Browse the AAM Archive

The keynote speaker at the AAM 1987 annual general meeting was Simba Makoni, Executive Secretary of the Southern African Development Coordination Conference. He set out its policy on international sanctions against South Africa: SADCC member states’ vulnerability should not be used as an excuse by other countries for not imposing sanctions. This pamphlet reproduces his speech.

Memorandum to Foreign Secretary Sir Geoffrey Howe, urging the British government to support the UN Secretary-General in implementing Security Council resolution 601 authorising him to arrange a ceasefire in Namibia. The memorandum criticised Prime Minister Thatcher’s effective endorsement of the US argument that Cuban troops must withdraw from Angola before agreement could be reached on Namibian independence.

Outside the annual general meeting of Consolidated Goldfields in London on 4 November 1987. A ‘judge’ holds the scales of justice symbolising South Africa’s ‘rule of law’ in Namibia. In August 1987 ConsGold sacked 4,000 Namibian mineworkers at its Tsumeb mine.

Musicians Little Steven and Jerry Dammers sign the SATIS petition calling for the release of detainees in South Africa. Altogether 30,000 South Africans were held in detention under the State of Emergency imposed in June 1986. The petition was supported by the British Council of Churches and the TUC and signed by a third of a million people. It was presented to the South African authorities, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and the UN Secretary-General on Human Rights Day, 10 December 1987.

Promotional flyer for ‘Twilight Freedom – Zulu Blood’ by Bryan Oliver, a drama featuring life under apartheid. The show was put on by Sassafras Theatre Company and sponsored by Haringey Community Arts and Entertainment in 1987. It toured alternative theatre venues in the London boroughs of Haringey, Hounslow, Camden and Islington.

A petition for the release of all apartheid detainees was delivered to Prime Minister Thatcher on Human Rights Day 10 December 1987 by a  delegation led by AAM President Trevor Huddleston and trade union leader Clive Jenkins. Among the thousands of signatories were the archbishops of Canterbury and York, the leaders of all three British opposition parties and celebrities from the world of the arts like Peggy Ashcroft and Tom Stoppard.

The special police unit Koevoet was known for its extreme brutality perpetrated on captured Namibian freedom fighters. This leaflet publicised the case of eight supporters of the South West Africa People’s Organisation (SWAPO) charged under the Terrorism Act and tortured to force them to confess to the charges.

Poster produced for the campaign to save the lives of the Sharpeville Six, sentenced to death after joining a demonstration at which a black deputy mayor was killed. The six were reprieved in July 1988 after spending two and a half years on death row.