Despite increasing volumes of international cargo passing through African ports, most African ports and borders are inadequately equipped with radiation detection equipment, nor are they staffed with personnel trained in handling and detecting radioactive material. Notwithstanding health risks to workers from both legitimate ongoing transnational transits of radioactive material and illicit nuclear smuggling, the diversion of radioactive material in Africa’s ports, borders and shipping industry is a growing nuclear proliferation concern. These issues are compounded by continental risks including porous borders, terrorist and transnational organised crime networks (which have commandeered border crossings in some regions), maritime piracy, and the added concern of governmental corruption.

Uranium traders take no risk in transporting the radioactive material, as they only take title to the yellowcake once it is in secure storage facilities.⁽²⁾ Decreased transparency of uranium sector supply deals to countries that may use African uranium in nuclear weapons remains an ongoing concern.⁽³⁾ Additionally, South Africa, which is a major global exporter of radioisotopes, is set to operate plants to smelt radioactive metal scrap amid concerns that, inter alia, this opens up radioactive waste importation in contradiction of the Pelindaba Treaty’s Article 7 which prohibits dumping of radioactive waste in Africa.⁽⁴⁾ This CAI paper focuses on the critical need for the transparent increase of radioactive material security as it pertains to Africa’s ports, borders and transit industry. Stigmatising this material might be an important step in establishing Africa’s role in inhibiting nuclear proliferation by states and non-state actors, and reducing the health hazards associated with radioactive material handling.

Is Africa’s growing radioactive trade throwing nuclear security into disarray?

The prospective import of radioactive metal scrap into Africa comes at a time when globally several African nations were ranked among the world’s worst in terms of the 2014 Nuclear Materials Security Index and South Africa decreased by one point from the previous year’s index.⁽⁵⁾ This poor showing follows despite African state’s awareness about proliferation risks from many years’ of all-inclusive membership in the Treaty on the Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). Additionally, African uranium exportation is set to increase four-fold by 2035 ⁽⁶⁾ and poses particular problems for diversion, as the uranium ore concentrate (UOC) produced in Africa is used to make yellow cake (U308) that can be enriched to fuel nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons. For example, the status of Zimbabwe’s reported attempts to secretly establish uranium supply deals with Iran and North Korea, both countries of global concern for nuclear proliferation, remains unclear.⁽⁷⁾ Compounding diversion concerns, nuclear fuel is imported for about nine operational and aging atomic research reactors hosted in various African countries and the two nuclear power plant (NPP) reactors at Koeberg near Cape Town. Radioactive isotopes are also regularly transported around Africa for agricultural, medical and mining applications.

Regionally, Africa has lacked the capacity and political will to make significant indigenous improvements in radiation handling and detection capabilities. The African Union’s (AU) most likely source of nuclear security compliances, the African Commission on Nuclear Energy (AFCONE), remains inactive and therefore non-functional in contributing to securing radioactive material transport through Africa’s ports and borders. This is despite being established by the AU in 2009 in terms of the Pelindaba Treaty, and chaired by South Africa, which is also AFCONE’s intended host country. Two other African nuclear bodies are the African Regional Cooperative Agreement for Research, Development and Training Related to Nuclear Science and Technology (AFRA) and the Forum of Nuclear Regulatory Bodies in Africa (FNRBA). However, often with support from the United Nations’ (UN) International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), both nuclear bodies have focused primarily on atomic energy expansion and technology on the continent and promoted little public awareness on enhancing worker safety and detection capabilities. The IAEA has a nuclear security agenda, but is constrained by lack of resources and the willingness of member states to give nuclear security the priority to drive the agenda. Without a legally-binding global nuclear security regime, Michelle Cann of the non-profit Partnership for Global Security contends, talks on nuclear security could “end with a whimper, which may be followed somewhere down the road by a very large, terrorist-produced bang.”⁽⁸⁾ Thus, voluntary measures being offered leaves governance issues unaddressed.

