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The AAM launched the World Campaign Against Military and Nuclear Collaboration in 1979. Its aim was to expose military and nuclear collaboration with South Africa and strengthen the UN arms embargo. Much of AAM’s international activity in the 1980s was through this campaign, collaborating with national anti-apartheid groups worldwide. Action included presenting detailed evidence to the UN about breaches of its mandatory embargo.

Under apartheid 87 per cent of South Africa’s land was reserved for whites. Rural Africans were confined to the overcrowded Bantustans and urban Africans were treated as migrant workers. This poster shows how the Bantustans were made up of small fragmented parcels of land. 

In 1979 political prisoners Tim Jenkin, Alex Moumbaris and Stephen Lee escaped from Pretoria Central Prison. This photograph shows the three with ANC representative Francis Meli at a press conference in London on 22 January 1980.

In the late 1960s Britain signed long-term contracts with the mining company Rio Tinto-Zinc (RTZ) for the supply of uranium for its nuclear energy programme. When the contract came into effect it was clear the uranium came from the Rossing mine, operated by RTZ in defiance of UN resolutions on Namibia. The Rossing File tells the story of the uranium contracts and the failure of successive British governments to honour their UN obligations.

After Zimbabwean independence in 1980 the AAM stepped up its campaigns for an end to South Africa’s occupation of Namibia. This leaflet set out a comprehensive set of demands on the British government. It called for support for the South West Africa People’s Organisation (SWAPO), mandatory UN sanctions against South Africa, the release of Namibian political prisoners and the cancellation of Britain’s contract for Namibian uranium.

Sticker in SWAPO colours.

In 1979 South Africa tested a nuclear device in the south Atlantic Ocean. This report traced the development of South Africa’s nuclear capacity and showed how Western countries had helped create it.

The Freedom Charter was adopted by the Congress of the People held in South Africa in 1955. In the 1980s it once again became a rallying point for anti-apartheid organisations within the country. The ANC declared 1980 the ‘Year of the Charter’ and the AAM distributed thousands of copies of the Freedom Charter during the year.