism should stand in the way of peaceful efforts supported by all its allies to deter bioterrorism. The following article suggests that the evidence for a link between the Israeli program and the South African program is neither tentative nor tenuous as the above would suggest. It is the same author writing earlier. Perhaps he found new info. Perhaps something else happened... DOUBLE STANDARDS HAUNT AMERICA’S FOREIGN POLICY By Salim Muwakkil. Published: Monday, November 23, 1998 Goosen’s comments jibe well with conclusions reached by South Africa’s recently concluded Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which heard testimony that Wouter Basson, the director of the country’s chemical-biological warfare program, conducted extensive research on weapons that exclusively targeted blacks. Incidentally, the commission’s concluding report noted that South Africa’s chemical-biological weapons team received considerable assistance from their American counterparts during the apartheid era. And it’s easy to see why: Ethno bombs are a dream weapon on a planet so preoccupied with ethnic conflicts. Of course, that’s also why such weapons are so remarkably menacing. [...] The article noted that the ethno-bomb claims were given further credibility by a report in "Foreign Report," a publication of the respected Jane’s group, that Israeli scientists used some of "the South African research in trying to develop an ’ethnic bullet’ . . ." Once more the thread comes back to the US: "South Africa’s chemical-biological weapons team received considerable assistance from their American counterparts during the apartheid era". So let’s look more at America’s links to the development of these weapons. We saw above that this started after World War II. But, in fact, there are links back to the Eugenics program started in the US at the turn of the century. #16 Human Genome Project Opens the Door to Ethnically Specific Bioweapons The U.S. has a long history of interest in such genetic research. The current home of the Human Genome Project is the Cold Springs Harbor laboratory on Long Island, NY—the exact site of the notorious Eugenics Research Office that was started in 1910 by the Harriman family. The project’s 1910 agenda included governmental imposition of sanctions on such human rights as reproduction, and on U.S. immigration, based on the alleged inferiority of particular ethnic groups. The Eugenics Research Project established medical and psychological conditions that would qualify one for sterilization or euthanasia. Prominent advocates of the program such as the Rockefeller family, Henry Ford, and Margaret Sanger helped smooth the way for the passage of forcible sterilization laws in 25 states. These laws allowed the forcible sterilization of tens of thousands of people, mostly of minority th status, during the first half of the 20 century. th So we have one policy, begun in the early 20 century, funded by the Rockefellers, Henry Ford, the Harrimans, many of the same people who were financing the Nazi Party in Germany during the thirties. The work goes underground after the Second World War until it reemerges as part of the new "genetic research". Biological Warfare: Genetically-Engineered Weapons Cannot Be Excluded By K.P. Kavanaugh Journal of the Federation of American Scientists (F.A.S.) Volume 52, Number 2 March/April 1999 It has long been rumored that modern biological weapons could be designed to attack specific vulnerabilities of particular ethnic groups. Early in the development of the US offensive biological weapons program Colonel Creasey, Chief of Research and Engineering of the US Chemical Corps, suggested that agents may be selected because of known susceptibility of the target population. This shows that the differential susceptibility of different populations to various diseases had been considered at that time and, according to scientists at Defense Advance Research Projects Agency (DARPA), is continuing today. Indeed ethnic-specific biological warfare predated the advent of the biotechnology revolution. Smallpox was almost certainly deliberately used against the Native Americans centuries ago and there are other examples. U.S. and British officials believe an ethnic-specific weapon would be used today if it became available during a severe conflict between two deeply antagonistic groups. [...] Today, warnings are coming not only from the medical community, but also from other specially credible sources. There have been indications, for example, that the US Secretary of Defense is concerned about the possible development of genetic weapons. In June 1997, Jane’s Defense Weekly reported that Secretary Cohen "quoted other reports about what he called ’certain types of pathogens that would be ethnic specific so that they could eliminate certain ethnic groups or races.’" Then after a later interview with the Defense Secretary in August 1997, it was stated again in Jane’s Defense Weekly that "he also continued to insist that the science community is ’very close’ to being able to manufacture ’genetically engineered pathogens that could be ethnically specific’". Early Accounts, Then Silence In accounts during the 1980s of the possible development of genetic weapons, a frequent source of scientific data was a paper by Carl A. Larson, then head of the Department of Human Genetics, University of Lund, Sweden, published in the journal Military Review in November 1970. Larson’s paper was mainly concerned with the possible development of a new range of chemical weapons, including incapacitants. Individual differences in response to chemical agents had been known for some time, but Larson reviewed what was known of differences between populations in reaction to drugs and saw the basis of such population differences as genetic. Larson seems to have been pointing to possible future developments rather than near-term practical possibilities. The question is whether, almost 30 years later: have genetically engineered weapons become a practical possibility? There does not appear to have been subsequent detailed open publication by reputable scientists of the application of modern biotechnology to genetically -engineered weapons until the 1990s. Then in 1992 the journal Defense News carried a report which noted a scientist arguing that genetic engineering may enable us to: ...recognize DNA from different people and attach different things that will kill only that group of people... You will be able to determine the difference between blacks and whites and Asians and Jews and Swedes and Finns and develop an agent that will kill only a particular group. Shown this quotation in February, scientists within the DOD confirmed that defensive research was being done specifically in this area. Thus the threat would appear to slide along the spectrum from the merely theoretical through the potentially possible to the patently workable. Such arguments have been set out at greater length in an appendix to the 1993 Stockholm Peace Research Institute’s Yearbook . The most pertinent aspect of the appendix entitled, "Benefits and threats of developments in biotechnology and genetic engineering," reads: While modern biotechniques are revolutionizing medicine and agriculture, the possibility exists of their misuse for political ends, for clandestine production and refinement of biological weapons (BW), and for future development of weapons of mass extermination which could be used for genocide. Particular reference is then made to the possible misuse of knowledge gained from the Human Genome Project and knowledge about genetic diversity. The element of critical significance here is contained in the last sub-section of section VI where the question is clearly stated, "Can’t genetic weapons be developed?" The answer is that if: investigations provide sufficient data on ethnic genetic differences between population groups, it may be possible to use such data to target suitable micro-organisms to attack known receptor sites for which differences exist at a cell membrane level or even target DNA sequences inside cells by viral vectors... [...] Flashback: Scientists’ deaths are under the microscope So we have governments financing the development of these weapons, envisioning them as the Ultimate Weapon in their battles against their enemies. Or should we say "Final Solution" because it is racially based. It makes targets of people because of their genes. Note: It is governments that do these things. But when this is discussed in the press, where are our fears turned? Who are portrayed as the real villains? Genetic weapons: a 21st-century nightmare? Ethirajan Anbarasan Most of the nearly 30,000 scientists who were involved in biological research in the USSR during the 1980s are now out of a job because of the country’s economic difficulties. Last year, some of them disclosed that they had been approached by certain countries which have shown particular interest in learning about microbes that can be used in war to destroy or protect crops, as well as genetic engineering techniques that could be used to make deadly germs for which there may be no antidotes. One prospect that alarms arms control experts is that biological weapons will fall into the hands of terrorist or cult groups. But they are already in the hands of the Israelis who have not ratified a single international treaty allowing inspections of their nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons. No, what is important is to vilify the invisible "terrorist", the "cult", to inculcate in the minds of the readers that the danger is widespread, invisible, and ready to pounce at any moment. Be afraid. Be very afraid. Yes. But be afraid because these governments are prepared to use them on their enemies... and that may well include their own citizens. Mystery pneumonia is being caused by America’s weapons of mass destruction: A theory by Steve Hesske August 8, 2003 Could America’s mainstream media be any more perfidious and derelict in its so-called reporting of the current so-called pneumonia epidemic among U.S. service personnel in Iraq and a few nearby countries? A quick, informal survey of this week’s coverage of the pneumonia story by our bastions of truth and enlightenment — CNN, Fox, CBS, ABC, MSNBC, The New York Times, The Washington Post — shows that while all covered the story, none mentioned Gulf War Syndrome which befell maybe as much as 20% of the 700,000 Americans who served in the 1991 Persian Gulf War (PGW) or depleted uranium (DU) a radioactive weapon of mass destruction (WMD), outlawed by international treaty and world courts, that was used exclusively and extensively by the United States during the PGW and that was used by the U.S. during the recent invasion of Iraq at 10 times its PGW rate. Here’s what the mainstream press does tell you: Army brass have dispatched teams to Iraq and to Landstuhl Army Hospital in Germany to investigate over 100 mysterious cases of pneumonia that have stricken American troops currently serving in the Persian Gulf. The puzzling disease has killed two and put another dozen or so in serious peril. According to the Army, a common geographical thread can not be established, a common bacteria can not be isolated. True enough. A military spokeswoman goes on to say that those who have fallen ill have not been exposed to biological or chemical weapons, a bald-faced lie. DU is a chemical WMD of the most destructive and virulent kind. The documentation is in. And the connection between DU and a "mysterious pneumonia-like disease" was established over 10 years ago. [...] The [British] government’s microbiological research establishment at Porton Down spread bacteria through the London Underground system in the 1960s are contained in two files released to the public record office in Kew yesterday. The trials, which were revealed in the Guardian last year, show how a powder compact filled with bacteria was dropped on to the Northern line and samples taken to see how contamination spread over the network. We again refer you to our Timeline of Cosmic COINTELPRO subversion through the last few centuries to see more of this. Given that these new strands of bioweapons need to be tested, we might think that the recent outbreak of SARS could be a field test. The pneumonia from Iraq. But these are not the only ones. There have been so many of these new strains recently that the US Government has set up centers to watch for "Unexplained Deaths" in four US states: Unexplained Deaths Due to Possibly Infectious Causes in the United States: Defining the Problem and Designing Surveillance and Laboratory Approaches EID Volume 2 * Number 1 January-March 1996 Many new infectious diseases have been identified in the United States during the last several decades (1). Among these are AIDS, Legionnaires’ disease, toxic-shock syndrome, hepatitis C, and most recently, hantavirus pulmonary syndrome; all caused serious illness and death. In each instance, the disease was recognized through investigation of illness for which no cause had been identified. Retrospective studies of these and other newly recognized infectious diseases often identified cases that occurred before the recognition of the new agent; therefore, a more sensitive detection system may make the earlier recognition of new infectious agents possible. [...] A more systematic public health approach for the early detection of unknown infectious agents is needed. This need was acknowledged in Addressing Emerging Infectious Diseases Threats: A Prevention Strategy for the United States, a CDC publication about emerging infections (13). CDC has established an emerging infections program (EIP) network to conduct special population-based surveillance projects, develop surveillance methods, pilot and evaluate prevention strategies, and conduct other epidemiologic and laboratory studies. In late 1994, CDC funded four programs based at state health departments and academic institutions in California (Alameda, Contra Costa, Kern, and San Francisco counties), Connecticut, Minnesota, and Oregon. Some projects are conducted at all program sites and others, depending on local interest and expertise, at only one or two sites. Surveillance for unexplained deaths due to possibly infectious causes (UDPIC) for early detection of new infectious diseases is one of the core activities being conducted at all sites. Great way to track the field tests, is it not? In looking over the press reports in the last few years, we see that Israel is being singled out, especially since the "suicide" of David Kelly. This is somewhat normal because much attention has been focused in recent years on the barbarity of the Israeli actions against the Palestinians. As Greg Bishop writes above, the Germans considered the Jews "insects". Now the Jews turn on the Palestinians in the same way. So Israel, from the Balfour Declaration through today, is being set up and portrayed as villains, maneuvered into a particular situation. What they do is odious. But is there something even more odious behind the curtain? Relations Between Israel and the Apartheid Regime in South Africa We looked yesterday at the issue of Ethnic Weapons, biological and chemical weapons that can be built to single out populations by their genetic characteristics. We saw evidence that Israel may be building such weapons to be used in their final solution against the Palestinians. The technology for this program came from the apartheid regime of South Africa, that is, the Boers who ruled over the Blacks until the last decade of the 20th century. The close relations between Israel and the apartheid regime go back to the mid seventies. Profile of Bilateral Relations State of Israel HISTORY OF RELATIONS Israel established a Legation in South Africa in 1952 and in 1974 it was upgraded to an Embassy. In 1972 South Africa established a Consulate General in Tel Aviv which was upgraded to an Embassy in December 1975. Israel continued to enjoy close relations with the Apartheid Government in South Africa. While many African countries had seen Israel as an ally in the fifties and early sixties, another country struggling to survive in a hostile climate, after the wars of 1967 and 1973, their view had changed and Israel was now the neighborhood bully. For more on this, see the article Africa, Arabia, and Israel: FortyFive Years of Relations. South Africa had seen two of its neighbors become "Popular Republics" under Marxist-inspired "People’s Armies" after the fall of the Salazar regime in Portugal in 1974. So both Israel and South Africa had a siege mentality, believing they were surrounded by enemies. Africa, Arabia, and Israel Forty-Five Years of Relations (Originally published as Sheen-File #053) […] In the wake of the 1973 Yom Kippur War between Israel and the joint forces of Egypt and Syria, almost all of sub-Saharan Africa broke off diplomatic relations with Israel completely. And in 1975, the Arab League states succeeded in passing a motion on the floor of the United Nations General Assembly, equating Zionism with racism and South African apartheid. It passed in large measure to the near-automatic support the resolution received from the sub-Saharan African states. Although there is evidence that several African nations wished to maintain covert relations with Israel, privately insisting that its public condemnation of Israel was merely an act for show, designed to placate the Arab states, to many Israelis, this hypocrisy was an unimaginable slight that could not easily be forgiven. It was said that, in response to this overwhelming rejection, "Israel pursued its relationship with South Africa with an element of vindictiveness." Israel and South Africa excerpted from the book Israeli Foreign Policy by Jane Hunter South End Press, 1987 Israel has also been connected with the mercenary forces deployed by South Africa against Angola and Mozambique. In the 1970s Israel aided the FNLA (Angolan National Liberation Front) proxy forces organized and trained by the CIA to forestall the formation of a government led by the MPLA (Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola-now the ruling party of Angola). John Stockwell, who ran the CIA operation against Angola, recollected three arms shipments Israel made in cooperation with the CIA: a plane full of 120 mm shells sent via Zaire to the FNLA and Unita; a shipment of 50 SA-7 missiles (all of which were duds); a boat-load sent to neighboring Zaire in a deal that the Israelis had worked out with President Mobutu, even though the Zairian strong man had broken ties with Israel two years earlier. South Africa’s Nuclear Policy Ruchita Beri, Research Fellow, IDSA The political changes in the Southern African region heightened the security concerns of South Africa. The end of Portuguese rule in Africa after the 1974 Lisbon coup and the subsequent accession to power of Communist regimes in Angola (MPLA) and Mozambique (Freelimo) enhanced the encirclement by Communist forces regionally. The mid- 1970s also saw the intensification of the anti-apartheid struggle within South Africa-in the apartheid government’s perception, sponsored by the Communist forces. Thus, perceiving itself to be encircled by Communist forces, the South African government promoted a militarist ideology legitimizing the use of force by the state to counter that threat, codified in the concept "Total National Strategy" to coordinate its national security planning. This ultimately involved a nuclear deterrent capability. The arrival of Cuban troops in Angola after the establishment of the MPLA regime provided the final stimulus. Defence Minister P.W. Botha spelled out the defense requirements to meet this challenge as "South Africa can establish a balanced defense force to defend itself against terrorism...and this we are fully able to do....Secondly, we must have a deterrent to be able to resist a fairly heavy conventional attack on South Africa."3 This statement was quite ambiguous; however, one could reach the conclusion that both conventional and nuclear capabilities would be pursued by South Africa. Ambiguity became the trademark of the South African nuclear policy in the apartheid era. The attitudes of the two countries can be summed up by this comment from Jane Hunter, cited above: It has also been said that those arms sales are understandable, given the striking similarities between the two countries in their day-to-day abuse and repression of their subject populations, South African blacks and Palestinians under Israeli rule; in their operating philosophies of apartheid and Zionism; and in their similar objective situations: "the only two Western nations to have established themselves in a predominantly nonwhite part of the world," as a South African Broadcasting Corporation editorial put it. That understanding, however, is somewhat superficial, and the focus on similarities of political behavior has somewhat obscured the view of the breadth and depth of the totality of Israeli-South African relations and their implications. As she suggests, this understanding is "somewhat superficial, as we will see below. Another factor cementing the relationship was the embargo placed on South Africa following the riots of 1975 and the international outcry over the death of Stephen Biko. SOUTH AFRICA: 1962 - 1989 Access to Critical Events in Recent U.S. Policy Toward South Africa The second period (1976-1980) deals primarily with the response of the U.S. government and the international community to the South African government’s brutal reaction to the June 1976 student revolt, the death of Steve Biko (the leader of the Black Consciousness Movement), South Africa’s subsequent security crackdown on opponents of apartheid and the adoption of the U.N. Security Council Resolution that called for a mandatory arms embargo against South Africa. Because of this, South Africa was isolated, at least "officially", from the world. One of the projects Israel and South Africa undertook together was the development of nuclear weapons. Hunter continues: Israel’s relations with South Africa are different than its interactions with any of its other arms clients. That Israel gave South Africa its nuclear weapons capability underscores the special nature of Tel Aviv’s relations with the white minority government and begins to describe it - a full-fledged, if covert, partnership based on the determination of both countries to continue as unrepentant pariahs and to help each other avoid the consequences of their behavior. Arms industry Nuclear Apprentice There are few areas where the respective needs and advantages of Israel and South Africa dovetailed so perfectly as in the field of nuclear cooperation. "The most powerful reason for Israeli willingness to bear the undesirable consequences of expanded and more open trade with South Africa may be her desire to acquire material necessary to manufacture nuclear weapons," wrote a military analyst in 1980.’ To that must be added Israel’s great desire to test the nuclear weapons it already had, and the attractions of South Africa’s vast territory and proximity to even vaster uninhabited spaces-the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. Then at the point in its nuclear development where it was fashioning sophisticated bombs (devices which use less nuclear material but have infinitely greater explosive force than the "primitive" bomb dropped by the U.S. on Hiroshima), Israel would find it particularly helpful to observe the performance, explosive force and fallout of a detonated weapon. Since 1984, Israel had been operating a plutonium extraction plant in a secret underground bunker at Dimona in the Negev Desert. Built by the French in the late 1950s, the Dimona plant also included facilities for manufacturing atomic bomb components. At the time of the 1976 accords, Israel was preparing to build an adjoining plant for the extraction of lithium 6, tritium and deuterium, materials required for sophisticated thermonuclear weapons. Israel’s reasons for devoting what had to have been a significant portion of its scant resources to such an ambitious nuclear weapons program - nuclear experts have recently ranked it as the world’s sixth nuclear power, after the U.S., the USSR, Britain, France and China - have been variously offered as the desire to develop a credible deterrent to attack by its neighbors and the desire to substitute that deterrent for at least part of the costly conventional arsenal that Israel, with one of the world’s most powerful military forces, maintains, and also (with much less frequency) as an "umbrella" over a partial withdrawal from the occupied territories. This cooperation is discussed as well here: Abstract Note: Details about the Blaauw case are provided in the Africa Confidential article. ..... According to information released regarding the secret mid-1980s extortion trial of Johann Blaauw, a brigadier in the South African army, South Africa and 'Israel' participated in four clandestine nuclear deals in the mid1970s. Blaauw was found not guilty of trying to extort mining concessions from Minister of Mines Fanie Botha in a trial in 1989 [1] The first nuclear deal occurred in shortly after the Yom Kippur War in 1973 when "Benjamine," a member of the Israel Council for Scientific Liaison, asked Blaauw to acquire South African yellowcake which Israel could use for weapon-grade plutonium. ("Benjamine" is believed to be Benjamin Blumberg, the head of the Israeli Intelligence division Lish Ka l-Kishrei (Lakam) [2].) After discussions with Gen. Hendryk van den Bergh, head of the Bureau of State Security (BOSS), South African Prime Minister John Vorster eventually agreed to sell 50 metric tons of yellowcake to Israel. The deal was handled by Minister of Mines Fanie Botha, who replaced Piet Koornhog [Koornhof] after Koornhog opposed the sale. Uranium Enrichment Corporation Chairman Ampie Roux was also aware of the deal. During his testimony, Blaauw said that "a high degree of confidence was developing between the South African and Israeli governments which involved the exchange of military technology, joint aeronautic ventures, and the supply of ’know-how’ by Israel to South Africa in regard to the manufacture of weaponry." There is evidence of a joint nuclear test carried out in the Indian Ocean in September, 1979. Ruchita Beri, cited above, writes: 1979 Nuclear Test On September 22, 1979, a US Vela satellite detected an unusual "double flash" indicative of a nuclear test, in an "area of the Indian Ocean and South Atlantic including portions of the Antarctic continent, and the southern part of Africa." In fact, some have claimed it to be a joint Israeli-South African nuclear test. South Africa denied that it had conducted a nuclear test. As late as March 1993, the AEC’s Chairman, Waldo Stumpf, is reported to have said, "If it was a nuclear explosion, South Africa was definitely not involved. I doubt that it was a nuclear [test] because no radioactive fallout was detected." Eighteen years after the event, Aziz Pahad, the Deputy Foreign Minister, confirmed that South Africa conducted a nuclear test in the South Indian Ocean in 1979. This admission has laid to rest the controversy surrounding the test. We can see that the relations between the two countries were very close. Not only were nuclear weapons part of the partnership, but strategy and tactics in dealing with their enemies, both internal and external were also an important part of the collaboration. Jane Hunter again: The South Africans began teaching the lessons of Israel’s 1967 war at their maneuver school, and Israeli advisers began teaching the Boers the arts of suppressing a captive population and keeping hostile neighbors off balance... The white government’s practice of domestic counterinsurgency combines outright military brutality with the extensive use of informers and collaborators. It is impossible to know how many refinements of these age-old techniques have been borrowed from the Israelis’ occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, and the Golan Heights. The Israeli system of village leagues is obviously comparable to the hated town councils imposed on segregated townships by the apartheid government. The collective punishment employed by the Israelis, such as the destruction of a whole family’s home when one of its members is arrested as a suspect in an act of resistance, has lately been matched by the recent South African practices of sealing off townships, and assaulting entire funeral processions. What is perhaps more salient is the South African victims’ perceptions of Israel’s involvement in their oppression and how readily that perception is communicated... And when the population you are systematically trying to annihilate fights back, how do you justify it? Of course, you call it "terrorism". Hunter continues: The Frontline States The South Africans noted that their May, 1983 aerial attack (dubbed Operation Shrapnel) on Mozambique’s capital, Maputo, was analogous to Israel’s attack on Beirut the previous summer. One analyst, Joseph Hanlon, believes that one of South Africa’s objectives in the attack was to see how its version of events would play in the media. It was received very well indeed, according to Hanlon, with the Western press accepting South Africa’s claim that its attack was in "retaliation" for an ANC attack and that ANC "bases" were hit. Instead, the South African Air Force hit a child-care center and private houses with "special fragmentation rockets," leaving 6 dead and 40 wounded. This follows the Israeli practice in Lebanon of speaking about PLO installations while civilians are the actual targets, and attacking with particularly heinous anti-personnel weapons-cluster bombs and phosphorous bombs. The victims of South Africa’s angst are not blind to the similarity of attacks-or motives. President Samora Machel likened the Israeli Government to the Pretoria regime. He said that because of its inability to contain the fury of the Palestinian people led by the PLO, the Zionist regime is trying to transfer the war to other regions. So reported Mozambican radio shortly after Israeli aircraft bombed PI headquarters in Tunisia in October 1985. The model provided by Israel, which punishes every internal act of resistance and violent act outside its jurisdiction with a bombing raid on Palestinian targets in Lebanon-almost always refugee camps cynically identified by the Israelis as "terrorist bases" or "headquarters" - has served South Africa well. In January 1986, the white government’s radio delivered a commentary on "the malignant presence" of "terrorism" in neighboring states and said "there’s only one answer now, and that’s the Israeli answer." Israel had managed to survive "by striking at terrorists wherever they exist." In May 1986, South Africa demonstrated that it had assumed the right to attack its neighbors at a time and on a pretext of its own choosing. The chosen time was during a visit by the Eminent Persons Group of the Commonwealth of Nations, which was attempting to establish negotiations between the apartheid regime and its opposition. The victims-Zambia, Botswana and Zimbabwe, all Commonwealth memberswere chosen for their alleged harboring of "terrorists"; the real victims were South African exiles and an employee of the government of Botswana. The South Africans said they had attacked "international terrorism" and compared their raids to the Israeli attack on Tunisia and the U.S. attack on Libya in April 1986. The attack was similar in style to Israel’s 1985 attack on Tunisia. Initially, the Israelis had been threatening Jordan and perhaps because King Hussein of Jordan was at the time on an official visit to the U.S., the Israelis chose to take revenge for the killing of three Israelis (believed to be top Mossad agents) in Larnaca, Cyprus on the PLO in Tunisia. Two weeks after its three-pronged attack on its Commonwealth neighbors, South Africa attacked the Angolan harbor of Namibia, firing their version of the Israeli Gabriel missile. When Israel reestablished relations with Zaire (in 1982) and began to train Zairian forces in the Shaba border province, Angola had cause for concern. The leader of the FNLA had been Holden Roberto, brother-in-law of Zairian president Mobutu, Israel’s new client. In 1986, it would be established that Zaire acted as a funnel for "covert" U.S. military aid for the Unita forces of Jonas Savimbi. In 1983, the Angolan News Agency reported that Israeli military experts were training Unita forces in Namibia. Since Zaire began receiving military aid and training from Tel Aviv, Angola has been ill at ease. Its worries increased after discovering that: Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon was personally involved in the organization, training and equipping of "commando" units of the army of Zaire, especially organized for missions along the borders of the RPA [Angola]. In 1984, the Financial Times (London) wrote of "joint Israeli-South African support for Unita forces." Other sources also report the transfer of Israeli arms and financial support to Unita. In 1983, Angola’s President Jose Eduardo dos Santos told Berkeley, California Mayor Eugene (Gus) Newport that an Israeli pilot had been shot down during a South African attack. The Angolan President showed Newport pictures of captured Israeli weapons. The following year, Luanda reported the capture of three mercenaries who said they had been trained by Israeli instructors in Zaire. Israel has also been involved with the Mozambican "contras," the South African-backed MNR (Mozambique National Resistance or "Renamo"), which has brought great economic and social distress to Mozambique. Renamo has a particular reputation for ideological incoherence, being regarded by most other right-wing insurgencies as a gang of cutthroats. For several years there have been stories coming from Southern Africa of captured mercenaries of Renamo who say they were trained in neighboring Malawi-one of the four nations to maintain relations with Israel after the Organization of African Unity (OAU) declared a diplomatic embargo in 1973-by Israelis. And more than one report has told of "substantial Israeli aid" to the MNR, thought to have been funded by the CIA and Saudi Arabia as well as South Africa and former Portuguese nationalists. Two countries, both with the mentality of the "besieged", begin carrying out attacks against their neighbors under the cover of "defence". Sometimes "to see how its version of events would play in the media". In fact, it looks as if they were field-testing the strategies and tactics that the Bush Reich is now imposing upon the US population and the rest of the world. The links between Israel, the apartheid regime, and the CIA are well-established. It is not too much to suspect that this information was being shared by the intelligence agencies of the three countries. But as we are trying to see "behind the scenes", as it were, we leave you with one last item to reflect upon. Remember a few years ago how the anti-globalization forces were growing stronger? Remember the Conference Against Racism held in South Africa? Remember how Israel was becoming isolated because of its butchering of the Palestinians in the period following Sharon’s provocative visit to the Temple Mount in September 2000? Israel and US walk out of UN conference on racism By Chris Marsden 6 September 2001 The joint US-Israeli walkout from the United Nations conference on racism in Durban, South Africa was something of a foregone conclusion. It was a stage-managed affair, the purpose of which was to portray all opposition to the Zionist state’s persecution of the Palestinians as inherently racist. The original draft resolution to the UN conference stated its "deep concern" at the "increase of racist practices of Zionism and anti-Semitism" and spoke of the emergence of "movements based on racism and discriminatory ideas, in particular the Zionist movement, which is based on racial superiority." It made direct criticisms of Israeli repression against the Palestinians on the West Bank as a "new kind of apartheid, a crime against humanity." The US and Israel insisted on the removal of any direct reference to Israel. […] Israel has also achieved some success in winning a more friendly response from Russia, which is again seeking to challenge US domination of Middle Eastern affairs by offering itself as an honest broker between Israel and the Arab regimes. During the Durban conference Sharon visited Moscow for talks with President Putin to discuss the common threat posed by Islamic terrorism - Sharon has even indicated sympathy for Russia’s bloody suppression of Islamic rebel forces in Chechnya - the possibility of a further one million Jewish immigrants from Russia to Israel, armaments and other trade deals. […]Shimon Samuels, the head of the Jewish caucus in Durban, declared, "We saw an NGO document that would have made [Hitler’s Nazi Party propaganda chief] Goebbels happy. And now it is clear that we are going to see, at the end of the government conference, resolutions that can be called the UN’s Mein Kampf." Mordechai Yedid, Israel’s official spokesman at the conference, insisted there could be no condemnation of Israel in the resolution. He told the plenary meeting prior to the US-Israeli departure, "anti-Zionism, the denial of Jews the basic right to a home, is nothing but anti-Semitism, pure and simple." Yedid derided the Arab regimes proposals to criticize Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians as "a group of states for whom the terms ’racism’, ’discrimination’, and even ’human rights’ simply do not appear in their domestic lexicon". The UN resolution, he continued, was "the most racist declaration in a major international organization since World War Two". His remarks prompted a walkout by Egypt’s Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher, who represents one of the most pro-US of all the Arab states. Announcing its withdrawal from the conference, US Secretary of State Colin Powell denounced any attempt to single out "only one country in the world, Israel, for censure and abuse’" and any suggestion that apartheid existed in Israel. For his part, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres proclaimed, "We were portrayed in an insulting and baseless manner as a colonial nation... The Arab League, all of it, has come out against peace." The right-wing media in Israel marched to the same tune. An article in the September 4 Jerusalem Post by Yossi Olmert described the Durban conference as "the mirror image of the Nuremberg rallies, in which the Nazis propagated their anti-Jewish messages, striving hard to delegitimise the Jews, as an inevitable step leading to their eventual liquidation." He conceded reluctantly that "not all the participants in Durban are Nazis, maybe not even a majority of them, but too many are, and they clearly give this shameful gathering its true character". We wonder what Sharon was discussing with Putin, aside from the "common threat posed by Islamic fundamentalism". Did you happen to notice the date? Five days latter the world would explode. The field trials carried out for thirty years by the Israelis and South Africans would be implemented throughout the world. The battle against "terrorism" would become the justification for imposing the New American Tyranny on the world. Coincidence? We think not. Israel Planning ’Ethnic’ Bomb as Saddam Caves In by Uzi Mahnaimi and Marie Colvin Additional reporting: Matthew Campbell in Washington, Hugh McManners Originally posted in the London Times (November 1998) http://www.thetimes.co.uk/section/0,,158,00.html from Peace Website ISRAEL is working on a biological weapon that would harm Arabs but not Jews, according to Israeli military and western intelligence sources. The weapon, targeting victims by ethnic origin, is seen as Israel’s response to Iraq’s threat of chemical and biological attacks. Yesterday Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi leader, backed away from the brink of war and agreed to resume co-operation with the inspection teams seeking his suspected chemical and biological weapons plants. Kofi Annan, the United Nation secretary-general, said he believed Iraq had met UN requirements. As Britain and America stood by to bomb Saddam, however, Tony Blair’s office said compliance must be unconditional. The White House, which is threatening Iraq with the biggest onslaught since the Gulf war, said President Bill Clinton’s advisers were assessing whether Iraq’s offer was adequate. The Pentagon is ready to bomb within days. Last week Downing Street warned Labour MPs that Saddam could be only weeks away from completing the construction of offensive biological weapons mounted on Scud missiles. Israel was hit by Scuds during the Gulf war and fears it would be the prime target. In developing their "ethno-bomb", Israeli scientists are trying to exploit medical advances by identifying distinctive genes carried by some Arabs, then create a genetically modified bacterium or virus. The intention is to use the ability of viruses and certain bacteria to alter the DNA inside their host’s living cells. The scientists are trying to engineer deadly micro-organisms that attack only those bearing the distinctive genes. The programme is based at the biological institute in Nes Tziyona, the main research facility for Israel’s clandestine arsenal of chemical and biological weapons. A scientist there said the task was hugely complicated because both Arabs and Jews are of semitic origin. But he added: "They have, however, succeeded in pinpointing a particular characteristic in the genetic profile of certain Arab communities, particularly the Iraqi people." The disease could be spread by spraying the organisms into the air or putting them in water supplies. The research mirrors biological studies conducted by South African scientists during the apartheid era and revealed in testimony before the truth and reconciliation commission. The idea of a Jewish state conducting such research has already provoked outrage in some quarters because of parallels with the genetic experiments of Dr Josef Mengele, the Nazi scientist at Auschwitz. Dedi Zucker, a member of knesset, the Israeli parliament, denounced the research yesterday. "Morally, based on our history, and our tradition and our