The requisite political will in Africa to improve trans-national security for the protection of radioactive material appears, practically, to be non-existent regardless of a sizeable turnout of African states at February’s Second International Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons, in Mexico. These deliberations focussed inter-alia on public health and a call that emphasised nuclear weapons to be stigmatised. Despite much rhetoric, world leaders with a desire to “look good” still fail to elevate nuclear security beyond “third fiddle” according to issue experts.⁽⁹⁾

The implementation of political will may possibly be in limbo pending broader political agendas involving African nations’ growing challenge of nuclear weapon states’ (NWS) domination of the global nuclear security regime as is playing out over Iran and various nuclear forums, and is beyond the scope of this paper. Suffice to state that although the international political profile of nuclear security has risen, there has been a backlash against it, particularly among the developing world that has not yet transcended the politics of the NPT. Even so, a bottom-up approach to bring attention to related workers and officials on the proliferation and health risks associated with radioactive material transits, legitimate or illegal, could produce pressure that could finally induce politicians to act. Such an approach requires the engagement of non-governmental groups (NGOs), mine workers, border officials, and shipment handlers in discussions on such risks. The bottom-up approach also relies heavily on the ability of these groups to exert pressure on African governments to develop multilateral and national transport systems capable of deterring, interdicting, and responding to illicit radioactive material smuggling in and out of Africa. Aside from a possible lack of political will, Africa has also remained largely side-lined from a variety of international initiatives for nuclear security in ports, borders, and shipping. This is likely because not all of these initiatives are globally comprehensive and have focused on countries with larger quantities of nuclear weapons useable material.

African port/border security lacks a standardised control system

Illicit trafficking of drugs, small arms, and other illegal commodities is, however, prevalent throughout Africa. The Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), a private United States (US)-based think-tank, and the South Africa-based Institute for Security Studies (ISS), contend that the factors facilitating these illicit activities such as weak border controls and diminished enforcement capacities could permit the trafficking of radioactive material.⁽¹⁰⁾

Issues related to the future of Southern African uranium exports were presented to the IAEA in 2012 by the World Nuclear Transport Institute (WNTI), founded in 1998 by International Nuclear Services (United Kingdom), AREVA (France) and the Federation of Electric Power Companies (Japan).⁽¹¹⁾ WNTI found a general lack of training at airports and port terminals in the handling of radioactive materials, a lack of capacity for the urgent shipping required of uranium products and the absence of a standardised approach to radioactive material transportation from state to state across the continent. A standardised approach is difficult, the South African National Nuclear Regulator (NNR) contends, because there is no international requirement for the certification of monitoring loads being exported from a country.⁽¹²⁾ Apparently, different acceptance criteria for radioactivity exist and can lead to inconsistent rejections of conveyances at borders. The need for improvements in these areas was corroborated in a 2013 study on African uranium exportation conducted by the Swedish research institute, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).⁽¹³⁾ Despite this recognition by African and international entities little has been done to rectify the deficiencies in protecting the transit of radioactive material.

Border and port security in Africa is generally plagued by corruption, lack of resources, and illicit cross border activities that increase the potential for successful radioactive material smuggling.⁽¹⁴⁾ The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) exemplifies the inability of African nations impacted by regional issues to apply the necessary political will to combat corruption and the prospect of illicit smuggling of radioactive material. Though the civil war in the DRC ended over 10 years ago, the country lacks political and financial autonomy and therefore national transport security has suffered enormously. Air cargo transportation, for instance, is often controlled by non-state armed groups functioning without the oversight of any civil authority.⁽¹⁵⁾ The illicit movement of natural resources and untaxed imports in the DRC are made possible by an absence of air traffic control and surveillance equipment, which presents an obvious obstacle for the effective detection of radioactive material.

