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HOPES FOR THE RADIATED BODY: URANIUM MINERS AND TRANSNATIONAL TECHNOPOLITICS IN NAMIBIA*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 November 2010

GABRIELLE HECHT
GABRIELLE HECHT
Affiliation:
University of Michigan
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Abstract

This article explores the transnational politics of technology and science at the Rössing uranium mine in Namibia. During the 1980s, Rössing workers refashioned surveillance technologies into methods for trade union action. When national independence in 1990 failed to produce radical ruptures in the workplace, union leaders engaged in technopolitical strategies of extraversion, and became knowledge producers about their own exposure to workplace contaminants. Appeals to outside scientific authority carried the political promise of international accountability. But engaging in science meant accepting its boundaries, and workers ultimately discovered that technopolitical power could be limiting as well as liberating.

Keywords

Namibiasouthern Africahealthminingtechnology
Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 51 , Issue 2 , July 2010 , pp. 213 - 234
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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References

1 Cooper, F., ‘What is the concept of globalization good for? An African historian's perspective’, African Affairs, 100 (2001), 189–213CrossRefGoogle Scholar; J. Ferguson, Global Shadows: Africa in the Neoliberal World Order (Durham, NC, 2006).

2 Bayart, J.-F., ‘Africa in the world: a history of extraversion’, African Affairs, 99 (2000), 217–67CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Cooper, ‘What is the concept?’, 190.

3 Hecht, G., ‘Nuclear ontologies’, Constellations, 13:3 (2006), 320–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 Hecht, G., ‘Africa and the nuclear world: labor, occupational health, and the transnational production of uranium’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 51:4 (2009), 896–926CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 In 1974, the United Nations Council on Namibia (UNCN) passed its Decree No. 1, which prohibited the extraction of Namibian natural resources without express UNCN permission. Nations such as the US, Britain, Germany, Japan, and France – where Rössing's customers came from – claimed that the UNCN's decrees were not legally binding. N. Schrijver, Sovereignty over Natural Resources: Balancing Rights and Duties (Cambridge, 1997). See also Hecht, G., ‘The power of nuclear things’, Technology and Culture, 51:1 (2010), 1–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 The archives of the most active of these organizations, the British-based Campaign against Namibian Uranium Contracts (CANUC), are housed at the Bodleian Library of Commonwealth and African Studies at Rhodes House, University of Oxford. Notable publications include A. Roberts, The Rössing File: The Inside Story of Britain's Secret Contract for Namibian Uranium. London: Campaign Against the Namibian Uranium Contracts (1980) and A. D. Cooper (ed.), Allies in Apartheid: Western Capitalism in Occupied Namibia (New York, 1988). See also UNCN, ‘Report of the Panel for Hearings on Namibian Uranium. Part Two: verbatim transcripts of the public meetings of the Panel held at Headquarters from 7 to 11 July 1980’, 30 Sept. 1980, A/AC.131/L.163; annual reports of the UNCN to the UN General Assembly, especially from the 1980s. The role that nuclear technology played in the international anti-apartheid movement is discussed in P. N. Edwards and G. Hecht, ‘History and the technopolitics of identity: the case of apartheid South Africa’, Journal of Southern African Studies, forthcoming Sept. 2010. CANUC activities are discussed in the wider context of the British Namibia Support Committee in Saunders, C., ‘Namibian solidarity: British support for Namibian independence’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 35:2 (June 2009), 438–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 Here I draw upon my usage of ‘technopolitics’ in G. Hecht, The Radiance of France: Nuclear Power and National Identity after World War II (new edn, Cambridge, MA, 2009). T. Mitchell, Rule of Experts: Egypt, Techno-politics, Modernity (Berkeley, 2002) deploys the term in a similar way.

