Koeberg, 30km north of Cape Town, was imposed by


the apartheid regime in the 70s


power plant, in


South Africa’s only nuclear


ancestral lands. In Malawi, water has been found to be radioactively contaminated, and various protests against uranium min- ing have flared up, yet to no avail. In Mali, people are also protesting against mining and nuclear pollution in the Falea region, as in Zambia and other countries. In South Africa, several chiefs who opposed mining projects by the world’s biggest nuclear con- cern, France’s Areva, were killed in dubious circumstances. Last year, Namibia saw a massive in-


crease in mining as well as interest for nu- clear exploitation coming from India, Rus- sia, France and other non-African states. Te USA, a country that until recently had vast uranium resources itself and also im- ported crude nuclear material from South Africa, is now increasingly turning to Na- mibia and especially Niger for its supplies. Some say that Niger might have the


responsibility to save itself from this fate, but may also ultimately have the power to save the world from some of this otherwise pre-programmed nuclear disaster. How? By refusing to let its vast nuclear resources be exploited. Te nuclear powers are increasingly ex-


periencing and preparing for problems of supply with the necessary crude nuclear materials such as uranium and plutonium. Even though it is said that countries such as the USA, Russia and China have or rather had vast uranium resources themselves, all of these countries are now very eager to identify, secure and exploit mines for nuclear materials throughout Africa. Africa, the continent endowed with the


richest natural resources, has vast nuclear materials in its soil. Almost every African country is currently being mined or exam- ined and prepared for nuclear exploitation. According to a recent report updated


in February 2011 by the World Informa- tion Service on Energy (WISE), an envi- ronmental activist amalgamation based in Amsterdam, China National Nuclear Group, being that country’s biggest nuclear power plant builder, signed a deal with the China-Africa Development Fund, a


are eager to identify, secure and exploit mines for nuclear materials throughout Africa. Almost every African country is being mined or examined for nuclear exploitation.”


“The nuclear powers


world’s largest uranium resources. Coun- tries that are already active in their exploi- tation are India, Korea, China and France. France and its state-controlled mega-


concern Avera already have a long and dirty past in Niger. It is claimed that in 1974, the then Niger president, Hamani Diori, involuntarily signed up to his own dismissal when he manifested intentions to index the price for uranium at a time when the French company Cogema had for some decades conducted massive uranium extraction in his country. Soon after, he was chased from office


Chinese state-run institution, in 2010 to examine and exploit uranium resources throughout Africa. French, Canadian, British, Swiss, Japa-


nese, Russian, Chinese, Australian and other companies are mining uranium, or have signed contracts to do so very soon with Algeria, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, DRCongo, Gabon, Malawi, Mali, Chad, South Africa, Tanzania, Mozambique, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Uganda, Zambia and other African countries. Botswana’s former mineral minister,


Ponatshego Kedikilwe, said that such ac- tivity is taking place “across the length and breadth of Botswana”. It also resulted in the eviction of Kalahari bushmen from their


by Seyni Kountché, formerly a lieutenant in the French army. Once Kountché was in power, Niger’s uranium prices crum- bled. Consecutively, Cogema and later Avera helped to make France the world’s fourth-largest uranium producer and the second-largest nuclear energy producer, even though that country only naturally possesses 4% of the world’s uranium re- sources. As with the mining of other mineral re-


sources in Africa, France aspires to extract the highest profits possible by reducing exploitation costs. Tus, in the surround- ings of Niger’s uranium mines in Arlit and Agadez, very high incidences of cardio- vascular diseases, allergies, cancer, birth defects and malformations have been observed. Up to 2006, Areva extracted 100,000


tonnes of uranium from Arlit, whereas Niger in that year remained 172nd in the UNDP human development index


New African June 2011 | 73


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