Mon séjour en Afrique du Sud (Cape Town)

A group of military personnel from across the continent spent the past week in Pretoria preparing for a chemical attack.

The potential of such a terrorist threat is real, according to senior SANDF members who monitored the exercise.

The exercise was the third of its kind, conducted by South African military medical personnel at the request of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).

It was attended by representatives of South Africa, Algeria, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Ivory Coast, Ethiopia, Libya, Malawi, Mauritius, Morocco, Mozambique, Senegal, Sudan, Swaziland, Uganda and Zimbabwe.

OPCW co-ordinates the implementation of the Chemical Weapons Convention, which prescribes co-operation between states.

The organisation also provides assistance to countries under chemical attack.

Colonel Ben Steyn, the SANDF’s chemical and biological defence adviser to the surgeon-general, said terrorist chemical attacks were a threat worldwide, but particularly in Africa.

“This is because of the huge amounts of chemicals transported throughout Africa at any given time,” he said, adding that it did not require vast expertise to use an available chemical as a weapon.

Steyn said that the threat of such an attack was becoming greater, “especially as the world’s attention is being constantly drawn to such things”.

Exercises such as these were extremely important because “you have to know what to do long before the incident occurs”.

He added: “It is pointless trying to figure out what to do once the attack or chemical accident has occurred. You have to know now.

“It is difficult enough to manage a bomb explosion, let alone a chemical attack.”

The conference was important as it was aimed at teaching people how to manage such incidents when they occurred.

Steyn said there should be more exercises of this nature as there was a need for a co-ordinated effort in Africa to deal with chemical disasters, be they terrorist attacks or accidents.

South Africa was chosen to host the exercise because of the country’s knowledge and capabilities in dealing with such situations.

“At this exercise, we were teaching the principals of command and control and the management of a disaster area, which includes how to conduct mop-up and decontamination operations.

“In the beginning, the emphasis of the exercise was on the battlefield, but then we moved to the civilian area, which is where terrorists could or would strike.

“Our conditions in hosting this exercise were that we be allowed to teach the delegates to handle such attacks against a civilian population,” he said.

They were taught how to deal not only with attacks, but also with potentially deadly chemical spills.

The most important aspect of the exercise was preparing disaster management teams for any situation, Steyn said.