How Nuclear-Armed Apartheid was Defeated: An Interview with Abdul Minty

We spoke with Dr. Abdul Samad Minty, a key figure in the international campaign against apartheid who helped expose apartheid South Africa's nuclear programs. His reflections offer valuable insights for today's movements.

In the interview, Dr. Minty emphasizes that defeating racist regimes like apartheid South Africa or genocidal Israel requires sustained organizing to build genuine public support. The anti-apartheid movement succeeded by undermining the regime's economic and military foundations, particularly through the arms embargo. We explore the parallels between South African and Israeli militarism, while offering inspiration for today's activists committed to peace and justice.

Watch the complete conversation between IUS Member Dr Adam Claridge-Chang and Ambassador Dr Abdul Minty here, or read the transcript below.

Rush transcript of the interview with Abdul Minty

IUS: All right. So yeah, so today we're deeply honored to welcome Ambassador Abdul Samad Minty to our podcast. Many of our viewers will know him as a legendary opponent of apartheid and a champion of nuclear nonproliferation. But his remarkable career deserves at least a brief introduction.

Dr. Minty is a South African diplomat and anti-apartheid activist who played a crucial role in exposing and opposing South Africa's nuclear and military programs during the apartheid era. Growing up in Johannesburg, he left South Africa for Britain in 1958 and in Britain he studied international relations at University College London. He helped establish the anti-apartheid movement in 1959 and served as its honorary secretary from 1962 onwards. In 1969 he published a booklet called South Africa's Defense Strategy that exposed the regime's purposed pursuit of nuclear weapons at a time when the Western nations denied that the apartheid regime had any nuclear ambitions. And from 1979 he was director of the World Campaign Against Military and Nuclear Collaboration with South Africa, which became the primary source of information for the United Nations on the violations of arms embargoes against the apartheid regime. The campaign successfully advocated for South Africa's removal from the International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA, board of governors. And after South Africa's transition to democracy, Dr. Minty served as his country's representative at the IAEA from 1995 to 2015. In 2023, the University of the Witwatersrand awarded Dr. Minty an honorary doctorate, recognizing his contributions to understanding the complex relationships between militarism, nuclear science, and international security.

So thanks so much for joining us today, Dr. Minty, and it's a pleasure to have you. So I guess my first question for you is, you know, you played a crucial role in exposing apartheid South Africa's nuclear program. And tell us, how did the regime manage to develop nuclear weapons despite public opposition in the West and actual sanctions from the West by the Western governments?

MINTY: Well, South Africa had a great deal of uranium resources. And the Western countries, and I saw most of the foreign ministers of the major Western countries, they all claimed that their cooperation with South Africa was only for peaceful purposes, and that South Africa was not working on a nuclear weapons program. So we were surprised when we held a conference in Nigeria in 1977, when the American Vela satellite spotted the secret Kalahari nuclear test site. And indeed the French and other ministers then appealed to South Africa not to go ahead with the detonation. And I had to send a telex at that time from Nigeria to them to say, but how was it that South Africa should not test a nuclear weapon if they didn't have one? So the lies that we were told over the years that their cooperation was only limited in some way for peaceful cooperation transpired not to be true. And South Africa, of course, collaborated a great deal with Israel on developing nuclear weapons, because both countries felt that they had chosen people ruling the country. In South Africa, the Afrikaners felt that they were ruling all of Africa on behalf of God. And the Israeli people, the Jewish people there felt that they were the chosen people. So the two chosen people were enemies before. because the South African National Party had supported Hitler. They then became friends at the behest of many Western powers who claimed that if they cooperated together as two countries that were isolated in their region, they could really develop their own defence strategy and other weapons and later of course it turned out to be nuclear weapons as well.

IUS: Right. So was it primarily, I mean, because as I understand it, the Israelis were receiving help from the French and others in their program. So were the South Africans getting secondhand help through the Israelis or how were they getting access to the technology?

MINTY: No, they were getting direct help because we recorded and the United Nations reports show that. I wrote a large number of articles showing the external links with South Africa. And when we saw visits by nuclear scientists from Western countries to South Africa, we took that up with those particular countries and said they shouldn't have nuclear relations. But they all responded by saying that their cooperation was only for peaceful purposes, and not for nuclear weapons. So they misled us and lied to us, in fact, at the time. And because South Africa could not have through thin air simply developed nuclear weapons without expert technology from the big powers.