Africa’s uranium sector is not risk free

The uranium exportation business in Africa takes place in four key African states: Malawi, Namibia, Niger, and South Africa – not always to known destinations. Nevertheless, prominent companies control the majority of African uranium production including AREVA (France), Rio-Tinto (Australia), Paladin Energy (Australia), and AngloGold Ashanti (South Africa). Uranium exportation provides these four African states with a substantial form of income and employment opportunities, despite majority holdings by foreign corporations.⁽¹⁶⁾ The prospect of economically-driven development from the uranium sector is a prominent reason for Africa’s growing interest in the uranium supply field. However, African countries interested in uranium exploration should consider that uranium production has not alleviated poverty in uranium producing countries. Moreover, the uranium industry has posed severe health and environmental risks in current and former mining states, among others Gabon and Niger, which have experienced high rates of respiratory problems among mine workers.⁽¹⁷⁾ Substantial negligence, lack of transparency and monitoring data, and problems with worker safety in uranium mines in both countries are ascribed to the fact that AREVA, the mine owner, does not make radioactivity levels public. Thus, the public is unaware of the health risks posed. The body of related research on this topic in various African regions continues to increase.

The IAEA’s projections related to an increase in uranium exportation out of Africa are made in spite of a drop in the uranium market since the price collapse of uranium after Japan’s Fukishima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster in 2011. This has caused several projects like those in Malawi, Namibia, and Niger to be put on hold because AREVA has endured substantial profit loss.⁽¹⁸⁾ Stagnant mines and abandoned projects pose their own risk of orphaned radioactive material and theft that could contribute to illicit trade. The former Shinkolobwe uranium mine in the DRC, for example, has experienced continual unauthorised mining after it was closed for poor working conditions, harmful levels of radiation, and the collapse of the mine itself in July 2004.⁽¹⁹⁾ Artisanal miners have since been exploiting the mine for cobalt and uranium.⁽²⁰⁾ Such mining is unregulated in terms of radioactive safety and waste management, posing a health risk to the miners and the unknown recipients of the ore.

Though several African states, among them Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal and South Africa, are vying for nuclear energy contracts and over 30 African nations are engaged in uranium exploration, the present international focus has revolved around securing ports and borders in other world regions. As University of Michigan’s professor Gabriel Hecht, the author of several publications on the topic indicates, most of the African countries eager to do business in uranium lack the infrastructure required to monitor and mitigate exposure to workers, and for them to monitor illicit smuggling.⁽²¹⁾ African and international dialogue should encourage the enhancement of border and transport security in the early stages of such projects before the risk of increased radioactive material trafficking becomes a reality. According to the IAEA Illicit Trafficking Database, Africa experienced 12 known incidents of nuclear material trafficking from 1995-2005 in the DRC, Kenya, Namibia, South Africa, and Tanzania;⁽²²⁾ and a total of 2,477 confirmed and confidentially reported incidents globally by December 2012.⁽²³⁾ The US has raised concerns regarding the uranium exportation from Rossing’s Mine in Namibia, which in 2009 reported 170 kilograms (kg) of natural uranium stolen by its mine workers who were assisted by a member of the Namibian Defence Forces. In 2011, AREVA reported the theft of 324 kg of sodium-di-urinate (SDU), a uranium concentrate, from its mine in Namibia. More recently, in November 2013, two men were arrested in South Africa for allegedly attempting to sell 1 kg of un-enriched uranium.

Radioactive material protection initiatives: African, international support is crucial

Successful detection of radioactive material smuggling in Africa is contingent upon the international community’s recognition of the need to bring Africa further into globally binding international and multilateral initiatives. Despite an intricate constellation of international instruments, most remain voluntary and non-binding. Africa’s own determination to contribute to radioactive material control on a global scale will be an important step in acquiring the needed international support. The aforementioned regional dilemmas in several African countries, as well as a general resistance to Western-dominated initiatives must therefore be overcome. Support was achieved by the Gabonese NGO, Col-lectif des anciens travailleurs miniers de Comuf (CATRAM), which had success in bringing health and working condition concerns related to Gabonese uranium mines to international attention and subsequently received assistance from French NGOs.⁽²⁴⁾

