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Letter from Malcolm Rifkind, Minister of State at the Foreign Office, replying to a request from Des Starrs, Chair of Southern Africa the Imprisoned Society (SATIS), for the British government to intervene on behalf of the Kassinga detainees. In 1978 South African armed forces killed around 600 Namibian refugees at Kassinga refugee camp in Angola and took hundreds more prisoner. Five years later some of them were still held in detention in Namibia. Malcolm Rifkind turned down the request for a meeting on the grounds that he had already met an AAM delegation to discuss repression in the Ciskei.

In 1983–84, South Africa made a determined effort to get back into world rugby, starting with a Welsh Rugby Union sponsored youth tour of Wales. The South African team was invited by the Welsh rugby union to tour South Wales in December 1983–January 1984. Several Welsh local authorities refused to allow them to play on their grounds. Wales AAM supporters occupied the pitch during the game against Gwent in Monmouth.

In 1983–84, South Africa made a determined effort to get back into world rugby, starting with a Welsh Rugby Union sponsored youth tour of Wales.  There were widespread protests and several local authorities refused to allow the games to take place on their grounds. At the final game in Llanelli on 7 January, over 300 people marched through the town to the ground.

This Declaration was made by an Inter-Faith Colloquium on Apartheid organised by the AAM’s President, Archbishop Trevor Huddleston, in March 1984. The Colloquium led to the setting up of the AAM’s Multi-Faith Committee, which held its first meeting at the Central Gurdwara in London at the beginning of 1985. 

Namibia Support Committee protesters called for the recognition of SWAPO freedom fighters Sam Mundjindji and Veiko Nghitewa as prisoners of war. The protest marked the opening of their trial on 5 February 1984. The two men had been subject to months of torture and solitary confinement. They were eventually released in July 1989 in the run-up to Namibian independence.

Poster advertisin a fundraising gig at Camden Town Hall, Central London, with Jabula, Immigrant, Red Rinse and Mayibuye.

Leaflet advertising an Anti-Apartheid Week of meetings and film shows on South Africa and Namibia organised by students at Leeds University in February 1984.

The Welsh Rugby Union had close ties with the all-white South African Rugby Board. In April 1984 it invited South African rugby boss Danie Craven as its guest of honour at a game between Wales and the President’s XI. Three Springboks played in the President’s team. The invitation provoked huge opposition, with a ‘Charter Against Apartheid’ in the Western Mail signed by former prime minister and local MP James Callaghan, most Welsh MPs, church leaders, writers and trade unionists. The Welsh Rugby Union finally severed its ties with the South African Rugby Board in 1989.