IUS: I see. I see. Right. Okay, so I mean, in some sense that the advocacy at the time to stop this from going ahead was was very effective. So what advice would you give people today, including scientists who aim to uncover and undermine developments in nuclear weapons programs in places like Israel or other other countries?

MINTY: Well, at that time, we were fortunate in having to build up support internationally. It didn't just arise. But as a result of the public support in most of the Western countries, we were able to get United Nations resolutions on the question of nuclear cooperation with South Africa and prohibiting that. They were not mandatory resolutions because they were not binding in the sense that the arms embargo was binding. But at least it was a voluntary decision. And we reminded Western countries that they were bound by this decision and should not cooperate with South Africa. In the case of Israel now, of course, everyone knows that South Africa and Israel cooperated together. But the big issue is that if you have nuclear weapons by the United States or the Soviet Union or Russia, they are nuclear weapons for deterrence. So the question arises, who is Israel and South Africa deterring? And in our view, the South African bomb was developed in order to frighten and intimidate African states into submission, to show them the capacity they had, not actually to use it, but should it be necessary, they have the power to destroy them. And the Israeli nuclear weapons, of course, we've only heard now that they've even been encouraged by US congressmen and Israeli leaders to use nuclear weapons in their conflict against the Palestinians and clean the issue once and for all. So they seem to be wanting to threaten them with complete annihilation in the region. We are against, and I have always been opposed to nuclear weapons, also by the big five, but also in this case there is no deterrence. So who are they deterring in that sense to develop nuclear weapons? Because the other powers have developed their nuclear weapons because they are there to deter each other from using nuclear weapons. So it's a kind of stalemate created. But in the case of Israel, there is no deterrent in that sense, as there wasn't for South Africa. So it's a very dangerous situation that when we outlawed that South Africa should have nuclear weapons, we should also be outlawing now that Israel should have any form of nuclear cooperation at all.

IUS: Right, right. And, you know, so there are some similarities between how South Africa used the Soviet threat or the supposed Soviet threat to justify its military buildup. And I guess Israel portrays threats from Iran and the Axis of Resistance to justify their military buildup and also their nuclear arsenal. So how do you compare, I mean, you just talked about deterrence and the lack of deterrence, or the lack of need for deterrence, but how do you compare, South African militarism and their nuclear programs in the eighties with the current Israeli militarism and the invasions in West Asia.

MINTY: Well, you see, in the case of South Africa, the apartheid regime always considered the resistance movement of the ANC and other liberation movements to be pro-Soviet or to be supported by the Soviet Union. So they made a connection in that way, that the majority of the population of South Africa who are fighting apartheid and who are likely to succeed would then impose a pro-Soviet regime or create influence for them. And there were many articles by them to suggest that with the resources South Africa has, the minerals and other resources, the Russian Federation would have its eye on those. And they would want to use them for their own use and for military and other purposes, industrial purposes. So that was a similarity or that was a basis for South Africa. In the case of Israel, They were told by certain Western countries that like South Africa they were surrounded by Arabs and the Arab countries would continue to sympathize with the Palestinian people and therefore they should create their own power in order to fight them. So Israel from the very beginning opposed the peaceful uses of nuclear energy by Iran. When I was on the board of the International Atomic Energy Agency I was able to expose in many cases that Iran was complying with the peaceful requirements of the International Atomic Energy Agency, but the Western countries continued to support Israel's case that Iran was developing nuclear weapons. There was no evidence at that time that Iran was developing nuclear weapons, but they thought that all nuclear cooperation with Iran should be stopped, because it had the potentiality in the end to develop nuclear weapons. So we are in that kind of stalemate again, that many countries in the region also are supporting Israel's position that Iran is a nuclear threat. And they are also becoming hostile to Iran because of that, when there's no evidence of Iranian nuclear weapons being developed at that stage.

IUS: Yeah, so I mean, It's interesting because Israel and South Africa were not only sort of similar to each other, but they actually engaged in military and nuclear collaboration. So what was the nature of that and how long did it go for? When did it start?

MINTY: Well, Israel was created in 1948 and the National Party in South Africa also won political power in 1948. And from then onwards, South Africa was ruled like a one party state, although very few people use that description. And I never called it a government, but the regime because of that. And so South Africa is similar in terms of Israel. So when they decided to cooperate with each other, they decided that they had interests being surrounded by large number of people in their own region and isolated in their region. So that's why they developed a military and chemical and biological and nuclear cooperation. And I followed that very carefully as I was doing research in Britain about the nuclear weapons development.

