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There was widespread support among British trade unionists for striking miners in South Africa and Namibia in September 1987. AAM supporters and the British NUM held daily protests outside the London headquarters of Anglo-American, Consolidated Goldfields and other South African mining conglomerates. Over £75,000 was raised for the miners.

This poster advertised an international conference held in Harare, Zimbabwe on September 1987 about ‘Children, Repression and the Law in Apartheid South Africa’. The conference brought together representatives of international anti-apartheid movements and activists from within South Africa. They heard testimony from children who had been detained by the South African security forces. The British delegates later formed the Harare Working Group, which organised a conference at City University, London, attended by 700 people. Participants formed groups such as Teachers against Apartheid, Social Workers against Apartheid and Youth & Community Workers against Apartheid.

In September 1987 a conference in Harare heard testimony from children who had been tortured by the South African security forces. Over 200 health workers, lawyers, social workers and representatives of student, trade union, religious and women’s organisations from 45 countries met children living in South Africa and the frontline states. This pamphlet told some of the children’s stories and appealed for support for the Trevor Huddleston Children’s Fund.

South African coal exports to Western Europe rose steeply in the mid-1980s. In 1986 West Germany opposed the inclusion of coal in a sanctions package imposed by the European Economic Community. The British National Union of Mineworkers was at the forefront of the campaign to stop UK imports of South African coal. In 1987 it held a joint conference with the AAM and produced a special Coal Campaign Bulletin.

Memorandum drawing attention to the steep rise in death sentences for political offences in South Africa. The memorandum made detailed proposals for intervention by the British government and asked it to initiate action by the UN Security Council, the European Economic Community and the Commonwealth.

Leaflet publicising a demonstration on the day of the expected court hearing of the Sharpeville Six’s appeal on 10 September 1987. The hearing was delayed until November. The six, five men and one woman, were sentenced to death in December 1985 after joining a demonstration at which a black deputy mayor was killed. The appeal was rejected and they were held on death row for ten more months until they were reprieved in July 1988. The action was organised by the London AA Committee with support from trade unions and anti-racist groups.

SATIS (Southern Africa the Imprisoned Society) collected signatures to this Declaration demanding that the South African Government withdraw the death sentences imposed on the Sharpeville Six. The six, five men and one woman, were sentenced to death in December 1985 after joining a demonstration at which a black deputy mayor was killed. The Declaration was circulated in the run-up to the appeal against the death sentences, scheduled for 10 September 1987. The appeal was rejected but the six were reprieved in July 1988.

This conference was part of a campaign launched by the AAM and the British National Union of Mineworkers to stop imports of South African coal into Britain. It was attended by over 500 delegates, including 120 from branches of the NUM. South African miners leader Cyril Ramaphosa was prevented from attending by the South African government. In September 1986 West Germany, Portugal and the UK blocked a European Economic Community proposal to ban South African coal. In the late 1980s coal was South Africa’s second biggest export earner.