8 This rich body of literature historicizes the invisibility of diseases such as asbestosis, silicosis, and tuberculosis; perhaps inevitably, this entirely justifiable concern with the mechanisms of invisibility has led historians to focus primarily on medical doctors, mine managers, state agencies, labor lawyers, and other elites. See, among many others, Braun, L., ‘Structuring silence: asbestos and biomedical research in Britain and South Africa’, Race & Class, 50:1 (2008), 59–78CrossRefGoogle Scholar; E. Katz, The White Death: Silicosis on the Witwatersrand Gold Mines, 1886–1910 (Johannesburg, 1994); J. McCulloch, Asbestos Blues: Labour, Capital, Physicians & the State in South Africa (London, 2002); idem, ‘Counting the cost: gold mining and occupational disease in contemporary South Africa’, African Affairs, 108/431 (2009), 221–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar; R. M. Packard, White Plague, Black Labor: Tuberculosis and the Political Economy of Health and Disease in South Africa (Berkeley, 1989).

9 For discussion of labor action in the 1970s, see A. Macfarlane, ‘Labour control: managerial strategies in the Namibian mining sector’ (unpublished PhD thesis, Oxford Polytechnic, 1990); G. Bauer, Labor and Democracy in Namibia, 1971–1996 (Athens, OH, 1998).

10 On migrant labor in Namibia specifically, see Moorsom, R., ‘Underdevelopment, contract labour and worker consciousness in Namibia, 1915–72’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 4:1 (1977), 52–87CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem, ‘Underdevelopment and labour migration: the contract labour system in Namibia’, History Research Paper No. 1 (Windhoek, 1995); R. J. Gordon, Mines, Masters and Migrants: Life in a Namibian Mine Compound (Johannesburg, 1977).

11 Bauer, Labor.

12 This discussion of pre-1985 history is based on analysis in Macfarlane, ‘Labour control’, but supported by my own archival and oral interview research at Rössing in 2004. My analysis of Rössing after 1985 relies entirely on my own research. In 2004, Rössing graciously gave me full access to its archives in Swakopmund (henceforth RAS) and at the mine site (henceforth RAMS). These were organized into binders and boxes, but not formally catalogued. Whenever possible, references in subsequent footnotes correspond to the labels on binders or boxes.

13 RUL/R. Walker, ‘Social, manpower development and industrial relations policy’, January 1978, quoted in Macfarlane, ‘Labour control’, 173.

14 Macfarlane, ‘Labour control’, 211. Police dogs patrolled the site, especially on paydays. Workers suspected that Rössing security collaborated with the South African police by identifying political agitators, and the head of security, Bill Birch, himself freely admitted to holding regular meetings with the police to share intelligence. At one stage, guards on horseback even patrolled the perimeter of the site, though this practice proved impossible to sustain in the heat of the Namibian summers because the horses collapsed from heat stroke. Interview with Bill Birch, Swakopmund, 29 Jan. 2004; interview with Paul Rooi, Rössing, 30 Jan. 2004; interview with Asser Kapere, Windhoek, 25 Feb. 2004; RAMS, Industrial Relations, 1978–79.

15 The unit actually changed names numerous times; for clarity, I have kept the loss control designation, since this is how employees referred to it in their discussions with me. This emphasis was of course common throughout industry, and not just in southern Africa. Anderson, N. and Marks, S., ‘Work and health in Namibia: preliminary notes’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 13:2 (1987), 274–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16 Starting in 1987, Rössing received the highest possible rating for its performance from NOSA; the following year, it applied for and received a ‘Sword of Honour’ award from the British Safety Council. Rössing annual reports and newsletters, 1980s.

17 Interviews with Paul Rooi, Asser Kapere, Willem van Rooyen (Rössing, 15 Jan. 2004), and John Clarke (Rössing, 27 Jan. 2004).

18 Interview with Willem van Rooyen.

19 Classic studies on skill and worker initiatives in African mines include M. Burawoy, The Colour of Class on the Copper Mines: From African Advancement to Zambianization (Manchester, 1972); portions of T. D. Moodie (with V. Ndatshe), Going for Gold: Men, Mines, and Migration (Berkeley, 1994); Guy, J. and Thabane, M., ‘Technology, ethnicity, and ideology: Basotho miners and shaft-sinking on the South African gold mines’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 14:2 (1988), 257–78CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On skill and technology in the workplace more broadly, see (among many others) M. Burawoy, Manufacturing Consent: Changes in the Labor Process Under Monopoly Capitalism (Chicago, 1979); D. Noble, Forces of Production: A Social History of Industrial Automation (Oxford, 1984).