IUS: Right, right. So it was really from the beginning. And then jumping forward to the nineties, after apartheid in the nineties, how did civil society and scientists influence South Africa's new government to decide to dismantle its own nuclear weapons and the program? And what lessons can we learn from the Mandela government and this experience of unilateral disarmament in the case of post-apartheid South Africa?

Well, to be accurate, it was not the new government that got rid of nuclear weapons. It was a previous government of de Klerk who announced that they had developed six nuclear weapons and that there was one still incomplete nuclear weapon that they were still working on. So they had six and a half, if you wish, and that they would destroy the six and declare them to the International Atomic Energy Agency. However, my own estimates at that time to the research that I was doing was that South Africa had more enriched uranium than was required by six nuclear weapons. So if South Africa had more enriched uranium, then they would have produced more than six nuclear weapons. And it is possible that when the South Africans closed down their nuclear weapon program, that they handed over certain nuclear weapons to Israel. And no one has researched that properly or advocated that or tried to establish the facts about that transition. So it was not the Mandela government or the democratic government that instituted a nuclear weapon ban. It was begun by the old apartheid regime because they did not want the new African National Congress government to inherit nuclear weapons it was for that purpose that they got rid of him but after after we got political power through the democratic system we were also very strongly committed to global nuclear disarmament and felt that South Africa did not need nuclear weapons for any purpose and that it was a very destructive weapon and that annihilated people and therefore it was something that was against humanity. And the ANC government in South Africa and other public organizations also supported the banning of nuclear weapons. And so we proceeded to create an African nuclear weapon-free zone and worked internationally in the International Atomic Energy Agency and elsewhere, wherever possible, to eliminate nuclear weapons.

IUS: And were the six nuclear weapons held by South Africa, were they atomic bombs or hydrogen bombs? And do we know what Israel, do we have an idea of what Israel holds? I mean, because obviously thermonuclear weapons are much more destructive than atomic, as bad as atomic bombs are.

MINTY: Yes. We don't know the dangers, although there are various people who have indicated their own contentions about what kind of weapons they have. But whether they have atomic weapons or other nuclear weapons, they would be equally destructive in terms of their actual use. So they should not be able to own them in order to use them for whatever purpose they wish. And the other danger is that with the kind of panic that is going on in Israel and elsewhere in the Middle East, you could have an accident. Ministers there have openly spoken, and American congressmen, that Israel should use its nuclear weapons to finish off the protests that are taking place in Gaza. But if they were to not use them deliberately, but make a mistake about them, then the consequences will be very dangerous for the region and the world. And therefore, Israel is not really a competent country to have nuclear weapons, because it has no deterrents to overcome. And no counter country has nuclear weapons to counter Israel. That's why it is trying to protect Iran as a constant counter and therefore wants Iran to submit its own nuclear weapons to international inspection. But Iran has no nuclear weapons to submit to the International Atomic Energy Agency. So it is a false dilemma, and it's created politically in order to justify Israel having its own nuclear weapons. And now, of course, Israel is admitting that it has nuclear weapons, whereas for decades it denied and left the whole question uncertain, just like South Africa did, that there was an uncertainty as to whether it would have nuclear weapons, but it worked in such a way that it would make it credible that people would believe that they both have nuclear weapons. but they would not admit to it. Now Israel has admitted to it, so it's openly known, and there should be a complete nuclear embargo by the Security Council against Israel just for peaceful purposes so that we don't have a proliferation of nuclear weapons, and particularly in that unstable region.

IUS: So Israel has formally admitted to it, or just officials have talked about them without a formal admission?

MINTY: No, the Israeli minister said now in the middle of the Gaza campaign that they should use nuclear weapons and finish off the issue. And the U.S. congressman said the same thing, that he would encourage Israel to use nuclear weapons and finish off the whole issue. Gaza protests. And that's why it's clear that they are even thinking and advocating to the public that they have nuclear weapons which they can use against the Arab population. And that would be annihilation of the worst kind that we have seen. And it should not be allowed at all. So they are talking about it to make it reasonable so that if they make a mistake or if they want to use it deliberately, they would really follow that.

