ABSTRACT
Project Coast, like the unspecified foreign chemical and biological weapons (CBW) programs upon which it was supposedly modeled, included both a chemical weapons (CW) component and a biological weapons (BW) component. The South African Defence Force (SADF) provided funding to the Project Coast front companies through various "private" bank accounts that had been set up explicitly for such purposes. Indeed, Project Coast may well have had some sort of parallel, unofficial command structure that operated alongside the official Coordinating Management Committee (CMC) chain of command. The most characteristic feature of the South African CBW program was undoubtedly the development, testing, and utilization of a wide array of hard-to-trace toxic agents to assassinate enemies of the state. The BW program was centered at one large research, development, and production facility, Roodeplaat Research Laboratories, and it too tapped the resources of several commercial firms, university laboratories, and even zoos in order to effectuate supplementary research and testing.
