Photos

Liberal Democrat leader Paddy Ashdown and former leader David Steel MP cast symbolic votes as part of the AAM’s ‘Vote for Democracy’ campaign at their party conference in September 1991. The AAM was calling for ‘one person one vote’ in response to the National Party’s constitutional proposals, which gave special voting rights to the white minority.

Local councillors in the London Borough of Lambeth cast symbolic votes as part of the AAM’s ‘Vote for Democracy’ campaign in 1991. The campaign called for ‘one person one vote’ in response to the National Party’s constitutional proposals, which gave special voting rights to the white minority.

Thousands of South Africans were killed in the late 1980s and early 1990s in ‘black on black’ violence instigated by undercover forces. After the signing of a National Peace Accord in South Africa, AAM activists distributed leaflets at London train stations on 13 September asking British commuters to write to the South African government asking it to stop the violence.

In February 1992 President de Klerk visited Britain shortly after a whites-only referendum in South Africa on whether constitutional talks should continue. Outside a rugby match at Twickenham, AAM supporters told him the white minority had no right to veto a democratic constitution.

The AAM Freedom Bus was destroyed by unknown arsonists in February 1992. The bus toured Britain asking the British public to support the demand for one person one vote in South Africa after the release of Nelson Mandela from prison in February 1990. In the photo AAM staff member Gerard Omasta-Milsom is surveying the wreckage. 

AAM supporters marched up Whitehall to the South African Embassy to protest against the killing of around 40 township residents at Boipatong on 26 June 1992. They asked the British government to support international monitoring of the violence in South Africa. Among those carrying the banner (left to right) are Peter Hain MP, Billy Nair, Patsy Pillay, Bob Hughes MP, Archbishop Trevor Huddleston and Ken Campbell, General Secretary of the Fire Brigades Union. After the march, Walter Sisulu and Trevor Huddleston led a vigil outside the South African Embassy in memory of those who died.

Walter Sisulu led a march up Whitehall on 26 June 1992 to protest against the massacre of residents of Boipatong township in the southern Transvaal. He called for sanctions to continue against South Africa until there was agreement on a new constitution. The protesters later held a vigil outside the South African Embassy.

On the night of 17 June 1992 around 40 residents of  Boipatong township were massacred in an attack by supporters of the Inkatha Freedom Party. The police did nothing to stop the killings and were later accused of complicity. The massacre was part of a pattern of killings by the IFP and undercover forces. Trevor Huddleston spoke at the funeral of the victims on 29 June. In the photograph he is seen with AAM Executive Secretary Mike Terry and Rev Dr John Lamola, Head of the South African Council of Churches Justice and Social Ministries Department.