IUS: Right right and so many look at the the devastation of Iraq, Libya and now Syria in the in the aftermath of regime change wars and contrast that those destructions with North Korea which has not been touched by the West to date and conclude that the only protection against Western militarism is nuclear weapons And IUS as an organization recently published an appeal for West Asia free of nuclear weapons. And in your case, having worked to establish Africa as a nuclear weapons free zone, do you see the potential for similar regional denuclearization initiatives in West Asia? And how do you respond to those who say that global South countries should build all defenses against Western hegemonism, including a nuclear arsenal in some cases, for example, Iran?

MINTY: Well, I don't think that any advantage is gained by anyone having nuclear weapons. because they are such deadly weapons and you do not know what situation it can be justified. You certainly should not build nuclear weapons just because others have nuclear weapons, because what are you going to actually do with it? Are you going to destroy people like the United States did in Korea? And Japan. I mean, that is a tragedy. I visited Hiroshima and Nagasaki twice, and I've seen the destruction that it causes. And thousands of people were still suffering at that time with the effects of nuclear weapons. And many areas were uninhabitable. So why would you want to create such a desert all over the world with permanent danger for human beings and other animals that are living there? So I do not know what nuclear weapons are able to do, but the big powers feel that they needed to counter each other. But we need to work for disarmament there and global control because it is an extremely dangerous weapon. And if you make a mistake with that, it is forever a mistake. You can never correct that mistake if you use it. So there's no need for Israel to have nuclear weapons. And indeed, it cannot just say that because Iran has a possibility to have nuclear weapons in future, it will have nuclear weapons. But it is always finding a deterrent country, Iran, and it has other political differences with Iran because Iran supports many of the liberation movements in the Middle East. And that is why it uses that to say that Iran has nuclear capacity. But there's no evidence in the International Atomic Energy Agency or elsewhere about Iran having nuclear weapon capability. So it would be wrong in this way to, if you wish, even encourage people in Iran to have nuclear weapon capability in order to balance that that Israel has. So it is an extremely dangerous situation and the global priority should be to eliminate Israeli nuclear weapons and put them under international control.

IUS: Right, right. And yeah, so that sort of leads into our next question, which is that, you know, with the escalations in both Ukraine and in, you know, the Israeli aggression in West Asia, which is backed by the U.S., We're in, obviously, a very, very dangerous situation today, including the potential of nuclear weapons being used by US or NATO, Russia or Israel. And in your work, you've witnessed both the Cold War nuclear tensions and now the current transition towards this multipolar world led by China, Russia, and the BRICS. And what key differences do you see in these challenges? And for those of us scientists who oppose militarism, what will be the most effective actions that we can undertake to make sure that this new phase of world history does not end in annihilation?

MINTY: Well, there is the danger, of course, in Ukraine that even the nuclear power stations could in the conflict be attacked by one side or the other. The Russians may attack it or destroy it if they feel that the power from there should not be supplied to Ukraine and others from there. And indeed, individuals within Ukraine may also decide to do that and claim that it was done by the Soviet Union or Russian Federation. So there are enormous dangers by having that there. International Atomic Energy Agency is doing what it can to inspect those facilities whenever possible. But there is very close to disaster there and there could be a mistake which would be counterproductive because it would result in some reaction to whatever happened as if a mistake was a deliberate action. And if that is understood, stake in the region. So I think it's very, very dangerous to try and develop that. We should work for a nuclear weapon-free zone and the nuclear weapon all over the world. So we need to work for the elimination of nuclear weapons by the big powers. Because as I've said at many, many NPT [Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons] review conferences and others, what is the purpose of the nuclear weapons? Who are they going to use it again? And what will happen afterwards? If the Soviet Union or the Russian Federation uses it, what will happen wherever they use it? I mean, millions of people will die. The place will be burnt out. What is the purpose that's achieved? And vice versa. If the United States, as President Mandela said, they use the nuclear weapons in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, not against the Japanese people. That war was almost over. Japan was virtually destroyed. But they did it to show the Soviet Union at the time as to what they were capable of and to threaten the Soviet Union. And in return, the Soviet Union developed nuclear weapons. So it was not a very wise decision from the beginning. But if they move to all countries having nuclear weapons who have the capacity and they get it illegally as Pakistan has done and so on, then of course we have an enormously dangerous situation with more global proliferation of nuclear weapons. And if that happens, then there would be very little control over it and certainly greater danger of them being used by accident or deliberately.

