In 1982, a well-planned attack by Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), the paramilitary wing of the ANC, caused heavy damage – with no casualties – at the unfinished Koeberg power station, delaying construction for eighteen months.
Dr Renfrew Christie, the guest speaker at Mensa Winelands’ monthly meeting tomorrow, Thursday July 18, in Somerset West, provided intelligence exposing the apartheid regime’s nuclear weapons programme, which assisted in making the bombing possible. He was arrested and imprisoned for over seven years in Pretoria, which included seven months in solitary confinement, and two-and-a-half years on death row.
Dr Christie is a Fellow of the Royal Society of South Africa and has been on its council as general secretary; a member of the Academy of Science of South Africa; and, for 10 years to October 2018, he was a part-time adviser to the South African national executive authority (president and cabinet) and to the minister of defence, as a defence force service commissioner.
He retired in 2014, after 24 years as permanent dean of research and a senior professor at the University of the Western Cape. Thursday’s meeting starts at 7.15pm.Â
To attend as Mensa’s guest, contact wnl.secretary@mensa.org.za for venue details.