20 These reports, and other activities of the loss control division, are documented in RAMS, Loss Control, 1979–1989; individual documents are too numerous to cite here.

21 Interview with Asser Kapere.

22 For example, Paul Rooi noted that ‘we could move around due to the type of work that we used to do – could move around all over the mine … So we could easily make contact with all these relevant employees’ (interview with Paul Rooi). Dozens of interviews with other Rössing workers in 2004, along with many boxes of documents from company archives, confirmed that these loss control officers were the ones to unionize the workforce during their daily tours of the site, as well as through meetings in Arandis. Documents cited in subsequent footnotes represent but a small sample of the evidence.

23 RAS, Industrial Relations, 1985–87, Security and Services Superintendent to Personnel Manager, Confidential Memorandum re: Rössing Uranium Mine Workers Union, 26 Feb. 1986, 2.

24 Bauer, Labor, 86.

25 RAS, Industrial Relations, 1985–87, W. Groenewald to General Manager, 9 Apr. 1986; M. P. Bates to W. Groenewald, 21 Apr. 1986; Personnel Manager to General Manager, Confidential Memorandum re: Rössing Mine Workers' Union, 24 Apr. 1986.

26 RAS, Industrial Relations, 1985–87, C. V. Kauraisa to B. E. Burgess, P. C. Brown, B. Hochobeb, A. Kapere, and W. Groenewald, Confidential memorandum re: ‘Rössing Mine Workers’ Union', 16 June 1986; W. J. Birch to Senior Security Officers, ‘Rössing Uranium Mine Workers Union’, 26 Feb. 1986.

27 Interview with Willem van Rooyen; RAS, Industrial Relations, 1985–87, ‘Demands presented by the Rössing Mine Workers’ Union Executive', 08h00, 31 July 1987.

28 Kapere and Groenewald had become members of the MUN's National Executive Committee in 1986, and, along with other Rössing labor leaders, played a significant role in the formation of the MUN as a national organization encompassing workers in mines across the country.

29 RAS, Industrial Relations, 1988, Rössing Mine Workers' Union Statement, 20 Apr. 1988.

30 The political importance of Namibianization at Rössing contrasts somewhat with Burawoy's findings on Zambianization on the Copperbelt (Burawoy 1972); a fuller analysis of these differences must await another venue.

31 Rössing Mine Workers' Union Statement, 20 Apr. 1988.

32 RAS, Industrial Relations, 1988, M. P. Bates to Personnel Manager, Memorandum, 22 Oct. 1987; Namibia Support Committee, ‘Blockade southern African uranium: solidarity with Namibian and South African miners’, Oct. 1987 flyer; P. C. Brown, Notes of a meeting with the Mine Workers Union of Namibia, 17 Dec. 1987, Windhoek.

33 Interview with Harry Hoabeb, Rössing, 9 Feb. 2004.

34 Apparently, a few years earlier, Daniel Okamaru (another Rössing worker) had spearheaded a separate effort to unionize workers. Rumors held that SWAPO leaders had stopped him because they wanted to control union formation directly. Whatever the case, Okamaru recast Ulenga's European boycott appeals as a call to shut down. He told the personnel manager that 400 employees would support him in the creation of a new union because like him, they believed ‘the Kapere union’ to be a SWAPO-dominated organization. Okamaru's move didn't gain much traction among labor or management, but it did indicate some political tension within the workforce. See RAS, Industrial Relations, 1988, ‘Ben Ulenga’, The Namibian, 3 June 1988 (clipping, no page number); ‘Position paper on Rössing Mine Workers Union (RMU)’, n.a., 16 Feb. 1987; Personnel Manager to Assistant General Manager, Memorandum re: ‘Report on break away union discussion’, 28 June 1988.

