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Missing keys, holes in
fence and a single padlock: welcome to Congo's nuclear plant
The IAEA
is worried that lax security could lead to enriched uranium falling into
the wrong hands
Chris McGreal in Kinshasa
Thursday November 23, 2006
The Guardian
Atomic gateway … Congo’s
atomic energy commission has missed every target on security and safety,
but funding is coming in and its officials believe that a bright future
lies ahead for the nuclear facility.
Amid the market stalls,
hawkers and gridlocked cars on the road out of Congo's capital and into
the Kinshasa hills there is nothing to mark the way to a nondescript clutch
of buildings a few hundred yards down a side street.
The dilapidated concrete
compound is protected by little more than a low-slung rusted barbed-wire
fence and a rickety gate sealed by a single padlock. It would be easy enough
to slip through a hole in the fence but there is no need, as the main entrance
to what is supposed to be one of the best guarded sites in Congo is often
unmanned.
The armed police assigned
to watch the compound were not to be seen at the weekend as visitors wandered
the corridors of what is Africa's oldest nuclear reactor facility - and
the storage place for dozens of bars of enriched uranium - until finally
challenged by a man in a tracksuit who called himself "security".
The International Atomic
Energy Agency has long viewed Kinshasa's experimental nuclear reactor as
a disaster in the making, either through an accident that releases radiation
into the city or because of lax security.
There are now three
locks to gain access to the reactor and uranium rods, because years ago
the director handed over a set of keys to a stranger that included the
only key required to get to the heart of the atomic plant. That carelessness
is blamed for the disappearance of two rods of enriched uranium in the
late 1970s. One is believed to have turned up in 1998 on its way to the
Middle East via the mafia; the other was never found.
But new locks aside,
there is little outward recognition of concern by the world's nuclear watchdog
and among western governments at the prospect of Kinshasa's reactor catching
the attention of terrorists scouring the globe for the right ingredients
for a "dirty bomb".
The US - which helped
found the reactor because Congo provided the uranium used in the atom bombs
dropped on Japan - cut off the supply of spare parts to the reactor nearly
20 years ago due to the plant's decline. Washington has recently tried
to persuade Congo to hand over the 98 bars of enriched uranium stored in
triangular rods about 60cm (2ft) long and kept submerged in a circular
pool underneath a padlocked metal grate or in the reactor.
But Congo's nuclear
scientists hope to fire up the reactor again so that it can be put to a
range of uses from medical research to mine prospecting, eight years after
it was placed on standby because of war, poor maintenance and lax security.
At least the facility
has entered the computer age. Little more than a decade ago it didn't have
phones and technicians worked on blackboards.
"We had to shut the
reactor down because of the war," said Alphonse Thiband-a-Tshish, a
member of Congo's atomic energy commission. "But now we have had elections
and the war is over we are very hopeful of starting it up again. All the
uranium rods are there. Now we have inspections from the International
Atomic Energy Agency.. They find problems and tell us about them."
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suite:
Congo's nuclear plant
was installed at the University of Kinshasa in 1958. A second reactor was
built in 1972, the first one dismantled and its dozens of uranium fuel
rods stored at the site.
The newer reactor was
put on standby in 1998 at the behest of the IAEA, ostensibly because of
the war with Rwanda. But the agency had watched the reactor deteriorate
for years .
Diplomatic sources said
the IAEA feared that an accident could send radiation into the city and
contaminate the water supply. Agency officials have been particularly worried
that the reactor is built in an area known for subsidence. Seven years
ago one of the walls was pierced by a piece of metal that was variously
identified as part of a missile or having fallen from a plane.
There is also concern
that the Kinshasa plant could make an easy target for terrorists. While
it would be difficult to use the uranium rods to manufacture a nuclear
device, they would be useful in building a more rudimentary "dirty bomb"
that would release radiation.
The disappearance of
the uranium rods in the 1970s has never been fully accounted for. The reactor's
director, Professor Felix Malu Wa Kalenga, has said that a rod recovered
from the Italian mafia in 1999 was probably the one stolen from Kinshasa.
The Italian press reported that it was destined for an unnamed Middle Eastern
government.
For all the concerns,
Congo's atomic energy commission sees a bright future. This month it signed
an agreement with a British firm, Brinkley Mining, for the nuclear facility
to be used in prospecting for uranium. Working conditions have improved
since the IAEA was given access for inspections and programmes focused
on safety. That has opened the way for funding from the agency for repairs
and new control rooms, which are now being put in place, and from foreign
universities for new laboratories.
But the IAEA's own reports
say that Congo's atomic energy commission has failed to meet every target
on security and safety issues, such as radiation protection. Mr Thiband-a-Tshish
sees no security threat. "We have three keys with three people to get
into the reactor. No one knows who has those keys. The building has walls
one metre thick. I don't think anyone could get through those," he
said.
The history
·
Uranium was first discovered in Shinkolobwe,
in the south of what was then the Belgian Congo,
in 1915
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In 1939, Albert Einstein wrote
to the then US president, Franklin Roosevelt, warning of the danger of
Nazi Germany getting its hands on Congo's uranium
·
As the single richest deposit in the world,
uranium from Congo was a primary source for American research on nuclear
weapons during the second world war
·
The uranium was used in the atomic bombs dropped
on Japan
·
Congo's Belgian rulers shut the Shinkolobwe
uranium mine shortly before independence in 1960, flooding its shafts
with water and capping them with concrete
·
In the chaos of the past decade of foreign
invasion and civil war in Congo, the mine has been reopened illegally
·
Thousands of Congolese make a living by using
shovels and their bare hands to hack at the black earth. Primarily they
are seeking cobalt, a mineral valuable as a component in mobile phones
·
Amid warnings that uranium is being distributed
as a byproduct, the international nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic
Energy Agency, has tried and failed to inspect the mine
·
In 2000, Newsweek reported that
a Kenyan middleman attempted to sell Congolese uranium to Saddam Hussein
but that the Iraqi leader was under too much international scrutiny to
buy it. |
NUCLEAIRES !