experience, such a weapon is monstrous and should be denied," he said. Some experts said that although the concept of an ethnically targeted weapon was feasible, the practical aspects of creating one were enormous. Dr Daan Goosen, head of a South African chemical and biological warfare plant, said his team was ordered in the 1980s to develop a "pigmentation weapon" to target only black people. He said the team discussed spreading a disease in beer, maize or even vaccinations but never managed to develop one. However, a confidential Pentagon report warned last year that biological agents could be genetically engineered to produce new lethal weapons. William Cohen, the American defense secretary, revealed that he had received reports of countries working to create "certain types of pathogens that would be ethnic-specific". A senior western intelligence source confirmed last week that Israel was one of the countries Cohen had in mind. The "ethno-bomb" claims have been given further credence in Foreign Report, a Jane’s publication that closely monitors security and defense matters. It reports unnamed South African sources as saying Israeli scientists have used some of the South African research in trying to develop an "ethnic bullet" against Arabs. It also says Israelis discovered aspects of the Arab genetic make-up by researching on "Jews of Arab origin, especially Iraqis". The British Medical Association has become so concerned about the lethal potential of genetically based biological weapons that it has opened an investigation, which is due to report in January. Dr. Vivienne Nathanson, who organized the research, said: "With an ethnically targeted weapon, you could even hit groups within a population. The history of warfare, in which many conflicts have an ethnic factor, shows us how dangerous this could be." Porton Down, Britain’s biological defense establishment, said last week that such weapons were theoretically possible. "We have reached a point now where there is an obvious need for an international convention to control biological weapons," said a spokesman. Ethnic Weapons For Ethnic Cleansing Greg Bishop ([email protected]) If we are to believe a recent AP report culled from the Sunday Times (London), it would appear that the Israelis have announced or intentionally leaked a report that its military was considering the development of so-called "ethnic weapons." The info is credited to "unidentified Israeli military and Western intelligence sources" which generally brings up the red flags with regard to authenticity, and more likely, the motive for such leaks. The article ends with a comment from an unnamed source at Britain's "biological defense facility" that pathogens which can kill on the basis of ethnicity are "theoretically possible." This PR seemingly ignores the fact that this "theoretical possibility" was recognized over 25 years ago, if not before. It was originally brought to the attention of potential customers with the publication of an article in the Military Reviewof November 1970. This journal for commandlevel military personnel was published by the US Army Command and General Staff College in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. The feature, entitled "Ethnic Weapons," authored by Carl A. Larson, outlines the history, desirability, and possibilities of engineered biological pathogens which would affect only those races which historically have no natural defense against certain "enzyme inhibitors." Larson is listed as head of the "Department of Human Genetics at the Institute of Genetics, Lund, Sweden" as well as a licensed physician. The Hippocratic oath was apparently not administered in Sweden when Larson received his accreditation. Larson explains that many of the chemical activities and functions within the human body are caused by the interactions of enzymes. One of the more significant activities enabled by enzyme chemical reactions are the contraction and relaxation of muscle tissue. If the activities of these enzymes are blocked, the victim will be paralyzed, even to the point of death by asphyxiation. Not coincidentally, the enzyme-blocking action of compounds called organophosphates were discovered in Germany in the 1930s when experimental insecticides killed the people unlucky enough to have used them. This discovery led to the mass production of a substance named "Trilon," later used to impressive effect in the extermination of groups of people the Nazis considered little more than insects. This substance and others of similar makeup became known as "nerve gas." A concentration of 40 milligrams per cubic meter can kill in about 10 minutes. Stronger agents were later developed which can do the job with a single drop on the skin. The author points out that genetic variation between races is mirrored in concurrent differences in tolerance for various substances. As an example, it has been noted that large segments of southeast Asian populations historically display a lactose intolerance, due to the near absence of the enzyme lactase in the digestive system. A chemical or biological weapon (CBW) which takes advantage of this genetic variance could conceivably kill or incapacitate entire populations, leaving invading armies relatively unscathed, as long as they are ethnically homogenous, or the at-risk members had at least been prepared to tolerate the attack. In effect, the poison or viruses would not be recognized by their bodies. The Sunday Times article states that Israeli researchers have "pinpointed 'a characteristic in the genetic profile of certain Arab communities, particularly the Iraqi people.'" This may be more palatable to westerners, since some consider the Iraqi race the enemy, and excluding other Arab gene pools might seem like a more "humane" way to carry on more studies. Larson is even more explicit in a way that would probably never make it into the mainstream press. In a passage that would make Doctor Strangelove proud, he muses uncontrollably on the possibilities of genetically-sensitive chemicals to subdue enemy populations: "Friendly forces would discriminatingly use incapacitants in entangled situations to give friend and foe a short period of enforced rest to sort them out. By gentle persuasion, aided by psychochemicals, civilians in enemy cities could be reeducated. The adversary would use incapacitants to spare those whom he could use for slaves." This was published in a serious, staid professional journal read by US military strategists. He concludes with the statement that "the functions of life [now] lie bare to attack." According to Charles Piller and Keith Yamamoto in their 1988 book Gene Wars, Larson's article was the first time that the subject of ethnically targeted CBWs was broached publicly, and that in "the military's private circles it was old news." The authors further state that in 1951 the Mechanicsburg, PA Naval Supply Depot was the site of a classified test using a benign organism delivered to personnel to mimic the behavior of an actual bioweapon: "According to documents declassified in the late 1970s, the site was chosen because 'Within this system there are employed large numbers of laborers, including many Negroes, whose incapacitation would seriously affect the operation of the supply system.'" The black workers in the Depot were supposedly more susceptible to a strain of Valley Fever than were whites, but instead of using the actual virus, a substitute fungal organism was used. Valley Fever is more often fatal to blacks than to whites. It was recently revealed that the truth and reconciliation hearings in South Africa had presented witnesses who testified that scientists working for the apartheid regime had pursued efforts along similar lines. Another possible example of field testing of ethnic weapons (or at least an interesting case for study by those interested in their development) may be the famed "Four Corners" virus, which seems only to affect Native Americans living in northern New Mexico and Arizona. Most reports identified or compared the disease to the Hantavirus, which killed victims relatively quickly following the occurrence of a prolonged fever and fluid which rapidly filled the lungs and asphyxiated the patient. Supposedly contracted through deer mice droppings, the mystery disease has claimed at least a dozen victims in the last ten years. The most recent outbreak occured this last summer, coming on the heels of El Niño, which the major news media blamed for the renewed threat. Some area residents believe that the virus may have been released either accidentally or intentionally from a bioweapons cache at Fort Wingate, an army facility a few miles east of Gallup. The munitions storage at Wingate is now officially closed. In the 28 intervening years since the Military Review article was published, the study of genetics has advanced to levels undreamed of by Dr. Larson at the time. The human genome project is slated to map all locations and functions of human DNA by early in the next century. There may be little reason to doubt that subtly selective and perhaps overtly unnoticeable biological agents can be introduced into a native population simply by flying over a chosen area with little more than a crop duster attached to the wings of a B52. The recent revelation that Israel may be working on their own bioagent based on well-known and tested principles may only be a psychological deterrent, but given the well-documented history of ethnic weapons, there is ample reason to suspect that the threat is not an idle one. Human Genome Project Opens the Door to Ethnically Specific Bioweapons Washington Free Press Jan./ Feb. 2000 Titles: Genetic Bullets, Ethnically Specific Bioweapons Author: Roy Blake Konformist March 2000 Title: Ethnic Weapons for Ethnic Cleansing Author Greg Bishop www.konformist.com North Coast Xpress Fall 2000 The Human Genome Project and Eugenics Author Robert Lederman Corporate news coverage: Daily Telegraph (London) 7/7/00, Agence France Presse 1/21/99, The Gazette (Montreal) A-4, Baltimore Sun 1/22/99 A-18, The Salt Lake City Tribune 1/27/99 A-13, The Times Union (Albany) 2/2/99 D-2, Faculty/Community Evaluators: Rabbi Michael Robinson, Velma Guillory-Taylor, Ed.D. Student Researchers: Terrie Girdner, Karen Parlette, Jennifer Swift The Human Genome Project may now open the door to the development and use of genetic weapons targeted at specific ethnic groups. This project is currently being conducted under the auspices of the U.S. Energy Department, which also oversees America’s nuclear weapon arsenal. In October 1997, Dr. Wayne Nathanson, chief of the Science and Ethics Department of the Medical Society of the United Kingdom, warned the annual meeting of the Society that "gene therapy" might possibly be turned into "gene weapons" which could potentially be used to target particular genes possessed by certain groups of people. These weapons, Nathanson warned, could be delivered not only in the forms already seen in warfare such as gas and aerosol, but could also be added to water supplies, causing not only death but sterility and birth defects in targeted groups. Current estimates of the cost of developing a "gene weapon" have been placed at around $50 million, still quite a stretch for an isolated band of neo-Nazis, but well within the capabilities of covert government programs. On November 15, 1998, the London Times reported that Israel claimed to have successfully developed a genetically specific "ethnic bullet" that targets Arabs. When an Israeli government spokesman was asked to confirm the existence of ethnic weapons, he did not deny that they had them, but rather said, "we have a basket full of serious surprises that we will not hesitate to use if we feel that the state of Israel is under serious threat." Some scientists worry that the modified genes that corporations have spliced into fish, fowl, fruit and vegetables have permanently altered the world’s food supply. Some may be intended to reduce populations. The U.S. has a long history of interest in such genetic research. The current home of the Human Genome Project is the Cold Springs Harbor laboratory on Long Island, NY—the exact site of the notorious Eugenics Research Office that was started in 1910 by the Harriman family. The project’s 1910 agenda included governmental imposition of sanctions on such human rights as reproduction, and on U.S. immigration, based on the alleged inferiority of particular ethnic groups. The Eugenics Research Project established medical and psychological conditions that would qualify one for sterilization or euthanasia. Prominent advocates of the program such as the Rockefeller family, Henry Ford, and Margaret Sanger helped smooth the way for the passage of forcible sterilization laws in 25 states. These laws allowed the forcible sterilization of tens of thousands of people, mostly of minority status, during the first half of the 20th century. The November 1970 issue of the Military Review published an article entitled "Ethnic Weapons" for command-level military personnel. The author of the article was Dr. Carl Larson, head of the Department of Human Genetics at the Institute of Genetics in Lund, Sweden. Dr Larson wrote of how genetic variations in races are concurrent with differences in tolerances for various substances. For instance, large segments of Southeast Asian populations display a lactose intolerance due to the absence of the enzyme lactase in the digestive system. A biological weapon could conceivably take advantage of this genetic variance and incapacitate or kill an entire population. Update by Greg Bishop The ubiquitous nature of racism and the ruling power structure's history of handling "undesirables," as well as dealing with an enemy (almost always of different racial stock than a dominant aggressor) virtually assures us that the more powerful countries and their allies are continuing to look into new and better ways of subduing and killing whole (or major parts of) foreign populations. When the London Times broke the story of the Israeli bioweapons project and interest in the development of pathogens that would disable or kill by ethnicity, they quoted an unnamed British intelligence source that said that these sorts of weapons were "theoretically possible." They were not only "theoretical" but had been researched for nearly 50 years. The lynchpin of the Times article was the writer's reliance on a specifically genetic explanation for ethnic weapons. Bioweapons have been used since at least the Roman Empire, when armies dumped dead animals into an enemy's water supply to spread disease. Research into ethnic-specific bioweapons was first broached publicly in 1970, when Dr. Carl Larson's article "Ethnic Weapons" appeared in the Military Review. Larson discussed the possibility of utilizing differing races' sensitivity or low resistance to specific compounds (such as lactose intolerance among Asians) as either a bioweapon in itself, or as a "vector" that would allow other poisons or microorganisms to more easily enter a human body when defenses were lowered or destroyed. This method was not as surgically accurate as the military might want it to be, since many populations are not completely homogenous. The strange thing about the Times coverage was that it completely ignored this history and the fact that any technology for killing more of the enemy than your own would most likely be (and has been) looked upon with interest by military strategists. No updates have yet appeared (or I have been unable to locate any) on the subject of Israeli ethnic weapons. In this country, continuing a historic policy toward Native Americans, it has been revealed that the American Indian Health Service (IHS—funded by the Federal Government, who employ the doctors and nurses) coerced Native American men and women into forced sterilizations in the early to mid 1970s. The General Accounting Office (GAO) estimated that 3,400 people (mostly women) underwent the treatment, but their study only covered four of twelve IHS regions for four years. Activists put the estimate much higher, at 60,000 to 70,000. This, coupled with the suspicion raised by the hantavirus outbreak in the Four Corners region of Arizona/New Mexico/Colorado/Utah keeps suspicion and fingers pointed at the federal government and at least some government policies toward the American Indian population. (Hantavirus is one of many "new" diseases that have come under suspicion of having their origins in genetic engineering or biowarfare labs.) As reported in a 1994 Project Censored update, Utah's Dugway Proving Grounds biowarfare research site was also reopened despite local residents' protests over fears that the facility was originally closed because of safety concerns. Fort Dietrick, the site of the most notorious CIA drug and army biowarfare research in the United States now houses major research facilities of the National Cancer Institute, raising issues of conflict (or collusion) or interest. No major press outlets were consulted about publication of the story. It was written to appear on the Konformist.com website. Public awareness spread from there. There appears to have been no followup in the mainstream media on the original 1998 London Times story. For more information on this story: Cole, Leonard A. Clouds of Secrecy: The Army's Germ Warfare Tests Over Populated Areas, Rowman & Littlefield, Totowa, N.J. , 1988. Hersh, Seymour M. Chemical and Biological Warfare: America's Hidden Arsenal, BobbsMerrill, Indianapolis, 1968. Murphy, Sean. No Fire, No Thunder: The Threat of Chemical and Biological Weapons, Monthly Review Press, New York , 1984. Piller, Charles. Gene Wars: Military Control Over the New Genetic Technologies, Beech Tree Books, New York , 1988. Spiers, Edward M. Chemical and Biological Weapons: A Study in Proliferation, St. Martin's Press, New York, 1994. Websites: www.disinfo.com/pages/dossier/id293/pg1.html Article by Preston Peet on U.S. biowarfare testing in Puerto Rico in the 1930s. Island population was deliberately infected with cancer in a program run by Dr. Cornelius Rhodes, who went on to win seats on the Atomic Energy Commission and the Rockefeller Institute, as well as running U.S. chemical warfare programs in WWII. Many useful links. www.ratical.org/ratville/sterilize.html Long and detailed article on the American Indian sterilization program. cns.miis.edu/pubs/reports/zilin.htm This Center for Nonproliferation Studies site features text of threat assessment presented to Congressional subcommittee in October 1999, by Dr. Raymond Zilinskas. Includes information on bioweapons and ethnic weapons. www.gene.ch/gentech/1999/Jan-Feb/msg00070.html Genetech discussion list featuring exchanges on ethnic weapons. Concentrates on possibility of genetically engineered versions. Update by Robert Sterling, Editor of the Konformist Let me add personal knowledge of response to the article of which the author Greg Bishop was unaware. While the media response was predictably non-existent, I did receive numerous comments that spoke volumes. The main thrust of "EthnicWeapons for Ethnic Cleansing" was reports of an Israeli biowarfare program targeting Arabs. One of the key groups of readers of the Konformist are Zionist Jews, courtesy of the promotion of the provocative writings of Israel's Barry Chamish, a dedicated Zionist who has done tremendous work investigating the Rabin assassination and the suppressions involved with it. What is interesting is that, though I received quite a few Emails from the Zionist community, none denied the accuracy of the story. Instead, they brashly admitted it was true, then added it was necessary because Israel needed to defend itself from its Arab neighbors. What is most telling is that many letters included references to Arabs that were derogatory and dehumanizing. That such a destructive philosophy is accepted by so many uncritically in Israel explains much of the vicious thuggery performed against the Palestinians over the last four months (not to mention the last 33 years). This is why I submitted the story, because it underscored an important point that no group has a monopoly of hatred and oppression, and that authoritarian values of all flavors must be rejected and battled with words. Update by Robert Lederman While the average person has no particular interest in nor any tangible use for the Human Genome Project it, more than the economy or whichever political party is in power in Washington, will very significantly mold the future of human life on this planet. Like its origin, Eugenics, the Human Genome Project (HGP) has been presented to the public as an effort by our government to help people live happier, healthier, and more productive lives. Nothing could be further from the truth. When I first wrote the article "The Human Genome Project and Eugenics" I received a lot of correspondence from media people and scientists who felt I was unfairly associating the HGP with Eugenics and its expression in Nazi Germany during the Holocaust. Since then I've found on the HGP's own website an introduction to the project that makes exactly the same connection in no uncertain terms. From vector.cshl.org/eugenics.html: "Although it is easy to conceive of the Human Genome Project and genetic engineering as an entirely new epoch in scientific history, this is not our first-scale involvement with human genetics. Our current rush into the "gene age" has striking parallels to the eugenics movement of the early decades of the 20th century. Eugenicists sought an exclusively genetic explanation of human development, neglecting the important contribution of the environment. Their flawed data were the basis for social legislation to separate racial and ethnic groups, restrict immigration from southern and eastern Europe, and sterilize people considered "genetically unfit." Elements of the American eugenics movement were models for the Nazis, whose radical adaptation of eugenics culminated in the Holocaust." As of this writing, the human genomes of the populations of Estonia, Tonga, and Iceland have been bought and patented by private corporations with many more such corporatized human lineages to follow. James Watson, the discoverer of the structure of DNA and the project's first director, has spoken publicly of his enthusiasm for human germline engineering—making permanent inheritable changes in the human populations' DNA. In the brief time since I wrote the article, insurance companies have publicly admitted that they will use prospective clients' DNA in deciding whether to grant them health insurance. Mayors and governors across America are following NYC Mayor Rudolph Giuliani in demanding that DNA samples be taken from every person arrested regardless of how minor their crime. Man-made transgenic organisms are being introduced into the human food supply and environment under the guise of distributing vaccines and improving nutrition with what can only be described as either reckless enthusiasm or an intent to do harm. In short, we will soon be living in a society in which Eugenics science applied by government may play a greater role in ones destiny than any other factor. While all of this is happening the public is being misled into believing that the Project's main purpose is to cure diseases and extend human life. Once this genie is out of the bottle, it will never be put back in. While it may seem like science fiction to most people, the Human Genome Project represents the single biggest threat to human freedom that has ever been devised. The following websites contain a great amount of scientific, historical, and propaganda material on Eugenics and the Human Genome Project. Some of the sites are anti-eugenics and others, including a neo-Nazi site, are pro-eugenics and blatantly racist. My including them in this list should not be construed as an endorsement of any of the statements contained therein, other than those in my own articles. Baltech.org/lederman/spray/ www.hli.org/issues/pp/bcreview/index.html www.georgetown.edu/research/nrcbl/scopenotes/sn28.htm www.biol.tsukuba.ac.jp/~macer/SG.html www.notdeadyet.org/eughis.html www.techreview.com/articles/as96/allen.html www.hli.org/issues/pp/bcreview/index.html www.csu.edu.au/learning/ncgr/gpi/grn/edures/scope.28.2.html users.erols.com/straymond/EUGENICS2.htm home.att.net/~eugenics/ www.sightings.com/general3/eugene.htm www4.stormfront.org/posterity/ from WorldMysteries Website To suppose that earth is the only populated world in infinite space is as absurd as to believe that in an entire field sown with millet, only one grain will grow. Metrodorus of Chios 4th century B.C. A DNA molecule consists of a ladder, formed of sugars and phosphates, and four nucleotide bases:  adenine (A)  thymine (T)  cytosine (C)  guanine (G) The genetic code is specified by the order of the nucleotide bases, and each gene possesses a unique sequence of base pairs. Scientists use these base sequences to locate the position of genes on chromosomes and to construct a map of the entire human genome. The Human Genome Project (HGP) is an international research program designed to construct detailed genetic and physical maps of the human genome, to determine the complete nucleotide sequence of human DNA, to localize the estimated 50,000-100,000 genes within the human genome, and to perform similar analyses on the genomes of several other organisms used extensively in research laboratories as model systems. The scientific products of the HGP will comprise a resource of detailed information about the structure, organization and function of human DNA, information that constitutes the basic set of inherited "instructions" for the development and functioning of a human being. Successfully accomplishing these ambitious goals will demand the development of a variety of new technologies. It will also necessitate advanced means of making the information widely available to scientists, physicians, and others in order that the results may be rapidly used for the public good. Improved technology for biomedical research will thus be another important product of the HGP. From the inception of the HGP, it was clearly recognized that acquisition and use of such genetic knowledge would have momentous implications for both individuals and society and would pose a number of policy choices for public and professional deliberation. Analysis of the ethical, legal, and social implications of genetic knowledge, and the development of policy options for public consideration are therefore yet another major component of the human genome research effort. The Human Genome project revealed that human beings have 30,000-40,000 genes. That number is much lower than expected. For example, fruit fly has 13,300 genes, roundworm - 18,300 genes, mustard weed - 25,700 genes. According to genetic analysis, though, more than 98% of human DNA is identical to chimpanzee DNA. In fact, chimpanzees are more closely related to humans than orangutans and gorillas. "Humans are simply odd looking apes," psychologist Roger Fouts of Central Washington University in Ellensburg, Washington, writes in his 1997 book, Next of Kin: My Conversations With Chimpanzees. "A traveler from an antique land... lives within us all," claims Sykes, a professor of genetics at Oxford. This unique traveler is mitochondrial DNA, and, as this provocative account illustrates, it can help scientists and archeologists piece together the history of the human race. Find out more by reading this book: The Seven Daughters of Eve: The Science That Reveals Our Genetic Ancestry by Bryan Sykes. Controversial Discoveries A 3.5-million-year-old fossil, flat-faced human from Kenya Kenyanthropus platy-ops, suggests the human family tree is a lot more complicated than we knew. Implication is clear: More than one species of pre-human was wandering around Africa a few million years ago, and it's anyone's guess which of them evolved into human race. Fred Spoor University College, London Several years ago, spearpoints and other tools of modern man were found under a layer of volcanic ash. When Dr. McIntyre, a member of the U.S. Geological Survey, was invited to date the overlying ash, the archaeologists thought it could be as old as 20,000 years old, pushing the arrival of man in the New World back around 5,000 years. No one was prepared when uranium series dating and fission tracking methods provided the astounding age of 250,000 years. Dr. McIntyre shares what happened next: "I thought, okay, we got something big here but I'm going to stick with the dates. I didn't realize it was going to ruin my whole career." Tree of Life Mesopotamian "Tree of Life" The Olmec "Tree of Life" (Mesoamerican Cosmology). The lineage founder, 2 Grass, is being born from a twisting World Tree. Detail from Selden Codex page 2. Source: FAMSI DNA - our modern "Tree of Life" The Human Genome Project Summary of the Initial Sequencing and Analysis of the Human Genome from WhiteHeadInstitute Website recovered through WayBackMachine Website Over the last decade, genomes have been sequenced for more than 40 species, mostly bacteria. The human genome sequence is 8 times larger than all the previously sequenced genomes put together. In 1990, the Human Genome Project (HGP) began as an international collaboration propelled by the hope that global views of entire genomes would allow researchers to attack scientific problems in systematic and unbiased ways. In its early years, the HGP produced maps of the human and mouse genomes and sequenced the genomes of yeast and nematode worm. Now, it has produced a 94%-complete working draft of the human genome sequence, the totality of human DNA, where each letter in the draft has been read an average of 5 times. About 30% of the human genome has been sequenced with more than twice this redundancy, resulting in highly accurate "finished" sequence. For example, the whole of chromosomes 21 and 22 have been sequenced to a finished state. No later than 2003, all the human chromosomes will be sequenced to a finished state. The Human Genome Project first separated the genome into large "clones" — segments of DNA each representing about 0.005% of the whole genome — before chopping the clones and sequencing small fragments. Using such clones whose positions are known added to the confidence that the genome sequence would be assembled properly and allowed effective international collaboration. All collaborators in the project made sequence data publicly available without restriction within 24 hours. Large blocks of highly repetitive sequence, for example at the tips of chromosome arms and at the centromeres (the portions of chromosomes that appear as pinched centers when chromosomes are condensed) have been avoided, because current technology cannot yet sequence these regions. The total human genome, contained in a set of 23 chromosomes, is now estimated to contain 3,164.7 million letters (or nucleotides). Genome size does not always correlate with the apparent complexity of a species because of the large amounts of repetitive sequence in many genomes. In humans the actual part of the genome that codes for proteins makes up less than 2% of the genome while repeated sequences make up at least 50% of the genome. Repetitive sequences are thought to have no direct functions, but they shed light on chromosome structure and dynamics. They hold important clues about evolutionary events, help chart mutation rates, and by seeding DNA rearrangements, they can modify genes and create new ones. They also serve as tools for genetic studies. The vast majority of repeated sequences in the human genome are derived from transposable elements — sequences like those that form viral genomes — that propagate by inserting fresh copies of themselves in random places in the genome. A full 45% of the human genome derives from such transposons. A major surprise of this new global analysis of the human genome is that many components in this diverse array of repeated sequences, traditionally considered to be "junk," appear to have played a beneficial role over the course of human evolution. Genes are sprawled over much larger regions in humans compared with fruit fly and nematode worm. Genes remain difficult to identify in humans because they form such a small portion of the genome and are so spread out, but it appears that the total number of genes is 30,000-35,000, close to the number originally estimated some 20 years ago, but much smaller than more recent estimates. Apparently, humans have only twice as many genes as the fly or worm, but they have on average three times as many kinds of proteins because of "alternative splicing," a process that can yield different protein products from the same gene. Compared with the organisms whose genomes have been sequenced before, humans have a particular abundance of proteins involved in cell structure, defense and immunity, DNA copying, the synthesis of RNA and proteins, and communication between cells. Humans have an unusually high number of complex proteins that fit into more than one functional category and many proteins that are embedded in the surface of cells. Since the genome sequence has been released as it was generated over the last four years, a large number of discoveries have already been spawned by the sequence data. At least 30 different disease genes have been identified by directly using sequence produced by the HGP. In the coming years, the human genome should be sequenced to a finished state, where all gaps are closed and the sequence is at least 99.99% accurate. Genome sequence from other species will provide crucial insights about genes and the regions that regulate their activity. There will be a pressing need for improved methods to analyze the abundance of information being generated. And genetics will become an increasingly important part of the medical mainstream. The pressure will grow to encourage educated use of genetic information and to set thoughtful limits on its use. Sie befinden sich: Infos > Aktuelles > 02.02.19 Letzte Aktualisierung: Thursday, February 21, 2002 Pentagon Tests Ethnically-Targeted Crowd Control Weapons Sunshine-Project 19. Februar 2002 US Army documents released under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) reveal disturbing efforts to design crowd control weapons that target people on an ethnic basis. The weapons, a group of foul-smelling chemicals called malodorants, are being developed for US soldiers to use overseas. According to the Sunshine Project, the US has crossed a dangerous line. Successful or not, development of any ethnic weapon is intrinsically racist, and the international community should consider their development, stockpiling, or use by any country a violation of international law. The Research The Sunshine Project has obtained US Army Soldier and Biological Chemical Command contracts that detail testing of malodorant chemicals on human subjects. Malodorant weapons are used to provoke vomiting and psychological effects including fear and panic. Almost sixty years ago, the US developed a nauseating 'bathroom odor' chemical for use as a weapon. But according to the Army, the old malodorant will not work outside of the US and Western Europe, because "it was found that people in many areas of the world do not find 'fecal odor' to be offensive, since they smell it on a regular basis." Therefore, according to the Army, new agents are needed for overseas missions. These new malodorants are to be specifically adapted for their victims. According to a 1998 document: "The objective of this work is the development of a comprehensive set of [malodorants] that can be applied against any population set around the world to influence their behavior." The documents describe the Army research procedure. A group of subjects selected "based on a diversity of geographic origins and cultural heritage" is systematically exposed to candidate malodorants to develop "culture-response data" based on ethnic categories. That data is aggregated into "odor response profiles" that suggest the types and quantities of malodorants necessary to "elicit a favorable behavioral response" (i.e. incapacitation, panic, or flight) when used for crowd control on a particular ethnic group. Malodorants themselves generally do not cause serious injury or death; but their physical and psychological effects can be very powerful. They can be loaded in shells, grenades, mortar rounds, and other devices. Malodorants can be used to control civil unrest (e.g. to halt protests), and in combination with lethal weapons as a 'force multiplier' in counterinsurgency and close combat in urban and enclosed areas. The documents generally do not include details about research subjects and how researchers categorize them. Some experiments have been conducted outside the United States, or on immigrants. A February 2000 draft report refers to testing on "a group of South Africans". Another Army document contains unexplained images of indigenous women and girls from Panama or Colombia and southern Africa. Additional pictures appear to be from Africa and Asia, and one shows a boy dressed as a typical US high school student. Not Since Apartheid Past research on ethnic weapons has been rare. The last known attempt to create ethnic weapons was a widely condemned program conducted in the 1980s by the apartheid regime of South Africa, which tried to develop an agent to selectively sterilize black women. The new US malodorant program began in 1998 and is the first known US work on populationspecific weapons since "Project Agile" in 1966. In Agile, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) commissioned the Battelle Institute to assess the possibility of making malodorants to specifically target Vietnamese people. Agile was short-lived and did not reach a laboratory phase. The Army's Partners The US Army Soldier Chemical and Biological Command (Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland) has important partners in the malodorant research. The US Marine Corps-managed Joint NonLethal Weapons Program (JNLWP, Quantico, Virginia) is funding the research. Contracts signed with the Monell Chemical Senses Center of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, include DAAD13-99-M0071 ("Behavioral Odor Study") and DAAD13-98-M-004 ("Establish Odor Response Profiles"). By Pentagon standards, the research is a small program, with five scientists. Contracts between SBCCOM and Monell total US $195,000. The overall budget is unclear because the Marine Corps and Army also conduct work internally, whose details have not been released. JNLWP is, however, very active developing new delivery technology for malodorants including chemical mortar rounds and payload systems for unmanned aerial vehicles. Ethnic Weapons: Prima facie Evidence Whether the malodorants work or fail, research on any ethnic weapon raises serious legal questions and could set a very dangerous precedent. If the Pentagon saw any major legal barriers to ethnic weapons it would not have approved the malodorant research. The Pentagon's conclusion that ethnic weapons are permissible must be challenged. All such weapons should be universally considered intrinsically racist and to repudiate international law. To do this, governments should establish that the development, stockpiling, or use of ethnic weapons is prima facie evidence of intent to violate international law prohibiting racism, including prohibitions on genocide. Inside the US, the malodorants research program must be cancelled, and the secretive Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Program opened to public scrutiny and transparency. Among the questions that the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Program must publicly discuss is how its focus on building weapons systems that primarily target civilians is legally and ethically justified. About the Sunshine Project's Research on Malodorants Early last year, the Sunshine Project began investigating US military work on malodorants and calmatives (another type of crowd control agent). The Project's underlying concern is that some of these weapons may violate treaties prohibiting chemical and biological warfare. In July 2001, the Project published "Non-Lethal Weapons Research in the US: Calmatives and Malodorants". In the course of preparing that paper, cryptic language in Army documents caused the Project to become concerned that some crowd control research was designed to develop population-specific weapons. Some Army documents indicated it was pursuing a single 'one-size-fits-all' malodorant that would affect people equally, regardless of ethnic background. But other Army papers showed a disturbing preoccupation with ethnicity. After publishing the first paper, the Sunshine Project filed additional FOIA requests, the results of which are first reported here. The information (and all double " " quotes) in this news release is from the Army response to a FOIA request from October 2001, which was not answered (and then only partially) until February 2002. Additional FOIA requests on this topic are pending, the results of which will be presented in Sunshine Project publications. Non-Lethal Weapons Research in the US: Calmatives and Malodorants This paper is the first in a series of three reports on United States government research on chemical and biological non-lethal weapons. Shaken by experiences such as its disastrous mission in Somalia, the US has concluded that it lacks appropriate weapons for peacekeeping and other “military operations other than war”. To address this problem, the US has embarked on a program to develop new non-lethal weapons to control both armed enemies and civilians. Militaries and domestic law enforcement agencies in the United States and elsewhere are closely following this research and, in some instances, participating. The non-lethal weapons research detailed here raises questions about protection of civil liberties, particularly freedoms of thought and expression, and US compliance with arms control agreements including the Chemical Weapons Convention and Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention. The second and third reports in this series will be published over the course of 2001 and will address genetically modified anti-materiel agents and new riot control technologies, respectively. This paper details research on two