35 RAMS, Industrial Relations, 1985–89, ‘Minutes of a company/union meeting held on Wednesday 16 Aug. 1989 at 15h15 in the Management Conference Room’, 22 Aug. 1989.

36 Hecht, ‘Africa’.

37 Beinart, W., Brown, K., and Gilfoyle, D., ‘Experts and expertise in colonial Africa reconsidered: science and the interpretation of knowledge’, African Affairs, 108/432 (2009), 413–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

38 Interview with Wotan Swiegers, Swakopmund, 18 Feb. 2004.

39 RAS, Medical Services, 1979–81, B. E. Burgess to Dr. W. R. Swiegers, BEB/bs/Objectives file, 29 Dec. 1980.

40 Interview with Wotan Swiegers.

41 On corporate and tropical medicine see, e.g., Packard, White Plague.

42 Interview with Wotan Swiegers.

43 Interview with Harry Hoabeb. This and other testimony supports the argument about the lasting effects of the deeply racialized history of spirometry in Braun, L., ‘Spirometry, measurement, and race in the nineteenth century’, Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, 60 (2005), 135–69CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

44 Interview with Jamie Pretorius, Rössing, 29 Jan. 2004.

45 Interview with Harry Hoabeb.

46 Interview with Jamie Pretorius.

47 Interview with Harry Hoabeb. The company archives document dozens of requests from workers and union leaders for access to medical and personnel files.

48 In 1986, Rio Tinto hired a Washington lobbyist to mitigate the effects of the US Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act on Rössing's American sales, but the best she could do was delay those effects. I discuss this aspect of Rössing's history in Hecht, ‘Power of nuclear things’.

49 The company's preparations for independence (along with policy during and after the transition) are documented in the Minutes of the Board of Directors starting from the 100th meeting on 19 August 1988 to the 111th meeting on 24 May 1991 (RAS, Board of Directors). By August 1989, SWAPO leaders had formally toured the Rössing site and declared that they would support the normalization of trade as soon as possible. RAS, Independence/MD files, Minutes of the Executive Committee Meeting held on Friday, 18th Aug. 1989.

50 RAS, Board of Directors, Minutes of the 104th Meeting of the Board of Directors, 21 Aug. 1989. On SWAPO's state-making in the aftermath of independence, see L. Dobell, Swapo's Struggle for Namibia, 1960–1991: War by Other Means (Basel, 1998 and 2000).

51 RAS, Independent transition (Managing Director files), Memorandum, Public Affairs Manager to Sean James, Acting General Manager, 1st Aug. 1989, p. 3, emphasis added.

52 RAS, Board of Directors, Minutes of a Meeting of the Board of Directors, 1 June 1990. Hangala had been in exile since the mid-1970s, during which time he earned a PhD in economic geology from Helsinki University.

53 RAS, Board of Directors, Minutes of a Meeting of the Board of Directors, 17 Aug. 1990. SWAPO had made clear in previous statements (in 1988 and 1989) that it did not envisage nationalizing industry: Bauer, Labor, 99–100.

54 RAS, Board of Directors, Minutes of the 104th Meeting of the Board of Directors, 21 Aug. 1989. Concretely, this approach led to the repeal of the South African Atomic Energy Act and the amendment of the Namibian mining ordinance to include uranium ore and to give the Minister of Mines purview over uranium mining.

55 RAS, Board of Directors, SENES Consultants Limited, ‘Proposed legislation for uranium mining in Namibia’, Nov. 1990; SENES Consultants Limited, ‘Review of occupational hygiene and environmental control practices at Rössing Uranium Limited’, Dec. 1990; Minutes of the 109th Meeting of the Board of Directors, 23 Nov. 1990. The second SENES report did flag potential problems with the eventual decommissioning of the open pit, the waste dumps, and the tailings area, but – unsurprisingly given the nature of the consultancy, and the fact that it was based on discussions with superintendents and managers – recommended only that Rössing ‘continue its studies of tailings management’ and assess ‘the feasibility of upgrading the acid plant as part of the future phase of operations’.

