Project Coast, South Africa's Bio-weapon Program

Operating out of South Africa during the Apartheid era in the early 1980’s, Dr. Wouter Basson launched a secret bioweapons project called Project Coast. The goal of the project was to develop biological and chemical agents that would either kill or sterilize the black population and assassinate political enemies. Among the agents developed were Marburg and Ebola viruses. 

Basson is surrounded by cloak and dagger intrigue, as he told Pretoria High court in South Africa that “The local CIA agent in Pretoria threatened me with death on the sidewalk of the American Embassy in Schoeman Street.” According to a 2001 article in The New Yorker magazine, the American Embassy in Pretoria was “terribly concerned” that Basson would reveal deep connections between Project Coast and the United States.

In 2013, Basson was found guilty of “unprofessional conduct” by the South African health council.

Bioweapons expert Jeanne Guillemin writes in her book Biological Weapons: From the Invention of State-Sponsored Programs to Contemporary Bioterrorism, “The project‘s growth years were from 1982 to 1987, when it developed a range of biological agents (such as those for anthrax, cholera, and the Marburg and Ebola viruses and for botulinum toxin)…“

Basson’s bioweapons program officially ended in 1994, but there has been no independent verification that the pathogens created were ever destroyed. The order to destroy them went directly to Dr. Basson. According to the Wall Street Journal, “The integrity of the process rested solely on Dr. Basson’s honesty.”

Basson claims to have had contact with western agencies that provided “ideological assistance” to Project Coast. Basson stated in an interview shot for the documentary Anthrax War that he met several times with Dr. David Kelly, the infamous UN weapons inspector in Iraq. Kelly was a top bioweapons expert in the United Kingdom. He was found dead near his home in Oxfordshire in 2003. While the official story claims he committed suicide, medical experts highly doubt this story.

In a 2007 article from the Mail Online, it was reported that a week prior to his death, Dr. Kelly was to be interviewed by MI5 about his ties to Dr. Basson.

Dr. Timothy Stamps, Minister of Health of Zimbabwe, suspected that his country was under biological attack during the time that Basson was operating. Stamps told PBS Frontline in 1998 that “The evidence is very clear that these were not natural events. Whether they were caused by some direct or deliberate inoculation or not, is the question we have to answer.”

Stamps specifically named the Ebola and Marburg viruses as suspect. Stamps thinks that his country was being used as a testing ground for weaponized Ebola.

“I’m talking about anthrax and cholera in particular, but also a couple of viruses that are not endemic to Zimbabwe [such as] the Ebola type virus and, we think also, the Marburg virus. We wonder whether in fact these are not associated with biological warfare against this country during the hostilities… Ebola was along the line of the Zambezi [River], and I suspect that this may have been an experiment to see if a new virus could be used to directly infect people.”

The Ghanaian Times reported in early September on the recent Ebola outbreak, noting connections between Basson and bioweapons research. The article points out that, “…there are two types of scientists in the world: those who are so concerned about the pain and death caused to humans by illness that they will even sacrifice their own lives to try and cure deadly diseases, and those who will use their scientific skill to kill humans on the orders of… government…”

Indeed, these ideas are not new. Plato wrote over 2,000 years ago in his workThe Republic that a ruling elite should guide society, “…whose aim will be to preserve the average of population.” He further stated, “There are many other things which they will have to consider, such as the effects of wars and diseases and any similar agencies, in order as far as this is possible to prevent the State from becoming either too large or too small.”

As revealed by The Age, Nobel prize winning Australian microbiologist Sir Macfarlane Burnet secretly urged the Australian government in 1947 to develop bio weapons for use against the “overpopulated countries of South-East Asia.” In a 1947 meeting with the New Weapons and Equipment Development Committee, the group recommended that “the possibilities of an attack on the food supplies of S-E Asia and Indonesia using B.W. agents should be considered by a small study group.”

This information gives us an interesting perspective on the recent unprecedented Ebola outbreak. Is it an organic natural phenomenon? Did this strain of Ebola accidentally escape from a bioweapons lab? Or, was it deliberately released?

In 1998 South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission held hearings investigating activities of the apartheid-era government. Toward the end of the hearings, the Commission looked into the apartheid regime's Chemical and Biological Warfare (CBW) program and allegations that it developed a sterility vaccine to use on black South Africans, employed toxic and chemical poison weapons for political asssassination, and in the late 1970s provided anthrax and cholera to Rhodesian troops for use against guerrilla rebels in their war to overthrow Rhodesia's white minority rule.

South Africa's CBW program was headed by Dr. Wouter Basson, a former Special Forces Army Brigadier and personal heart specialist to former President P.W. Botha. Basson ran the CBW program during the 1980s and early 1990s. CBW, also known as Project Coast, was initiated in the early 1980s to provide detection and protection capabilities to the South African Defence Force. However, there was an offensive component to the program and the claims are that CBW's offensive program:

  Developed lethal chemical and biological weapons that targeted ANC political leaders and their supporters as well as populations living in the black townships. These weapons included an infertility toxin to secretly sterilize the black population; skin-absorbing poisons that could be applied to the clothing of targets; and poison concealed in products such as chocolates and cigarettes. (Read the interviews with former President F.W. de Klerk, and Dr. Daan Goosen, who worked with Basson in the CBW program.)

  Released cholera strains into water sources of certain South African villages and provided anthrax and cholera to the government troops of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) during the late 1970s to use against the rebel soldiers in the guerrilla war. In 1979 the world's largest outbreak of anthrax took place in Rhodesia where 82 people were killed and thousands became ill. Zimbabwe's current Minister of Health, Dr. Timothy Stamps, has ordered an investigation into whether South Africa was involved in the incident.

South Africa's CBW program underwent drastic changes after F.W. de Klerk became president in the early 1990s. De Klerk appointed General Pierre Steyn to investigate the CBW program and his report, known as the Steyn Report, exposed some of the alleged abuses of the program. De Klerk ordered the firing of numerous CBW scientists and officials and the destruction of all documents pertaining to CBW technology. All of the information was transferred to CD-ROMs to be kept under lock and key by the president. However, the official position of the South African government throughout the 1990s was that the program had been a strictly defensive one.

Basson was pressured to retire and became a consultant who travelled frequently, including trips to Libya which drew attention. Twice during de Klerk's presidency and once during Mandela's, the United States and Britain made démarches to express their concerns about the leaking of knowledge from the CBW program. The South African government re-hired Basson in 1995 in an effort to keep him close and under control. (Read the interview with Ronnie Kasrils, South Africa's current Deputy Defense Minister.)

In 1997 Basson was arrested on charges of selling the drug Ecstasy. During the investigation, authorities found CBW documents, which were supposed to have been destroyed, stored in Basson's home. Basson was pressured to come clean with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), but he refused to seek amnesty and delayed testifying until July 1998. He was the TRC's last witness and gave limited testimony. People who worked for Basson, however, did testify and have applied for amnesty and qualified for immunity from prosecution.

Efforts continue on uncovering the truth of what happened in the CBW program. Basson is still employed by the government in the military's medical section and South Africa continues to have a CBW program but says it is strictly defensive. The country is now a member of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention and the Chemical Weapons Convention. Below is a 2008 interview with "Dr. Death" Wouter Basson.