IUS: Right, right. Yeah, I guess it's not an easy thing because everyone who is facing an adversary sees that their own nuclear weapons as defensive, right? But actually, their adversary is not able to distinguish between the defensive accumulation of weapons versus the the aggressive accumulation of weapons, right? You're not able to see inside the mind of your opponent. So for those of us who oppose militarism and nuclear weapons, what can we do today? I mean, it seems like that the that the governments in the West seem to be less receptive to protests. I mean, there have been over a year of protests against the genocide in Gaza. um and there doesn't seem to be much of it—I mean I remember in the eighties that there were huge marches in Sydney that I I joined against nuclear weapons—there doesn't seem to be any anti-nuclear movement at the moment right so so what is what is the path forward that we can take um how can we you know, sort of recreate that movement at the moment, because the threat is as bad or worse than than forty years ago, right?

MINTY: No, there's a real danger. I mean, I had the privilege to join the old Boston marches in Britain after I went to work from South Africa which Canon Collins and Bertrand Russell and others were leading. So we were all against nuclear weapons there. And to show the racial composition of that kind of the march, even at that time, when I was marching, you know, with the British section, or the South African section rather, because they were grouped into different countries as the march led, and then different people were there. Many South Africans came to me and said, no, you should be in the Indian delegation, just assessing my skin color and saying I didn't belong in the South African nuclear campaign. So I mentioned that to Kenneth Collins, who was a friend, and he said he was not going to lead a nuclear march and demonstration, which was racist in that way. So just to show the difficulties that we were having at that time, even on the question of nuclear disarmament.

But all countries should abandon nuclear weapons because nuclear weapons have no role I mean, when you use a nuclear weapon and in the global context, if one country uses it, it will automatically result in others using it against them and their sides. So it is a method of self-annihilation. Why would you want to commit suicide on that scale against innocent people in both centres or whichever centres you choose to have? So therefore, the safest thing to do is to eliminate all nuclear weapons and not to rely on nuclear weapons at all. But that is a difficult task to go ahead. Now with regard to other conflicts that we mentioned, Iraq and so on, there too the Western countries misled the world into thinking that those countries had nuclear or other weapons and biological weapons. And later it was shown that they did not have those weapons, but they made enemies of them and destroyed those regimes on the basis that they had certain weapons that they shouldn't have. So who decides what weapons you should have? And if Israel today has the right to have nuclear weapons and the Western countries don't do anything to counteract that, then there's a great danger that other countries will also feel that they have the weapons. to counter Israel or any other threat that is facing them. And therefore lies a great danger ahead of us for humanity as a whole, because this can destroy your community.

IUS: Right, right. And so do you think there is a role for scientists or organizations such as the International Union of Scientists in a revival of the anti-nuke and the peace movements? And what are the main differences in the challenge that you faced from the sixties onwards and for those challenges today? I mean, is there a fundamental difference between the Cold War and the dawn of the multipolar era in terms of the domestic realities within, say, Western countries? for protest movements? Do you think there's a structural change or do you think that we could recreate something like that?

MINTY: Well, the problem is you're not given a set of public opinions that are ready for you to use. So you can't say that in this situation you had public opinion on your side and therefore you can use it in a certain direction. We in the anti-apartheid movement had to create public opinions. The public opinion did not exist at the time. And it took us over thirty years to do that. And later, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament was the biggest organization in Britain and in Europe. and they worked against nuclear weapons. But later the anti-apartheid movement took over that role and we became the biggest solidarity movement in the world. And we mobilized that and so it took a long time and hard work. It was not something that you were given that you just turn on or off like a light switch, you know, in one direction or other.

So you have to work for humanity as a whole. And to work for humanity, you have to build up the kind of support. And you have to have people who believe and have confidence in what you are doing. You can't just claim a position and expect people to support you because you shout about it. You have to organize. So organization is basic. And you have to organize the relevant people. You have to point out to them the great dangers of nuclear weapons. and you have to make sure that your public opinion supports you now they will only support you if they have confidence in what you are doing I mean one of the reasons this is an indirect way of explaining the problem one of the reasons that we in the British anti-apartheid movement never took governmental financial support on a large scale was because if we did not raise and the pounds from ordinary people who supported us for our campaigns, then we would not be alive. We would have a lot of money, but no supporters, virtually. So in order to have supporters, we have to persuade people that the pounds and shillings that they gave us were contributing towards posters and demonstrations and activities that made a difference. way that we and it was a test for us so if people stopped giving us money it meant they didn't have any more confidence in our organization and we couldn't succeed so we had to make sure that we were fundamentally correct that we built up support for right principles and we combined the unity of humanity that exists among people because all human beings are innately given the inherent right to survive and to let other human human beings survive so it is humanity as a whole that we want to survive so those instincts are the instincts that you must develop and work for and it will require some insights because it can't just be done as I say by shouting and organizing in a loud way you have to have the insight to determine what are the priorities. And the priorities keep changing and the enemies keep changing. So you have to organize what is relevant at the time and build up the level of public support that you need in order to change public opinion. And then public opinion itself will make sure that people support what it is that you are trying to aim for.

