30th Anniversary of Announcement of South Africa’s Decision to Dismantle Nuclear Weapons Programme

On 24 March 2023, the FW de Klerk Foundation co-hosted an international panel discussion to mark the 30th anniversary of President De Klerk’s announcement of South Africa’s decision to dismantle its nuclear weapons programme. Speakers included Jonathan Granoff, the President of the Global Security Institute of New York; Ambassador Thomas Graham, veteran US arms limitation negotiator; Ambassador Sergio Duarte, President of Pugwash Conferences and former UN Under-Secretary-General for Disarmament Affairs; and Dave Steward, Chairman of the FW de Klerk Foundation.

30 years ago - on 24 March 1993 - President FW de Klerk addressed a special session of the South African Parliament. Most MPs and journalists thought that he was going to announce some new development in the constitutional transformation process, which at that stage, was entering its final lap at the recently convened National Negotiating Forum.

Instead, he took South Africa - and the world - by surprise by announcing that South Africa had developed its own nuclear weapons - and, under his presidency, had decided to dismantle them and sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferations Treaty.

Dismantling South Africa’s nuclear weapons and signing the NPT made sense to De Klerk. He had never really accepted the strategic rationale for the weapons in the first place. Nuclear weapons had no value in the kind of border wars South Africa had been fighting - and the prospect of using them against neighboring countries was too appalling to be contemplated.

South Africa’s accession to the NPT led to the lifting of nuclear sanctions by the United States. South Africa also began to exchange nuclear information with other states. The dismantling of the nuclear weapons capability and accession to the NPT were important and essential steps in South Africa’s reintegration in the international community.

Sadly, South Africa remains the only state that has ever voluntarily dismantled a nuclear weapons capability that it, itself, had developed. Ukraine and Kazakhstan voluntarily relinquished their control over Soviet nuclear weapons on their territories. Existing nuclear states continue to give lip service to the goal of nuclear disarmament - but little has been achieved in practice. In an increasingly volatile world, nuclear weapons pose the most significant existential threat to humanity.

Видео 30th Anniversary of Announcement of South Africa’s Decision to Dismantle Nuclear Weapons Programme канала FW de Klerk Foundation