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As the South African economy became less attractive to foreign investors in 1977/78, the AAM stepped up its campaign against British companies with big South African interests. The oil companies BP and Shell were among its main targets. This factsheet showed how the companies’ were helping South Africa develop its energy resources and diversifying into coal and petrochemicals. Other target companies were GEC, ICI, Barclays Bank and British Steel.

This appeal for rubber boots for Namibian refugees in Angola by the Namibia Support Committee met with a huge response from AAM supporters. Thousands of pairs of Wellington boots were shipped to SWAPO refugee camps.

In 1977 the British government put forward new proposals for a settlement in Rhodesia. This AAM Briefing presented a comprehensive description of the white minority government’s armed forces. It argued that the control and composition of the security forces in a transition to majority rule was of crucial importance.

Poster asking shoppers to boycott South African goods. This was a reprint of a poster first produced in 1978. Some of the items incorporate images of the shootings of school students in Soweto in June 1976.

Anti-apartheid women supporters demanded an end to police harassment of Winnie Mandela at a demonstration at South Africa House on 9 February, 1978. She was charged with breaking the banning order that confined her to Brandfort, an African township outside Bloemfontein.

Leeds students campaigned for Leeds University to sell its shares in all companies with South African interests throughout the 1970s. In response to student pressure the university sold its holdings in ICI in 1973 and agreed to disinvest from firms whose South African involvement exceeded 5% of their total interests. This bulletin pointed out that this excluded firms which made a strategically important contribution to the apartheid economic like the oil companies Shell and BP.

Leeds students produced this badge to promote their campaign to persuade Leeds University to sell its shares in companies with South African interests. They set up Leeds University South Africa Anti-Investment Group as part of the drive to persuade universities to disinvest from South Africa co-ordinated by the NUS-AAM student network in the 1970s. In response to student pressure, the university sold its holdings in ICI in 1973 and agreed to disinvest from firms whose South African involvement exceeded 5% of their total interests. 

Shell and BP were two of South Africa’s main oil suppliers and together owned its biggest oil refinery. After the publication of the first edition of this pamphlet the Bingham Inquiry exposed their complicity in breaking oil sanctions against the illegal Smith regime in Rhodesia. The pamphlet provided a detailed exposé of how the oil companies supported white minority rule throughout Southern Africa.