However, prospective multilateral initiatives in which African participation should be increased include, among others, the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism (GICNT), the IAEA Nuclear Security Series (NSS), and the US Megaports Initiative. Since 2006, the Megaports Initiative, for example, equipped four African ports in Cameroon, Djibouti, Egypt and Kenya with detection equipment and provided training to scan cargo, before it was suspended in 2012 due to budgetary restraints.⁽²⁵⁾ More recently in March 2014, at the third in a series of Nuclear Security Summits (NSS) in The Hague, token grants were pledged towards nuclear security training in Africa and elsewhere, and 35 of 53 attending world leaders also agreed on a set of far-reaching guidelines to combat illicit trafficking and secure dangerous radiological sources that might be used in a so-called ‘dirty bomb’. Inspired by US President Barak Obama, the pledge is to turn international guidelines on nuclear security into national laws and open up to independent scrutiny. Of the six African countries present, only two, Algeria and Morocco, signed the pledge, while Egypt, Gabon, Nigeria and South Africa and its partners in the BRICS alliance did not. However, active African participation is also low in global mechanisms such the 1979 Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material (CPPNM)⁽²⁶⁾ and UN Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 1540 and its 2005 Amendment implementation, where reporting and adherence must also be improved.

South Africa de-stigmatises radioactive material

A lack of improvement to radioactive material security in Africa could, in part, be attributed to radioactive material, uranium in particular, not being generally stigmatised. A 1972 IAEA safeguards document excluded uranium ore from the category of source material, thus international authorities did not consider uranium as nuclear until it became feed for enrichment plants or fuel reactors.⁽²⁷⁾ As the recognition of high dose exposure to radiation in mine workers became more prevalent, uranium actually became less stigmatised. This is because countries like South Africa lobbied for exclusion of uranium mines from the nuclear classification starting in the late 1960s,⁽²⁸⁾ and more recently, for exclusion of radioactive waste that it now considers a ‘resource’ in terms of its Pelindaba smelter plants. This has not only opened up the question on future nuclear dumping, but also about undue health risks to workers and the public as hazardous material becomes deregulated after the smelting process for release into the common market with a stamp of approval. Uranium has continued to be de-stigmatised and denuclearised as a result of multinational corporations and investment firms dealing uranium with little distinction from other commodities. It is an oddity that uranium ore and yellowcake are not widely considered ‘nuclear’ considering known NWS like Pakistan, and attempted NWS like Iraq and Libya, were purported customers of Nigerian yellowcake in the 1970s and 1980s.

Conclusion

African leaders must demonstrate political will to contribute to global efforts that prevent the spread of illicit nuclear material and unsafe handling by workers of radioactive material, rather than paying lip-service to such notions in global forums, as mentioned above. Acting on the broad recognition that improper handling of radioactive material has humanitarian impacts requires enhancing knowledge and building capacity for radioactive material detection, handling and security. Failure to do so could mean that it is up to workers to pressurise governments to recognise health and security risks, and likely will have economic and trade repercussions on domestic, neighbouring and global economies. In the short term, however, if radioactive materials are de-stigmatised by governments, widespread informational campaigns will likely fall under the wheelhouse of international and domestic NGOs to educate radioactive material handlers on health risks. It would be regrettable if only the backlash at grass root level is able to pressure African governments and foreign corporations to provide training and worker protection.

Written by Dominique Gilbert ⁽¹⁾ and Donald Stewart ⁽¹⁾

NOTES:

(1)Dominique Gilbert is the Managing Consultant of the Counter-Proliferation (CP) unit at Consultancy Africa Intelligence (CAI). Donald Stewart is a Research Associate with CAI with a particular interest in nonproliferation and terrorism. Contact Dominique and Donald through the Counter-Proliferation unit ( counter.proliferation@consultancyafrica.com). Edited by Claire Furphy.
(2) ‘Goldman puts “for sale” sign on Iran’s old uranium supplier’, Reuters, February 2014, http://www.iol.co.za.
(3) ‘Zimbabwe in “arms for uranium” pact with North Korea’, Nehanda Radio, September 2013, http://nehandaradio.com; D’Arrigo D. and Gilbert, D., ‘Nuclear waste threatens metal supply in US and South Africa’, Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS), April 2013, http://www.nirs.org.
(4) ‘Pelindaba text of the African Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone Treaty’, United Nations (UN) General Assembly, 1996, http://www.iaea.org.
(5) ‘Nuclear Materials Security Index’, Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), January 2014, http://ntiindex.org.
(6) ‘Bringing the map to life: IAEA assists Africa on uranium resources’, IAEA, December 2013, http://www.iaea.org.
(7) Barnes, D., ‘Alleged Iranian uranium deal with Zimbabwe may revive sanctions debate’, Global Security Newswire, August 2013, http://www.nti.org; Mushekwe, I., ‘Zimbabwe in ‘arms for uranium’ pact with North Korea, September 2013, http://nehandaradio.com.
(8) Sprenger, S., ‘Leaders search for endgame at Nuclear Security Summit’, Global Security Newswire, 24 March 2014, http://www.nti.org.
(9) Ibid.
(10) ‘Sub-Saharan Africa 1540 reporting’, NTI, January 2014, http://www.nti.org; Broodryk, A. and Stott, N., ‘Securing Africa’s nuclear resources’, Institute for Security Studies (ISS), 2011, http://dspace.cigilibrary.org.
(11) ‘Working together for an efficient future for Southern African uranium exports Namibia’, WNTI, April 2012, http://aebofnamibia.org.
(12) ‘Radiation in scrap metal recycling industry’, National Nuclear Regulator (NNR), South Africa, September 2011, http://www.hazcom.co.za.
(13) Anthony, I. and Grip, L., ‘Africa and the global market in natural uranium: From proliferation risk to non-proliferation opportunity’, SIPRI, November 2013, http://books.sipri.org.
(14) Chene, M., ‘Literature review on corruption at ports and border points in Southern Africa’, Corruption Resource Centre, July 2013.
(15) Griffiths, H., ‘Building air transport capacity in Africa: Options for improving security and governance’, SIPRI, October 2009, http://books.sipri.org.
(16) ‘Uranium mining in Africa: A continent at the centre of a global nuclear renaissance’, South African Institute of International Affairs (SAII), September 2012.
(17) ‘Potential use of radioactively contaminated mining materials in the construction of residential homes from open pit uranium mines in Gabon and Niger’, European Parliament Directorate-General for External Policies, 2010, http://www.ecologic.eu.
(18) ‘Areva puts projects on hold as profits collapse’, Nuclear Engineering International (NEI), December 2011, http://www.neimagazine.com.
(19) ‘Radiological report on an inter-agency mission to the Shinkolobwe mine site’, IAEA, November 2004, https://docs.unocha.org.
(20) Ibid.
(21) Hecht, G., 2009. Africa and the nuclear world: Labour, occupational health, and the transnational production of uranium. Comparative Studies in Society and History, (51(4). pp. 896-926.
(22) ‘Sub-Saharan Africa 1540 reporting’, NTI, January 2014, http://www.nti.org.
(23) ‘IAEA incident and trafficking database (ITDF)’, IAEA, 24 March 2014, http://www-ns.iaea.org.
(24) Hecht, G., 2012. An elemental force: Uranium production in Africa, and what it means to be nuclear. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 68(2), http://thebulletin.org.
(25) ‘US and Kenya agree to install radiation detection equipment at Port of Mombasa’, NNSA, 2009, http://nnsa.energy.gov.
(26) Eighteen African countries have still not acceded to or ratified the CPPNM and only Niger of Africa’s four uranium-producing countries ratified the 2005 CPPNM Amendment, in May 2009; ‘International conventions and legal agreements: Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material’, IAEA, http://www.iaea.org.
(27) Hecht, G., 2012. An elemental force: Uranium production in Africa, and what it means to be nuclear. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 68(2), http://thebulletin.org.
(28) Ibid.