56 Although it took some time – such legislation was not apparently a big priority for the new state, and was not passed until 1994.

57 Frederick Cooper, Decolonization and African Society: The Labor Question in French and British Africa (Cambridge, 1996).

58 Bauer, Labor. On the transition to independence, including the role of private capital, see also C. Leys and J. S. Saul (eds.), Namibia's Liberation Struggle: The Two-Edged Sword (Athens, OH, 1995), especially L. Dobell, ‘SWAPO in Office’, 171–95; Kempton, D. R. and du Preez, R. L., ‘Namibian–De Beers state–firm relations: cooperation and conflict’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 22:4 (1997), 585–613CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

59 PARTiZANS=People Against Rio Tinto Zinc and Its Subsidiaries. In the copyright page of Past Exposure, they describe themselves as follows: ‘Founded in 1978 at the request of Australian Aboriginal communities, PARTiZANS monitors worldwide all the activities and intentions of the world's most powerful mining corporation. It does so by linking together groups from across the globe affected by the company's mines, from Alaska to Zimbabwe.’

60 Confidential interviews nos. 6 and 7, 2004. The resulting study, Past Exposure, claimed that the union had not provided the documents in question. One set of confidential interviewees, however, stated that certain union members had, in fact, provided the documents – even if the union had not done so officially.

61 This retrenchment would end up cutting one third of the Rössing workforce.

62 G. Dropkin and D. Clark, Past Exposure: Revealing Health and Environmental Risks of Rössing Uranium (London, 1992).

63 RAS, Board of Directors, Minutes of a Meeting of the Board of Directors, 20 March 1992.

64 J. U. Ahmed, et. al, ‘Report of the IAEA technical co-operation mission to Namibia on the assessment of radiation safety at the Rössing Uranium Mine, 31 August–11 September 1992’ (Vienna, 1992), 9.

65 Ibid. 12.

66 Ibid. 9.

67 Interview with Harry Hoabeb.

68 Leake Hangala, the government representation to Rössing's board, suggested that management might ‘give workers access to health and environmental documents to see for themselves. Such openness would minimize bad publicity and could increase our sales.’ RAS, Board of Directors, Minutes of a Meeting of the Board of Directors, 27 Nov. 1992.

69 Interview with Harry Hoabeb.

70 Interview with Erich Beukes, Rössing, 2 Feb. 2004.

71 This detail was mentioned in every conversation or interview in which the Canadian visit was discussed – even those with people who had not been on the visit.

72 Hangala reported to the Rössing board in Nov. 1992 that ‘MUN had been invited to institute an investigation on their allegation of sick people’. RAS, Board of Directors, Minutes of a Meeting of the Board of Directors, 27 Nov. 1992.

73 Kapere – who by this time had left Rössing for national politics, but who stayed in touch with his friends there and had managed to keep his house in Arandis – had known Zaire when they were both children at the same school.

74 RAS, Zaire file, H. Hoabeb to the Company Representative, 6 Apr. 1992.

75 Interview with Asser Kapere.

76 RAS, Zaire file, C. Algar (Manager Corporate Affairs) to S. James (General Manager), Ref: CAA/2–133/ct, 6 Apr. 1993.

77 RAS, Zaire file, Chief Medical Oficer to General Manager, Memorandum, 9 Nov. 1993.

78 ‘Dr. R Zaire, Diary of Events’, July 1997. RAS, Zaire file, Dr. S. Amadhila (Permanent Secretary) to Reinhard Zaire, 15 Apr. 1994; Dr. E. G. Burger to The Permanent Secretary, 9 March 1994.

79 Interview with Jamie Pretorius. RAS, Connelly litigation packet, Environmental Services and Environmental Health Departments, ‘Work and exposure profile of Mr. Edward Connelly, Co No 9679 for the period of 1977–1982. Privileged – produced for and/or in contemplation of litigation’, Sept. 1994.