types of non-lethal weapons in the United States that threaten and could undermine important international arms control agreements and basic personal freedoms of thought and expression. Calmative and malodorant agents and their delivery systems are designed for use against armed enemies, riots, and “potentially hostile” civilians. (1) Calmative agents include an array of psychoactive substances whose effects range from inducing sleep to overpowering hallucinations. In the past, use of calmatives has been understood to violate the Chemical Weapons Convention; but new and dangerous interpretations of this agreement by US military strategists threaten to open the way for use of calmatives by armed forces or even police, especially in non-traditional conflicts such as peacekeeping. The United States Marine Corps and Army are researching delivery technology for calmatives and using computer models of calmative agents’ effects in offensive wargames. Malodorant agents (“stink bombs”) have existed since the Second World War. Attempts were made as late as 1966 to develop malodorants that target particular ethnic groups. Disastrous military experiences such as that in Somalia and renewed interest from law enforcement has sparked a renaissance of interest in malodorants for use in riot control and, possibly, war. Use of malodorant agents, particularly by militaries, could promote use of chemical weapons in conflict and destabilize controls on both chemical and biological weapons. Calmative Agents Calmatives are chemical or biological agents with sedative, sleep-inducing or similar psychoactive effects. Chemical calmative weapons such as BZ (3-quinuclidinyl benzilate, a compound related to scopolamine) were developed during the Cold War. (2) Proponents of calmatives are creating a new and alarming legal ambiguity surrounding their use. In the US, new weapons must undergo legal review by the Judge Advocate General (JAG) prior to development and again before production. In 1997, the Judge Advocate General of the Navy approved a list of proposed new, advanced, or emerging technologies for weapons research. Among these were gastrointestinal convulsives and calmative agents. (3) The US Department of Defense (DoD) arguments imply the creation of two loopholes in the Chemical Weapons Convention: the possible definition of psychoactive substances as riot control agents, (4) and a distinction between “military operations other than war” and armed conflicts. In the latter, DoD argues that even toxic chemicals would be of operational utility. In an article on legal aspects of nonlethal weapons, Lieutenant Colonel M.A. Coppernoll pointed out that: "Calmative and gastrointestinal convulsives, if classified as riot control agents, can be acceptable. Once these technologies evolve into actual weapons or weapons systems, the Navy JAG will analyze them again as to their toxic properties and compliance with international laws, treaties, and domestic restrictions before final approval for series production, or rejection." (5) Another article published by military strategists highlighted the ambiguity concerning calmatives and similar agents in the US. In the view of the authors the use of calmative agents is not clearly prohibited by the CWC; but instead subject to decisions made by the Pentagon: "NLWs [non-lethal weapons] such as neural inhibitors, gastrointestinal convulsives, neuropharmacological agents, calmative agents, and disassociative hallucinogens, and sedatives, may be considered ´temporary incapacitants´ and therefore defined as toxic chemicals prohibited by the CWC for any purpose. (…) If the Pentagon interprets the term ´toxic chemicals´ to include incapacitating NLWs, such as calmative agents, their utility in MRC [major regional conflict] is questionable. The sole operational utility of chemical-based anti-personnel NLWs will then be in MOOTW [military operations other than war], not MRC." (6) The US debate over use of calmatives is not only a theoretical and legal exercise. The US armed forces are conducting ongoing research on calmatives. In the 1999 Annual Report of the US Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Program (JNLWP), calmatives are included as potential candidates for non-kinetic weapons (i.e. those that do not use blunt trauma). Last year, a wargaming exercise (“Limited Objective Experiment 001”) was planned to investigate the use of non-kinetic weapons, including “calmative and malodorant payloads”. The purpose of the calmatives experiment was: "... to identify alternate means of offensive operations that will provide the National Command Authority (NCA) and Joint Force Commanders (JFC) additional operational options when executing a coercive campaign." (7) (Emphasis added) Weapons with calmative payloads were modeled for wargames on the Joint Conflict and Tactical Simulation (JCATS) computer simulation developed by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory for the US military. (8) JNLWP work to date has been based on the assumption that calmatives are legal weapons for use in military operations. The outcome of the wargame exercise has not been released. (9) In another project, the US Army is testing aerosolized ketamine, (10) an anesthetic and psychoactive substance similar to BZ that has been identified as a potential chemical weapon agent. (11) Currently, the US Army is funding a clinical Phase I/II trial for aerosolized ketamine through a “Dual Use Science and Technology Grant”. Innovative Drug Delivery Systems, Inc. (IDDS), a recently founded pharmaceutical company in New York City, is working on special drug delivery platforms such as metered nasal sprays. In 2000, IDDS was awarded a grant by the US Army to support clinical trials for transmucosal ketamine use in acute orthopedic/traumatic injury. The trial will be performed at Johns Hopkins University Medical Center. (12) While this trial’s objective is to evaluate medical uses of ketamine, it will also generate data and know-how on the use of ketamine or other calmatives as sprays for non-lethal weapon purposes. Malodorants Why would somebody patent the odor of human feces? In June 2001, Ecological Technologies Corporation, a small Texas company run by a retired US Navy Commander and former Naval Laboratories researcher (13) obtained US patent 6,242,489 on “malodorant compositions”. Ecological Technologies claims the use of organic sulfur compounds and skatole – the compound that makes feces stink – to produce the perfect “stink bomb”. The rationale behind the invention is clarified in the patent: “The use of obnoxious olfactory stimuli to control and/or modify human behavior in this way is an attractive concept for modern warfare … Heretofore malodorant compositions have been too toxic for use when seeking to incapacitate and/or disperse an individual, or group of individuals …” (14) (emphasis added) Malodorants are high on the list of non-lethal research priorities. US strategists have concluded that odor-producing chemicals "are likely to be permitted under the CWC”. (15) The Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Program sponsors a project that “investigates odorants and their effects on behavior. It can be used for riot control, to clear facilities, to deny an area, or as a taggant.” (16) At the US Army Edgewood Chemical Biological Center in Maryland, sophisticated experiments were performed to identify the most obnoxious smells, one of which turned out to be “US Government Standard Bathroom Odor”. (17) Interestingly, one of the key criteria for odorant selection was that they be “not incapacitating or a sensory irritant”, (18) an attempt to lay the groundwork to evade the CWC by preemptively and unilaterally defining military malodorants as anything but chemical weapons. But the Army’s criteria are clearly faulty. The key function of malodorants is to irritate the chemical sense of humans. Malodorants could indeed be seen as sensory irritants and thus as riot control agents. Article II of the CWC defines riot control agents as follows: 7. "Riot Control Agent" means: Any chemical not listed in a Schedule, which can produce rapidly in humans sensory irritation or disabling physical effects which disappear within a short time following termination of exposure. (emphasis added) Malodorants and Ethnic Warfare Modern military use of malodorants dates to the Second World War when the US Office of Strategic Services (OSS), precursor to the Central Intelligence Agency, developed tubes of foul-smelling substances for use in espionage. Malodorants have since been studied for use in riot control and other military operations. (19) The most disturbing of these studies was a 1966 effort by the United States to identify culturally specific malodorants. A study on this kind of ethnic weapon was commissioned by US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and conducted by the Battelle Institute in Ohio. The purpose was “to determine whether intercultural differences in olfaction exist, particularly with respect to offensive smells, and if they do, to what extent they can be utilized in psychological warfare.” (20) Intercultural Differences in Olfaction is deeply imbued with racist ideas and contemplates the questions “Would an obnoxious odor precipitate flight from a contaminated area… [and] … Would it prevent access to this area on a culturally selective basis?” The idea was to disrupt Vietnamese guerillas, control strategic areas, and capture pockets of resistance (e.g., urban conflict zones, caves, bunkers) by using a carefully selected odor that overwhelmed Vietnamese; but left US troops unaffected. DARPA scoured anthropological literature on Asia, and particularly its indigenous peoples, to find possible weapons and ways to use them. One conclusion was that malodorants might be used in conjunction with anti-personnel bombing to manipulate the behavior of large, apparently civilian, populations: “… it might be possible to condition adverse behavior to specific odors… For example, if bombs emitted a given odor upon explosion, the odor itself should become a fear-producing stimulus because of its association with the fear experienced during the bombing.” (21) The researchers concluded that there was much work to do before effective ethnically targeted malodorant weapons would exist. Fortunately, it appears that DARPA proceeded no further. The report, however, indisputably confirms that the United States considered developing ethnically specific weapons as late as 1966. The resurgence of military interest in malodorants presents the danger that some may attempt to pick up where DARPA’s work left off. Scant publicly released details from recent studies of malodorants at the US Army’s Edgewood Chemical Biological Center may indicate that there is new interest in ethnically tuned malodorants. (22) Thus, malodorants used in military operations would clearly violate the Chemical Weapons Convention, although law enforcement might be tempted to argue that they could be used as riot control agents, falling into the same category as tear gas or pepper sprays. But there are at least three major arms control problems that would result from the development and use of malodorants. First, on a battlefield, malodorants pose the same escalating risk as riot control agents, which have been deemed unacceptable in armed conflict because they could easily be confused with chemical weapons of a more lethal nature. This could tragically turn a conventional conflict into all-out chemical war. Secondly, development and weaponization of malodorants threatens the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC). This is because many of the most offensive smells are produced by living organisms or are toxins derived from them. Even synthetic malodorants often mimic biologically produced foul-smelling substances. Biologically based malodorants that are toxic are unquestionably biological weapons. While malodorants typically pose little threat to human life, especially when compared to pathogen weapons, there is considerable danger that malodorant development will encourage lax interpretation and violation of the Bioweapons Convention. Thirdly, at the development stage, malodorants could be used as a disguise for the development and production of large scale and long distance chemical or biological weapons payload-dispensing devices. These systems could be used with no further adaptation to deploy any other chemical (riot control agents, calmatives or even lethal substances). No distinction will be possible between permitted delivery devices for non-lethal malodorants and prohibited ones. Finally, like all non-lethals, malodorants are not necessarily stand-alone weapons and might be used as a “force multiplier” in an insidious combination with lethal arms (see box above). Delivery devices Malodorants have been used as a lead example agent in the development of microencapsulation techniques, including binary compounds. (23) Microencapsulated weapons are very small pellets of an agent coated with a shell that acts as a wall, protecting the active ingredient from the environment. The agent is released when the pellet is crushed, in response to an environmental stimulus (e.g. a rise in temperature or exposure to moisture) or, in one case of binary weapons, when the pellets are exposed to a chemical that breaks down the protective wall. Alternatively, two precursors to a chemical weapon could be pelletized together. When physical pressure (e.g., a footfall) is applied, the chemicals mix and become active. Other delivery devices currently under development by the US Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Program that go beyond domestic riot control purposes are chemical land mines, (24) 81mm chemical mortar shells with a 1.5 km range, and a 120mm frangible mortar. (25) The development of one new chemical mortar round, called the “Overhead Chemical Agent Dispersal System” (OCADS), has been contacted out to the Primex subsidiary of General Dynamics, a major US weapons builder. According to the JNLWP, the mid-air exploding OCADS is to “rapidly disperse non-lethal chemical agents over large areas… for crowd control or to provide a remotely generated protective barrier.” (26) In November 2000, the US Navy was granted a patent on a “frangible payload-dispensing projectile”. Frangible projectiles, such as bullets, do not use kinetic energy to incapacitate a target; but instead break open upon impact and spray a chemical payload. The Navy’s new patent on frangible bullets contains detailed descriptions of using irritant and inflammatory rounds containing CS, CN and OC. (27) While this projectile with a delivery range of 10-50 meters has application in riot control, the question remains why the Navy is involved in R & D pertaining to the delivery of chemical riot control agents. Importantly, the general prohibition of chemical weapons in the CWC does not only include toxic chemicals, but also munitions and delivery devices. The definition of chemical weapons in the CWC (Article II, 1. (b)) reads in part: … (b) Munitions and devices, specifically designed to cause death or other harm through the toxic properties of those toxic chemicals specified in subparagraph (a), which would be released as a result of the employment of such munitions and devices; If the development or production of prohibited chemical weapons systems was justified with malodorants or other purposes that some argue are permitted under the Chemical Weapons Convention, this important provision would become meaningless. This could result in opening the door to development of a range of chemical weapons that were previously banned. Conclusions International arms control treaties must unambiguously prohibit any military or other coercive use of psychoactive and malodorant substances. Military use of calmative agents not only violates the Chemical Weapons Convention; but by virtue of the way calmatives work – manipulating the consciousness of victims – pose threats to fundamental human rights including freedom of thought. Malodorants, while comparatively benign in terms of psychological effects, are also destabilizing because they can be easily confused with other, more deadly, chemical weapons, might be detrimental to biological weapons controls, and could be used to multiply the effect of conventional lethal weapons. The research and development of calmative and malodorant weapons systems by the United States thus creates serious challenges for arms control. Unfortunately, US military strategists are already doing serious damage to the international consensus against these weapons by defining them as riot control agents, thereby promoting a loosening of controls on these weapons. The development of calmatives, malodorants and long-range delivery devices for chemical substances threatens to open the way for use of chemical weapons in warfare. By deliberately pushing this line, the US is threatening to undermine and severely weaken international arms control agreements, particularly the Chemical Weapons Convention. (1) See A Joint Concept for Non-Lethal Weapons, US Marine Corps Combat Development Command, January 1998. URL: http://192.156.75.102/nonleth.htm (2) Destruction of the US Cold War-era BZ stockpile began in 1988. See the Medical Management of Chemical Casualties Handbook. URL: http://ccc.apgea.army.mil/Documents/RedHandbook/001TitlePage.htm. (3) Coppernoll MA (1999). The Non-Lethal Weapons Debate, Military Press, Spring 1999. URL: http://www.nwc.navy.mil/press/Review/1999/spring/art5-SP9.htm (4)Toxic chemicals are defined in CWC Article II.2. as causing, inter alia, “temporary incapacitation”, while in Article II.7. riot controls are defined as producing, inter alia, “disabling physical effects”. This distinction is obviously less scientific than it is political. (5) Coppernoll MA (1999). The Non-Lethal Weapons Debate. (6) Coppernoll MA, Maniyama XK (1998) “Legal and ethical guiding principles and constraints concerning non-lethal weapons technology and employment.” Presentation at the Non-Lethal Defense III Symposium. URL: http://www.dtic.mil/ndia/NLD3/copp.pdf (7) JNLWP 1999 Annual Report, page 20. URL: http://www.jnlwd.usmc.mil/Documents/1999AnnualReport.pdf (8) For more information on JCATS, see http://www.llnl.gov/nai/group/JCATS.html. (9) At time of writing, Limited Objective Experiment 001 is the subject of a Sunshine Project Freedom of Information Act request. (10) Ketamine is a powerful disassociative anesthetic and hallucinogen provoking “out of body” experiences. Related to phencyclidine (PCP), ketamine was used to treat combat casualties in Vietnam. It remains in use by doctors and veterinarians (to tranquilize large animals). Ketamine is also abused as an illegal recreational drug. It is a controlled substance in the US, where possession carries a federal first offense penalty of up to five years in prison. See: http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/concern/concern.htm. (11) Bunker R J (1995). Non-Lethal Weapons: Terms and References, INSS Occasional Paper 15, USAF Institute for National Security Studies, USAF Academy, Colorado. URL: http://www.usafa.af.mil/inss/ocp15.htm (12) See information at IDDS’s website: http://www.idds.com/corporate/profile/ (13) “A Body by Any Other Smell” in Techbeat, National Law Enforcement and Corrections Technology Center, Spring 2001. (14) US Patent 6,242,489. (15) Coppernoll MA, Maniyama XK (1998) Legal and ethical guiding principles and constraints concerning non-lethal weapons technology and employment. Presentation at the Non-Lethal Defense III Symposium. URL: http://www.dtic.mil/ndia/NLD3/copp.pdf (16) JNLWP 1999 Annual Report, Annex. URL: http://www.jnlwd.usmc.mil/Documents/1999AnnualReport.pdf (17) Bickford L et al. Odorous Substances for Non-Lethal Application, slide No. 9. Presentation at NDIA Non-Lethal Defense IV, 20-22 March 2000, URL: http://www.dtic.mil/ndia/nld4/bickford.pdf (18) ibid. Slide No. 6 (19) Bickford L et al (2000). Odorous Substances for Non-Lethal Application, Presentation at NDIA Non-Lethal Defense IV, 20-22 March 2000, URL: http://www.dtic.mil/ndia/nld4/bickford.pdf . Bickford and three co-authors are researchers at the US Army Edgewood Chemical Biological Center. (20) Albert S and Hitt W. (1966) Intercultural Differences in Olfaction, Remote Area Conflict Information Center, Battelle Memorial Institute, 2 May 1966. Part of DARPA’s “Project Agile”, Sunshine Project DOD Freedom of Information Request 01-F-1021. (21) Albert S and Hitt W., page 4. (22) See Bickford L et al (2000). This presentation and related work is the subject of a current Sunshine Project Freedom of Information Act request. (23) Durant Y, Thiam M, Petcu C, Vashista N : Developing microcapsules for NLW applications. Presentation at the NTAR II Symposium, November 2000 at the University of New Hampshire. URL: http://www.unh.edu/ntar/PDF/Durant2.pdf (24) See Alternative anti-personnel land mines: the next generations, a report by the German Initiative to Ban Land Mines and Landmine Action (UK). URL: http://landmine.de/fix/english_report.pdf (25) Annual Report 1999 of the JNLWP, Annex. URL: http://www.jnlwd.usmc.mil/Documents/1999AnnualReport.pdf (26) Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Program News, v.2, n.2, February 1999, page 4. URL: http://www.jnlwd.usmc.mil/default2.htm. (27) US patent 6,145,441, granted on November 14, 2000 to the US Secretary of the Navy. GE Biological "Ethnic" Weapons Loom on the Horizon Date: Thu, Jan 21, 1999 By Patricia Reaney LONDON (Reuters) - Biological and genetic weapons designed to kill specific ethnic or racial groups are no longer the stuff of science fiction, British researchers said Thursday. A designer plague that would only kill Serbs or a toxin engineered to affect Israelis or Kurds does not exist yet but advances in biotechnology and the mapping of all human genes could be misused to develop lethal weapons within five to 10 years. Dr Vivienne Nathanson, the head of health policy research at the British Medical Association (BMA), said genetic information is already being used to enhance biological weapons. "It would be a tragedy if in 10 years time the world faces the reality of genetically engineered and possibly genetically targeted weapons," she told a news conference to launch a new book entitled "Biotechnology Weapons and Humanity." "It is not technology and information that is available today, but it is becoming increasingly available. We do have a window of opportunity before weapons of that type are manufactured to make sure we have effective measures of prevention." The book by Professor Malcolm Dando, of the Department of Peace Studies at the University of Bradford in northern England, paints a terrifying picture of the power of biological weapons. The release of 220 pounds of anthrax spores from canisters planted in a major city could wipe out up to three million people. The book traces the history of the development and use of biological weapons and warns that scientific knowledge has been exploited in the past and is likely to be misused in the future unless international action is taken. "We believe biological weapons will become an increasing weapon in terrorist activity," said Nathanson. "An ethnically targeted weapon becomes more of a reality." The designer weapon works on a similar principle to gene therapy but instead of replacing faulty genes that don't work it exploits genetic variations to target its victims. For example, micro-organisms could be genetically engineered to attack known receptor sites on the cell membrane or viruses could be targeted at specific DNA sequences inside cells. William Assche, the chairman of the BMA's board of science and education, said the report is designed to raise public, medical and political awareness about the dangers of biological weapons. It urges the international community to strengthen the 1972 Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention to improve verification procedures. It also calls on doctors and scientists to protect the integrity of their work and to monitor the potential use of genome mapping. "Getting rid of weapons once they are produced is very difficult. Governments may be reluctant to give up weapons that the rest of the world find unacceptable. Terrorists certainly will be," said Nathanson. "We still have the chance to strengthen the ban on these weapons. We must do so now and we must make sure the ban is policed effectively." REUTERS Biowar and the Apartheid Legacy From 1981 to 1993 the South African National Defense force developed bioweapons for the purpose of 'suppressing population growth among blacks.' June 6, 2003 | Just as the threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction now seems a neocon-concocted mirage, word has begun leaking out about the spread of bioweapons far more threatening than anything in Saddam Hussein's purported arsenal. A two-part story in the Washington Post on April 20 and 21 revealed that biological agents developed by the South African government during its apartheid days have fallen into private hands. Written by Post reporters Joby Warrick and John Mintz, the piece noted that unique, race-specific strains of biotoxins were available on the world market -- for the right price or the right ideology. Wouter Basson, the man who directed South Africa's clandestine bioweapons program, "spoke candidly [to federal officials] of global shopping sprees for pathogens and equipment, of plans for epidemics to be sown in black communities and of cigarettes and letters that were laced with anthrax." The Post said Basson "revealed the development of a novel anthrax strain unknown to the U.S. officials, a kind of 'stealth' anthrax that Basson claimed could fool tests used to detect the disease." The top-secret program that Basson directed was called Project Coast, and it lasted from 1981 to 1993. The South African National Defense Force created it at a time when the white-minority regime was under increasing threat by indigenous black South Africans. Daan Goosen, the former director of Project Coast's biological research division, told the Post he was ordered by Basson to develop ways "to suppress population growth among blacks" and to "search for a 'black bomb,' a biological weapon that would select targets based on skin color." Goosen and others involved with Project Coast have insisted, at least publicly, that Basson's orders were never carried out. Researchers who have studied the issue are not so sure. According to a 2002 book by Chandré Gould and Peter Folb, "Project Coast: Apartheid's Chemical and Biological Weapons Programme," there has never been any serious outside scrutiny of the project's products and "no records are available to confirm that the biological agents were destroyed." The Washington Post even noted, "Goosen says many scientists kept copies of organisms and documents in order to continue work on 'dual-use' projects with commercial as well as military applications." A May 2002 story on Project Coast in the Wall Street Journal reported that Goosen said he has been "visited by scores of people looking for 'stuff to kill the blacks.'" Race-specific weapons naturally are in hot demand among racists, so it's no surprise that South Africa's race-specific research is highly coveted. In January 1999, the British Medical Association (BMA) began warning the world of the dangers of ethnic weapons. Although the report, "Biotechnology, Weapons and Humanity," made no direct charge, it said the BMA could no longer ignore the varied reports that such weapons were currently being developed. The report concluded: "Weapons could theoretically be developed which affect particular versions of genes clustered in specific ethnic or family groups." The possibilities of producing such weapons have been enhanced with the 2002 completion of the Human Genome Project. The 1999 BMA study was provoked in part by a 1998 story in the London Sunday Times alleging that Israel already had developed a genetically specific weapon. "Unnamed South African sources," according to a report cited by the Times, "[say] Israeli scientists have used some of the South African research in trying to develop an 'ethnic bullet' against Arabs." Reported links between Israel's ethnic weapons and South Africa's Project Coast are tentative; some would say tenuous. But the possibility of such links is terrifying, and justifies as much scrutiny as was focused on Iraq's imaginary arsenal. It also appears that the anthrax incidents of 2001, in which five people died and 13 were sickened, may also have a South African connection. The Post noted that officials found evidence in a Frederick, Maryland, pond that may explain how the perpetrators of the deadly attacks used water to handle the lethal toxin without infecting themselves or loosing the anthrax spores. On May 11, the Post said the water theory is the result of the FBI's interest in one person, Steven J. Hatfill, a medical doctor and bioterrorism expert who formerly worked for the U.S. Army, and who lists South African diplomas in diving and underwater medicine on his résumé. A June 2002 article in the Hartford Courant reported that Hatfill also worked with a guerilla unit of the white-supremacist Rhodesian army from 1978 to 1980, when "an anthrax outbreak killed hundreds and sickened thousands of villagers." He also lived in South Africa, "where he completed various military-medical assignments." Hatfill's connections to South African and Rhodesian apartheid are much more apparent than his alleged link to the anthrax mailings. But the legacy of Project Coast blurs that distinction considerably. Salim Muwakkil is a senior editor of In These Times, where he has worked since 1983, and a weekly oped columnist for the Chicago Tribune. Analysis of the Anthrax Attacks Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, Federation of American Scientists I. II. III. IV. V. VI. VII. VIII. IX. LA Times Op-Ed, 22 September, 2002 Letter and Victim Chronology, Updated 29 August, 2002 Statement by Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, 11 August 2002 Commentary 5 February 2002: Is the FBI Dragging Its Feet? Letter Chronology, Updated 31 January 2002 Notes on the Letters, 31 January 2002 Analysis of the Attacks, 17-31 January 2002 Appendix: Laboratories That Have Worked with the Ames Strain of Anthrax Ancillary Materials 1. FBI Letter to ASM Members, 29 January 02 2. White House Press Briefing, 25 February 02 (note: an archive of anthrax related news articles can be found here.) I. LA Times Op-Ed Anthrax Attacks Pushed Open an Ominous Door By Barbara Hatch Rosenberg 22 September, 2002 PURCHASE, N.Y. -- On this first anniversary of the anthrax attacks, a number of conclusions can be drawn even without an arrest by the FBI. First, the strain and properties of the weaponized anthrax found in the letters show that it originated within the U.S. biodefense program, where the necessary expertise and access are found. Government officials recognized that the anthrax source was domestic less than two weeks after they learned of the letters, and nothing in their investigation has led them to say otherwise since. One can also conclude that, given the origin of the anthrax and the warnings contained in the letters, the perpetrator's motive was not to kill but rather to raise public fear and thereby spur Congress to increase spending on biodefense. In this, the attacks have been phenomenally successful. Paradoxically, however, by breaking the taboo on using biological weapons, the attacks have engendered a threat that could dwarf September 11. Modes of successful attack and public responses have now been demonstrated for the instruction of future terrorists. What's more, it seems to have been easy to hide incriminating evidence, and, after a whole year of FBI bumbling, it looks likely that the attacker will get away with the crime. Although the death toll was relatively low, the strikes crippled business, government and postal services. Contamination in buildings has proved difficult, costly and time-consuming to remove, with some facilities still not restored; the public health system was strained beyond capacity. Although biodefense has gotten a shot in the arm, it is important to understand that the goal of defending against bioweapons is not primarily public protection--which is largely impossible, as last year's attacks demonstrated. It is rather "to allow the military forces of the United States to survive and successfully complete their operational missions ... in battlespace environments contaminated with chemical or biological warfare agents," according to the annual report of the Department of Defense's Chemical and Biological Defense Program. Biological weapons are preeminently anti-population weapons. But it would be impossible to provide the entire country with protective suits, masks, detectors, shelters, training and vaccinations against the large and growing array of potential agents. In any event, vaccinations can have serious side effects and can be overcome if the dose of the pathogenic agent is large or if the agent has been engineered to evade the vaccine. Instead of protection, the civil defense response is entirely concerned with limiting the damage should an attack occur. There are also paradoxes here. Because of the rush to "do something," large amounts of government money are being thrown, without sufficient forethought, at research involving potential biological weapons agents. Scientists go where the money is, and we're now seeing a crowd of biologists lacking in relevant experience trooping to the trough. The number of research laboratories and personnel handling dangerous pathogens is about to mushroom, making oversight and adequate safety and security control much more difficult to impose--particularly with the increased emphasis on secrecy. Ultimately, the very problem that made the anthrax attacks possible will be magnified. One can confidently expect the U.S. to squander resources that could far better be used to extend the modest improvements being made in the public health system. Natural outbreaks of disease, including rapidly emerging new diseases for which we are unprepared, are a far more likely hazard for most people. Improving the public health system's ability to respond would help combat these diseases as well as biological attacks. The anthrax probe has disclosed an astounding degree of irresponsibility and lack of security at Ft. Detrick, Md., home to the nation's premier existing biodefense laboratory. The problems stretch back for decades and extend beyond the anthrax attacks. In spite of a security crackdown there following the attacks, two incidents have occurred this year at Ft. Detrick in which spores escaped from a highcontainment laboratory and were found in hallways, offices and locker rooms. One case was recognized only when an unauthorized employee took swabs outside the laboratory to check for anthrax contamination--something no one had thought of doing there before. The anthrax investigation has raised questions about the nature and value of the work at Ft. Detrick and has brought to light the granting of security clearance and free access to highly dangerous biological agents to someone with falsified credentials-very disturbing whether or not he turns out to be the perpetrator of the anthrax attacks. Even more serious concerns have been raised by the discovery of secret biodefense projects that push against the limits of international prohibitions. It was recently revealed that an Army laboratory in Utah has been secretly making weaponized anthrax for some years. Another secret project involved the construction of bomblets designed for dispersion of biological agents, although the Biological Weapons Convention explicitly prohibits developing, producing or possessing "means of delivery designed to use such agents or toxins for hostile purposes." Such projects have raised suspicions abroad that the U.S. continues to develop biological weapons-suspicions that, even if not true, are likely to spur a new biological arms race. Experts agree that a significant bioterror attack today would require the support of a national program to succeed. But for two years now, the U.S. has opposed every international effort to monitor the ban on the development and possession of biological weapons by states or to strengthen the toothless Biological Weapons Convention in any way. The anthrax attacks have not altered that stance. Two weeks ago, I attended an informal meeting in Geneva where diplomats from six continents struggled in the face of U.S. intransigence to map out a joint strategy for combating the global biological threat. The United States had demanded that a formal Biological Weapons Convention conference, scheduled to take place during two weeks in November, should instead disband in one day with only an agreement not to meet again until 2006. To make sure that the American resolve prevails in this setting where international consensus is de rigueur, the U.S. demand was accompanied by an overt threat to disrupt any further proceedings with accusations that would make productive international action impossible. At that Geneva meeting, the assembled diplomats, representing the political spectrum from our closest allies to declared enemies, were uniformly frustrated. They find it hard to comprehend why a country that has just been the victim of bioterrorism should stand in the way of peaceful efforts supported by all its allies to deter bioterrorism. It is surprising how quickly public terror in response to the anthrax attacks turned to public indifference. But the story isn't over. The likelihood of bioterrorism is increasing, and the American public is still the preferred target. Government decisions will be critical in determining the sequel. The preservation of public health and safety, like freedom, will now require public vigilance. II. Letter and Victim Chronology Updated 29 August, 2002 Sept. 18, 2001 Sept. 20 Sept. 21 Sept. 19-25 Sept. 25 Mailing of anthrax letters to NBC and NY Post and probably to the National Enquirer. Trenton St. Mailing of hoax letters to NBC and probably to NY Post [and National Petersburg Enquirer?] place? NYC NYC Mailing of accusatory letter to Quantico Marine Base accusing Dr. Asaad, former USAMRIID scientist, as terrorist. NBC received and opened ANTHRAX letter (brown granular sandy); not recognized as dangerous, and not reported by media. NBC received and opened HOAX letter postmarked 20 Sept; notified FBI but incident not reported by media. Washington Times article quoting SH (reprint from 11 Aug 97). Stevens (AMI) checked into hospital, near death, undiagnosed. First report of anthrax case, 5pm (Stevens, AMI). Death of first anthrax victim (Stevens, inhalation anthrax). Mailing of hoax letters hoax letters to J. Miller at NY Times and H. Oct. 1 DC Oct. 2 Oct. 4 Oct. 5 Boca Raton Boca Raton Boca Raton Oct. 5 St. Petersburg Troxler at St. Petersburg Times. Oct. 5US media 8 Oct. 6- Boca 7 Raton Oct. 8 Boca Raton Suspicion of possible bioterrorism is increasing but mail not implicated. At AMI, spores found in 2nd worker and on Stevens' computer keyboard. 2nd worker (Blanco, mailroom worker) at AMI sick, nasal spores detected; FBI takes over investigation, seals AMI office. Blanco later confirmed to have inhalation anthrax. Looks like bioterrorism (letters not yet recognized as source). Oct. 9 US media Oct. 9 St. Troxler (St. P Times) opened hoax letter. Petersburg Mailing of anthrax letters to Daschle and Leahy. 