Browse the AAM Archive

AAM demonstrators lined the entrance to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s country residence, Chequers, when South African President F W de Klerk arrived there in July 1990.

Supporters of Southern Africa the Imprisoned Society (SATIS) asked Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher to intervene on behalf of the Upington 14, sentenced to death on 26 May 1989. Thirteen men and a woman, 60-year old Evenlyn de Bruin, were sentenced to hang because they were present at a demonstration during which a black policeman was killed. The sentence was overturned in May 1991.

Demonstrators blocked the entrance to the South African Airways office at Oxford Circus on 3 September. In 1990 the AAM campaigned stepped up its campaign to persuade holidaymakers to not to visit South Africa. One of the few sanctions Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher agreed to was a voluntary ban on the promotion of tourism to South Africa or Namibia, but the British government did nothing to put this into practice.

Poster advertising a concert by South African musician and political activist Mbuli Mzwakwe at Lambeth Town Hall, south London on 7 December 1990. Concerts featuring music from Southern Africa played a big part in attracting support in Britain for the Southern African liberation struggle in the 1980s and early 1990s. This concert was one of many such events sponsored by the London Borough of Lambeth.

This conference brought together over 100 activists, experts and representatives of the frontline states to discuss the new situation in Southern Africa after Namibian independence in 1990. It highlighted the need to publicise the economic dislocation caused by South African aggression against its neighbours. It looked forward to the building of new post-apartheid links between groups in Britain and the frontline states.

On 11 October 1990, designated as UN South African Political Prisoners Day, Southern Africa the Imprisoned Society (SATIS) held a vigil outside the British Foreign Office calling for the release of all South African political prisoners. SATIS asked the British Prime Minister to press President de Klerk to implement his pledge to free the prisoners.

In the late 1980s UK Architects Against Apartheid made new links with planning groups within South Africa affiliated to the Mass Democratic Movement. It also worked with groups fighting racial discrimination in the architectural profession in Britain. This issue of the UKAAA Newsletter proposed a joint meeting with the newly formed Society of Black Architects.

The AAM held a conference for anti-apartheid activists in October 1990 to discuss how the international solidarity movement could help promote negotiations for genuine majority rule. The keynote speakers were Max Coleman from South Africa’s Human Rights Commission and former South African Council of Churches staff member Saki Macozoma.