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AA News called on the Labour Party and trade union movement to join with members of other political parties to pressure the Labour Government to commit to overthrowing the illegal white minority regime in Rhodesia (Zimbabwe). It reported on the growing disinvestment campaign in the USA and analysed the vulnerability of the South African economy to economic sanctions. It revealed the apartheid government’s plan to stockpile oil as an insurance against an international oil boycott. It exposed a government plan to change the racial balance of South Africa’s population by restricting the birth rate among South Africa’s majority African population.

This issue’s editorial argued that change in any one part of Southern Africa could not be isolated from change in the region as a whole, and advertised an AAM conference on the theme ‘The Crisis in Southern Africa’. It reported on South Africa’s attempts to counter the sporting boycott campaign by making irrelevant relaxations in sports segregation. It carried an article by a recently deported South African priest examining the role of the church under apartheid.

In a report on the AAM’s ‘The Crisis in Southern Africa’ conference, this issue highlighted the sense of betrayal felt by anti-apartheid campaigners at the Labour Government’s policies on Southern Africa. It profiled four centuries of exploitation by Portugal’s colonial regime in Angola and exposed the farce of ‘partial self-government’ given by the South African Government to Ovamboland in the north of Namibia. It also reported on a set-back for South Africa’s attempts to counter the international sporting boycott, when Tunisia and Morocco withdrew from the International Cross-Country Championships in protest against South African participation.

The May issue exposed links between far-right organisations in South Africa and the British consul-general in Johannesburg. It carried an exclusive interview with banned South African Helen Joseph and extracts from Alex La Guma’s new novel The Stone Country. It also reported on the police harassment of Winnie Mandela.

AA News headlined a call by Labour and Liberal MPs for the Labour Government to cancel a visit by British warships to Cape Town. A roundup of anti-apartheid action in Britain included a ‘Southern Africa Week’ of talks and seminars at the LSE and a conference organised by Birmingham AAM. The centrespread featured articles on the history of Mozambique’s liberation movement FRELIMO and on how British subsidiaries in Rhodesia were evading sanctions. The issue exposed French arms sales to South Africa in defiance of the UN’s call for an arms embargo.

AAM members disillusionment with the 1964–70 Labour Government came to a head at a National Committee meeting which asked Cabinet Ministers Barbara Castle and David Ennals to choose between their government posts and AAM membership. AA News followed this up with a debate on future strategy. Ronald Segal argued that the AAM should abandon lobbying and build a ‘democracy of the streets’. Frank Hooley responded that it should continue to use ‘every normal device of political persuasion’. This issue also reported on the Terrorism Act trial of 37 SWAPO members and on evidence from former political prisoners to the UN Human Rights Commission.

In the September issue, CLR James carried forward the debate on AAM policy by arguing that local AA groups should ask workers to take action against the involvement of local enterprises in South Africa. The newspaper highlighted Britain’s growing trade with apartheid South Africa. An eyewitness account of the forced removal of elderly people and former political prisoners to a remote rural area showed the lengths to which the apartheid regime was prepared to go in establishing total race segregation. The issue also carried the first reports of fighting between a combined ANC-ZAPU guerrilla group and the South African security forces in the Wankie region of Rhodesia.

AA News headlined ‘The battle in Zimbabwe’, with a report on fighting between a joint ANC-ZAPU guerrilla group and Rhodesian security forces. It carried an analysis by Brian Bunting of South Africa’s aggression against African countries and an appeal by Labour MP David Winnick to delegates at the forthcoming Labour Party conference to oppose any settlement with the white minority Rhodesian regime that fell short of majority rule.