3rd AMI worker (2nd in mailroom) tests positive for anthrax. FBI now conducting criminal investigation. Anthrax strain appears to be Ames. First suspicion that source of anthrax at AMI might be a letter (not found), since two of those affected work in mailroom. Miller at NYT opened hoax letter. First reports of any anthrax of hoax letters to media. NBC cutaneous anthrax case reported (Brokaw's Assistant). First symptom was 25 Sept. NBC anthrax letter and hoax letter first reported. (FBI had ignored NBC hoax letter, opened 25 Sept., until anthrax diagnosed on 12 Oct.) Brokaw's Assistant now recalls seeing a second letter, weeks earlier, containing a brown, granular substance, most of which was discarded but letter retained. At least 6 workers at AMI have tested positive for anthrax and are on antibiotics. Copycat hoax letters now appearing. Daschle's office opened anthrax letter. Infant who was at ABC office on 28 Sept. has cutaneous anthrax. No further evidence at ABC, suggests case due to cross-contamination of mail. Two postal workers report possible symptoms; by 20 Oct both diagnosed with inhalation anthrax. NY Post anthrax employee diagnosed with cutaneous anthrax (symptoms started 22 Sept); letter with anthrax found unopened in mailroom. Boca Raton US media NYC US media NYC Oct. 9 Trenton Oct. 10 Oct. 10-12 Oct. 12 Oct. 12-13 Oct. 12 Oct. 13 Oct. 13 Oct. 14 ff Oct. 15 Oct. 16 Oct. 16 Oct. 19 NYC Boca Raton US media DC NYC Trenton NYC Employee remembers opening a similarly-addressed (hoax) letter earlier. Oct. 20 Oct. 21 Oct. 24 ff Oct. 31 US Media DC US media NYC First mention that source of anthrax letters is probably domestic. Several DC postal workers may have anthrax. By 25 Oct, two DC postal workers were dead and two more ill, as well as a State Dept. mail processer, all with inhalation anthrax. Increasing concentration on domestic source for letters. Dead from inhalation anthrax: Kathy Nguyen, hospital worker. No source found; presumed cross-contamination of mail, although clinical observations suggest a large initial dose. FBI released profile of sender of anthrax letters, implying the source is domestic. Mailing of hoax letter to Daschle office in Capitol. Anthrax letter to Leahy found unopened in bag of Congressional mail held without distribution since Daschle letter received. Connecticut woman dies of inhalation anthrax; source probably crosscontamination of mail. Daschle's Capitol office opened hoax letter (delay in receipt due to irradiation of Capitol mail). Nov. 9 US Media Nov. 15 Nov. 16 Nov. 16 Jan. 03, 2002 UK DC CT DC III. Statement by Barbara Hatch Rosenberg 11 August 2002 I have never mentioned any names in connection with the anthrax investigation, not to the FBI, nor to media, nor to Senate Committees or staffs, not to anyone. I have never said or written anything publicly that pointed only to one specific person. Anyone who sees parallels is expressing his own opinion. It is the FBI that has gone out of its way to make one suspect's name public. I presume they must have had some good reason for doing that; only time will tell. But if the publicity was not an important part of their investigative strategy, I think it was reprehensible. Barbara Hatch Rosenberg IV. Commentary: Is the FBI Dragging Its Feet? February 5, 2002 For more than three months now the FBI has known that the perpetrator of the anthrax attacks is American. This conclusion must have been based on the perpetrator's evident connection to the US biodefense program. In addition to this signpost, the perpetrator has left multiple, blatant clues, seemingly on purpose: second letters, addressed similarly to the anthrax letters and containing powder, sent to most (and possibly all) the anthrax recipients; similar letters sent to several other media organizations; even a letter, addressed to the Military Police at the Quantico Marine Base, accusing a former USAMRIID scientist (with whom the anonymous writer says he once worked) of having bioterrorist intentions. Almost all the letters were mailed before there were any reports of anthrax letters or of hoax letters sent to media (see "Analysis of the Anthrax Attacks" below for a chronology and discussion of the available data). The postal addresses and dates of these letters map out an itinerary of the perpetrator(s) and indicate certain connections, which taken together must single out the perpetrator from the other likely suspects. This evidence permits a more refined estimate of the perpetrator's motives. He must be angry at some biodefense agency or component, and he is driven to demonstrate, in a spectacular way, his capabilities and the government's inability to respond. He is cocksure that he can get away with it. Does he know something that he believes to be sufficiently damaging to the United States to make him untouchable by the FBI? The perpetrator is surely too smart to believe that either the FBI's ludicrous recent actions or the White House protestations of ignorance mean that the authorities are not on to him. Blanketing Central New Jersey with fliers showing handwriting that was obviously disguised can't possibly evoke useful information, nor can letters to 32,000 American microbiologists, 31,800 of whom live in a different world from the perpetrator. This is no way to instill public confidence in the competence of the FBI. The press is increasingly questioning the situation, and other scientists have independently raised similar issues (see, for example, "In Search of the Anthrax Attacker" http://www.redflagsweekly.com/nassanthrax3.html). Most importantly, the apparent lack of action is sending a dangerous message to potential bioterrorists. V. Letter Chronology Updated January, 31 2002 Four letters with anthrax have been found, and a fifth (to AMI) was apparently discarded after opening. In addition, at least three of the five anthrax recipients also received "hoax" letters containing an innocuous powder; and several different media offices received similar hoax letters. Some of the hoax letters were mailed BEFORE the first anthrax case (in Florida) was reported, and all but one hoax letter were mailed BEFORE there were any reports of anthrax letters or hoax letters. Therefore the hoax letters targeting media are not simply a copycat phenomenon. The envelopes on most or all of the hoax letters were addressed in block capitals similar to the addresses on the anthrax envielopes, even though they were mailed before the anthrax envelopes became known. A photograph of one hoax letter (to St. Petersburg Times) has been published, and descriptions or comparisons of others have been reported. If analysis confirms that the hoax letters were sent by the anthrax perpetrator, their postmarks will indicate his itinerary (or the assistance of an accomplice)-see chronology below. At least three hoax letters, known to have been mailed from St. Petersburg, are similar in many ways to each other and to the anthrax letters: addresses written in similar block capitals, tone of letters, unconvincing misspellings. Were the enclosed letters also xeroxed? no fingerprints? stamps not licked? Are the other hoax letters similar? Furthermore, an anonymous letter accusing a former USAMRIID scientist of plotting terrorism was sent to police BEFORE any anthrax letters or disease were reported. The letter contains evidence that the anonymous writer had probably worked at USAMRIID. This letter may also come from the anthrax perpetrator. s Your Ad Here DATE LOCATION EVENT Mailed anthrax letters to NBC and NY Post (and probably to National Enquirer). NBC received & opened anthrax letter (brown granular sandy); not recognized as dangerous. NBC received & opened hoax letter. Mailed letter to Quantico Marine Base accusing Dr. Asaad, former USAMRIID scientist, of being a terrorist. First report of anthrax case (in Florida). Death of first anthrax victim (in Florida) St. Petersburg Mailed hoax letters to J. Miller at NY Times and H. Troxler at St. Petersburg Times. Mailed hoax letters to CBS (DC), Fox News and possibly to NY Post** Troxler (St. Petersburg Times) opened hoax letter. Trenton Mailed anthrax letters to Daschle and Leahy. Miller at NYT opened hoax letter. First reports of any letters to media. Sept. 18, Trenton 2001 Sept. 20 Sept. 1925 Sept. 25 late Sept. place? Oct. 4 Oct. 5 Oct. 5 St. Petersburg Mailed hoax letter to NBC and possibly to NY Post** [& Natl. Enq.?] Oct. ~5-9 place? Oct. 9 Oct. 9 Oct. 12 Oct. 1213 Oct. 13 Oct. 13 Oct. 8-13 Oct. 15 Oct. 19 late Nov. UK Jan. 03, 2002 NBC anthrax case and both suspicious letters first reported. (FBI had previously overlooked events at NBC.) CBS News (D.C.) received envelope with powder visible on outside. Fox News received hoax letter. Daschle's Hart office opened anthrax letter. NY Post anthrax case diagnosed and letter with anthrax found unopened in mailroom. Employee remembers opening a similarlyaddressed (hoax) letter**, earlier. Mailed hoax letter to Daschle office in Capitol. Daschle's Capitol office opened hoax letter (delay in receipt due to irradiation of Capitol mail). VI. Notes on the Letters January 31, 2002 1. Florida anthrax letter: postal traces show that a letter containing anthrax must have been sent to the National Enquirer at its previous address, then forwarded to the AMI office. This indicates that the perpetrator was not familiar with AMI and the Natl. Enquirer. 2. Florida hoax letter?: Possibly a hoax letter was discarded without notice, as the anthrax letter was. In addition, on approximately 4 Sept. AMI received a fan letter containing powder and a star of David, addressed to actress Jennifer Lopez c/o The Sun (one of the AMI tabloids). Because the anthrax letter was evidently addressed to the National Enquirer, not The Sun, the Sun letter is probably irrelevant. 3. Hoax letter to NY Post: was received and thrown out sometime before 19 Oct. It was addressed to the Editor in block capitals, similar to the anthrax letter received by the NY Post. The NY Post hoax letter could have been mailed on 5 Oct. from St. Petersburg, along with the hoax letters to the NY Times and St. Petersburg Times, or it could have been mailed earlier (eg, on 20 Sept., when the hoax letter was mailed to NBC). The anthrax letters to NBC and the NY Post had been mailed at the same time (18 Sept) and it is possible that the perpetrator mailed hoax letters on 20 Sept to all of those previously sent anthrax. 4. Hoax letter to NBC: letter contained talcum and was mailed from St. P on 20 Sept., two days after the anthrax letter was mailed to NBC from Trenton. Both letters contained threats to Israel. 5. Hoax letters to Judith Miller at the NY Times and Howard Troxler at the St. Petersburg Times: these were mailed on 5 Oct. from St. Petersburg and were similar in appearance and content to the NBC hoax letter mailed from St. P on 20 Sept. but not yet reported. The NY Times and St. P Times letters were in stamped, plain envelopes with no return address. A photo of the St. P. envelope was published in the St. P Times, showing great similarity to the printing on the anthrax letters (which had not yet been reported-in two cases-or mailed-in the other two cases). The NY Times letter contained talcum and threatened the Sears Tower in Chicago and President Bush. The St P Times letter contained what looked like sugar or salt and said "Howard Toxler...1st case of disease now blow away this dust so you can see how the real thing flys. Oklahoma-Ryder Truck! Skyway bridge-18 wheels." 6. Hoax letters to CBS News in Washington, DC and to Fox News: were received on or shortly before 13 Oct. No further information has been reported. They could have been mailed from St. Petersburg on 5 Oct., along with the NY Times and St. P Times letters; or from a place between St. Petersburg and Trenton between 5-9 Oct. Oct. On 12 Oct. an FBI official said they were investigating multiple mailed envelopes from St. Petersburg. The St. Petersburg Police Chief would not comment on whether that included other letters in addition to those sent NBC, NY Times and St. P Times. 7. Hoax letter to Senator Daschle: was received and opened by Sen. Daschle's office in the Capitol on 3 Jan. 02, after a delay for irradiation. The letter was mailed from the UK. The envelope contained a powder and a threatening letter unlike those that were mailed with anthrax, according to the FBI. This letter was mailed much later than the others, sometime in late Nov., a month after the other hoax letters and the anthrax letters had been reported. Whether the letter was addressed in block printing, like the anthrax letters, has not been revealed. 8. Anonymous letter of accusation: contained a long, typed letter with good command of English language, displaying considerable knowledge of Dr. Assaad, his work at USAMRIID and his personal life and accusing Assaad of planning terrorism. The letter was shown by the FBI to Assaad and his lawyer. The FBI subsequently exhonorated Assaad. The letter, sent to the Marine base at Quantico, VA., asserts that the accuser formerly worked with Assaad. It was sent before any cases of anthrax were discovered. VII. Analysis of the Source of the Anthrax Attacks January 17-31, 2002 1. The Present Situation  The FBI has surely known for several months that the anthrax attack was an inside job. A government estimate for the number of scientists involved in the US anthrax program over the last five years is 200 people. According to a former defense scientist the number of defense scientists with hands-on anthrax experience and the necessary access is smaller, under 50. The FBI has received short lists of specific suspects with credible motives from a number of knowledgeable inside sources, and has found or been given clues (beyond those presented below) that could lead to incriminating evidence. By now the FBI must have a good idea of who the perpetrator is. There may be two factors accounting for the lack of public acknowledgement and the paucity of information being released: a fear that embarrassing details might become public, and a need for secrecy in order to acquire sufficient hard evidence to convict the perpetrator. 2. Anthrax Strain  All letter samples contain the same strain of anthrax, corresponding to the AMES strain in the Northern Arizona University database (which has been used for identification). The Ames strain possessed by N. Arizona University is referred to herein as the "reference strain." That strain was obtained by LSU from Porton Down (UK) in 1997 (the sample was marked "10-32" meaning no. 10 of 32 samples sent); Porton had gotten it from Fort Detrick. Fort Detrick got it from Texas A&M (but mistakenly attributed it to the USDA laboratory in Ames, Iowa) in 1981. Earlier anthrax isolates from Ames, Iowa have caused some confusion but they are no longer relevant to the situation, thanks to recent genetic analyses (see below).  Contrary to early speculation, there are no more than about 20 laboratories known to have the Ames strain. The names of 15 of these have been found in the open literature (see Appendix). Of these, probably only about four in the US might possibly have the capability for weaponizing anthrax. Those four include both US military laboratories and a government contractor. Genetic analysis performed at Northern Arizona University on Ames strain samples from Fort Detrick (USAMRIID), Dugway Proving Ground, the UK defense establishment at Porton, Louisiana State University and Northern Arizona University has shown that all of these laboratories possess identical anthrax stocks that match the letter anthrax perfectly (in the limited analyses that have been done). All these stocks were originally derived from Fort Detrick's 1980 Ames strain. USAMRIID acknowledges that it also provided Ames to the Canadian defense establishment at Suffield, the University of New Mexico, and Battelle Memorial Institute (a large contracting organization with laboratories and personnel in many locations including military laboratories). Excluding the three academic institutions, two of which are intimately involved in the investigation, and the two foreign defense laboratories, places the focus on USAMRIID, Dugway and Battelle as the source of the Ames strain for the letters. The complete sequence has been determined for the genomes of both the anthrax used in the Florida attack and the Ames reference strain to which it corresponds. This work was done under government contract by the Institute for Genetic Research, a private non-profit organization. The results have not been made public but they are in government hands and there has been no retraction of the oft-repeated official statement that the letter anthrax matches the Ames reference strain. Analysis of trace contaminants in the letter anthrax has probably been carried out but not reported. The results could indicate whether the anthrax was grown in liquid medium (and what kind of medium), or on petri dishes; the latter would     likely rule out large-scale preparation. It has been estimated that the perpetrator used a total of about 10g in the letters. 3. Anthrax Weaponization  "Weaponization" is used here to mean preparation of the form of anthrax found in the Daschle letter: fine particles, very narrow size range, treated to eliminate static charge so it won't clump and will float in the air. The weaponization process used was extraordinarily effective. The particles have a narrow size range (1.5-3 microns diameter), typical of the optimal US process.  The extraordinary concentration (one trillion spores per gram) and purity of the letter anthrax is believed to be characteristic of material made by the optimal US process. The optimal US weaponization process is secret-Bill Patrick, its inventor, holds five secret patents on the process and says it involves a combination of chemicals . There is no evidence that any other country possesses the formula. Under the microscope, the letter anthrax appears to be unmilled. Milled anthrax spores are identifiable because they contain debris. The optimal US process does not use milling. The Daschle sample contains a special form of silica used in the US process. It does not contain bentonite (used by the Iraqis). A "coating" on the spores in the letter sample, indicative of the secret US process, has been observed. The Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Washington, DC has studied the sample using an energy dispersive X-ray specroscope, which can detect the presence of extremely tiny quantities of chemicals; traces of several chemicals have been found (but not reported, presumably for security reasons). All the letters probably contained the same material. The clumping of the anthrax in the two letters mailed on Sept 18 (to NBC and the NY Post) probably resulted from the letters getting wet in the course of mail processing or delivery, according to Army scientists. This conclusion is strengthened by the similarity of the Florida anthrax (the first to be observed, probably also mailed on Sept 18) to that in the Daschle letter, mailed Oct 9. The letter anthrax was made after 1980 (when the Ames strain used was obtained) using a process similar to the secret, optimal US process. If the anthrax was weaponized by the perpetrator himself, there may be some differences from anthrax weaponized by the government, depending on the availability of materials to the perpetrator and the conditions of preparation.        4. Other Clues  Scientists formerly at USAMRIID say that it would have been easy for a scientist working with anthrax to remove a sample of the Ames strain from the lab. Only a miniscule amount would be needed, and security has been lax. On the other hand, experts believe that it would be extremely difficult to steal 10g of weaponized anthrax from a government lab. Thus, the perpetrator very likely grew and weaponized the letter anthrax himself. There was only one week between Sept 11 and Sept 18, when the first two letters (and probably another letter, never found, to AMI) were postmarked. This suggests that the anthrax was already in hand, and the attack largely planned, before Sept 11. A classified report dated February, 1999 discusses responses to an anthrax attack through the mail. The report, precipitated by a series of false anthrax mailings, was written by William Patrick, inventor of the US weaponization process, under a CIA contract to SAIC. The report describes what the US military could do and what a terrorist might be able to achieve. According to the NY Times (12 Dec. 01) the report predicted about 2.5g of anthrax per envelope (the Daschle letter contained 2g) and assumed a poorer quality of anthrax than that found in the Daschle letter. If the perpetrator had access to the materials and information necessary for the attack, he must have had security clearance or other means for accessing classified information, and may therefore have seen the report and used it as a model for the attack. An anonymous letter was sent to police, apparently in September, accusing an Egyptian-born American scientist who had been laid off by USAMRIID of being a terrorist. The FBI questioned and released the accused scientist as innocent. Details of the letter have not been released. Could this letter have been sent by the perpetrator (who would likely have known about the USAMRIID lay-offs) to cover his traces? The perpetrator did not aim to kill but to create public fear. The letters warned of anthrax or the need to take antibiotics, making it possible for those who handled the letters to protect themselves; and it is unlikely that the perpetrator would have anticipated that the rough treatment of mail in letter sorters, etc, would force anthrax spores through the pores of the envelopes (which were taped to keep the anthrax inside) and infect postal workers and others. The perpetrator was probably ready before Sept. 11 and simply took advantage of the likelihood that Sept. 11 would throw suspicion on Muslim terrorists. Was the perpetrator trying to push the US toward some retaliatory military action? The perpetrator must have realized in advance that the anthrax attack would result in the strengthening of US defense and response capabilities. This is not likely to have been a goal of anti-American terrorists, who would also be unlikely to warn the victims in advance. Perhaps the perpetrator stood to gain in some way from        increased funding and recognition for biodefense programs. Financial beneficiaries would include the BioPort Corp., the source of the US anthrax vaccine, and other potential vaccine contractors.  Expert analysts for the FBI believe that the letters were written by a Westerner, not a Middle Easterner or Muslim, although the text was clearly intended to imply the latter. The choice of a variety of media as targets seems to have been cleverly designed to ensure a broad spectrum of publicity about the attacks. The choice of Senators Daschle and Leahy suggests that the perpetrator may lean to the political right and may have some specific grudge against those Senators. The perpetrator successfully covered every personal trace when he prepared and mailed the letters, which suggests that he had forensic training or experience. Even if the perpetrator did not make the anthrax himself, just filling the letters with it was a dangerous operation. The perpetrator therefore must have received the anthrax vaccine recently (it requires a yearly booster shot). The vaccine is in short supply and is not generally accessible, and vaccination records are undoubtedly available. The perpetrator also appears to have special expertise in evading contamination while handling weaponized anthrax.    5. Government Statements, Actions and Chronology  On 13 Jan. 02 Homeland Security Director Thomas Ridge said "the primary direction of the investigation is turned inward" toward domestic terrorists.  On 2 Dec. 01 a law enforcement official close to the federal investigation called the concept of a government insider, or someone in contact with an insider, "the most likely hypothesis…it's definitely reasonable." Another American official was quoted in the same article saying that, in addition to military laboratories, "there are other government and contractor facilities that do classified work with access to dangerous strains, but it's highly likely that the material in the anthrax letters came from a person or persons who really had great expertise. We haven't seen any other artifacts that point us elsewhere." Secret or questionable biodefense projects tend to be given to the CIA, DOE or other agencies and contractors instead of to DOD, in order to maintain deniability (for example, only DOD programs have been reported by the US in the annual information exchange about biodefense activities, under the Biological Weapons Convention). Many contractor scientists work in government labs. A CIA spokesman says that CIA scientists work with other government agencies and contractors on the biodefense program. Chronology: Analytical data on the anthrax in the letters became available to investigators in late October, 2001. The FBI then began questioning former government scientists. On 31 Oct. it was reported that the US rejected a UN resolution offered by France to condemn the anthrax attack, on the grounds that it   could have been domestic terrorism. On 9 Nov. the FBI released a profile of the perpetrator as a lone, male domestic terrorist, obviously one with a scientific background and laboratory experience who could handle hazardous materials. In early Dec. the FBI said it was investigating government and contractor labs possessing the Ames strain, and individuals who had access to them. On 16 Dec. the FBI said it was focusing on a contractor that worked with the CIA. At about the same time the FBI said it was interested in non-military individuals who had received the anthrax vaccine.  John Bolton, Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, said on 19 Nov. that "We don't know…at the moment, in a way that we could make public, where the anthrax attacks came from." Senate Majority Leader Thomas Daschle, recipient of one of the anthrax letters and in frequent contact with investigators, said on 8 Dec. that the perpetrator was probably someone with a military background. Ari Fleischer, the White House spokesman, said on 17 Dec. that it is increasingly "looking like it was a domestic source." After a series of uncontrolled statements to the media, relevant experts have been asked to keep quiet and, in some cases, appear to have been asked to "correct" former statements.  6. Possible Portrait of the Anthrax Perpetrator  Insider in US biodefense, doctoral degree in a relevant branch of biology  Middle-aged American  Experienced and skilled in working with hazardous pathogens, including anthrax, and avoiding contamination  Works for a CIA contractor in Washington, DC area  Has up-to-date vaccination with anthrax vaccine  Has clearance for access to classified information  Worked in USAMRIID laboratory in the past, in some capacity, and has access now  Knows Bill Patrick and has probably learned a thing or two about weaponization from him, informally  Has had training or experience in covering evidence  May have had an UNSCOM connection  Has had a dispute with a government agency  Has a private location where the materials for the attack were accumulated and prepared  Worked on the letters alone or with peripheral encouragement and assistance  Fits FBI profile  Has the necessary expertise, access and a past history indicating appropriate capabilities and temperament  Has been questioned by FBI 7. Comments  A recent report by the Congressional General Accounting Office, as well as many recent statements by military and non-governmental experts in the BW field, holds that terrorists are unlikely to be able to mount a major biological attack without substantial assistance from a government sponsor. The recent anthrax attack was a minor one but nonetheless we now see that it was made possible by a sophisticated government program. It is reassuring to know that it was probably not perpetrated by a lone terrorist without state support.  It is not reassuring, however, to discover that secret US programs may have been the source of that support, and that security is so dangerously lax in military or defense contractor laboratories. US government insistence on pursuing and maintaining the secrecy of elaborate biological threat assessment activities is undermining the prohibitions of the Biological Weapons Convention and encouraging biological weapons proliferation in other countries, which in turn may support bioterrorist attacks on the American public. Future deterrence, and the peace of mind of the American people, require that the perpetrator must be publicly identified and brought to justice without delay. VIII. Appendix LABORATORIES THAT HAVE WORKED WITH THE AMES STRAIN OF ANTHRAX (Information obtained from open sources) 1. USAMRID # + 2. Dugway Proving Ground (Utah) # * + 3. Naval Research Medical Center/Armed Forces Institute of Pathology and other associated military labs (MD) # 4. Battelle Memorial Institute (Ohio; plus laboratories in many other locations) # * + 5. Duke University Medical School, Clinical Microbiology Lab (NC) 6. VA Medical Center, Durham (NC) 7. USDA laboratory and Iowa State College of Veterinary Medicine, Ames (Iowa) 8. LSU College of Veterinary Medicine * + 9. Northern Arizona State University (Arizona) * + 10. Illinois Institute of Technology Research Institute (IL) 11. University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center, Albuquerque (NM) * + 12. Chemical and Biological Defense Establishment, Porton Down (UK) * + 13. CAMR, Porton (UK) * 14. Defense Research Establishment, Suffield (CA) * + 15. BioPort Corp (MI) In addition, CDC, NIH, Los Alamos and a few others may have the Ames strain; the Institute for Genomic Research (MD) says they have the Ames DNA but not the bacteria. # indicates laboratories in the US that are estimated to be more likely than the others to have weaponization capabilities * Obtained through a FOIA request by the Washington Post (article Nov 30, 01) + indicates acknowledged recipients of the Ames strain from USAMRIID IX. Ancillary Materials From Other Sources Particularly relevant quotations are bold-faced. 1. FBI Letter to Members of the American Society for Microbiology January 29, 2002 FROM: Van Harp, Assistant Director, Washington Field Office Federal Bureau of Investigation On September 18, 2001, two copies of an identical letter were mailed in separate envelopes from Trenton, NJ, one to "Editor, New York Post" and the other to "Tom Brokaw, NBC TV." Each letter contained a significant quantity of the bacterium Bacillus anthracis. On October 9, 2001, two additional copies of a slightly different letter were mailed from Trenton, NJ, the first to "Senator (Tom) Daschle" and the second to "Senator (Patrick) Leahy." Each of these letters again contained Bacillus anthracis but of a better quality than the letters mailed to New York. As a result of these mailings and the resulting bacterial infections, there are five innocent persons who are dead, including a ninety-four year old Connecticut Woman. Additional cases of cutaneous anthrax have infected numerous individuals including a seven month old baby in New York City. I would like to appeal to the talented men and women of the American Society for Microbiology to assist the FBI in identifying the person who mailed these letters. It is very likely that one or more of you know this individual. A review of the information-to-date in this matter leads investigators to believe that a single person is most likely responsible for these mailings. This person is experienced working in a laboratory. Based on his or her selection of the Ames strain of Bacillus anthracis one would expect that this individual has or had legitimate access to select biological agents at some time. This person has the technical knowledge and/or expertise to produce a highly refined and deadly product. This person has exhibited a clear, rational thought process and appears to be very organized in the production and mailing of these letters. The perpetrator might be described as "stand-offish" and likely prefers to work in isolation as opposed to a group/team setting. It is possible this person used off-hours in a laboratory or may have even established an improvised or concealed facility comprised of sufficient equipment to produce the anthrax. It is important to ensure that all relevant information, no matter how insignificant it may seem, is brought to the attention of the investigators in this case. If you believe that you have information that might assist in the identification of this individual, please contact the FBI via telephone at 1800-CRIME TV (1-800-274-6388) or via email at the following website: Amerithrax @ FBI.gov There is also a $2.5 million reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person(s) responsible in this case. [Note: The ASM cover letter, explaining the FBI request for the mailing, contains the following statement: "The action was criminal and not ideological."] 2. White House Press Briefing by Ari Fleischer February 25, 2002 FBI Probing Several Anthrax Suspects Q Ari, what can the White House say about this report on anthrax, that there's been a suspect for three months? MR. FLEISCHER: I've noted that report and I've done some digging into the topic. I wish it was that easy and that simple right now, but unfortunately, there still are several suspects. There's not as if there's only one. And so the FBI is continuing its investigative efforts. That story, I think, was a little overreaching in saying there's just one. The FBI has not narrowed it down to just one; they are continuing their investigation. Q Well, is it an American, and is it a scientist from Fort Dietrick that is being looked at out of the group that you're saying, possibly? MR. FLEISCHER: All indications are that the source of the anthrax is domestic. And I can't give you any more specific information than that. That's part of what the FBI is actively reviewing. And I just can't go beyond that. Q And on a personal note for the victims, some of the victims who are still alive who suffered from the anthrax have not heard from the Homeland Security Director, have not heard from the President, have not heard from congressional -- like the ones who represent the Brentwood Postal facility. And some say there's insensitivity on the part of the federal government. What do you say about that, for these victims who are still suffering, who still can't read well, who are still going through years of possible rehabilitation after this? MR. FLEISCHER: I would hope that's not the case. Q Well, it is the case. They have not been contacted. MR. FLEISCHER: Well, I think that in all instances that the appropriate health authorities, whether they were federal government or state government or a collaboration of both, have been in touch. Very often, in the case of people who are hospitalized, the federal Centers for Disease Control was intimately involved in all areas involving the anthrax that was -- the anthrax attacks. So it's been a very difficult chapter for all concerned, particularly the families of those who lost their lives in the attack. It was difficult moments for the government. Obviously, anybody who would engage in that type of terrorism through the mail puts people in a position where it becomes very difficult not only for them, but for local communities, for all the people who were affected by all the hoaxes that followed those attacks. But I think the federal government responded as well as it could, given the knowledge the federal government had, as quickly as it could. And if any individuals who were involved had anything more specific where they want to talk to anybody in the federal government, I know the federal government throughout the various agencies would want to respond. ... Q Back on to anthrax for a minute, what's the sense here about the pace of the investigation? MR. FLEISCHER: I think that the experience that we're seen in this investigation is that these things are often very difficult to catch who did something like this. Obviously, the person who did this is very smart, has employed means that are very difficult to track. The block handwriting on the letters was chosen most likely by design, knowing how hard it is to track that type of handwriting. And so the President would like to get this, obviously, resolved as quickly as is possible. The pace of justice is a methodical one. It's very important for them to build a case that will stand up in court, that is thorough, and is conclusive. And that's the effort of the FBI, and the President believes the FBI is doing a good, solid job. Q Does the White House feel the government has a full handle now on the inventories of anthrax at universities, at military facilities? MR. FLEISCHER: To the best of all the information that we have received here, that was never a question. The military laboratories, other laboratories accounted for their anthrax -- the military laboratories accounted for their anthrax, those under federal purview. And so that has not been a question, the best that I've been briefed on that topic. CONTACT: Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, PhD Chair, Federation of American Scientists Working Group on Biological Weapons Professor,SUNY-Purchase barbarar@ purvid.ns.purchase.edu Meet Jerome Hauer, 9/11 Suspect Awaiting Indictment PROJECT ANTHRAX Part 1 Saic - 9/11 Encyclopedia Anthrax Attacks 9-11 Review Anthrax - 9/11 Encyclopedia Stephen Hatfill - 9/11 Encyclopedia Battelle 9/11 Encyclopedia Porton Down - 9/11 Encyclopedia BioPort - 9/11 Encyclopedia Hadron - 9/11 Encyclopedia Jerome Hauer - 9/11 Encyclopedia 7 World Trade Center - 9/11 Anthrax riddle baffles FBI - BBC Alex Constantine Iran Contra and ties to 9/11 September 11 conspiracy new orleans for truth links 9/11 Katherine Smith 9/11 Encyclopedia www.fas.org The Strange Death of American Democracy: Endgame ... 9/11 review search September 11th articles 911review http://911review.org/search.html Salim Muwakkil's Recent Columns In the Chicago Tribune DOUBLE STANDARDS HAUNT AMERICA'S FOREIGN POLICY By Salim Muwakkil. Published: Monday, November 23, 1998 Section: COMMENTARY In the chaotic wake of another canceled threat to bomb the Iraqi people for Saddam Hussein's transgressions, an alarming report emerged that Israel is developing ethnic weapons. This disturbing news was reported in the Nov. 15 edition of the Sunday Times of London, but was thoroughly drowned-out here by the sound of beating war drums and lingering national chatter about the increasingly irrelevant impeachment inquiry. American pundits of varied stripes and persuasions were demanding Hussein's head for blocking UN weapons inspectors. But while we were busy damning Saddam, it appears that Israel, our closest ally in the region, was busy devising fearsome weapons designed to target specific ethnic groups without any scrutiny whatsoever. "In developing their `ethno-bomb,' Israeli scientists are trying to exploit medical advances by identifying distinctive genes carried by some Arabs, then create a genetically modified bacterium or virus," the publication noted, citing Israeli military and western intelligence sources. Written by Uzi Mahnaimi and Marie Colvin, the article explained that Israel's intention is to "use the ability of viruses and certain bacteria to alter the DNA inside their hosts living cells. . . . to engineer deadly micro-organisms that attack only those bearing the distinctive genes." The paper noted that the genetic weapons research has provoked considerable outrage among many Israelis because of its parallels with the eugenic experiments of Dr. Josef Mengele, the Nazi scientist at Auschwitz. It quoted Dedi Zucker, a member of Knesset, the Israeli parliament, who said, "Morally, based on our history, and our tradition and our experience, such a weapon is monstrous and should be denied." The article noted that the ethno-bomb claims were given further credibility by a report in "Foreign Report," a publication of the respected Jane's group, that Israeli scientists used some of "the South African research in trying to develop an `ethnic bullet' . . ." News of this Israeli research is ominous enough, but its connection to apartheid science adds a chilling touch. Mahnaimi and Colvin write, "Dr. Daan Goosen, the head of a South African chemical and biological warfare plant, said his team was ordered in the 1980s to develop a `pigmentation weapon' to target only black people . . . but never managed to develop one." Goosen's comments jibe well with conclusions reached by South Africa's recently concluded Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which heard testimony that Wouter Basson, the director of the country's chemical-biological warfare program, conducted extensive research on weapons that exclusively targeted blacks. Incidentally, the commission's concluding report noted that South Africa's chemical-biological weapons team received considerable assistance from their American counterparts during the apartheid era. And it's easy to see why: Ethno bombs are a dream weapon on a planet so preoccupied with ethnic conflicts. Of course, that's also why such weapons are so remarkably menacing. Earlier this year, Secretary of Defense William Cohen revealed he had received reports of certain countries working to create "certain types of pathogens that would be ethnic-specific." The Sunday Times report noted that a "senior western intelligence source" confirmed that Israel was one of the countries Cohen had in mind. There's no mystery why the story about these weapons has sparked such anger in Israel. Many residents of the Jewish state still have direct memories of the Nazi's deadly obsession with genes. But despite this anger it seems unlikely that the hard-charging, Likud government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will sever such a fruitful (though odious) branch of weapons research. What's more, there's a general consensus that Israel already has developed weapons of mass destruction (including nuclear warheads). Still, it has steadfastly refused to sign the nuclear nonproliferation treaty and bars any international inspections. But seldom is Israel challenged in its defiance of international weapons protocol. Meanwhile, whenever Iraq makes any move to protest the intrusive inspection regime imposed as part of the Gulf War cease-fire in 1991, the U.S. begin rattling sabers. American punditry went into overdrive clamoring for another Iraq attack and seems to be intensely frustrated by President Clinton's recent pullback of the airstrikes. Many of the responses from U.S. commentators embarrassingly resembled adolescent, schoolyard bluster. "Clinton has again proved that he's a wimp, George will observed from the front lines of his word processor," writes columnist Norman Soloman. Often, the paramount U.S. media concerns have been framed in macho terms. Recent news coverage focused on a question that led off a front page New York Times article: "Who blinked?" The coincidence of the ethno-bomb story breaking during another macho mobilization for a high-tech attack on Iraq is eerily emblematic. It reveals starkly the double standard that taints our foreign policy and endangers international peace. Return to Top of Page READY, AIM . . . CLINTON MISFIRES ONCE AGAIN WHEN THE TARGET IS A STEREOTYPE By Salim Muwakkil. Published: Monday, August 31, 1998 Section: COMMENTARY Page: 13 After he authorized the launch of about 75 cruise missiles in illegal attacks in Afghanistan and Sudan, President Clinton declared we're in a new war on terrorism. The U.S. attack reportedly was in response to the terrorist bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. But in this war, an abstraction is our enemy and stereotypes often are used to fill in the blanks. When Clinton announced that the U.S. was targeting terrorism, it's a safe bet that our public mind conjured up images of fiery-eyed "Islamic fundamentalists," rather than our own homegrown terrorists who look like the "boy next door." Such images light our ire and tap into a rich vein of Western antagonism to Islam. In that regard, Osama bin Laden, the bearded and turbaned Saudi exile, seems sent by central casting. Thus, it's likely that few Americans agonized over our blatant violation of international law in alleged retaliation for the embassy bombings. "No state has the right to exact retribution through an armed attack on another country," wrote James C. Hathaway in the Aug. 23 edition of The New York Times. Hathaway, a professor of international law at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and one of the foremost authorities on the subject, added that "even the Security Council of the United Nations can order an attack only in the interest of restoring peace and security, not to punish." But, what red-blooded American cares about such legalistic niceties when the enemy is so despicable and his crime so heinous? Why should we doubt that the targeted sites in Afghanistan and Sudan were anything other than what our intelligence agencies said they were (even if the U.S. has a history of creating false pretexts for military assaults--Gulf of Tonkin resolution in Vietnam, Manuel Noriega's drug dealing in Panama, protecting medical students in Grenada, etc.)