IUS: Right, right. Wow, that's great advice. Thank you. And do you have a message for those scientists who have spoken out against the Zionist genocide in Palestine? And many of the West have thereby risked their careers. Do you have a message for them?

MINTY: Yes, some are not only risking their career but their lives because some of the medical doctors in Gaza are being killed. as are other medical people. There are also United Nations observers who are being killed by the firing by Israel. So innocent people and innocent lives are being taken in Israel because of the conflict and the way that The genocide itself is being promoted. So we all have to work against it and we have to give a great deal of attention and salute all those people who are making sacrifices because there are medical people still going to Israel and they're conducting operations without anesthetics. They're chopping off people's legs and limbs in order to save their lives. This is remarkable. We have never seen this in human history. And the fact that so many children are being killed is horrible. I mean, I now see pictures of children shot in the chest and in the head, right between the eyes. So that must be somebody who is pointing at them and earmarking them for death, not the accidental bullet going there or in another direction. It is deliberate killing of children. and that is really uncivilized and unseen before so it is the height of terrible catastrophe to come if people react like that to others because what are those children and their relatives to react when they grow up under those circumstances and having experienced that direct violence at the hands of the people who are killing children and women there are pregnant women being killed and many bodies are being found in the in the debris and there you have to take up stones and concrete walls that have fallen over in order to save lives that are under those rubble and many of them are saved and others are not saved and many are pinned to the ground and cannot even leave that ground for ages. In fact, you don't even know whether there are people pinned down under the ground when the bombs have been attacked. So the 2000 pound bombs that the United States is supplying Israel, and which Israel is using without consideration at all, so much indiscretion all over the place, is resulting in innocent people in their homes at night. being killed unmasked without knowing that a bomb is going to come. So there's no step that they can take to prevent themselves being killed. So the role of scientists is important. Very important.

IUS: Some people in the Palestine, the anti-Zionist movement look to the anti-apartheid movement for inspiration because it was successful. And I guess my question is, what... There's some debate over the key things that defeated the apartheid regime. Some say that it was primarily the economic boycotts. Others say that it was primarily the wars in other parts of southern Africa that weakened the regime and that that was the pivotal thing to weaken them. And yet others say that it was even a cultural thing that, you know, they they got frustrated that they couldn't play rugby on the international stage. So do you think it was all of those together or what do you think were the pivotal things that brought down the regime? And yeah. So, yeah, I guess that's that's quite a big question already.

MINTY: Well, those things all contributed to demoralizing the Apartheid regime. But in my own analysis of what was happening, I portrayed that the South African government or regime was holding power through its military and police. And therefore, the first line of defense were the police and the military. And I felt that if the financial sanctions could be combined with military sanctions and an arms embargo, the apartheid regime couldn't survive because it needed arms from abroad and it needed economic trade. So those two things, without other things, would by itself result in the collapse of the apartheid system because the apartheid system was built on force and on military and security threats and power. and then on economic relations. So I had a slightly different view and that's why I worked very hard for the World Campaign and for the arms embargo to try and make sure South African regime weak. And when the regime felt that it could not face a hot war in Southern Africa, it was persuaded by the Western countries to surrender. And he surrendered because of that. So we would need to create public opinion all over the world against nuclear weapons. But they would take different strategies, different insights, different experiences, and different methods of work. So there's no shortcut to it, to say we will do A, B, C, and then the result will be there. It won't. The result will only come if our belief in humanity helps to mobilize the rest of humanity and decent people who mobilize themselves with great threat to them Because anyone who decides to oppose anything will be a subject to threats as well from those who don't want things changed. So they have to be prepared to sacrifice themselves in order to fight for human rights and for humanity as a whole.

IUS: Wonderful. Well, thanks so much, Dr. Minty. This was… I really enjoyed hearing your reflections on on both the historical situation and the present day. So thanks for joining us. Much appreciated.

MINTY: Thank you. It's been a privilege to appear and I hope that you are successful in promoting nuclear disarmament.