Browse the AAM Archive

Around 50 British local councils were represented at the sixth biennial conference of Local Authorities Against Apartheid in Manchester 25–26 March 1993. Moses Mayekiso, President of SANCO (South African National Civic Organisation) briefed the conference on plans for a new democratic local government system in South Africa. Councils pledged practical support in training observers for the April 1994 election. They pledged post-apartheid solidarity with all the countries of the Southern African region.

After Chris Hani’s murder on 10 April 1993, the AAM held a vigil outside South Africa House. At a march and rally on 19 April supporters pledged to support the ANC in its efforts to stop the killing from derailing the negotiations for a new constitution in South Africa.

Chris Hani was the General Secretary of the South African Communist Party (SACP) and chief of staff of the ANC’s armed wing Umkhonto we Sizwe. His assassination on 10 April 1993 by a far-right Polish immigrant threatened to derail negotiations for a democratic constitution. Negotiations were resumed Nelson Mandela appealed for calm. Two men were later convicted of Hani’s murder and sentenced to life imprisonment.

Nelson Mandela visited the family of murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence on his visit to London in May 1993. Stephen was stabbed to death by a white racist gang when he was waiting at a bus stop in Eltham, south-east London, on 22 April.

Memorandum prepared for a meeting with Lynda Chalker, Minister of State at the Foreign Office, in May 1993. It asked the government to put more pressure on the Pretoria government to end the violence in South Africa. In the aftermath of the murder of Chris Hani, it urged the government to press for a breakthrough in negotiations and to stress that the only acceptable outcome was a universal franchise in a united South Africa.

The AAM launched its ‘Peace, Freedom and the Vote’ campaign in June 1993. It called for international pressure on the de Klerk government to drop its demand for permanent power sharing and for a white veto on constitutional change. It insisted that the transitional executive council should have a supervisory, rather than advisory, role in the run-up to the elections, and that the new constitution should be agreed by an elected assembly, rather than by a multi-party negotiating body. The campaign culminated in the AAM’s last major rally in Trafalgar Square on 20 June.

A conference organised by the AAM in London in June 1993 discussed post-apartheid solidarity and mapped out a new agenda of support for the people of Southern Africa. The conference was convened by AAM President Trevor Huddleston and the former President of Tanzania, Julius Nyerere, with the support of the UN Special Committee against Apartheid. The main speakers were Walter Sisulu and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Left to right: Graca Machel, Desmond Tutu, Abdul Minty, Trevor Huddleston, Julius Nyerere and Walter Sisulu.

Archbishops Desmond Tutu and Trevor Huddleston at the ‘Making Hope a Reality’ conference held in London, 14–15 June 1993. The conference discussed post-apartheid solidarity and mapped out a new agenda of support for the people of Southern Africa. It was convened by Trevor Huddleston and the former President of Tanzania, Julius Nyerere, and organised by the AAM in co-operation with the UN Special Committee against Apartheid. The main speakers were Walter Sisulu and Desmond Tutu.