? Even black leaders like the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Rep. Danny K. Davis (D-Ill.), who previously have criticized the military's trigger-happy tendencies, solidly back Clinton's cruise missile attacks. The grim toll of more than 240 Africans killed in the embassy bombings undoubtedly helped secure African-American support for America's avenging response. But retaliatory anger is seldom a wise motive for foreign policy--especially when the target is a stereotype. In his address announcing the missile attack, President Clinton sternly warned that this country faced "a long, ongoing struggle between freedom and fanaticism, between the rule of law and terrorism." Therefore, whoever the U.S. fingers as the enemy is a terrorist fanatic, by definition. Demonizing opponents may help rally our xenophobic impulses, but it reveals little about the nature of their grievances. A mature democracy demands informed citizens, not sycophants. When harm is being done in our names we need to know why. We need a better explanation for the double standards used in defining terrorism (targeting innocent civilians). How can we justify a 1996 UNICEF report that noted at least 4,500 children have died every month in Iraq as a consequence of U.S.-backed economic sanctions? Those sanctions have been in effect since 1991; do the math and it adds up to tens of thousands of dead innocent civilians. Isn't that terrorism? We also need to know why discussion of Israeli policy is considered out of bounds in this country? Why is the right-wing government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu being allowed to completely abrogate the 1993 Oslo accords, which painstakingly worked out a formula for Palestinian autonomy and Israeli security? Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who was assassinated by a right-wing zealot in 1995, had done what many thought unthinkable by striking a deal with demonized Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. For the first time in many years, a glimmer of hope for peace flashed in the region. But after Netanyahu's Likud government assumed power in 1996, Israel resumed and accelerated the annexation of land, the demolition of Palestinians' homes, the construction of new settlements and the expansion of others--all of which are actions explicitly forbidden by UN resolutions, as well as by the Oslo agreement. Israel is in defiance of dozens of UN Security Council resolutions, but seldom does the U.S. demand its compliance. Meanwhile, Iraq is threatened with massive bombing if it makes the smallest infraction. "The Arab world is immensely concerned about the fate of the Iraqi people," Gary Sick, a former National Security Council official who was Jimmy Carter's point man on Iran, told In These Times magazine in March. "And the Arab world is very upset right now about the United States and its willingness to use maximum force against an Arab state, at the same time that Israel is flouting all kinds of resolutions and the United States does nothing about it." If the U.S. is serious about combating terrorism, the least we can do is stop committing and condoning it ourselves. Biological Warfare: Genetically-Engineered Weapons Cannot Be Excluded By K.P. Kavanaugh It has long been rumored that modern biological weapons could be designed to attack specific vulnerabilities of particular ethnic groups. Early in the development of the US offensive biological weapons program Colonel Creasey, Chief of Research and Engineering of the US Chemical Corps, suggested that agents may be selected because of known susceptibility of the target population. This shows that the differential susceptibility of different populations to various diseases had been considered at that time and, according to scientists at Defense Advance Research Projects Agency (DARPA), is continuing today. Indeed ethnic-specific biological warfare predated the advent of the biotechnology revolution. Smallpox was almost certainly deliberately used against the Native Americans centuries ago and there are other examples. U.S. and British officials believe an ethnic-specific weapon would be used today if it became available during a severe conflict between two deeply antagonistic groups. Genetics Not Necessarily Involved Nor is it essential to focus on the genetic constitution of a particular group in order to attack it in an ethnic specific way. Vaccination of the attacker against the intended biological agent would give specificity if the target population was not vaccinated. Attacking a particular population with lethal toxins could achieve the same effect. Equally clearly, attacking a principal food source of one side which the other side did not consume (as an example, swine induced diseases are being studied by the US Department of Defense in this area) could produce a specific attack on a designated population. Despite such possibilities, however, most discussion of ethnic-specific weapons has centered on what are termed 'genetically engineered' weapons, which involve the attempt to target genetic differences between ethnic groups. Genetically-engineered weapons are clearly an emotive issue and have long been the subject of vocal claims of wrongdoing and counterclaims of false accusation. Today, warnings are coming not only from the medical community, but also from other specially credible sources. There have been indications, for example, that the US Secretary of Defense is concerned about the possible development of genetic weapons. In June 1997, Jane's Defense Weekly reported that Secretary Cohen "quoted other reports about what he called 'certain types of pathogens that would be ethnic specific so that they could eliminate certain ethnic groups or races.'" Then after a later interview with the Defense Secretary in August 1997, it was stated again in Jane's Defense Weekly that "he also continued to insist that the science community is 'very close' to being able to manufacture 'genetically engineered pathogens that could be ethnically specific'". Early Accounts, Then Silence In accounts during the 1980s of the possible development of genetic weapons, a frequent source of scientific data was a paper by Carl A. Larson, then head of the Department of Human Genetics, University of Lund, Sweden, published in the journal Military Review in November 1970. Larson's paper was mainly concerned with the possible development of a new range of chemical weapons, including incapacitants. Individual differences in response to chemical agents had been known for some time, but Larson reviewed what was known of differences between populations in reaction to drugs and saw the basis of such population differences as genetic. Larson seems to have been pointing to possible future developments rather than near-term practical possibilities. The question is whether, almost 30 years later: have genetically engineered weapons become a practical possibility? There does not appear to have been subsequent detailed open publication by reputable scientists of the application of modern biotechnology to genetically -engineered weapons until the 1990s. Then in 1992 the journal Defense News carried a report which noted a scientist arguing that genetic engineering may enable us to: ...recognize DNA from different people and attach different things that will kill only that group of people...You will be able to determine the difference between blacks and whites and Asians and Jews and Swedes and Finns and develop an agent that will kill only a particular group. Shown this quotation in February, scientists within the DOD confirmed that defensive research was being done specifically in this area. Thus the threat would appear to slide along the spectrum from the merely theoretical through the potentially possible to the patently workable. Such arguments have been set out at greater length in an appendix to the 1993 Stockholm Peace Research Institute's Yearbook. The most pertinent aspect of the appendix entitled, "Benefits and threats of developments in biotechnology and genetic engineering," reads: While modern biotechniques are revolutionizing medicine and agriculture, the possibility exists of their misuse for political ends, for clandestine production and refinement of biological weapons (BW), and for future development of weapons of mass extermination which could be used for genocide. Particular reference is then made to the possible misuse of knowledge gained from the Human Genome Project and knowledge about genetic diversity. The element of critical significance here is contained in the last sub-section of section VI where the question is clearly stated, "Can't genetic weapons be developed?" The answer is that if: investigations provide sufficient data on ethnic genetic differences between population groups, it may be possible to use such data to target suitable micro-organisms to attack known receptor sites for which differences exist at a cell membrane level or even target DNA sequences inside cells by viral vectors... While SIPRI notes that ethnic differences do not match political borders well, and therefore it might be necessary for a user of genetic weapons to take risks with regard to his own population, there can be little doubt that the development of genetically-engineered weapons is a significant risk. While genetic warfare is not, in all probability, a practical possibility today, the Fourth Review Conference of the BTWC, was correct to argue that: It cannot be ruled out that information from such genetic research could be considered for the design of weapons targeted against specific ethnic or racial groups. It would seem to be a mistake to assume that genetically-engineered weapons can never be developed. Unexplained Deaths Due to Possibly Infectious Causes in the United States: Defining the Problem and Designing Surveillance and Laboratory Approaches Download Article Many new infectious diseases have been identified in the United States during the last several decades (1). Among these are AIDS, Legionnaires' disease, toxic-shock syndrome, hepatitis C, and most recently, hantavirus pulmonary syndrome; all caused serious illness and death. In each instance, the disease was recognized through investigation of illness for which no cause had been identified. Retrospective studies of these and other newly recognized infectious diseases often identified cases that occurred before the recognition of the new agent; therefore, a more sensitive detection system may make the earlier recognition of new infectious agents possible. Delays in recognizing new infectious agents have often been substantial. For instance, Legionella pneumophila was established as the cause of Legionnaires' disease in 1976 after an epidemic in Philadelphia, but sporadic cases in 1947 and an outbreak in 1957 were retrospectively identified (2, 3). Similarly, toxic shock syndrome was recognized in late 1979 and early 1980, but retrospective reporting and chart reviews documented cases as early as 1960 (4). HIV was identified in 1983 (5) yet retrospective investigations documented AIDS cases in the late 1970s and possibly as early as 1968 in the United States (6, 7). The difficulty of identifying unknown etiologic agents is part of the reason for delays between the occurrence and recognition of new infectious diseases. Until recently, to identify new infectious agents we relied primarily on culture techniques. For fastidious bacteria such as Legionella sp., and new viruses, such as HIV, which have very specific growth requirements, successful isolation usually required numerous attempts with various culture systems, often extending over years. Advances in molecular techniques, including polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification and other DNA- (and RNA-) based techniques (e.g., representational difference analysis), allow identification and classification of unknown etiologic agents without having to culture them (8-10) and provide clues concerning appropriate conditions for subsequent isolation of the agent in culture (11,12). A more systematic public health approach for the early detection of unknown infectious agents is needed. This need was acknowledged in Addressing Emerging Infectious Diseases Threats: A Prevention Strategy for the United States, a CDC publication about emerging infections (13). CDC has established an emerging infections program (EIP) network to conduct special population-based surveillance projects, develop surveillance methods, pilot and evaluate prevention strategies, and conduct other epidemiologic and laboratory studies. In late 1994, CDC funded four programs based at state health departments and academic institutions in California (Alameda, Contra Costa, Kern, and San Francisco counties), Connecticut, Minnesota, and Oregon. Some projects are conducted at all program sites and others, depending on local interest and expertise, at only one or two sites. Surveillance for unexplained deaths due to possibly infectious causes (UDPIC) for early detection of new infectious diseases is one of the core activities being conducted at all sites. This paper estimates the number of UDPIC at the EIP programs and summarizes the surveillance and laboratory approaches that will be used to identify their cause. This is the first attempt to conduct surveillance for early detection of new infectious diseases in a large U.S. population. To estimate the number of deaths that might be identified in surveillance for UDPIC, we used multiple cause-of-death data for the United States for 1992 from the National Center for Health Statistics (14). The year 1992 was the most recent for which national data were available at the time of this study. The analyses of death records were restricted to the EIP program populations and age group (1-49 years of age) in which surveillance for UDPIC was planned. Multiple causeof-death data listed on the National Center for Health Statistics death record allow for analysis of mortality data based on the different causes (15). The International Classification of Diseases, 9th Revision (ICD-9) was used to define UDPIC (16). We selected 77 codes likely to represent UDPIC when listed on the death record (Table 1) (17). Table 1. Selected codes from Intemational Classification of Diseases, 9th revision (ICD-9) used to identify unexplained deaths due to possibly infectious causes (UDPIC) 007.9 unspecified protozoal intestinal disease 008.5 bacterial enteritis, unspecified 008.8 intestinal infectious due to other organisms: other organism, not classified elsewhere 009.0 infectious colitis, enteritis, and gastroenteritis 009.1 colitis, enteritis, and gastroenteritis of presumed infectious origin 009.2 infectious diarrhea 420.9 other and unspecified acute pericarditis 421.0 acute and subacute bacterial endocarditis 421.9 acute endocarditis, unspecified 785.6 enlargement of lymph nodes 786.0 dyspnea and respiratory abnormalities 792 nonspecific abnormal findings in other body substances 422.9 other and unspecified myocarditis 424.9 endocarditis, valve unspecified 792.0 cerebrospinal fluid 792.1 stool contents 425.4 other primary cardiomyopathies 792.2 semen 009.3 diarrhea of 425.9 secondary cardiomyopathy, presumed unspecified infectious origin 027.9 unspecified zoonotic 446.6 thrombotic bacterial disease microangiopathy 038.9 unspecified 465.0 acute laryngopharyngitis septicemia 041.9 bacterial infection in conditions classified elsewhere and of unspecified site: bacterial infection, unspecified 046.9 unspecified slow virus infection of the central nervous system 047.9 unspecified viral meningitis 465.8 acute upper respiratory infections of multiple or unspecified sites: other multiple sites 792.3 amniotic fluid 792.4 saliva 792.9 other nonspecific abnormal findings in body substances 795 nonspecific abnormal histologic and immunologic findings 465.9 acute upper respiratory 795.3 nonspecific positive infections of multiple or culture findings unspecified sites: unspecified site 466.0 acute bronchitis 795.4 other nonspecific abnormal histologic findings 795.7 other nonspecific immunologic findings 049.9 unspecified 466.1 acute bronchiolitis non-arthropodborne viral diseases of central nervous system 057.9 viral exanthem, 480.9 viral pneumoma, unspecified unspecified 079.9 viral infection in 482.9 bacterial pneumonia, conditions classified unspecified elsewhere and of unspecified site: unspecified viral and chlamydial infection 099.0 venereal disease, 485 bronchopneumonia, unspecified organism unspecified 136.9 other and 486 pneumonia, organism unspecified unspecified infectious and 796.4 other nonspecific abnormal findings: other abnormal clinical findings 798 sudden death, cause unknown 798.1 instantaneous death 798.2 death occurring in less than 24 hours from the onset of symptoms, not parasitic diseases: unspecified infectious and parasitic diseases 283.1 non-autoimmune 511.9 unspecified pleural effusion hemolytic anemias 284.8 other specified 518.4 acute edema of lung, aplastic anemias unspecified 286.6 defibrination syndrome 287.3 primary thrombocytopenia 287.5 thrombocytopenia, unspecified 320.9 meningitis due to unspecified bacterium 322.9 meningitis, unspecified 518.8 other diseases of lung 519.9 unspecified disease of respiratory system 558 other and unspecified noninfectious gastroenteritis and colitis 780.6 pyrexia of unknown origin otherwise explained 798.9 unattended death 799 other ill-defined and unknown causes of morbidity and mortality 799.0 asphyxia 799.1 respiratory failure 799.3 debility, unspecified 799.4 cachexia 782.1 rash and other nonspecific skin eruption 323.9 unspecified cause of 782.7 spontaneous ecchymoses encephalitis 357.0 acute infective 785.5 shock without polyneuritis mention of trauma 799.8 other ill-defined conditions 799.9 other unknown and unspecified cause Analyses for UDPIC were restricted to previously healthy persons 1 to 49 years of age by excluding persons outside this age-group and those who had any of the following ICD-9 codes as an underlying cause of death: 140 to 239.9, neoplasms; 250.0 to 250.9, diabetes mellitus; 279.0 to 279.9, disorders involving the immune mechanism; 295.5, other disease of spleen; 800 to 999.9, injury and poisoning; E800 to E998, supplementary classification of external causes of injury and poisoning. Patients with HIV disease listed anywhere on the death record were also excluded (codes 042, 042.0, 042.1, 042.2, 042.9, 043, 043.0, 043.1, 043.2, 043.3, 043.9, 044, 044.0, 044.9, and 795.8) (18). Deaths meeting the study criteria were identified along with patient age, gender, race (black, white, and other), and autopsy status for the four EIPs (aggregate and by EIP program). To determine rates of UDPIC, we used 1992 census estimates for the four EIP programs (19). In 1992, 744 UDPIC were identified among previously healthy persons 1 to 49 years of age in the four EIP sites. These deaths accounted for 14% of all deaths (n = 5,304) among persons 1 to 49 years of age in hospitals and emergency rooms. Most of the 744 UDPIC occurred among male patients (60%) and whites (72%) (Table 2). Overall rates among blacks were almost four times as high as those among whites (29.5 vs. 7.7 per 100,000). By site, overall rates ranged from 5.6 (in Minnesota) to 14.5 (in California) per 100,000 population. These geographic differences could be accounted for only in part by differences in the proportions of blacks by site. In Minnesota and Oregon the proportions of blacks were 2.8% and 1.9%, respectively, whereas in California and Connecticut the proportions were 14.7% and 12.4%, respectively. Figure 1 shows the age-specific rates of UDPIC for persons 1 to 49 years of age. Persons 1 to 24 years of age accounted for only 19% of deaths, while persons 40 to 49 years of age accounted for 50%. Figure 1. Age-specific rates of unexplained deaths due to possibly infectious causes (UDPIC) among previously health persons 1 to 49 years of age in the four emerging infections program sites, 1992. Of selected ICD-9 codes (Table 1), the six disease classifications (and codes) accounting for the most of the UDPIC are shown in Table 3. A selected ICD-9 code was listed as the underlying cause of death in 253 (34%) of 744 UDPIC. Autopsies were performed in 293 (39%) of the 744 UDPIC. Two approaches for surveillance were proposed as a basis for the EIP project. In the first, clinicians will be asked to report unexplained deaths and serious illnesses from possibly infectious causes. In the second, death certificate databases will be used to select patients with ICD-9 codes likely to represent UDPIC. The first approach allows prospective collection of data and specimens for deaths and serious illnesses. In the second approach, UDPIC will be identified retrospectively through information on death certificates. Table 2. Unexplained deaths due to possibly infectious causes (UDPIC) among previously healthy persons by emerging infection program (EIP) site, 1992 Rate (per 100,000 population aged 1-49 years) Gender No. of UDPIC 316 83 189 156 744 Race EIP site California* Connecticut† Minnesota Oregon Total Overall 14.5 14.2 5.6 7.2 8.9 Female 10.8 10.5 4.8 6.9 7.4 Male 18.5 18.5 6.6 7.7 10.9 Black 34.0 37.9 11.0 21.8 29.5 White 12.2 11.4 5.4 7.0 7.7 Other 8.9 -9.5 7.8 8.7 *Alameda, Contra Costa, and San Francisco counties. †New Haven County. Table 3. Of selected ICD-9 codes, disease classifications accounting for most unexplained deaths due to possibly infectious causes (UDPIC) in the four study sites, 1992 UDPIC with ICD-9 code included on death record by age group (%) Disease classification (ICD-9)* Respiratory failure (799.1) Unspecified septicemia (038.9) Pneumonia, organism unspecified (486) Other primary cardiomyopathy (425.4) Shock without mention of trauma (785.5) Other unknown or unspecified (799.9) Totals† 1-49 yr; n = 744 205 (28) 108 (14) 101 (14) 84 (11) 83 (11) 75 (10) 505 (68) 1-14 yr; n = 75 14 (19) 8 (11) 7 (9) 5 (7) 10 (13) 9 (12) 39 (52) 15-39 yr; n = 295 91 (31) 42 (14) 33 (11) 26 (9) 29 (10) 35 (12) 193 (65) 40-49 yr; n = 374 100 (27) 58 (16) 61 (16) 53 (14) 44 (12) 31 (8) 273 (73) *More than one of these disease classifications (ICD-9 code) may be listed on a death record. †UDPIC with at least one of the six disease classifications included on the death record. Clinicians in the EIP areas have been asked to report by telephone to EIP program surveillance personnel all previously healthy persons 1 to 49 years of age who are hospitalized (or admitted to an emergency room) with a life-threatening illness with hallmarks of an infectious disease for which no cause is identified. Inclusion and exclusion criteria are shown below. Inclusion criteria 1. 1 to 49 years of age 2. Admitted to a hospital or emergency room with life-threatening illness of potentially infectious etiology 3. No cause for illness identified by preliminary testing Exclusion criteria 1. Preexisting chronic medical condition: malignancy; HIV infection; chronic cardiac, pulmonary, renal, hepatic or rheumatologic disease; or other known underlying chronic illness (e.g., diabetes mellitus) 2. Immunosuppressive therapy 3. Trauma 4. Toxic ingestion or exposure 5. Nosocomial infection Clinicians and pathologists in the four EIP programs were informed of the surveillance system through a combination of mailings, oral presentations, and posters. Classifying patients as having one or more infectious disease-related syndrome(s) as listed below should help identify groups of patients with similar illnesses for laboratory testing. 1. Acute abdominal symptoms (e.g, diarrhea, pain, nausea/vomiting) and history of (h/o) fever 2. Arthritis or osteomyelitis and h/o fever 3. Blood cell dyscrasia or coagulopathy and h/o fever 4. Conjunctivitis, keratitis, endophthalmitis, or periocular infection and h/o fever 5. Endocarditis, myocarditis, pericarditis and h/o fever 6. Hepatitis or hepatic insufficiency/failure and h/o fever 7. Meningitis, encephalitis, encephalopathy, dementia, or other neurologic syndrome with or without a h/o of fever 8. Rash, skin or mucosal membrane lesions, cellulitis, myositis, lymphadenitis, or lymphangitis and h/o of fever 9. Renal insufficiency/failure and h/o of fever 10. Respiratory failure, pulmonary infiltrates, or other pleuropulmonary manifestation and h/o of fever 11. Shock or sepsis and h/o of fever or hypothermia 12. Other Information about exposures (e.g., travel or contact with animals or insects) resulting in infectious diseases will be collected. For patients who are still alive or have died recently, clinical and pathology laboratories will be asked to save clinical specimens (including biopsied tissues) obtained during clinical care and diagnostic evaluation. Range of specimens will vary but be appropriate for the given illness and organ systems affected. These specimens will be collected, divided into aliquots, and stored. Autopsies will be encouraged. With the exception of pathology specimens, specimens will be initially banked at the EIP sites. Fixed or frozen tissue specimens (premortem and postmortem) will be sent directly to CDC for examination. A CDC pathologist will be available to consult with the local pathologist and to discuss preparation and transport of tissues. Pathology results are expected to guide further laboratory testing on specimens. Clinical and epidemiologic data will be periodically reviewed locally at each EIP and at CDC in aggregate. Each EIP will identify UDPIC not reported through the clinician-based system by using state-based (rather than national) electronic data systems to reduce delays in relaying information. When deaths not reported through the clinician-based system are identified, the medical chart will be reviewed, the patient's illness will be classified by syndrome and information available in the medical record concerning exposures will be collected. Samples of specimens will be obtained at autopsy. Deaths will be handled as in the clinician-based system with regard to periodic review and laboratory testing, although it is expected that fewer clinical specimens will be available from patients whose deaths were not reported through the clinicianbased system. Additional reference level laboratory tests for known pathogens will be done in state health laboratories and CDC. CDC will test for previously unrecognized infectious agents. Initial identification of unrecognized etiologic agents at CDC will primarily rely on serology, immunohistochemistry, and nucleic acid probes. When a sufficient number of patients with similar illnesses are identified, a customized strategy for laboratory testing will be designed. Serology and immunohistochemistry will be used to narrow the scope of possible etiologies. Nucleic acid probes will be used with PCR to amplify from clinical specimens specific fragments of genetic material that can be sequenced and used for phylogenetic comparisons to known infectious agents. Clinicians who reported cases will be informed of laboratory results, but information will usually not be available in time to affect treatment of individual patients. Until now, unexplained deaths and serious illnesses due to possibly infectious causes have not been addressed as a specific public health problem. The data obtained in the first phase of this project suggest that UDPIC in previously healthy persons account for 13% of hospitalized deaths among persons 1 to 49 years old in the EIP sites. Experience in recent years with new infectious diseases suggests that systematic study of UDPIC and similarly unexplained serious illnesses may allow earlier detection of emerging infections. This has been made more feasible by newly developed nucleic acid-based methods for identification of unknown etiologic agents. Use of the 1992 National Center for Health Statistics multiple cause-of-death data to estimate the number of UDPIC has its limitations. The most important is in the selection of ICD-9 codes to identify these deaths. Even with codes such as 038.9 ("unspecified septicemia"), which seem relevant, without reviewing the medical record it is impossible to know if the cause of the septicemia was known by the clinician but not specified or was nosocomial. Codes representing potentially infectious deaths (e.g., 799 for "other ill-defined and unknown causes of morbidity and mortality") might also be assigned to noninfectious deaths. Another critical limitation is failure to identify deaths that are, in fact, unexplained but have been given an incorrect diagnosis. For several reasons, our surveillance is limited to persons 1 to 49 years of age who have been healthy. The 1-year lower age limit was selected to avoid confusion with congenital problems in infants but include most children in day-care, where infectious diseases are common and a new infectious disease might spread rapidly. The upper age limit was set to exclude an expected increased proportion of unexplained deaths from noninfectious causes in persons 50 years and older. Many of the recently recognized life-threatening infectious diseases would have been detected among previously healthy persons in this age-group. Previously healthy persons might also be considered better sentinels for new infectious diseases because of their generally more vigorous interaction with people and higher likelihood of exposure to infections (e.g., travel or contact with animals or insects). However, restricting surveillance to previously healthy persons is likely to decrease the sensitivity of our system. Patients who are immunocompromised whether from HIV infection, malignancy, or immunosuppressive therapy and many patients with other chronic illnesses, are more susceptible to known and unknown infectious diseases. New infectious diseases first identified in persons who are immunocompromised or have chronic illnesses have subsequently been found to also cause infection in persons with normal immune systems (20, 21). Although sensitivity could be improved by including these populations in surveillance, available resources and a concern that laboratory evaluation would be complicated by the broader range of infectious possibilities compelled us to focus on previously healthy persons. Clinician-based and death certificate based systems for surveillance and laboratory evaluation are being used in combination because of their complementary strengths and weaknesses. The notable strengths of the clinician-based system are the contribution of clinicians and the timeliness of reporting. Because of their training and their relationship with patients, clinicians can recognize unusual and potentially new infections. This system also offers opportunities to collect and store clinical specimens (pre-mortem and postmortem) that would not normally be saved, in addition to providing systematic and timely collection of exposure information that might not be available in the medical record. This system might also increase the likelihood of an autopsy. However, reporting is time-consuming and is not likely to affect the patient's care, which may lower the sensitivity of this approach. The primary strengths of the death certificate based system are its completeness and relative ease, once the data are electronically available. The completeness may make it sensitive for detection of new infections resulting in death (but assumes that the correct ICD-9 codes are selected and that they are coded accurately). Sensitivity is important because, to be effective, the combined approaches should detect relatively rare illnesses (e.g., in the range of one case per 100,000 to 1,000,000 population per year). The main disadvantages of this system are the vagaries of ICD-9 classification: codes are not designed to identify new infectious diseases and are assigned by persons not directly familiar with the case. The list of ICD-9 codes used to identify UDPIC is likely to be modified on the basis of information collected in this system and in the clinician-based system. Another problem is the delay in getting information on the death certificate into the database for review, which makes this system relatively slow. Further, the only clinical specimens likely to be available for laboratory evaluation are those collected at autopsy. The goal of our project is early detection of new life-threatening infectious diseases. However, it is likely that in the process, we will identify cases in which known, but poorly recognized, infectious diseases are responsible, either because the diagnostic tests being used clinically are of poor sensitivity or because the diagnosis was unexpected by clinicians. Findings concerning such cases may be useful in identifying areas in which better diagnostic capabilities are needed and in improving estimates of infectious disease prevalence (22). A population-based bank of clinical specimens will be invaluable in current and future testing for newly recognized etiologic agents and for developing diagnostic tests. This project will better clarify surveillance strategies and help standardize nucleic acid-based techniques for identification of previously unknown etiologic agents. Through it, we expect to build U.S. capacity for detecting and responding to newly recognized infectious diseases not only at the EIP sites but elsewhere, nationally and internationally. Bradley A. Perkins,* Jennifer M. Flood,† Richard Danila,‡ Robert C. Holman,* Arthur L. Reingold,† Laura A. Klug,* Michael Virata,§ Paul R. Cieslak,¶ Sherif R. Zaki,* Robert W. Pinner,* Rima F. Khabbaz,* and the Unexplained Deaths Working Group# *National Center for Infectious Diseases, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, USA, Atlanta, Georgia; †School of Public Health, University of California at Berkeley, California, USA; ‡ Minnesota Department of Health, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA; §Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut, USA; ¶Oregon Department of Human Resources, Portland, Oregon, USA #The Unexplained Deaths Working Group: Grechen Rothrock, University of California at Berkeley; Duc Vugia, California Department of Health Services; James Hadler, Matt Cartter, Connecticut Department of Public Health and Addiction Services; James Meek, Robin Ryder, Mark Wilson, Yale University School of Medicine; Michael Osterholm, Kristine L. MacDonald, Jean Rainbow, Norman Crouch, Kathy LeDell, Minnesota Department of Health; David Fleming, Katrina Hedberg, Oregon Health Division; Don Brenner, Mark Eberhard, James Olson, Pierre Rollin, R. Gibson Parrish, CDC. References 1. Institute of Medicine. Emerging infections: microbial threats to health in the United States. Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1992. 2. McDade JE, Brenner DJ, Bozeman FM. Legionnaires' disease bacterium isolated in 1947. Ann Intern Med 1979;90:659-61. 3. Osterholm MT, Chin TDY, Osborne DO, et al. A 1957 outbreak of Legionnaires' disease associated with a meat packing plant. Am J Epidemiol 1983;117:60-7. 4. Osterholm MT, Forfang JC. Toxic-shock syndrome in Minnesota: results of an activepassive surveillance system. J Infect Dis 1982;145:458-64. 5. Barre-Sinoussi F, Chermann JC, Rey F, et al. Isolation of a T-lymphotropic retrovirus from a patient at risk for acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). Science 1983;220:868-71. 6. CDC Task Force on Kaposi's Sarcoma and Opportunistic Infections. Epidemiologic aspects of the current outbreak of Kaposi's sarcoma and opportunistic infection. N Engl J Med 1982;306:248-52. 7. Garry RF, Witte MH, Gottlieb A, et al. Documentation of an AIDS virus infection in the United States in 1968. JAMA 1988;260:2085-7. 8. Relman DA, Loutit JS, Schmidt TM, Falkow S, Tompkins LS. The agent of bacillary angiomatosis: an approach to the identification of uncultured pathogens. N Engl J Med 1990;323:1573-80. 9. Nichol ST, Spiropoulou CF, Morzunov S, et al. Genetic identification of a hantavirus associated with an outbreak of acute respiratory illness. Science 1993; 262:914-7. 10. Chang Y, Cesarman E, Pessin MS, et al. Identification of herpesvirus-like DNA sequences in AIDS-associated Kaposi's sarcoma. Science 1994;266:1865-9. 11. Koehler JE, Quinn FD, Berger TG, LeBoit PE, Tappero JW. Isolation of Rochalimaea species from cutaneous and osseous lesions of bacillary angiomatosis. N Engl J Med 1992;327:1625-31. 12. Elliot LH, Ksiazek TG, Rollin PE, et al. Isolation of the causative agent of hantavirus pulmonary syndrome. Am J Trop Med Hyg 1994;51:102-8. 13. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Addressing emerging infectious disease threats: a prevention strategy for the United States. Atlanta: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, 1994. 14. National Center for Health Statistics. Public use data tape documentation. Multiple cause of death for ICD-9 1992 data. Hyattsville, MD: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1994. 15. Israel RA, Rosenberg HM, Curtin LR. Analytical potential for multiple cause-of-death data. Am J Epidemiol 1986;124:161-79. 16. World Health Organization. Manual of the international statistical classification of diseases, injuries, and causes of death, based on the recommendations of the Ninth Revision Conference, 1975, and adopted by the twenty-ninth World Health Assembly. Vol. 1. Geneva: World Health Organization, 1977. 17. Chamblee RF, Evans MC. TRANSAX, the NCHS system for producing multiple causeof-death statistics, 1968-78. Washington, D.C.: US Government Printing Office, 1986. DHHS Pub No. [PHS] 86-1322). 18. National Center for Health Statistics. Vital statistics of the United States 1987, Vol. II, mortality, part A, technical appendix. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, 1990. (DHHS Pub No. (PHS) 90-1101). 19. U.S. Bureau of Census. Intercensal estimates of the population of counties by age, sex and race: 1970-1992 (machine-readable data file). Washington, DC: U.S. Bureau of Census, 1995. 20. MacKenzie WR, Hoxie NJ, Proctor ME, et al. A massive outbreak in Milwaukee of Cryptosporidium infection transmitted through the public water supply. N Engl J Med 1994;331:161-7. 21. Tappero JW, Koehler JE, Berger TG, et al. Bacillary angiomatosis and bacillary splenitis in immunocompetent adults. Ann Intern Med 1993;118:363-5. 