Dr Kelvin Kemm: How “secure” is SA’s enriched uranium?

There are growing fears that nuclear weapons could be used in the Iran war. That has brought renewed focus on that 2007 attempted armed robbery at South Africa's nuclear research site, Pelindaba, and the “security” of the country’s large, high-quality enriched uranium stock. Chris Steyn asks Dr. Kelvin Kemm, a member of the South African Council for the Non-proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction and the former Chairman of South African Nuclear Energy Corporation for his assessment. Asked whether it would be possible for South Africa to bypass the council and secretly gift another country some enriched uranium, Dr Kemm says: “It should not be bypassed because if the council is bypassed then the government is breaking its own rules and that would be serious…I would like to say that I think that's pretty much impossible.” Detailing South Africa’s nuclear weapons programme under Apartheid, Dr Kemm says the country was busy with the seventh nuclear device when former President FW de Klerk ordered a stop. “A couple of them were smaller than the Hiroshima weapon of the Second World War and some of them were bigger than that.” Dr Kemm also details SA’s future nuclear power plans.