80 RAS, Connelly litigation packet and affidavits, 1994. See also the description of the case by one of Connelly's lawyers: R. Meeran, ‘The unveiling of transnational corporations: a direct approach’, in M. K. Addo (ed.), Human Rights Standards and the Responsibility of Transnational Corporations (Leiden, 1999), 161–70, full text available at http://www.labournet.net/images/cape/campanal.htm (accessed 4 June 2009). In 1998, another case was brought against Rio Tinto by the widow of Peter Carlson, who had worked at Rössing from 1977 to 1984 and died of esophageal cancer in 1997.

81 RAS, Zaire file: R. Zaire, M. Notter, W. Riedel, and E. Thiel, ‘Unexpected rates of chromosomal instabilities and hormone level alterations in Namibian uranium miners’, 1995 typescript, 2.

82 R. Zaire, M. Notter, W. Riedel, and Thiel, E., ‘Unexpected rates of chromosomal instabilities and alterations of hormone levels in Namibian uranium miners’, Radiation Research, 147 (1997), 579Google Scholar.

83 R. Proctor, Cancer Wars: How Politics Shapes What We Know and Don't Know About Cancer (New York, 1995); J. S. Walker, Permissible Dose: A History of Radiation Protection in the Twentieth Century (Berkeley, 2000); S. Boudia, ‘Les problèmes de santé publique de longue durée: les effets des faibles doses de radioactivité’, in C. Guilbert and E. Henry (eds.), Comment se construisent les problèmes de santé publique (Paris, 2009), 38–53.

84 RAS, Zaire file, Chief Medical Officer to General Manager, Memorandum, 15 Mar. 1996.

85 RAS, Zaire file, A. Hope to J. Leslie, 22 Mar. 1996.

86 RAS, Zaire file, J. S. Kirkpatrick to S. James, 4 Apr. 1996.

87 RAS, Zaire file, R. R. Hoveka, File Note: Presentation by Mr. Zaire at the Arandis Club on 12 July 1996.

88 RAS, Zaire file, File Note: ‘MUN Press Conference–Zaire, Meeting held on 18 Sept. 1996’, 19 Sept. 1996.

89 RAS, Zaire file, ‘Summary of meeting between Rössing Uranium Limited and the Mineworkers Union of Namibia held on 23 Sept. 1996 at Block F in the Ministry of Health and Social Services’, n.d.; ‘Summary of the meeting between Rössing Uranium Limited and Dr. R. Zaire on the 03 Oct. 1996, at the Rössing Uranium Mine’, 3 Oct. 1996.

90 RAS, Zaire file, T. Siepelmeyer and R. Zaire, ‘High risk of cancer at Rössing’, typescript, n.d.

91 Interview with Erich Beukes, 2 Feb. 2004.

92 RAS, Zaire file, R. Zaire to A. Muheua, 3 Jan. 1997. Zaire demanded that the union pay his air fare plus a consulting fee of 1000 DM a day, with a minimum of 6000 DM (‘Which means that in the event you consult me only for one day during this trip, you will pay me a 6000 DM honorarium.’).

93 RAS, Zaire file, File Note: Zaire Meeting held 23 Jan. 1997.

94 Interview with Erich Beukes.

95 Interviews with Erich Beukes and Paul Rooi.

96 Interview with Gida Sekandi, Windhoek, Feb. 2004. Interestingly, Rössing's managing director waited until 1997 to raise the subject of Zaire in the company's Board of Directors meetings. RAS, Board of Directors.

97 Interviews with Erich Beukes and Harry Hoabeb.

98 Interview with Harry Hoabeb.

99 Cooper, Decolonization.

100 I especially thank Julie Livingston for helping me understand this point.

101 The field of science and technology studies has studied this subject in depth. For some examples relating to occupational health and exposure, see M. Murphy, Sick Building Syndrome and the Problem of Uncertainty: Environmental Politics, Technoscience, and Women Workers (Durham, NC, 2006); A. Petryna, Life Exposed: Biological Citizens After Chernobyl (Princeton, 2002); C. Sellers, Hazards of the Job: From Industrial Disease to Environmental Health Science (Chapel Hill, NC, 1997).