22. Pinner RW, Teutsch S, Simonsen L, et al. Trends in infectious diseases mortality in the United States. JAMA 1996;275:189-93. <> EID Volume 2, Number 1, January-March 1996 Unexplained Deaths Due to Possibly Infectious Causes in the United States: Defining the Problem and Designing Surveillance and Laboratory Approaches, Bradley A. Perkins,* Jennifer M. Flood,† Richard Danila,‡ Robert C. Holman,* Arthur L. Reingold,† Laura A. Klug,* Michael Virata,§ Paul R. Cieslak,¶ Sherif R. Zaki,* Robert W. Pinner,* Rima F. Khabbaz,* and the Unexplained Deaths Working Group# *National Center for Infectious Diseases, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, USA, Atlanta, Georgia; School of Public Health, University of California at Berkeley, California, USA; Minnesota Department of Health, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA; §Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut, USA; ¶Oregon Department of Human Resources, Portland, Oregon, USA    Adobe Acrobat File (81,192 bytes) ASCII File (38,454 bytes) PostScript File (790,218 bytes) Profile of Bilateral Relations State of Israel HISTORY OF RELATIONS Israel established a Legation in South Africa in 1952 and in 1974 it was upgraded to an Embassy. In 1972 South Africa established a Consulate General in Tel Aviv which was upgraded to an Embassy in December 1975. Israel continued to enjoy close relations with the Apartheid Government in South Africa. Following the democratic transition in South Africa and the establishment of full diplomatic relations with Palestine, after South Africa adopted an approach which favors resolution of the IsraeliArab conflict through peaceful negotiations, on the basis of the relevant UN Security Council resolutions. In September 1995 Foreign Minister Alfred B Nzo paid an official visit to Israel and signed an Agreement establishing a Joint Commission of Co-operation with the Israeli Government. The first meeting of this Joint Commission took place in June 1996. On this occasion, five bilateral agreements were negotiated for co-operation in the following spheres: Agriculture, Tourism, Culture, Environment and Science, as well as Nature Conservation. Israel contributes to development in South Africa through two farming projects worth nearly R2.5 million in Gauteng and the Eastern Cape. SOUTH AFRICAN REPRESENTATION IN ISRAEL H E Mr J Marx Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary South African Embassy Office hours Mon-Thurs: 07:00-16:00 Friday: 07:00-12:00 TRAVEL Visa Requirements for South Africans Visas are not required for South African passport holders not intending to stay for more than three months. Persons holding temporary or emergency passports are excluded and it is imperative for persons with such travel documents to obtain visas prior to departure. Health Requirements Tetanus immunisation is recommended for travel to rural areas. For further information go to Travelers' Health. Climate Winters are cool and rainy, this is from mid-November to mid- February. Summers on the other hand can be very hot during June to August, especially in the south. For up-to-date weather information click here Currency The monetary unit is the New Israeli Shekel. Exchange rate as on 17 January 2002: R1.00 = NIS 0.39 For current exchange rates click here ISRAELI REPRESENTATION IN SOUTH AFRICA Embassy of Israel TRADE STATISTICS (all figures in ZAR) SA EXPORTS 1 066 589 021 1 396 599 222 1 648 796 342 1 733 851 777 1 911 811 210 2 090 911 316 2 186 756 014 4 344 861 4 790 206 SA IMPORTS 609 991 373 613 234 090 735 498 477 788 819 579 995 619 990 1 149 317 286 1 172 826 506 1 119 098 1 320 578 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002: 01-10 Stats SA AGREEMENTS BETWEEN SOUTH AFRICA AND ISRAEL i. ii. iii. iv. v. vi. Agreement for the Establishment of a Joint Commission of Cooperation (1995). Memorandum of Understanding on Multiple Cooperation (1991). Double Taxation Agreement on Income from Shipping and Aircraft (1978). Convention for the Avoidance of Double Taxation and the Prevention of Fiscal Evasion with respect to Taxes on Income and Capital Gains (1978). Extradition (1959) and Amendment to Extradition Treaty (1976). Visa Agreement (1956) Israel and South Africa excerpted from the book Israeli Foreign Policy by Jane Hunter South End Press, 1987 History lsrael's ties with South Africa seem to be especially disturbing to many who follow Israel's international activities. Perhaps it is natural that Israel has been castigated more harshly for its arms sales to South Africa than for its sales to other countries: first, because there has been for a decade an arms embargo against South Africa; and second, because of the unsurpassed criminality of the white regime and the uses to which it puts the Israelisupplied weapons. It has also been said that those arms sales are understandable, given the striking similarities between the two countries in their day-to-day abuse and repression of their subject populations, South African blacks and Palestinians under Israeli rule; in their operating philosophies of apartheid and Zionism; and in their similar objective situations: "the only two Western nations to have established themselves in a predominantly nonwhite part of the world," as a South African Broadcasting Corporation editorial put it. That understanding, however, is somewhat superficial, and the focus on similarities of political behavior has somewhat obscured the view of the breadth and depth of the totality of Israeli-South African relations and their implications. Israel's relations with South Africa are different than its interactions with any of its other arms clients. That Israel gave South Africa its nuclear weapons capability underscores the special nature of Tel Aviv's relations with the white minority government and begins to describe it - a full-fledged, if covert, partnership based on the determination of both countries to continue as unrepentant pariahs and to help each other avoid the consequences of their behavior. *** Arms industry Nuclear Apprentice There are few areas where the respective needs and advantages of Israel and South Africa dovetailed so perfectly as in the field of nuclear cooperation. "The most powerful reason for Israeli willingness to bear the undesirable consequences of expanded and more open trade with South Africa may be her desire to acquire material necessary to manufacture nuclear weapons," wrote a military analyst in 1980.' To that must be added Israel's great desire to test the nuclear weapons it already had, and the attractions of South Africa's vast territory and proximity to even vaster uninhabited spaces-the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. Then at the point in its nuclear development where it was fashioning sophisticated bombs (devices which use less nuclear material but have infinitely greater explosive force than the "primitive" bomb dropped by the U.S. on Hiroshima), Israel would find it particularly helpful to observe the performance, explosive force and fallout of a detonated weapon. Since 1984, Israel had been operating a plutonium extraction plant in a secret underground bunker at Dimona in the Negev Desert. Built by the French in the late 1950s, the Dimona plant also included facilities for manufacturing atomic bomb components. At the time of the 1976 accords, Israel was preparing to build an adjoining plant for the extraction of lithium 6, tritium and deuterium, materials required for sophisticated thermonuclear weapons. Israel's reasons for devoting what had to have been a significant portion of its scant resources to such an ambitious nuclear weapons program - nuclear experts have recently ranked it as the world's sixth nuclear power, after the U.S., the USSR, Britain, France and China - have been variously offered as the desire to develop a credible deterrent to attack by its neighbors and the desire to substitute that deterrent for at least part of the costly conventional arsenal that Israel, with one of the world's most powerful military forces, maintains, and also (with much less frequency) as an "umbrella" over a partial withdrawal from the occupied territories. *** The South Africans began teaching the lessons of Israel's 1967 war at their maneuver school, and Israeli advisers began teaching the Boers the arts of suppressing a captive population and keeping hostile neighbors off balance... The white government's practice of domestic counterinsurgency l combines outright military brutality with the extensive use of informers and collaborators. It is impossible to know how many refinements of these ageold techniques have been borrowed from the Israelis' occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, and the Golan Heights. The Israeli system of village leagues is obviously comparable to the hated town councils imposed on segregated townships by the apartheid government. The collective punishment employed by the Israelis, such as the destruction of a whole family's home when one of its members is arrested as a suspect in an act of resistance, has lately been matched by the recent South African practices of sealing off townships, and assaulting entire funeral processions. What is perhaps more salient is the South African victims' perceptions of Israel's involvement in their oppression and how readily that perception is communicated... *** The Frontline States The South Africans noted that their May, 1983 aerial attack (dubbed Operation Shrapnel) on Mozambique's capital, Maputo, was analogous to Israel's attack on Beirut the previous summer. one analyst, Joseph Hanlon, believes that one of South Africa's objectives in the attack was to see how its version of events would play in the media. It was received very well indeed, according to Hanlon, with the Western press accepting South Africa's claim that its attack was in "retaliation" for an ANC attack and that ANC "bases" were hit. Instead, the South African Air Force hit a child-care center and private houses with "special fragmentation rockets," leaving 6 dead and 40 wounded. This follows the Israeli practice in Lebanon of speaking about PLO installations while civilians are the actual targets, and attacking with particularly heinous anti-personnel weapons-cluster bombs and phosphorous bombs. The victims of South Africa's angst are not blind to the similarity of attacksor motives. President Samora Machel likened the Israeli Government to the Pretoria regime. He said that because of its inability to contain the fury of the Palestinian people led by the PLO, the Zionist regime is trying to transfer the war to other regions. So reported Mozambican radio shortly after Israeli aircraft bombed PI headquarters in Tunisia in October 1985. The model provided by Israel, which punishes every internal act of resistance and violent act outside its jurisdiction with a bombing raid on Palestinian targets in Lebanon-almost always refugee camps cynically identified by the Israelis as "terrorist bases" or "headquarters"-has served South Africa well. In January 1986, the white government's radio delivered a commentary on "the malignant presence" of "terrorism" in neighboring states and said "there's only one answer now, and that's the Israeli answer." Israel had managed to survive "by striking at terrorists wherever they exist." In May 1986, South Africa demonstrated that it had assumed the right to attack its neighbors at a time and on a pretext of its own choosing. The chosen time was during a visit by the Eminent Persons Group of the Commonwealth of Nations, which was attempting to establish negotiations between the apartheid regime and its opposition. The victims-Zambia, Botswana and Zimbabwe, all Commonwealth members-were chosen for their alleged harboring of "terrorists"; the real victims were South African exiles and an employee of the government of Botswana. The South Africans said they had attacked "international terrorism" and compared their raids to the Israeli attack on Tunisia and the U.S. attack on Libya in April 1986. The attack was similar in style to Israel's 1985 attack on Tunisia. Initially, the Israelis had been threatening Jordan and perhaps because King Hussein of Jordan was at the time on an official visit to the U.S., the Israelis chose to take revenge for the killing of three Israelis (believed to be top Mossad agents) in Larnaca, Cyprus on the PLO in Tunisia. Two weeks after its three-pronged attack on its Commonwealth neighbors, South Africa attacked the Angolan harbor of Namibia, firing their version of the Israeli Gabriel missile. Israel has also been connected with the mercenary forces deployed by South Africa against Angola and Mozambique. In the 1970s Israel aided the FNLA (Angolan National Liberation Front) proxy forces organized and trained by the CIA to forestall the formation of a government led by the MPLA (Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola-now the ruling party of Angola). John Stockwell, who ran the CIA operation against Angola, recollected three arms shipments Israel made in cooperation with the CIA: a plane full of 120 mm shells sent via Zaire to the FNLA and Unita; a shipment of 50 SA-7 missiles (all of which were duds); a boat-load sent to neighboring Zaire in a deal that the Israelis had worked out with President Mobutu, even though the Zairian strong man had broken ties with Israel two years earlier. When Israel reestablished relations with Zaire (in 1982) and began to train Zairian forces in the Shaba border province, Angola had cause for concern. The leader of the FNLA had been Holden Roberto, brother-in-law of Zairian president Mobutu, Israel's new client. In 1986, it would be established that Zaire acted as a funnel for "covert" U.S. military aid for the Unita forces of Jonas Savimbi. In 1983, the Angolan News Agency reported that Israeli military experts were training Unita forces in Namibia. Since Zaire began receiving military aid and training from Tel Aviv, Angola has been ill at ease. Its worries increased after discovering that: Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon was personally involved in the organization, training and equipping of "commando" units of the army of Zaire, especially organized for missions along the borders of the RPA [Angola]. In 1984, the Financial Times (London) wrote of "joint Israeli-South African support for Unita forces." Other sources also report the transfer of Israeli arms and financial support to Unita. In 1983, Angola's President Jose Eduardo dos Santos told Berkeley, California Mayor Eugene (Gus) Newport that an Israeli pilot had been shot down during a South African attack. The Angolan President showed Newport pictures of captured Israeli weapons. The following year, Luanda reported the capture of three mercenaries who said they had been trained by Israeli instructors in Zaire. Israel has also been involved with the Mozambican "contras," the South African-backed MNR (Mozambique National Resistance or "Renamo"), which has brought great economic and social distress to Mozambique. Renamo has a particular reputation for ideological incoherence, being regarded by most other right-wing insurgencies as a gang of cutthroats. For several years there have been stories coming from Southern Africa of captured mercenaries of Renamo who say they were trained in neighboring Malawi-one of the four nations to maintain relations with Israel after the Organization of African Unity (OAU) declared a diplomatic embargo in 1973-by Israelis. And more than one report has told of "substantial Israeli aid" to the MNR, thought to have been funded by the CIA and Saudi Arabia as well as South Africa and former Portuguese nationalists. Israeli Foreign Policy by Jane Hunter South End Press, 1987 " Throughout the years of untrammeled slaughter that left at least 45,000 dead, and, by early 1983, one million in internal exile - mostly indigenous Mayan Indians, who comprise a majority of Guatemala's eight million people - and thousands more in exile abroad, Israel stood by the Guatemalan military. Three successive military governments and three brutal and sweeping campaigns against the Mayan population, described by a U.S. diplomat as Guatemala's "genocide against the Indians," had the benefit of Israeli techniques and experience, as well as hardware. " Israeli Foreign Policy: Weapons Manufacturing Industry excerpted from the book Israeli Foreign Policy by Jane Hunter South End Press, 1987 ... By the end of the 1970s, the Israeli military industry was supplying 40 percent of Israel's military needs. But production runs solely for the domestic market resulted in high costs per item. The longer production runs necessary to lower unit costs created an imperative to export. The government began a concerted marketing campaign, through diplomatic and military contacts, as well as news releases and exhibits at fairs. In later years a sales force of retired military officers eager for commissions fanned out over the globe. While the secrecy of the Israeli government makes it impossible to exactly calculate the volume of Israel's weapons sales abroad, the general consensus of analysts of the international arms trade indicates that between 1972 and 1980 Israel's arms exports soared, particularly in the latter part of that span, rising from $50 million to top $1 billion, and, with the possible exception of 1983, have remained over $1 billion annually. A 1986 estimate puts annual sales at "more than $ 1.25 billion. Since 1982 Israel has been ranked among the world's top ten arms producers. The importance to the overall economy of the arms manufacturing sector also increased, with weapons exports estimated to have comprised 31 percent of industrial exports in 1975, up from 14 percent in 1967 and more recently 30 to 40 percent of Israel's industrial output. The arms industry employs "anywhere from 58,000 to as many as 120,000 Israelis," or, taking the lower figure, percent of the industrial labor force, with the biggest unit, Israel Aircraft Industries, the nation's largest employer, carrying 20,000 on its payroll. The export imperative, in turn, brought its own set of problems, these centering on the overseas markets available to Israel and on its choice of customers from that list. For varying reasons, Israel was largely shut out of the Eastern Bloc, the Arab world and NATO countries. That left its potential clientele to be found on the peripheries: pariahs such as South Africa and Guatemala, the strong-man regimes of Taiwan, Zaire, and Chile, and the occasional government wary of strings-attached arms purchases from the superpowers. Over the years Israel has sold weapons-and often along with the weapons come Israeli advisers-to Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua (under Somoza), Panama, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, Venezuela, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Morocco, Nigeria, Rhodesia, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Zaire, Australia, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Papua-New Guinea, Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand, Iran, and a number of European countries and several non-governmental actions. Sometimes even the least desirable customers have required some softening up: "Greatly detailed stories abound of the huge bribes Israel has used to suborn defense ministries, with the sole objective of nailing down arms deals." As time went on an additional problem arose: arms sales became the motor driving Israel's foreign policy. In times of economic crisis it became the supreme exigency. In September 1986, the Israeli defense minister explained to a press conference what was behind a raft of scandals involving Israeli arms exports and technology thefts (these last, most frequently from the U.S., have been an inevitable hallmark of a small country attempting to sustain a full-scale armaments industry). "...We cut our orders in our military industries..." he said, "and I told them quite frankly: 'Either you'll fire people or find export markets." The export markets open to Israel are frequently among the world's most unsavory; indeed, to be off limits to the superpowers they often are located inside the very gates of hell. Already under international censure for its oppression of the Palestinians in the territories it occupies, Israel's dealings with the scum of the world's tyrants-including the white clique in South Africa, Somoza of Nicaragua, Gen. Pinochet of Chile, Marcos of the Philippines, Duvalier of Haiti, Mobutu of Zaire, the allegedly cannibalistic Bokassa of the Central African Republic-invariably result in its further exclusion from more "respectable" circles. "A person who sleeps with dogs shouldn't be surprised to find himself covered with fleas," comments the military correspondent for Israel's major daily newspaper. Israeli critics, who term the phenomenon "arms diplomacy," warn that the export imperative has motivated a sequence of ad hoc, opportunistic decisions that have precluded the development of a coherent foreign policy, which, in turn, might over the long term mitigate Israel's isolated position in the world. Yet these critics are far from sanguine about the ability of Israel to set itself on a different course. They point to the power of the "security establishment lobby," comprised of the upper echelon of Israel's political leadership (this has remained remarkably constant since the founding of the state), the top levels of the military, and the officials of the parastatal arms industries. As in the U.S., there is a "revolving door" in Israel, with many of the top figures serving successively in two or all three of these sectors. It is these men who find the clients and have insider access to the Ministerial Committee on Weapons Transfers (MCD)-its members are the prime minister and the ministers of defense, foreign affairs, and trade and industry which will make the final decision on every sale. Such decisions are made secretly- the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, excluded. The cabinet, too, is often excluded. Critics of the hegemony of the arms export business say it has relegated the foreign ministry to a subordinate role in Israeli foreign policy making, and they see in its wake grave social and political consequences. ' A sector has evolved in Israel, headed by an elite with identical social characteristics and marked by a fairly high degree of cohesiveness, whose decisions and actions have a significant effect not only on the country's economy and its foreign and | defense policy but also on its social and value systems. No less important, however, is the issue of whether a closed system has been created whose activities and decisions undergo less public supervision and scrutiny than any other area of life in the country. ' A Co-equal Type of Proxy Israeli analysts often argue that Israeli arms sales are dependent on U.S. approval; in a limited sense this is true. The U.S. has blocked-at the behest of Britain-the delivery of A-4 Skyhawks to Argentina, and it has in the past vetoed the export of the Kfir aircraft, leverage it is able to exert because of the Kfir's U.S. engine. However, the Carter Administration was unable to prevent Israeli nuclear cooperation with South Africa, and the Reagan Administration was unsuccessful in persuading the Israelis to halt their arms sales to Iran in the early 1980s (assuming it wanted to). The Israeli success in persuading the Reagan Administration to incorporate Israeli arms sales to the Islamic Republic into a bizarre and controversial series of contacts with Iranian leaders is probably more typical of the operative U.S.-lsraeli dynamic. On the other hand, Israel has often obliged this or that sector of the U.S. government, selling arms where it would be embarrassing or illegal for the U.S. to do so: the contras, the Peoples Republic of China in the early 1980s, and the Derg government of Ethiopia are examples. In 1975, Israel followed Secretary of State Henry Kissinger's advice and helped South Africa with its invasion of Angola. Even after the passage the following year of the Clark Amendment forbidding U.S. covert involvement in Angola, Israel apparently considered Kissinger's nod a continuing mandate. Given the export imperative under which the Israeli government operates, this 1981 proposal from the chief economic coordinator in the Israeli cabinet, Yacov Meridor, should be taken with great seriousness: " We are going to say to the Americans, 'Don't compete with us in South Africa, don't compete with us in the Caribbean or in any other country where you can't operate in the open.' Let us do it. I even use the expression, ' You sell the ammunition and equipment by proxy. Israel will be your proxy,' and this would be worked out with a certain agreement with the United States where we will have certain markets...which will be left for us. " Israel and El Salvador excerpted from the book Israel Foreign Policy excerpts from a book by Jane Hunter South End Press, 1987 From its earliest attempts to establish itself as an arms exporter, Israel had enjoyed the patronage of the military of El Salvador, which ruled that small, densely-populated country on the Pacific side of the Central American isthmus on behalf of a powerful plantation oligarchy. In 1973 Israel took orders from El Salvador for 18 Dassault Ouragan jet fighter aircraft. Israel had obtained these planes from France for its own use. Refurbished and delivered to El Salvador in 1975, they were the first jet fighters in Central America, representing a significant jump in the level of military sophistication in a region where war had flared between Honduras and El Salvador in 1969. Other aircraft ordered from Israel by El Salvador in 1973 included six Frenchmade Fouga Magister trainers and 25 Arava short-take-off-and-landing aircraft. The Arava is produced by Israeli Aircraft Industries (IAI) and is advertised for a variety of uses from hauling cargo, to medical evacuation, to transporting troops in counterinsurgency warfare. The Salvadorans also bought a quantity of small arms, ammunition and rocket launchers. Military links with El Salvador actually began around 1972, when the Israeli Defense Ministry carried out a youth movement development program there. Alongside their arms sales, the Israelis also sent advisers to El Salvador. Former Salvadoran Army Col. and Undersecretary of the Interior Rene Francisco Guerra y Guerra recalled that during the 1970s ANSESAL, the Salvadoran secret police, had security advisers from Israel. According to Guerra, as a low-ranking ANSESAL officer, Roberto D'Aubuisson, who would later rise to prominence as leader of a far-right faction linked to death squads, was a student of the Israeli instructors. At least one Salvadoran officer, Col. Sigifredo Ochoa was taught by Israeli trainers in El Salvador and also went to Israel for training in the mid- 1970s. Ochoa, who was credited with a massacre of civilians in 1981 i° made no secret of his preference for his Israeli mentors over the U.S. advisers who came to El Salvador after 1981. The Americans, he noted scornfully, "lost the war in Vietnam." During the Israeli siege of Beirut in 1982, Ochoa proffered an "Israeli solution" for Central America: a combined assault by El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala and the anti-Nicaragua contras against Nicaragua. When the Carter Administration took office in 1977 it wasted little time putting into practice a principle enunciated during the presidential campaign and by Congress in 1976: U.S. aid would be cut off to recipients who were gross and persistent abusers of human rights. The idea was to encourage dictatorial regimes to modify their behavior and reinstate themselves in Washington's good graces. It was a fairly reasonable assumption; after all, many of these tyrants had been through U.S. military programs and had adopted the anticommunist line that a succession of U.S. governments had encouraged. Washington had sired both the Nicaraguan and Guatemalan regimes, and ~ was not without profound influence in El Salvador. In the 1960s, the U.S. had presided over the foundation of CONDECA, a regional military council intended "to coordinate and centralize military command of the region under U.S. military supervision." In El Salvador, the Kennedy Administration set in motion a series of meetings among Central American leaders that led to the establishment of the feared ANSESAL secret police and its "parallel domestic security agencies in Guatemala, Nicaragua, Panama, Honduras, and Costa Rica." Years later the CIA connections of ANSESAL would come to light in close connection with the death squads which have terrorized El Salvador since the 1970s. Also in the 1960's AIFLD, (the American Institute for Free Labor Development, the AFL-CIO's foreign operation dedicated to foiling the formation of left wing unions) tried to organize a "tame" network of rural cooperatives in El Salvador. According to one report the project was budgeted at $ I .6 million and had the assistance of the Israeli Histadrut labor federation. Even the prideful way that El Salvador and Guatemala responded when their aid was terminated-both preempted the U.S. move by cutting military ties with the U.S.-might have been expected to blow over. That was without reckoning on Israel, which was quick to fill the gap. Indeed, one analyst believes the "surprisingly defiant position" of the Central American clients was based on their advance knowledge that they could maintain their military capacity by dealing with Israel. El Salvador simply began to buy its weapons from Israel. Between the 1977 U.S. cutoff and the resumption of U.S. aid in 1981, El Salvador obtained over 80 percent of its weapons from Israel. The balance came from France and Brazil. The earlier aircraft orders still in the pipeline were delivered and small arms and ammunition from Israel undercut the intent of the Carter policy. By 1979 came the first report that Israeli advisers had been giving the Salvadoran military counterinsurgency training both in Israel and El Salvador. During this period as well, Israeli technicians began installing a computer system able to monitor utilities usage, thus giving the military the ability to pinpoint houses where the telephone is heavily used, presumably signifying that political organizing is going on. (A similar system provided by Israel to Guatemala does the same with water and electricity use. According to former Col. Guerra, the Israelis began work on the system in 1978. As an electronic engineer familiar with El Salvador's telecommunications installations, he did not believe that another company would be brought in to finish the work, despite two changes of government and the reentry of the U.S., following the installation of the Reagan Administration. It is quite certain that installation was completed. A CIA source described a telephone-monitoring computer system to a journalist in El Salvador, and Arnaldo Ramos of the FDR (the Democratic Revolutionary Front, the political grouping fighting against the U.S.-backed government) has spoken of another use to which the Salvadoran regime puts the computer equipment: They periodically block several downtown areas and take the ID's of people, just to check who they are. If they find the person happens to be downtown in an area where he's not supposed to be too often during the week, that right away makes him a suspect. Once the new human rights policy was implemented, little attention was paid in the U.S. to what was going on in El Salvador. The Carter policy had the virtue of slackening the long embrace between Washington and Central American dictatorships; it had the obvious fault of not offering redress for the century of manipulation of Central American governments by the U.S. government and corporations. And it had the predictable ground-level threshold for tolerating a strengthening of the left-which in El Salvador would bring Washington running to the assistance of the old order in 1980. But in the early years of the Carter Administration there was little fretting over El Salvador and even less over the fact that Israel had quickly filled the traditional U.S. shoes. *** "Pacification" In March 1985, El Salvador's Deputy Minister of Defense and Public Security Col. Reynaldo Lopez Nuila visited Israel. Lopez was the strongest advocate in the Duarte cabinet of "citizens defense committees" to guard plantations and businesses against insurgent attacks. By July 1984, the Salvadoran Assembly had passed a law approving the creation of such units. In 1985 an enthusiastic Col. Sigifredo Ochoa began establishing "self-defense" committees in Chalatenango province, in towns which the military had succeeded in occupying. In May, Ochoa boasted that his troops had organized 30 such committees. These forces, argued Lopez Nuila, "have worked in many other countries." Later Lopez Nuila and the director of the Salvadoran police academy visited Guatemala for advice on counterinsurgency; while there they set up permanent links with their counterparts. Israel has long advised the Guatemalan military and police. It is more likely, however, that Nuila's mission was related to the "selfdefense" forces which the Salvadoran government was trying to set up. These attempts came in the context of efforts the U.S. had been making to establish the same kind of rural "pacification" program that it had employed in Vietnam, the well-remembered Phoenix Program of winning hearts and minds with a combination of civic amenities and murder. In El Salvador it was called the National Plan. Begun in 1983, the program in San Vicente province was a monumental failure. "Guerrillas stole medicines from National Plan hospitals and held night classes at National Plan schools." Corruption in the ranks of Salvadoran officials accomplished what the insurgents could not. The military then began an intensified bombing campaign to depopulate areas whose residents were thought to support the rebels. It developed its own pacification plan, and it was probably inevitable that Israel would become involved. *** On New Years Day in 1986, El Salvador's ambassador to Jerusalem presented his credentials to the Israelis. (Ambassador Enrique Guttfreund Hanchel was a former president of the Jewish community in El Salvador and also of the Central American Confederation of Jewish Communities. The following month Israel's ambassador in El Salvador said, "We will be reinforcing our technical cooperation in the agricultural and community development fields, in which we are considered specialists." By that mouthful of euphemisms the ambassador meant that Israel would help El Salvador strip the last shreds of dignity and hope from thousands of civilian victims. Harking back to the scorched earth military pacification plan which Israel had helped Guatemala implement a non-governmental community development worker spelled out the nature of Israel's specialization: "Once you have Israeli technicians coming into the country, you can have military trainers coming in under the guise of agricultural technicians. That is what they did in Guatemala." An adviser to President Duarte said the government hoped that Israel's agricultural assistance would prop up the agrarian reform program and "keep thousands of peasants from joining rebel ranks out of frustration." The Israeli ambassador said that his country's aid would be channeled through the government agency supporting the military's relocation projects, Dideco. Israel and Guatemala excerpted from the book Israel Foreign Policy excerpts from a book by Jane Hunter South End Press, 1987 Guatemala ... The history of Israel's relations with Guatemala roughly parallels that of its ties with El Salvador except the Guatemalan military was so unswervingly bloody that Congress never permitted the ... Reagan Administration to undo the military aid cutoff implemented during the Carter years. Weaponry for the Guatemalan military is the very least of what Israel has delivered. Israel not only provided the technology necessary for a reign of terror, it helped in the organization and commission of the horrors perpetrated by the Guatemalan military and police. And even beyond that: to ensure that the profitable relationship would continue, Israel and its agents worked actively to maintain Israeli influence in Guatemala. Throughout the years of untrammeled slaughter that left at least 45,000 dead, and, by early 1983, one million in internal exile - mostly indigenous Mayan Indians, who comprise a majority of Guatemala's eight million people - and thousands more in exile abroad, Israel stood by the Guatemalan military. Three successive military governments and three brutal and sweeping campaigns against the Mayan population, described by a U.S. diplomat as Guatemala's "genocide against the Indians," had the benefit of Israeli techniques and experience, as well as hardware. *** Israel began selling Guatemala weapons in 1974 and since then is known to have delivered 17 Arava aircraft. In 1977 at the annual industrial fair, Interfer, Israel's main attraction was the Arava. "An operative Arava is to be parked outside the IAI pavilion for public inspection, although its silhouette in flight is a common sight over the capital and countryside."' Referring to the Aravas, Benedicto Lucas Garcia, chief of staff during the rule of his brother Romeo Lucas Garcia (1978-1982) said, "Israel helped us in regard to planes and transportation-which we desperately needed because we've had problems in transferring ground forces from one place to another. By 1982, at least nine of the Aravas had been mounted with gun pods. Among the other weapons sold by Israel were 10 RBY armored personnel carriers, three Dabur class patrol boats armed with Gabriel missiles, light cannons, machine guns and at least 15,000 Galil assault rifles. The Galil became Guatemala's standard rifle and Uzis were widely seen as well. According to Victor Perera, "Uzis and the larger Galil assault rifles used by Guatemala's special counterinsurgency forces accounted for at least half of the estimated 45,000 Guatemalan Indians killed by the military since 1978" *** When the Reagan Administration took office it was determined to do everything it could for Guatemala. It had promised as much during the election campaign. Never had Ronald Reagan seen a rightist dictatorship he didn't like; during his 1980 campaign he met with a representative of the right-wing business lobby Los Amigos del Pais, and, referring to the Carter Administration's aid cutoff, told him, "Don't give up. Stay there and fight. I'll help you as soon as I get in." The Guatemalan far-right apparently helped Reagan get in. Guatemalan business leaders reportedly pumped large illegal contributions into the Reagan campaign coffers. Their tentacles reached right into the core of the new administration through the lobbying activities of the HannafordDeaver law firm of White House troika member Michael Deaver. Within three days of the Republican victory on 7 November 1980, Hannaford-Deaver were busy arranging a Capitol Hill briefing for Amigos del Pais. Congress, however, did not change its attitude about Guatemala, and as late as 1985 remained adamant about denying it military aid. In 1981, Reagan's Secretary of State Alexander Haig "urged Israel to help Guatemala." In July 1985 Israel helped the administration move a shipment of 40 assault rifles with advanced night sights and 1,000 grenade launchers from Israel to Guatemala on a KLM (Royal Dutch Airlines) flight. In late 1983, the Guerrilla Army of the Poor (EGP) issued a communiqué saying that the previous May a munitions factory producing bullets for Galil rifles and Uzi submachine guns had begun operation in Alta Verapaz. Subsequently the director of Army Public Relations confirmed that the military was producing Galil rifle parts, had begun armor plating its vehicles at the factory, and that the facility would soon be capable of building grenade launchers. The following year the factory began manufacturing entire Galil rifles under license from Israel. Israeli advisers set up the factory and then trained the Guatemalans to run it, said Gen. Benedicto Lucas Garcia, who had headed the army at the time. "The factory is now being run by Guatemalans," he added. There are hopes in Guatemala that 30 percent of the plant's output can be sold to Honduras and El Salvador. The EGP said in 1983 that there were 300 Israeli advisers in Guatemala, working "in the security structures and in the army." Other reports were less specific as to numbers, but suggested that these Israeli advisers, "some official, others private," performed a variety of functions. Israelis "helped Guatemalan internal security agents hunt underground rebel groups." Gen. Lucas said Israeli advisers had come to teach the use of Israeli equipment purchased by Guatemala. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s the Guatemalan police agencies had had extensive U.S. training in "riot control training and related phases of coping with civil disturbances in a humane and effective manner," a euphemism for the terror campaigns in which these forces participated that in 1967-1968 took 7,000 lives while ostensibly fighting a guerrilla force that never numbered more than 450. When Congress forbade U.S. forces to train the internal police forces of other countries-passed in 1974, this law was supplanted in 1985 by legislation that put the U.S. back in the police-guidance business - the Israelis stepped in and "set up their intelligence network, tried and tested on the West Bank and Gaza." Israeli noncommissioned officers were also said to have been hired by big landowners to train their private security details. (Under Marcos, Israel did the same in the Philippines. These private squads, together with "off-duty military officers formed the fearsome 'death squads' which later spread to neighboring El Salvador, where they have been responsible for an estimated 20,000-30,000 murders of left-wing dissidents." Not only did the Israelis share their experiences and their tactics, they bestowed upon Guatemala the technology needed by a modern police state. During the period Guatemala was under U.S. tutelage, the insurgency spread from the urban bourgeoisie to the indigenous population in the rural highlands; with Israeli guidance the military succeeded in suppressing ... the drive for land and political liberation. The Guatemalan military is very conscious of that achievement, even proud of it. Some officers argue that with the help of the U.S. they could not have quelled the insurgency, as Congress would not have tolerated their ruthless tactics. In 1979, the Guatemalan interior minister paid a "secret and confidential" visit to Israel, where he met with the manufacturers of "sophisticated police equipment." In March of the following year Interior Minister Donaldo Alvarez Ruiz was in Israel to conclude an agreement for police training. Following the overthrow of Lucas Garcia, the home of Interior Minister Alvarez was raided, "uncovering underground jail cells, stolen vehicles...[and] scores of gold graduation rings, wrenched from the fingers of police torture victims." Israeli advisers have worked with the feared G-2 police intelligence unit. overseen by the army general staff, the G-2 is the intelligence agency sections charged with "the elimination of individuals" are stationed at every army base - which has been largely responsible for the death squad killings over the last decade. The present civilian government has dissolved the DIT, a civilian organization subordinate to G-2, but not G-2 itself. In 1981, the Army's School of Transmissions and Electronics, a school designed and financed by the Israeli company Tadiran to teach such subjects as encoding, radio jamming and monitoring, and the use of Israeli equipment was opened in Guatemala City. According to the colonel directing the school, everything in it came from Israel: the "teaching methods, the teaching teams, the technical instruments, books, and even the custom furniture...designed and built by the Israeli company DEGEM Systems." At the opening ceremony the Israeli ambassador was thanked by Chief of Staff Gen. Benedicto Lucas Garcia for "the advice and transfer of electronic technology" which, Lucas said, had brought Guatemala up to date. Calling Guatemala "one of our best friends" the ambassador promised that further technology transfers were in the works. Perhaps the most sinister of all the equipment supplied by Israel to Guatemala were two computers. One was in an old military academy and became, as Benedicto Lucas called it, "the nerve center of the armed forces, which deals with the movements of units in the field and so on." The other computer was located in an annex of the National Palace. The G-2 have a control center there, and, since the days of Romeo Lucas Garcia, meetings have been held in that annex to select assassination victims. According to a senior Guatemalan army official, the complex contains "an archive and computer file on journalists, students, leaders, people of the left, politicians, and so on. " This material is combined with current intelligence reports and mulled over during weekly sessions that have included, in their respective times, both Romeo Lucas and Oscar Mejia Victores. The bureaucratic procedures for approving the killing of a dissident are wellestablished. "A local military commander has someone they think is a problem," the officer explains. "So they speak with G-2, and G-2 consults its own archives and information from its agents and the police and, if all coincide, it passes along a direct proposition to the minister of defense. They say, 'We have analyzed the case of such and such a person in depth and this person is responsible for the following acts and we recommend that we execute them." *** Control of the Rural Population The aspect of Israeli cooperation with Guatemala with the most serious implications is the role played by Israeli personnel in the universally condemned rural "pacification" program. Extreme maldistribution of landexacerbated by encroachment on indigenous land-was a major cause of the present rebellion. After trying several different approaches, the military, under Rios Montt, embarked on a resolution of the problem, substituting forced relocation and suppression for equitable land distribution. In 1982 Israeli military advisers helped develop and carry out 'Plan Victoria' the devastating scorched earth campaign which Rios Montt .unleashed on the highland population. In June 1983, the Guatemalan embassy in Washington confirmed that "personnel sent by the Israeli government were participating in the repopulation and readjustment programs for those displaced." Rios Montt himself told the Washington Times that the Israeli government was giving his administration help with the counterinsurgency plan called "Techo, tortilla y trabajo" (shelter, food and work). The "three T's" followed an earlier Rios program called Fusiles y Fridoles, or beans and bullets, where wholesale slaughter was combined with the provision of life's necessities to those willing to cooperate with the military. The success of the government's initially savage but sophisticated campaign against the rebels has come without significant U.S. military assistance, and top field commanders say that none is necessary now to finish the guerrillas. "We declared a state of siege so we could kill legally," Rios Montt told a group of politicians. The Roman Catholic Conference of Bishops called what Rios was doing "genocide." Following Rios' overthrow, his successor Mejia Victores continued the program, proclaiming that model villages would be extended throughout the country. As the army bombed, strafed and burned village after village, an estimated 100,000 peasants escaped across the border to Mexico or to the mountainous territory controlled by the guerrillas. Others were captured by the military. Many of those who went to the guerrillas were later forced by hunger to surrender themselves to the military. Their fate was confinement in model villages, what were called strategic hamlets during the U.S. assault on Vietnam. *** One of the most oppressive features of Guatemala's pacification program is the "civilian self-defense patrols" whose ranks are filled by coercion, with most joining out of fear of being called subversive, and thus marked for torture or execution. Those who do serve in the patrols must "turn in their quota of 'subversives."' Otherwise, "they will be forced to denounce their own neighbors and to execute them with clubs and fists in the village plaza."' The patrols are believed by most analysts to have been suggested by Israelis. They have had a profound effect on Mayan society, both psychologically, "a permanent violation of our values or a new negative vision," as the country's Catholic bishops charged, and practically, as long shifts on patrol prevent fulfillment of family and economic obligations In 1983 the Guatemalan government estimated that 850 villages in the highlands had "self defense" units. The following year the U.S. embassy in Guatemala estimated that 700,000 men had been enrolled in the units, armed with Israeli assistance. Currently 900,000 men are organized into the civil patrols. *** It is no accident that the Guatemalans looked to the Israelis for assistance in organizing their campaign against the Indians, and having followed their mentors' advice, wound up with something that looks quite a bit like the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and the Gaza strip. As the Israelis wrecked the local economy and turned the occupied territories into a captive market and a cheap labor pool, the Guatemalan military has made economic activity in the occupied highlands all but impossible. As it is openly acknowledged in the Israeli media that the Palestinian population must not be allowed to exceed the Jewish population, it is common knowledge that the Guatemalan military would like to reduce the Mayan population to a minority. But most of all there is the unyielding violence of the suppression. The occupation regime Israel has maintained since 1967 over the Palestinians (and its occupation of the Syrian Golan Heights, the Egyptian Sinai and Southern Lebanon) has trained "an entire generation of Israelis...to impose Israeli rule over subject peoples." "The Israeli soldier is a model and an example to us," Gen. Benedicto Lucas said in 1981. It was in the coercive resettlement program that Israel's activities in Guatemala intersected most directly with those of the Christian right surrounding the Reagan Administration. This was particularly true during the reign of Rios Montt. Montt was a so-called "born-again Christian," a member ("elder") of the Arcata, California based Church of the Word, a branch of Evangelical Gospel Outreach. In Guatemala, the Christian right was interested in converts by the end of 1982 reactionary Protestants had succeeded in recruiting 22 percent of the population to their theology of blind obedience and anti-communism. They were particularly hostile to Catholicism, especially "Liberation Theology," which many of the Guatemalan military deemed responsible for the insurgency. Right-wing Christian organizations seemed to be especially drawn to the harsh social control being exerted on the highland Mayans. During the Rios Montt period, foreign fundamentalists were permitted access to military operational zones, while Catholics were turned away-or attacked. During this period "many Catholic rectories and churches in Quiche [a highland province] [were] turned into Army barracks. In late 1983, the Vatican itself protested the murder of a Franciscan priest in Guatemala and the (exiled) Guatemalan Human Rights Commission (CDHG) charged that in the space of several months 500 catechists had been disappeared. In October the police caught and tortured some religious workers. Meanwhile, Rios Montt surrounded himself with advisers, both North American and Guatemalan, from his Verbo church, and what appeared to be a loose coalition of right-wing fundamentalist organizations, most notably Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network, began an extensive fundraising drive and also started sending volunteers to Ixil Triangle villages under military control. Rios Montt chose Love Lift International, the "relief arm" of Gospel Outreach, Verbo's parent church, to carry the food and supplies purchased with the money raised. Verbo representatives, along with an older evangelical outfit, the Wycliffe Bible Translators (WBT/SIL, the latter initials for the Summer Institute of Linguistics, an organization whose CIA connections are long and impeccable and which has often been charged with involvement in massacres of indigenous peoples throughout the Americas), arranged with the government "to take charge of all medical work in the Ixil Triangle, and for all education in Indian areas up to the third grade to be taught in Indian languages with WBT/SIL assistance," through the Behrhorst Clinic. WBT/SIL and the Clinic's parent, the Behrhorst Foundation, incorporated with Verbo Church into the Foundation for Aid to the Indian People (FUNDAPI), whose stated purpose was to channel international Christian donations to refugees and which coordinated volunteers from U.S. right-wing religious organizations. Although nothing has yet emerged which definitively ties Israeli activities in Guatemala to those of the religious right, it is reasonable to assume there is contact. Since the late 1970s the government of Israel has devoted considerable energy to befriending such political luminaries of rightist evangelism as Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, having turned to these groups after the National Council of Churches passed some mildly reproving resolutions about the Middle East. The Christian extremists tell Israel what it wants to hear. Jerry Falwell found justification in the Bible for an Israel encompassing parts of "lraq, Syria, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Sudan and all of Lebanon, Jordan, and Kuwait. Pat Robertson praised the Reagan Administration's veto of a UN Security Council resolution condemning Israel's invasion of Lebanon with some gobbledygook tying the invasion to the fundamentalist superstition that Israel will be the site of the last battle, Armageddon: "Israel has lit the fuse, and it is a fast burning fuse, and I don't think that the fuse is going to be quenched until that region explodes in flames. That is my personal feeling from the Bible." Robertson urged his viewers to call the White House and voice their support for the Israeli invasion. Untroubled by the scene in Armageddon when all the Jews will be converted (or damned), Israel welcomed the "Christian Voice of Hope" radio station and its companion "Star of Hope" television to Southern Lebanon, and, even though proselytizing is illegal in Israel, provided the stations with Israeli government newscasts. Supported by donations from U.S. right-wing evangelicals, and in particular by Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network, the stations were "used as a military tool" by the Israeli proxy South Lebanon Army. Aside from the religious right and their secular allies, the Guatemalan model villages have been universally condemned. Until 1985 a bipartisan majority opposed the granting of any U.S. aid that would strengthen the development poles. This, of course, stopped short of undercutting support for the "pacification" program, as funds received from U.S. AID and other foreign sources freed up government funds for use on the model villages. In 1984, U.S. AID granted Guatemala $1 million which was used for constructing infrastructure for the model villages. Americas Watch Vice Chairman Aryeh Neier pointed out that humanitarian assistance from the U.S. has "played an essential role in the Guatemalan Army's counterinsurgency programs," enabling the army to distribute (or withhold) food to exact compliance with its resettlement program. *** Abdication of Responsibility ... When the U.S. intervened in Guatemala and overthrew its liberal, democratically elected government in 1954, it effectively transferred rule to the country's military, which has held power ever since. Even the civilian presidency of Julio Cesar Mendez Montenegro was (with U.S. acquiescence) immediately subjugated by the military. To cite only one example of the continuity that makes the last three tragic decades of Guatemala a U.S. responsibility: the dossiers that formed the basis of the intelligence unit G2's death squad selection process also date back to 1954. After the fall of the government of Jacobo Arbenz, the army confiscated the membership lists of the many organizations which had blossomed during the all-too-short hiatus between repressive regimes- Guatemala was ruled by the oppressive dictator Jorge Ubico until 1945, when he was bloodlessly replaced by a popular government under Dr. Juan Jose Arevalo-and from these lists culled 70,000 "communists." These files were updated during the 1960s and used for assassinations during a U.S.-supported counterinsurgency. In the 1970s Israel stepped in and helped with the computerization of the whole bloody system. It does not take convoluted reasoning to conclude that "both the U.S. and Israel bear rather serious moral responsibility" for Guatemala. Israel, Nicaragua and the Contras excerpted from the book Israel Foreign Policy excerpts from a book by Jane Hunter South End Press, 1987 Nicaragua Under Somoza With few qualms and minimal outside criticism, Israel came to the rescue of Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle and, from September 19 7 8 to July 19 7 9, helped him stave off history. Later it would be thrown up to Israel that when Washington and just about every other government in the world was boycotting Somoza, Israel had been willing to provide him with weapons. , *** Somoza had been introduced to Israeli weapons in 1974 at a special showing arranged for him in Managua. He had bought Dabur class patrol boats and Arava STOI. aircraft; by the time he fought his final battle he would have 14 Aravas to rush his troops from place to place.S Soon after Somoza's U.S. aid was blocked, insurrection flared against him. In Septcmber 1978, there was fighting in most of Nicaragua's cities and a massive general strike in Managua that was supported by virtually the entire business community. Somoza shot his way out of it. His National Guard used 1,000 Uzi submachine guns and Galil rifles from Israel, and Somoza was expecting "thousands more" Galils.9 Although most Latin American leaders were hoping for his downfall, Somoza survived the September challenge. "Is eli-made weapons helped to save the Somoza dynasty," read one headline. That autumn, Israeli rifles and ammunition arrived in large quantities. Some of the Galil rifles were "sent directly to a special terror unit commanded by Somoza's son, which carried out the murder of political opponents, among them women and children."" The Guard also used the new Israeli weapons in its "clean-up" operations, which went on during October 1978 in half a dozen cities. The majority of the victims-many of them were shot by the Guard at their own front doors were between 14 and 21 years of age and were marked for execution simply because they lived in neighborhoods where the Sandinista National l.iberation Front (FSLN) had been active. An Israeli adviser "who presented himself as an Israeli army officer" was also present in Nicaragua and worked in Somoza's bunker in Managua. The adviser allegedly represented David Marcus Katz, the Mexico-based Israeli arms dealer with close ties to the right wing Israeli settlers movement, Gush Emunim. Israeli arms shipments continued to arrive. Several shipments came by air and were delivered at night during a curfew. Among the weapons delivered this way were surface-to-air missiles (although the Sandinistas did not have an air force). Israel had at one point given its word that it would not ship arms to Somoza. Now it denied doing so, but U.S. officials said that Israeli arms were still arriving in Nicaragua. "Our people in Managua tell us that the streets are starting to look like TerusaLembec.aus.e the National Guard is wearing 1sraeli berets," said one U.S. official. By the following spring Israel was sending Somoza really big stuff: nine combat-armed Cessna aircraft and two Sikorsky helicopters. The FSLN shot down seven of the Cessnas. ~s Somoza got better use out of the helicopters, which he called "skyraiders." He had his Guards use them as platforms for machine gun strafing; and from 3,000 feet above ground, soldiers rolled bombs out of the helicopter doors. "The Government is dropping 500-pound bombs from helicopters on rebelheld shantytowns, reportedly killing as many as 600 people in one day. Soldiers routinely kill suspected rebels they capture," wrote the New York Timescorrespondentin Managua ofthe final weeks ofthewar. After having all but five cities and a great part of Nicaragua's industrial infrastructure destroyed, on July 17, 1979, Somoza cleaned out the national treasury and fled the country. *** Israel and the Contras Some accounts set the commencement of Israeli aid to the contras as far back as their launching in 1979. It is even possible that Israel made a seamless transition from Somoza to the contras through its contacts with some of the figures in the private network that was exposed when the Irancontra scandal broke in November 1986 (see below). A part of this network "began funneling aid to Somoza via Israel and EATSCO," a shipping company created by other members of the network to take advantage of the U.S. weapons Egypt would be receiving as a result of the Camp David accords, after the Carter Administration cut off aid to Nicaragua. When the dictator was ousted, network associates of former CIA agent Edwin Wilson-now serving time in federal prison for selling explosives to Libya, among other deeds-and former CIA agent Thomas Clines transferred a "security assistance program" they had put together for Somoza to the contras. This would have involved outfitting the dregs of Somoza's secret police in Honduras, a cynical holding operation that continued until January 1981, when the Reagan Administration took office. One of the administration's first moves was to arrange with Argentina for trainers for the contras. Veterans of the Argentine "dirty war" were enthusiastic about exporting their skills and their politics. They trained the contras until Washington and Buenos Aires came to a parting of the ways, after the Reagan Administration sided with Britain during the Malvinas /Falklands War. During the Argentine period, the Israeli ambassador to Costa Rica supplied the contras with passports and aliases so that they could travel through Central America. Besides traveling for their own "business," at least one contra has been implicated in a Central American assassination: that of the revered Archbishop of San Salvador, Oscar Arnulfo Romero. At the same time, the administration approached Israel to become involved in the assault on Nicaragua: in a pattern that was later to become apparent as the raison d'etre of the Iran-contra scandal, sometime before June 1981 Israel was provided with satellite pictures of Iraq's nuclear reactor at Osirak "within the framework of an appeal to Israel for help to the contras." Israel used the pictures to destroy the reactor. It is not known to what extent, if any, Tel Aviv responded to the administration's appeal. By late 1982, however, Nicaragua was accusing Israel of arming and aiding the rag-tag bands of National Guardsmen in Honduras. The best-substantiated knowledge of Israel's entry into the war against Nicaragua is its agreement with the CIA in either 1981 or 1982 to supply East bloc weapons to the then-covert mercenary operation. After having been "restrained" a bit by Congress during the 1970s, the CIA was experiencing difficulty procuring "untraceable" weapons for the contras and was embarrassed when some of the mercenaries appeared on U.S. television in early 1982 brandishing U.S. weapons. In a display of caution that would mark all their dealings with the contras, the Israeli government made a pretense of refusing U.S. requests for such weapons "through normal diplomatic channels," while some former Israeli intelligence officials approached the CIA with an offer to supply East bloc arms, which Israel has in abundance. The Agency assumed that the offer had the backing, awareness or sponsorship of the Israeli government. There is some question as to whether the CIA accepted this particular offer, but an arrangement was indeed made in the early 1980s to supply the contras with East bloc light arms and shoulder-fired missiles, selling the weapons through the CIA, which in turn passed them on to the contras and the Afghan rebels. This particular arrangement apparently continued until 1986, "[w]hen the Israelis presented their bill for $50 million...[and] the CIA pleaded poverty, paying $30 million in arms, not cash." Former FDN Director Edgar Chamorro said the contras were speaking of Israel as an international supporter in 1982.'7 In December of that year, the FDN leadership met with Ariel Sharon, Israel's defense minister, while he was on a visit to Honduras. An arrangement was made at that time to funnel Israeli-held East bloc arms to the contras through Honduras. Israel, Honduras and Costa Rica excerpted from the book Israel Foreign Policy excerpts from a book by Jane Hunter South End Press, 1987 Honduras Honduras was one of Israel's first arms customers in Central America. Between 1975 and 1977, this second poorest of all countries in the Western Hemisphere bought 20 French super-Mystere fighter planes from Israel. Delivered at a time when it was U.S. policy to discourage the acquisition of sophisticated weaponry in Central America, these were the first supersonic aircraft in the region; some were equipped with Israeli-made Shafrir heatseeking missiles. The Hondurans bought a range of other Israeli arms: Arava STOL aircraft, a fleet of armored vehicles mounted with recoilless rifles, and Galil rifles and Uzi submachine guns. For all its poverty, when Ariel Sharon visited Honduras, he was calling on one of Israel's three biggest clients. In the wake of Sharon's visit came more arms and training-both in Israel and Honduras for officers, pilots and troops. In 1981, Israeli radar operators were at work at a Honduran airbase. Honduran officials never chafed at the Israeli presence-on the contrary, on one occasion, exasperated with the on-again off-again contra war, Honduran military leaders suggested that Israel, Chile, Colombia or Brazil take over the contra program for the U.S. Gen. Julio Perez, the Honduran army logistics chief, signed false end user certificates for Israeli weapons shipments to the contras. Israel also benefited from the fits and starts with which Honduras assented to serve as a U.S. "aircraft carrier." In October 1986, in an effort to get Honduras to agree to tolerate U.S. training of contras on its soil, the U.S. revived the notion of selling the Hondurans advanced aircraft. Emblematic of Israel's in-touch status in Honduras, before Washington could prepare the papers for the F-5Es it was offering, Israel had the Tegucigalpa government's signature on a preliminary agreement to buy 24 Kfir combat aircraft-a deal that could be worth as much as $200 million. To coax their quick agreement, Israel had assured the Hondurans that Washington would finance the deal. An incredulous State Department official said no such approval had been given. At the time the Jerusalem Post said that the National Security Council would have final say on the arrangements. Later it would be revealed that the Kfir sale was one side of a quid pro quo which would have sent Israeli advisers to the contras. Still later, the Kfir sale fell through. *** Costa Rica Someday it may be precisely known how great a role Israel played in subverting the government of Costa Rica to accede to Washington's use of its territory as a secondary base in the war against Nicaragua. More is presently known about how the U.S. bribed Costa Rican officials to turn a blind eye to the contras; how they ran a CIA and then a "private" operation the northern part of the country, which included foreign mercenaries, drug running, a clandestine airstrip, and at least two assassination attempts and managed to exercise a progressively greater influence on the small, relatively democratic nation's media, as the contra campaign wore on. Israel, however, had the inside track. Luis Alberto Monge, elected to the Costa Rican presidency in 1982, is probably one of the strongest Zionists in Central America. Formerly Costa Rican ambassador to Israel, during his presidential campaign Monge promised to move Costa Rica's embassy to Jerusalem, while his foreign-minister-to-be said that the National Liberation Party would hold relations with Israel to be a "principal preoccupation." In May 1982, Costa Rica became the first government to return its embassy to the city which all other nations had deserted when Israel annexed and declared Jerusalem its undivided capital in 1980 Costa Rica did not have an army, but it did have one of the highest foreign debts in the world, and that gave Israel somewhat of a handle. Soon after his election, Monge met in the U.S. with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, who introduced him to a number of leading bankers thus helping him to renegotiate Costa Rica's debt to private banks. Begin pressed Monge hard to abandon the neutrality Costa Rica had maintained since 1948, in effect seconding the words of Reagan's UN Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick, that if Costa Rica wanted aid from Washington, it would have to create an army. Begin offered military aid and in January 1983 the Costa Rican Public Security Minister visited Israel, touring defense plants and meeting with Defense Minister Sharon, Begin and Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir. Shamir had been in Costa Rica the previous October and offered non-military cooperation. Limited amounts of Israeli military aid began to flow to Costa Rica's police forces, and Israelis came to train the security police, special tactical squads and intelligence agents. Israelis themselves carried out various "intelligence activities" in Costa Rica. Israel's parastatal Tahal collaborated with with U.S. AID to develop a border barrier comprising roads, electronic barriers, and an agribusiness/ settlement scheme. It was an open secret that this installation was part of the campaign against Nicaragua. South Africa's Nuclear Policy Ruchita Beri,Research Fellow,IDSA "Apartheid South Africa, as a part of its national security policy, embarked on a nuclear weapons programme. Democratic South Africa sees the international and regional security being achieved by complete nuclear disarmament." — Alfred Nzo These words of Alfred Nzo, the South African Foreign Minister, capture in essence the nuclear policy of the South African government past and present. South Africa represents the world's first instance of nuclear rollback, a state which has unilaterally and voluntarily relinquished nuclear weapons. On March 24, 1993, President F.W. de Klerk declared to a special joint session of the South African Parliament that South Africa had developed a small nuclear arsenal and then dismantled and destroyed it. Mainly due to the secrecy surrounding South Africa's nuclear weapons programme there were a number of questions which were left unanswered, particularly regarding the scope and sophistication of the nuclear programme as well as its rationale. What has been the nuclear policy of the new government led by President Nelson Mandela of the African National Congress (ANC) ? Ever since the establishment of the democratic government, South Africa has been making strides in the international arena. It is the present Chairman of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and is set to assume the Chairmanship of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) this year. Moreover it is actively seeking a position in the United Nations Security Council. Of late, it has shown interest in taking a leadership role in matters related to nuclear arms control and disarmament. As a former nuclear threshold power, it feels it has the technical and diplomatic expertise to play a bridging role between Non-Nuclear Weapon States (NNWS), on the one hand, and the Nuclear Weapon States (NWS), on the other. This paper is divided into two sections: the first section analyses the nuclear policy of South Africa in the apartheid era, while the second, in the post-apartheid era. I APARTHEID ERA South Africa's nuclear programme apparently reflects perseverance, patience and technical competence. The scale of the programme was small—at its peak it could produce only one or two weapons a year. When the programme was cancelled, it was poised to develop more advanced weapons, including warheads for ballistic missiles. In the apartheid era, South Africa launched the nuclear weapons programme as part of its national security policy. This was based on the perception of a domestic, regional and international threat, encapsulated in the theory of "Total Onslaught".1 A core stand of this theory was the belief that South Africa was under the total onslaught of Communist forces globally, regionally and domestically. Global Communism was a principal external threat to South Africa and thus the country had common security interests with the West. South Africa considered the Soviet Union as the main orchestrator of global Communism and believed that in Africa this would ultimately lead to a direct conventional assault on its territory. In the view of Admiral Bierman, the Commandant General of South African Defence Forces (SADF) in the early 1970s, " In the final analysis it is a prerequisite for the successful defence of the Southern Hemisphere that the deterrent strategy based on nuclear terror and the fear of escalation should also be applicable in the region."2 This was one of the first pronouncements of a South African interest in nuclear deterrent capabilities. The political changes in the Southern African region heightened the security concerns of South Africa. The end of Portuguese rule in Africa after the 1974 Lisbon coup and the subsequent accession to power of Communist regimes in Angola (MPLA) and Mozambique (Freelimo) enhanced the encirclement by Communist forces regionally. The mid- 1970s also saw the intensification of the anti-apartheid struggle within South Africa—in the apartheid government's perception, sponsored by the Communist forces. Thus, perceiving itself to be encircled by Communist forces , the South African government promoted a militarist ideology legitimising the use of force by the state to counter that threat, codified in the concept "Total National Strategy" to coordinate its national security planning. This ultimately involved a nuclear deterrent capability. The arrival of Cuban troops in Angola after the establishment of the MPLA regime provided the final stimulus. Defence Minister P.W. Botha spelled out the defence requirements to meet this challenge as "South Africa can establish a balanced defence force to defend itself against terrorism...and this we are fully able to do....Secondly, we must have a deterrent to be able to resist a fairly heavy conventional attack on South Africa."3 This statement was quite ambiguous; however, one could reach the conclusion that both conventional and nuclear capabilities would be pursued by South Africa. Ambiguity became the trademark of the South African nuclear policy in the apartheid era. Like other threshold countries, South Africa's nuclear programme was also a recipient of external assistance. In the 1950s and 1960s, it received extensive assistance from abroad. Scientists were sent for training to Europe and the United States. The United States also supplied the Safari research reactor which was commissioned in 1965 and was subjected to International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards. During the ten years, United States supplied about 100 kg of weapon grade uranium fuel, This was suspended in 1975 as a result of international sanctions against the apartheid regime in 1975. Faced with sanctions, South Africa organised clandestine procurement networks in Europe and the United States and also began a secret collaboration with Israel. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, South Africa and Israel reportedly cooperated on a nuclear and missile programme. The 1979 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) document noted: "Israelis have not only participated in certain South African nuclear research activities over the last few years but they have also offered and transferred various sorts of advanced non-nuclear weapons technology to South Africa."4 Enrichment Programme5 The South African Atomic Energy Board (AEB), the predecessor to the Atomic Energy Corporation (AEC), was established in 1948 by an Act of the Parliament. It assumed general nuclear research and development activities at its Pelindaba site near Pretoria in 1961. Activities in the early years were based on the peaceful uses of nuclear technology, and since South Africa is a leading producer of uranium, attention was given to gain material benefit out of these large reserves. In the 1960s, the AEC started researching in methods for producing both separated plutonium and highly enriched uranium (HEU). The latter part of the programme was abandoned in 1969 because it was not competitive and was draining resources from the enrichment programme. The uranium enrichment programme made steady progress through the 1960s. By the end of 1967, the programme had succeeded in enriching uranium on a laboratory scale through a process based on a stationary wall vortex tube. After an external review of the process, the government decided in early 1969 to develop a pilot plant. Until then, the enrichment programme was a kept under cover; however, as more organisations and individuals became aware of it, the government decided to reveal the programme publicly. In 1970, the Prime Minister , John Vorster, informed the Parliament about the uranium enrichment project and building of the pilot plant (Y-plant) at Valindaba next to the Pelindaba Research Centre. He stated, "The South African process which is unique in its concept is presently developed to the stage where it is estimated that under South African conditions a large scale plant can be competitive with existing plants in the West." Prime Minister Vorster emphasised that South Africa's nuclear research and development programme was directed towards peaceful purposes and that South Africa was prepared to collaborate in the exploitation of the process " with any non-Communist country desiring to do so". He also declared South Africa's willingness to accept international safeguards subject to certain conditions.6 The government also created a separate state corporation, the Uranium Enrichment Corporation (UCOR) to run the enrichment programme. (The UCOR and the AEB were merged into the AEC in 1982). The Y-plant was commissioned in 1974 and began producing HEU in 1978. After overcoming several technical and chemical problems, the plant was able to produce a steady output of HEU for the weapon programme. In addition, the plant produced 45 percent enriched uranium for the Safari research reactor, low enriched uranium (LEU) test assemblies for the Koeberg nuclear power reactors near Cape Town, and LEU blending stock. The plant was originally designed to produce about 10,000-15,000 separate work units (SWUs) a year, but the design improvements increased its potential annual output to 20,000. Chemical reactions and inefficient mechanical processes ("mixing") caused losses in the enriched uranium output and the plant never achieved its design output. Assuming that it averaged about 10,000 SWUs per year, the plant could have produced about 60 kg of 90 percent enriched uranium in a year, or roughly enough for one of the devices of South African design. Because the plant was also producing enriched uranium for reactor fuel, it never produced weapon-grade uranium at that rate. During its lifetime, the Y-plant produced a total of about 400 kg of uranium enriched above 80 percent, the minimum enrichment used in South Africa's nuclear weapons. The Y-plant closed in 1990— the first official hint that the still secret weapons programme had ended. Next door to the Yplant, South Africa built a much larger (300,000 SWU/annum) semi-commercial plant for the Keoberg power station's need of 3.25 per cent enriched material. It was commissioned in 1984 and started full production in 1988. However, it was closed down in 1995 due to the relatively high production costs in a heavily over supplied world market. Apart from this unique enrichment process, South Africa also developed both gas centrifuge and molecular laser enrichment processes. Both these processes have been terminated now due to economic reasons. Nuclear Explosives Programme The South African efforts to develop nuclear explosives began in the 1960s under the cover of the Peaceful Nuclear Explosives (PNEs) programme.7 According to the AEC's Chairman, Waldo Stumpf, the early investigations were very modest and restricted to literature studies. Since South Africa has a significant mining industry, these investigations were primarily launched for evaluating the feasibility of employing nuclear explosives for future construction purposes. In 1971, with the HEU in sight, the AEB received permission from the Minister of Mines to begin secret research and development work on the nuclear explosive devices for peaceful purposes. These investigations were based on literature studies, theoretical calculations and preliminary studies of the ballistics of gun-type devices. In addition, limited theoretical studies of implosion devices were conducted, according to J.W Villiers, former Chairman of the AEC, who is widely believed to have headed the nuclear explosives programme in the 1970s. Due to lack of facilities at Pelindaba this research was undertaken at a propulsion laboratory at the Somchem establishment in the Cape province.8 At Somchem, the AEB design team produced a scale model of a gun-type device which, with a projectile constructed of non-nuclear material, was tested at Somchem in the Cape province in May 1974. There is some disagreement about the shift from the peaceful nuclear explosives programme to weaponisation i.e. the development of a limited deterrent capability. One school of thought maintains that it was already conceived in 1974. According to this view-point, an investigation of the available options convinced Prime Minister Vorster that the most cost effective would be development of a limited nuclear deterrent capability, and the decision was then taken to this effect. However, six years elapsed between the policy decision and its initial implementation. The other view holds that although the development of a limited nuclear explosive capacity and construction of an underground test site was approved by Prime Minister Vorster in 1974, the programme was still civilian and that the formal shift occurred only in 1978. It is difficult to say which interpretation is correct it. In fact, it took a full six years. During the three years, the AEB developed internal ballistic and neutronic computer programmes, conducted experiments to determine properties of materials in the devices, designed and constructed the critical facility at Pelindaba, and experimented with propellants for the gun-type device. The team working at Somchem tested the first full scale model of this device using a natural uranium projectile in 1976. The test proved the mechanical integrity of the design. Meanwhile the AEB selected the test site in the Kalahari Desert. Two test shafts were completed in 1976 and 1977. In 1977, the AEB established its own high security weapons research and development facilities at Pelindaba, and during that year, the programme was transferred from Somchem to Pelindaba. In mid-1977, the AEB produced a gun-type device without an HEU core. As has happened in programmes in other nations, the development of the devices outpaced the development of the fissile material. A cold test was apparently planned for August 1977. According to officials, the test would have been a fully instrumented underground test with a dummy core. The major purpose was to test the logistical plans for an actual detonation. How that test was cancelled has been well publicised. Soviet intelligence had detected test preparations and had alerted the United States. US intelligence quickly confirmed the existence of the test site. The Soviet and Western governments were convinced that South Africa was preparing for a full scale nuclear test site. For two weeks, the Western governments pressed South Africa not to test. The test was called off, the site was abandoned and the shafts sealed. However, the nuclear explosives/weapons programme continued. South Africa was suspended from participation in the UN General Assembly and the Specialised Agencies; it was subjected to a mandatory weapons embargo and a voluntary oil embargo in the Security Council and denied its designated seat on the IAEA Board of Governors. In 1978, a second , smaller device was built by the AEB. It was not until the second half of 1979, however, that enough HEU had been produced to load a device. The second device was consequently kept for demonstration purposes, without ever being converted into a deliverable weapon. By 1979, the government gave the South African Armaments Corporation (Armscor) the job of manufacturing additional nuclear devices. Armscor used the new Kentron Circle facility about 15 km east of Pelindaba (this site was later renamed Advena) for this purpose. The Armscor approached the problem very differently from the AEB. Armscor considered the AEB's 1979 device to be an unqualified design that could not meet the rigid safety, security and reliability specifications then under development by them. Moreover, the first device was not deliverable. Armscor manufactured its first device in 1983, a "prequalification" model which could be kicked out of the back of a plane. The first gun-type device was not completed until August 1987. This model could be delivered by a modified Buccaneer bomber. By the time the programme was cancelled, three more deliverable devices had been completed. In 1985, the government decided to fund a new facility (Advena Central Laboratories) about five minutes away from the Circle building. This was just being completed when the programme was cancelled in September 1989. By the late 1980s, Armscor had been preparing to upgrade seven gun-type devices. These would have been replaced by seven upgraded devices when they reached the end of their estimated life by the year 2000. These replacement devices would have been deliverable by aircraft and most likely also by ballistic missiles, although a final decision about missiles had not been made. Apparently, the weapon scientists were never serious about building implosion devices. According to an Armscor official, a decision to build implosion weapons was still ten years away when the weapons programme was cancelled. South Africa's Nuclear Deterrent Strategy South Africa's deterrent strategy , described at the time of disclosures made by President De Klerk, was based on three phases. * Phase one: The first was " strategic uncertainty" during which South Africa's nuclear capability would be neither acknowledged nor denied. * Phase two: Should South African territory be threatened militarily then the government would covertly acknowledge the existence of its nuclear weapons to leading Western governments, particularly the United States. * Phase three: If this partial disclosure failed to lead to the required assistance in defusing the situation, South Africa would publicly acknowledge its capability or demonstrate it with an underground test. This strategy was designed to bring Western governments to South Africa's aid in the event of an overwhelming attack by the Soviet supported military forces in Southern Africa. However, in the view of some, South Africa's objective of developing a limited capability was to force the West, particularly the United States, to provide a nuclear guarantee to offset the Soviet Union's capacity for "nuclear escalation dominance" in a situation in which South Africa was under attack. Thus, it appears the policy was that of political bluff intended to blackmail the United States or other Western powers into coming to South Africa's assistance.9 Another objective in espousing such a deterrence doctrine was the desire to increase Western concerns about South Africa's nuclear intentions. Though South Africa apparently never intentionally moved beyond phase one, some officials have said that they believed that Western or Soviet intelligence discovered that Armscor had been checking the condition of at least one of the shafts in the Kalahari for a possible underground test during the mid-1980s and that this exercise convinced the Western powers that it was serious about nuclear weapons. This, in turn, led them to start putting pressure on the Soviet Union and Cuba to withdraw from Angola. Whether the weapons and the strategy ever served this purpose has not been proved and is impossible to determine. 1979 Nuclear Test On September 22, 1979, a US Vela satellite detected an unusual "double flash" indicative of a nuclear test, in an "area of the Indian Ocean and South Atlantic including portions of the Antarctic continent, and the southern part of Africa." In fact, some have claimed it to be a joint Israeli-South African nuclear test.10 South Africa denied that it had conducted a nuclear test. As late as March 1993, the AEC's Chairman, Waldo Stumpf, is reported to have said, " If it was a nuclear explosion, South Africa was definitely not involved. I doubt that it was a nuclear [test] because no radioactive fallout was detected." Eighteen years after the event, Aziz Pahad, the Deputy Foreign Minister, confirmed that South Africa conducted a nuclear test in the South Indian Ocean in 1979. This admission has laid to rest the controversy surrounding the test. The dispute stemmed from the record of two distinct flashes of bright light- indicative of a nuclear test detected by the Vela 6911 satellite over the Indian Ocean in September 22, 1979. However, since the optical data were not corroborated by other information, the Carter Administration vigorously challenged the military and nuclear laboratory analyses. That position was based on the general mistrust of the aging satellites, and refusal to accept supporting data from other sources. As a result, the Administration assembled a panel of scientists from academia, which decided the event could not be classed as a nuclear test without conclusive supporting data.11 Denuclearisation According to the South African officials, the changes in the security environment in the late 1980s, both regionally and internationally, played an important role in their country's denuclearisation.12 After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the independence of Namibia, the cessation of hostilities in Angola and the withdrawal of the 50,000 Cuban troops from that country, there was a remarkable improvement in the security situation, thereby, making a nuclear deterrent superfluous. The election of F.W. De Klerk as the President in 1989 precipitated this strategy. De Klerk embarked on a programme of political reform to normalise South Africa's international relations. He also appointed a committee to consider the benefits and liabilities of maintaining the nuclear deterrent and of joining the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). In November 1989, the committee recommended complete dismantling of the nuclear weapons programme, a decision which De Klerk approved. This involved the decommissioning of the pilot enrichment plant (the Y-plant was closed on February 1, 1990) and to dismantle and destroy the nuclear devices. The committee advised against publicising the nuclear arsenal and its dismantling for the fear of inviting Iraq like sanctions. In fact, the decision to terminate its nuclear weapons programme opened the prospects of accession to the NPT. Until then, South Africa had not shown any interest in joining the NPT. When the NPT draft treaty was being debated at the 1968 UN General Assembly, South Africa outlined its official attitude. Its main concern was that the IAEA safeguards might infringe its commercial secrets mainly related to gold and uranium extraction technology and later also its enrichment programme. It was also concerned that the potential benefits from any peaceful applications of a nuclear explosion might be withheld—contrary to Article V of the NPT. Moreover, it expressed doubts about the credibility of the security guarantees provided by the NWS to the NNWS signatories. South Africa followed this stance till 1989. Towards the end of the 1980s, the government realised that accession to the NPT would have distinct advantage for South Africa's international relations, specially those with African countries. However, the more plausible reason for South Africa's 1991 decision to sign the NPT and accept IAEA safeguards was its "concern about the future." The South African government did not want any undeclared nuclear material or infrastructure falling in the hands of the ANC.13 South Africa joined the NPT on July 10, 1991. The safeguards agreement entered into force on September 16, 1991. The stockpile of HEU was put under IAEA safeguards. In an attempt to intensify its non-proliferation efforts in the last few years, the De Klerk government worked to establish a strict regime to control the export of sensitive nuclear missile and chemical technologies. On June 23, 1993, De Klerk signed the Non- Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction Act which prohibits South African citizens from assisting in any programme related to construction of nuclear weapons. This was one of the last policies which the apartheid government made in relation to the nuclear issue, the most constructive of them being the rollback of the nuclear programme. II POST-APARTHEID ERA In the post-apartheid era , the ANC-led government which came to power in April 1994, has continued South Africa's non-proliferation efforts. Given the ANC's anti- nuclear stance in the past, it is not surprising. For years, the ANC led efforts to expose and cancel the nuclear programme. The bulk of its members remain firmly opposed to nuclear weapons. President Nelson Mandela has declared that South Africa must never again allow its resources , scientists and engineers to produce weapons of mass destruction. This has been reflected in the further implementation of the national non- proliferation policy by the new government. It has acceded to all major conventions on weapons of mass destruction—the NPT, Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT)—and the supplier groups—the Zangger Committee, Nuclear Suppliers Group and Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR). It played an important role in the completion of the Pelindaba-African Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone Treaty in 1995. This treaty commits African states not to research, develop, stockpile manufacture or otherwise possess or have control over any nuclear explosive device. It is also participating in the preparations for a possible Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty (FMCT). During the review and extension conference of the NPT, it played a key role. NPT Review and Extension Conference South Africa's role in the extension of the NPT has won it praise from some and criticism from others. The South African position was presented at the review and extension conference of the NPT by Foreign Minister Alfred Nzo. In a statement, he committed South Africa to an indefinite extension of the NPT without any preconditions or linkages. He also proposed changes to strengthen the review process and yardsticks for assessing progress in implementing the treaty. Some Western analysts hailed South Africa's role, arguing that it played a key role in ensuring the survival of nuclear non-proliferation. But some in South Africa dismissed its intervention as a sell-out of the non-aligned position on extension. The criticism levelled against South Africa has primarily sparked from the shift in its position on the NPT extension. Initially, it appears South Africa extended tentative support for a fixed extension and its position was close to the official NAM stance. South Africa's representative at the third preparatory meeting (PrepCom) said that South Africa...."calls on State parties to comply with all the provisions of the treaty, whether they relate to non- proliferation, disarmament or peaceful uses."14 Moreover, the South African position differed from the ANC's, which was put forward at the ANC-convened 1994 conference on the "Nuclear Policy of the Democratic South Africa." The ANC's Denis Goldberg was the key protagonist at the meeting, drawing attention to the NPT extension question and advancing three proposals : * South Africa should not opt for limited extension, as this would undermine the nonproliferation regime; * it should support a 15-year fixed period extension ; * and it could not support permanent extension without serious modification of the nonproliferation regime, addressing disarmament by the five nuclear powers and the conclusion of the CTBT.15 South Africa did not accept this advice. The government had an internal review of the extension issue before the conference began. In the review, it was decided to support indefinite extension. Abdul Minty, an official at the Department of Foreign Affairs claims that South Africa might have supported the NAM; however, he felt there was no official NAM position. This argument appears to be weak, and there were other factors which influenced the South African decision. The first was related to its own security situation. According to Nzo, "South Africa took the decision to destroy nuclear weapons and become a state party to the NPT because we saw our own security being guaranteed by its provisions. It is for this reason also that South Africa has become an active sponsor of an African nuclear weapon-free zone treaty, which will be indefinite."16 The United States may have pressurised South Africa too. It is well known that in the months preceding the conference, the United States was employing a quiet carrot and stick policy to drum up support for an indefinite extension. According to a news report, Princeton Lyman, the US Ambassador to South Africa, had warned Nzo on March 10, 1995, that an unwelcome position on the NPT would affect Washington's view of Pretoria's "non-proliferation credentials." And that failure to support an indefinite extension "would constrain the ability of the nuclear supplier states to engage in the peaceful nuclear cooperation."17 Hinting probably at the South African bid to join the Nuclear Suppliers Group. However, the South African officials insist that they did not "cave in" to the US pressure. They opine that the position which South Africa reached on the basis of national consensus was similar to the one the US wanted it to take.18 In doing so, it endorsed some of the NWS' arguments, i.e. rejecting the linking of permanent extension to conclusion of the CTBT, other nuclear disarmament measures or a time-bound framework for disarmament, thereby adopting a narrow interpretation of Article VI. At the plenary session of the conference, South Africa's Minister for Foreign Affairs, Alfred Nzo, stated that it supported, in principle, indefinite extension "without any preconditions or linkage to other nuclear disarmament measures such as CTBT." South Africa also endorsed the NWS' argument that fixed period extension would erode confidence in the NPT, endangering the nonproliferation regime. This implicitly rejected the non-aligned countries position that limited extension sought to strengthen rather than weaken the NPT. South Africa expressed the fear that placing conditions or extending it for a fixed period, might lead to termination of the treaty. South Africa's stance also stemmed from the position that the NWS had an upper hand in the negotiations. It rejected the linkage on the grounds that "...(this) raises the question, inter alia, of what would happen if for one or other reason, the conditions were not met"—implying that nothing would. Therefore, it claims to have sought a middle course between the two positions. South Africa's middle course is explained in the terms that while acceding to the NWS' position for the indefinite extension of the NPT, it also attempted to put pressure on them for their Article VI commitments by suggesting that the NPT process be strengthened. It also suggested yardsticks for assessing progress towards nuclear disarmament. These were in the form of nonbinding "Principles for Nuclear Non- Proliferation and Disarmament", which were subsequently adopted by the conference for future review conferences. * restating a commitment to the non- proliferation of nuclear weapons; * strengthening and full adherence to IAEA safeguards agreement; * access to nuclear material and technology for peaceful purposes; * progress in the cut- off convention * progress in the reduction of nuclear weapon arsenals; * commitment to establishing nuclear-free zones; * enforcing binding security assurances for non- nuclear states.19 The key objection to South Africa's position is that it removed the only source of leverage on the NWS, because the treaty's extension can no longer be linked to dismantling of their arsenals. The "Principles" which it proposed and were adopted to ensure strengthened review processes are not binding and do not set deadlines for their goals. In the absence of a binding time-frame, the nuclear powers are free to adopt their own notions of the right time to disarm. This was a logical consequence of South Africa's endorsement of the restrictive reading, since a time-frame would have implied a form of linkage. South Africa claims to have bridged the gap between the two sides at the review and extension conference—that it nudged the conference towards a compromise. However, this is strictly not true. The review conference deadlocked on language addressing the implementation on Article VI. Despite agreement on indefinite extension, the 1995 extension conference ended without narrowing the divide between the conflicting positions on nuclear disarmament. In the view of some, this was partly due to the NWS stressing extension at the expense of a review of the treaty's implementation. The NWS were more concerned about the survival of the treaty than in pushing forward the disarmament agenda. CTBT South Africa is a signatory to the CTBT. On August 6, 1996, President Nelson Mandela had announced that following the passage of the comprehensive nuclear test ban text through multilateral negotiations, South Africa intended to sign the treaty at the earliest opportunity. Which it did on September 25, the day the treaty opened for signature. South Africa believes that the treaty would not only establish an internationally legally binding obligation on the states which signed and ratified it but also establish a norm in international law from which no state could escape. It would achieve the end of nuclear test ban explosions and inhibit the proliferation of nuclear weapons both horizontally and vertically.20 South Africa views the CTBT as an instrument of disarmament and non-proliferation and feels that the CTBT is an integral part of the programme which will lead to the full implementation of Article VI nuclear disarmament obligations of the NPT. Paragraph four of the Principles and Objectives for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament identifies the initial elements of such a programme of action for nuclear disarmament.21 South Africa also opposed linkages of any kind to the treaty negotiations. It viewed linkages as a way to "block progress on all fronts," therefore, not to be relied on. It rejected the proposal made by Egypt of linking the CTBT to a pledge made by the NWS towards non- use of nuclear weapons and signing of the FMCT. Similarly, South Africa rejected India's proposal of placing the CTBT in a disarmament framework as part of a step-by-step process aimed at achieving complete elimination of all nuclear weapons within a time-bound framework.22 PrepCom I & II The NPT is to come for review in the year 2000. At the two Preparatory Committee (PrepCom) meetings held up to now, South Africa put forward its proposals. At the first session of the NPT PrepCom for the year 2000 review conference held in New York in April 1997, South Africa pushed for time to be specifically allocated at the next PrepCom to address the issue of security assurances. It proposed that the PrepCom should decide to take up the work on security assurances envisaged in the "Principles and Objectives for Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament" with a view to completing this work before the year 2000 so as to make recommendations to the review conference. The issue at stake, according to the South African delegate, was granting of legally binding security assurances to the NNWS parties of the NPT, thereby fulfilling the undertaking which should be given to the states which have voluntarily given up the nuclear weapons option, becoming parties to the treaty. It was stated that the argument that declarations made by the NWS are sufficient or that these assurances should only be granted in the context of nuclear weapon-free zones are not valid. Neither is the argument that such an initiative would not fall within the mandate of the PrepCom. South Africa's proposal was accepted by the Chairman.23 However, at the second PrepCom, South Africa was not successful. Its request for special time to be devoted to nuclear disarmament at the 1999 Prepcom was rejected by the Chairman. South Africa had argued that such a step would provide the NWS with the structured opportunity to state what they are doing; the NNWS could then engage the NWS as to "the practical steps and systematic and progressive efforts" which have been identified; the international community could then jointly support or assist initiatives undertaken or agreements achieved. Such a discussion in 1999 would prepare the way for the establishment at the 2000 Review of a subsidiary body to Main Committee I, which traditionally includes Article VI among many other issues such as nuclear non-proliferation, nuclear weapon-free zones and security assurances. The subsidiary body on nuclear disarmament would then be ingrained into future Reviews and Prepcoms, thus putting a clear spotlight on NWS actions, or lack thereof, in implementing Article VI. But apparently this spotlight was precisely what the Western NWS (with Russia) objected to. In the Chairman's consultations, the South African proposal was repeatedly rejected by the US, the UK, France and Russia. The NWS argued that the traditional Main Committees, which allow for working groups are sufficient for these discussions. This showed the reluctance of the NWS for a debate on the comprehensive programme to eliminate nuclear weapons.24 Implications for India Since the dismantling of the apartheid regime, India's relations with South Africa have strengthened. This is obvious with the signing of the Strategic Partnership Accord between the two countries in March 1997. South Africa's nuclear policy in the post-apartheid era has emerged as a constant irritant in the relations between the two countries. India had hoped that the inauguration of President Mandela's government in South Africa would give a fillip to its effort towards achieving comprehensive nuclear disarmament. The ANC in the past had been quite vocal in its support to nuclear disarmament. It "shared the commitment of the United Nations to general and complete disarmament under effective international control as resolved by the General Assembly at the special session on disarmament in 1978."25 In the recent years, however, there has been a dilution in the stance of South Africa and it has apparently supported the Western approach towards nuclear arms control . This was quite visible during the negotiations of the NPT and the CTBT. While the decision of the previous government to accede to the NPT may have been motivated by the desire not to bequeath a nuclear capability to a government dominated by the ANC, there are few doubts on the decision in Pretoria . India and the other members of the G-21 have in the past called for the establishment in the Conference on Disarmament, of an ad hoc committee on nuclear disarmament to start negotiations on a phased programme with the eventual aim of eliminating nuclear weapons within a time-bound framework.26 South Africa, while appreciating India's position does not agree with its timebound programme of nuclear disarmament. It appears to favour a step-by-step approach (incremental) without a firm time-frame being defined. South Africa's position on nuclear non-proliferation is linked to the foreign policy focus of the country. The Mandela government has stressed the economic basis of its foreign relations. The European Community (EC) and the United States are its largest trading partners, therefore, South Africa would not benefit from alienating them. To quote Alfred Nzo, South African Minister of Foreign Affairs, "Although we believe our future will be closely linked to the development of the South-South concept, there are certain realities that we dare not ignore. The US and the G-7 countries constitute the undeniable economic power base of the world today. These countries are essential to the economic well-being of the developing world, including South and Southern Africa. Furthermore, the G-7 countries have been most supportive of the GNU and have been generous in their commitment to our economic process. For this we are grateful, and we will continue to build on this sound foundation in the future."27 These thoughts were echoed by President Mandela at last year's ANC conference where he said, "We will need the fullest cooperation of the developed countries of the North to achieve our objectives of an African renaissance."28 The South African position in the field of nuclear disarmament could be also be explained through their desire to avoid being isolated in the world community. After years of being dubbed a pariah, from the South Africans' perspective, it had very little to lose and a lot to gain in terms of "diplomatic dividends" from the negotiations on nuclear disarmament. At the same time, South Africa did not want to alienate its neighbours in the region. After facing years of destabilisation, the establishment of the ANC government had brought forth an era of peace and stability in Southern Africa, and the continuance of the nuclear weapons programme and not signing the NPT and CTBT could have given the wrong signals. In the backdrop of the Indian nuclear tests, South Africa has enhanced the efforts towards global nuclear disarmament. It appears to have been quite disenchanted by the NPT review process and the slow progress towards disarmament, mainly due to the rejection of its proposal for devoting special time at the second PrepCom. In fact, in what seems to be a clear endorsement of the traditional Indian stand, South Africa joined the NAM countries just ten days after India conducted its nuclear tests in condemning the NWS for maintaining their atomic arsenals without any participation in the post-Cold War era. They called for a universal and legally binding multilateral agreement for total elimination of such weapons.29 It is difficult to ascertain whether there is truly a shift in its position: some have accused South Africa of "posturing" in its attempt to win over the non-aligned countries for their support in its bid for a position at the United Nations Security Council. Whatever be the case, it is hoped that perhaps India can influence the Mandela government to reconsider its position on this thorny issue and work together for a more peaceful and nuclear-free world. NOTES 1. See K. Grundy, The Militarisation of South African Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988). 2. Robert S. Jaster, South Africa's Narrowing Security Options, Adelphi Papers, 159 (London: IISS, Spring, 1980), pp. 4-6. 3. Ibid., p. 28. 4. David Albright and Mark Hibbs, "South Africa: The ANC and the Atom Bomb," The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, April 1993, p. 36. 5. This section is based mainly on Waldo Stumpf, Birth and Death of the South African Nuclear Weapons Programme, a paper given at the conference "50 Years After Hiroshima" organised by USPID and held in Castigioncello, Italy, September 28 to October 2, 1995. 6. South Africa would in no way be limited in promotion of the peaceful application of nuclear energy; it would not run the risk of details of the new process leaking out as a result of the safeguards inspection system; and the system would have to be implemented on such a basis as to avoid interference with the normal efficient operation of the particular industries. (One of the main reasons for continuing this research was the possibility of selling enriched uranium in the international market under appropriate safeguards.) 7. See n. 5 for details on South Africa's nuclear weapons programme. 8. Somchem is one of the South African defence manufacturing units, involved in the development and manufacture of explosives, propellents and rocket launchers. Until the early 1990s, Somchem was an Armscor facility, it is now a division of Denel. 9. Darryl Howlett and John Simpson, "Nuclearisation and Denuclearisation in South Africa," Survival, vol. 35, no. 3, Autumn 1993, p. 158. 10. See Seymour M. Hersh, The Samson Option (New York: Random House, 1991) pp. 271-283. 11. Aviation Week and Space Technology, July 21, 1997. 12. On this issue, see J.W. de Villiers, Roger Jardine, Mitchell Reiss, "Why South Africa Gave up the Bomb" Foreign Affairs, vol. 72, no. 5, November/December 1993. 13. See Albright and Hibbs, n. 4. 14. See Zondi Masiza and Chris Landsberg, "Fissions for Compliments: South Africa and the 1995 Extension of Nuclear Non-Proliferation" Policy: Issues and Actors, vol. 9, no. 3, September 1996, p. 23. 15. See Denis Goldberg, A Nuclear Policy for a New Democratic South Africa, unpublished paper presented at the ANC Nuclear Policy Conference, February 11-13, 1994. 16. Tom Zamora Collina, "South Africa Bridges the Gap," Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, vol. 51, no. 4, July/August 1995, pp. 30-31. 17. Ibid. 18. Ibid. 19. Alfred Nzo's address to the NPT conference in New York, April 19, 1995. 20. See statement by K.J. Jele, at the General Assembly on September 9, 1996, GA/9081. 21. See statement made by Ambassador J.E. Selebi, South Africa's permanent representative at the CD on January 25, 1996, CD/PV.722. 22. See Masiza and Landsberg, n. 14, p. 37. 23. Peter Goosen, "Security Assurances: A South African Perspective and Approach," UNIDIR Newsletter, no. 37, 1998. 24. Douglas Roche, "An Analysis of the Second Preparatory Committee Meeting for the 2000 Review of the Non-Proliferation Treaty" April 27-May 8, 1998 Geneva. 25. See ANC, Foreign Policy Perspective in a Democratic South Africa, December 1994. 26. Sally Morphet, "The Non-Aligned and their 11th Summit at Cartagena, October 1995," The Round Table, no. 340, October 1996, pp. 455-463. 27. See speech by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Alfred Nzo, in the National Assembly on May 18, 1995, in Chris Landsberg, Garth le Pere and Anthoni van Nieuwkerk, Mission Imperfect: Redirecting South Africa's Foreign Policy (Johannesburg: Foundation for Global Dialogue and Centre for Policy Studies, 1995) p. 115. 28. See "Mandela Outlines ANC Foreign Policy to Conference," SAPA News Agency, Johannesberg, December 16, 1997 in BBC's Summary of World Broad- casts (SWB) Part 5, Africa, Latin America & the Caribean, p. A/4. 29. SWB, AL/3234, May 23, 1998, p.L/1. SOUTH AFRICA 1962-1989 Nelson Mandela, Secretary Baker, and a security officer during Baker's visit to Namibia in celebration of Namibian independence, March 1990 (Photograph: Greg H. Bradford).             Overview South Africa: The Making of U.S. Policy, 1962-1989 Focus of the Collection Access to Critical Events in Recent U.S. Policy Toward South Africa Unprecedented Indexing Makes Every Document Accessible The Collection Will Be a Necessity For: Sample Document Titles The South Africa Editorial Board Praise for South Africa, 1962-1989 Picture: Police in Sharville, South Africa spray tear gas on fleeing protesters to disperse township residents who stormed the police station after police blocked a trade union march, March 26, 1990 (AP/Wide World Photos). Document1: This confidential memo from Nicolas Platt, Executive Secretary, explains State Department strategy to increase public support for U.S. policy of "sustained and positive involvement" in South Africa. Document2: In a secret cable released to the Archive in 1991, Secretary of State Kissinger directs the ambassador to relay U.S. intentions regarding the U.N. vote on sanctions in South Africa. South Africa: The Making of U.S. Policy, 1962-1989 Coveted for its resources, supported as an ally, empowered by its nuclear capability and hated for its policy of apartheid, South Africa remains a country of extremes. Reactive in nature, U.S. relations with South Africa provide a case study of a controversial foreign policy that sought to reconcile the pursuit of political and economic interests in a country with a limited commitment to human rights. Focus of the Collection The South African document collection contains 2,500 documents totaling more than 12,000 pages. The collection provides primary source documents which describe U.S. support, implementation, enforcement and violations of the U.N.-sponsored sanctions against South Africa. The documents provide a case study of a U.S. foreign policy lacking in strategy and driven by reaction to events. Access to Critical Events in Recent U.S. Policy Toward South Africa This set deals with all major events both domestic and foreign relating to South Africa during three time periods. The first period (1962-1976) focuses on the response of the U.S. and the international community to the Sharpeville massacre in 1960 and the arrest of the leadership and banning of the ANC and PAC, United Nations Security Council Arms Embargo Resolution against South Africa in 1963, subsequent resolutions, arms sales, technology transfers, commerce and trade, nuclear collaboration, joint U S.-South African covert activities in Angola, Kissinger shuttle diplomacy in southern Africa and U.S. government support for South Africa in international forums. The second period (1976-1980) deals primarily with the response of the U.S. government and the international community to the South African government's brutal reaction to the June 1976 student revolt, the death of Steve Biko (the leader of the Black Consciousness Movement), South Africa's subsequent security crackdown on opponents of apartheid and the adoption of the U.N. Security Council Resolution that called for a mandatory arms embargo against South Africa. Additionally, primary source documents describe the Carter Administration's prohibition of all sales to South Africa's military and police, the U.N.-proposed economic sanctions, South African Defense Force incursions into neighboring countries, U.S. violations of the U.N. embargo, technology transfers, nuclear collaborations, efforts by the Contact Group to negotiate Namibian independence with the South African government, and aspects of the civil and anti-colonial wars in Zimbabwe and Angola. The third period (1981-1989) focuses on developments during the Reagan Administration and emphasizes South Africa's circumvention of arms embargoes, technology transfers, nuclear collaboration, U.S.-South African support for rebels in Angola, the developments within South Africa and internationally that led to the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986 and the diplomatic maneuvers that led to Namibian independence. Unprecedented Indexing Makes Every Document Accessible The Archive prepares extensive, printed finding aids for its collections. Praised by librarians and scholars, these finding aids are valuable, stand-alone reference tools. The Guide contains a detailed events chronology, glossaries of key individuals, organizations, events, legal terms and acronyms, a selected bibliography of relevant secondary sources and a document catalog. The Catalog, organized chronologically, provides bibliographic information about the documents and lists all the indexing phrases generated for each. This facilitates browsing through the document descriptions and allows researchers to preview key details about documents before perusing the microfiche. The Index contains rich contextual references to subjects, individuals and organizations. The detail provided in indexing allows researchers to pinpoint relevant documents in specific areas of study. The Collection Will Be a Necessity For:  Scholars and students of U.S. foreign policy and international relations  Africanists and regional specialists on southern Africa  Government and business consultants  Librarians and bibliographers  Investigative reporters  Newspaper, television and radio reporters  Concerned citizens Documents in this collection include:  Embassy cable traffic  Memoranda  Intelligence reports  Briefing papers  Congressional reports  Proposals for AID funding  Situation reports  Official letters  Press reports Previously unpublished documents originate from:  Department of State  Department of Defense  Defense Intelligence Agency  Central Intelligence Agency  Nuclear Regulatory Commission  Treasury Department  The White House  Agency for International Development  Export-lmport Bank  Congressional Committees  National Security Council Sample Document Titles   08/12/63 U.S. and South African Economic Leverage on Each Other (DOS Memorandum) 02/19/71 Reflections on 'Black Power' in South Africa (DOS Airgram)         04/15/75 Supply of Highly Enriched Uranium to South Africa (DOS Cable) 07/01/76 Kissinger--Vorster Talks (DOS Cable) 07/12/76 South Africa--Israel: Military Cooperation (Defense Intelligence Appraisal) 03/25/81 Ambassador Lichtenstein's Report on Ambassador Kirkpatrick's Conversation with SADF Lt. Gen. Van Der Westhuizen and Anglican Bishop Tutu (DOS Memorandum of Conversation) 03/08/84 [Regarding Duane Clarridge Visit to South Africa to Secure Assistance for Contras] (CIA Cable) 12/12/86 Implementation of the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986 (DOS Cable) 05/11 /88 Briefing: Developments in the Military Situation in Angola since July 1987 (DIA Briefing Paper) 07/05/89 South African Launch of a Short-Range Ballistic Missile (SRBM) (DIA Intelligent Report) Overview Title: South Africa: The Making of U.S. Policy, 1962- 1989 Content: Reproduces on microfiche 2,500 documents totaling more than 12,000 pages recording U.S. policy toward South Africa from the Kennedy Administration through the Reagan years. Arrangement and Access: Documents are arranged chronologically. For ease of use, the unique identification numbers assigned to the documents are printed in eye-legible type at the top right hand corner and precede each document on the microfiche strip. Standards: Documents are reproduced on silver halide positive- reading microfiche at a nominal reduction of 24x in envelopes. They are archivally permanent and conform to AIIM, BSI and ANSI standards. Any microfiche found to be physically substandard will be replaced free of charge . Indexing: A printed guide and index totaling approximately 2,000 pages accompanies the microfiche collection. The Guide contains an events chronology, glossaries of names and organizations, a bibliography of secondary sources and a chronological listing of documents. The Index provides in-depth, document-level access to subjects, individuals and organizations. Date of Publication: Fall 1991 Orders and Inquiries The South Africa Editorial Board  Pauline Baker, Senior Fellow Carnegie Endowment for International Peace  N. Brian Winchester, Associate Director African Studies Program Indiana University  Witney W. Schneidman, Senior Analyst Investor Responsibility Research Center  Michael Clough, Senior Fellow Council on Foreign Relations National Security Archive Project Staff  Kenneth Mokoena, Project Director for the South Africa collection, coordinated documentation efforts on U.S. policy toward South Africa and the front-line states. Mr. Mokoena worked in   Africa for the United Nations and the government of Botswana before joining the Archive in 1986. He now works for the Republic of South Africa, Department of Foreign Affairs Kathi Austin, Research Assistant Katherine Perkins, Research Assistant Praise for South Africa, 1962-1989 "An extraordinary resource. The staff of the National Security Archive has spent thousands of hours researching and filing Freedom of Information Act requests and cataloging and indexing them to produce a documentary record of U.S. foreign policymaking unavailable anywhere else...it would have taken individual scholars years to do what the Archive has done. N. Brian Winchester, Associate Director African Studies Program Indiana University "Carefully assembling a vast array of formerly classified documents dealing with South African, Namibian, Angolan and Mozambican issues, this collection gives the reader a unique insight into the thinking of various U.S. officials and branches of government on the highly complex and important problems of this area. Taken as a whole, they represent an excellent resource for specialists dealing with the area as well as for classes on international relations, U.S. foreign policy, and southern Africa. This informative set of papers deserves wide utilization." Donald Rothchild Department of Political Science University of California, Davis Return to National Security Archive Microfiche Sets. Headline: Date: Bibliography: Orig. Src.: Israeli Friends 1 May 1994 ISIS Report, May 1994, p. 5 Abstract: Note: Details about the Blaauw case are provided in the Africa Confidential article. ..... According to information released regarding the secret mid-1980s extortion trial of Johann Blaauw, a brigadier in the South African army, South Africa and _Israel_ participated in four clandestine nuclear deals in the mid1970s. Blaauw was found not guilty of trying to extort mining concessions from Minister of Mines Fanie Botha in a trial in 1989 [1]. The first nuclear deal occurred in shortly after the Yom Kippur War in 1973 when "Benjamine," a member of the Israel Council for Scientific Liaison, asked Blaauw to acquire South African yellowcake which Israel could use for weapon-grade plutonium. ("Benjamine" is believed to be Benjamin Blumberg, the head of the Israeli Intelligence division Lish Ka l-Kishrei (Lakam) [2].) After discussions with Gen. Hendryk van den Bergh, head of the Bureau of State Security (BOSS), South African Prime Minister John Vorster eventually agreed to sell 50 metric tons of yellowcake to Israel. The deal was handled by Minister of Mines Fanie Botha, who replaced Piet Koornhog [Koornhof] after Koornhog opposed the sale. Uranium Enrichment Corporation Chairman Ampie Roux was also aware of the deal. During his testimony, Blaauw said that "a high degree of confidence was developing between the South African and Israeli governments which involved the exchange of military technology, joint aeronautic ventures, and the supply of 'know-how' by Israel to South Africa in regard to the manufacture of weaponry." The second transfer of nuclear material included tritium. Van den Bergh asked Blaauw to procure 30 grams of tritium from Israel, which the trial record stated was "enough to manufacture 12 atomic bombs." Tritium is used to increase the power of nuclear weapons by creating fusion for thermonuclear bombs [2]. In a project with the code name "Teeblare" (or "Tea Leaves"), Israel delivered many small shipments of tritium to South Africa in capsules which contained 2.5 grams each. Blumberg and Information Ministry Secretary Eschel Rhoodie served as escorts on the flights [2]. The South African Atomic Energy Corporation (AEC) has admitted to the IAEA that it did import tritium but has refused to name its sources. Blaauw received $1 million from Israel as a "gift for what I had done for them" [1]. [Note: It is unclear whether the "gift" was provided as a reward for arranging the tritium deal, the yellowcake deal, or both.] In reports to the IAEA, the AEA has also admitted to performing lithium-6 separation which results in the production of tritium [2]. A September 1993 IAEA document said that in the early 1980s South Africa was planning to construct a 150 MW reactor at Gouriqua, near Moussel Bay, that would be capable of producing tritium and plutonium indigenously [2]. The reactor was never built [2]. The third transaction involved the export of 50 metric tons of South African yellow cake to Israel. The fourth transaction involved the release of 500 metric tons of South African yellowcake that was already inexplicably located in Israel. The details of each transaction are also recorded in the book, "Critical Mass" by William Burrows and Robert Windrem [1]. Despite these occurrences, South African President de Klerk stated in a speech to parliament in March 1993, "I wish to emphasize that at no time did South Africa acquire nuclear weapons technology or materials from another country, nor has it provided any to any other country, or cooperated with another country in this regard" [1]. When asked why South Africa was importing tritium from Israel, de Klerk responded, "Although tritium may be used in initiators of nuclear explosive devices, (although not in the devices produced by South Africa) it has many other commercial uses. South Africa has been active in the commercial exploitation of tritium for some time and has procured this material from various sources in the past" [1]. Some of the information about the Blaauw case was revealed in March 1993 and April 1993 by Des Blow of the Johannesburg City Press. Supporting Sources: [1] Weekly Mail and Guardian (Johannesburg), February 1911-17/94, p. 2; in JPRS- TND-94-006, pp. 1-2, "De Klerk Not Telling 'Truth' About Nuclear Program." [2] Africa Confidential, 4 February 1994, pp. 1-3, "South Africa: a Nuclear Nightmare."