Browse the AAM Archive

The AAM marked its 10th anniversary with a conference that discussed guerrilla warfare in Southern Africa and the implications of the armed struggle for the international solidarity movement. AA News reported on widespread disillusion with the British Labour Government.  A feature article by Basil Davidson reported on the advance of the PAIGC liberation movement in Portugal’s colony Guinea-Bissau. In an article on sports apartheid, the President of SANROC, Dennis Brutus, highlighted the forthcoming Springbok cricket tour of Britain.

The September issue reported on the sentencing to life imprisonment of five SWAPO members in the conclusion of a long-running trial under South Africa’s Terrorism Act. It carried an eyewitness account of the forced removal of black South Africans from their farms in Natal to a tented settlement, where they were dumped on the veldt with no sanitation. Its letter column continued the debate on future tactics of the AAM. In a foretaste of the campaign to stop the 1970 Springbok cricket tour, AA News reported on how one activist disrupted a fixture of the all-white South African Wilfred Isaacs cricket team.

The October issue headlined the advances made by FRELIMO guerrilla units in northern Mozambique and plans to stop Western companies involvement in building the Cabora Bassa dam. It reported on a TUC motion urging unions to discourage their members from emigrating to South Africa and carried a first-hand account by former political prisoner David Ernst on the difference in conditions for black and white prisoners. The back page printed the Springbok rugby tour fixture list, with a report of the launch of the Stop the Seventy Tour Committee.

Winnie Mandela and Shanti Naidoo were among the detainees expected to be charged under the Terrorism Act, reported this issue. A report on the Conservative Party conference highlighted a motion calling for an end to all ‘coloured’ immigration and for the ‘repatriation’ of many recent British immigrants. A resolution passed at the AAM’s annual general meeting warned the MCC that the tour by the all-white Springbok cricket team planned for the summer of 1970 would inevitably be disrupted.

‘Stop Apartheid Sport’ demanded this issue of AA News. A centrespread reported ‘One match cancelled, three disrupted, 17 to go’. The newspaper gave a round-up of student action against apartheid and reported on a march to Senate House to protest against the University of London’s links with University College, Rhodesia. A review of a new AAM pamphlet ‘South Africa’s Defence Strategy’ argued that South Africa’s defence programme posed a threat not just to the Southern African liberation movements but to the whole of Africa.

This issue of AA News focused on the build-up to the elections in Zimbabwe following the Lancaster House Agreement, which brought to an end Ian Smith’s illegal white minority regime. The AAM accused the interim British administration of failing to ensure that the elections would be free and fair. AA News launched an AAM membership campaign in response to the intensification of resistance to apartheid within South Africa, and announced plans for a new drive to win support from British trade unions. It reported on the growing movement of young white war resisters who had refused to serve in the South African Defence Force.

The AAM accused the British government of allowing white Rhodesian police to intimidate voters in Zimbabwe. This issue also featured protests against the British Lions rugby team’s plans to tour South Africa. It showed how the Thatcher government was using the settlement in Zimbabwe as an excuse for strengthening its ties with the apartheid government and warned against the threat posed by South Africa’s armed forces to the front-line states.  It reported on a conference on Southern African political prisoners  and carried an appeal by SWAPO women’s leader Lucia Hamutenya for action to secure the release of gaoled activists in Namibia.

AA News welcomed the Patriotic Front's victory in the Zimbabwean elections, and called for a stepping up of campaigns against British collaboration with apartheid. It highlighted the campaign to end British uranium imports from Namibia, under a contract signed by the Labour Government. A centrespread focused on South Africa’s illegal occupation of Namibia and listed British companies that exploited Namibia's mineral resources. The issue celebrated the 25th anniversary of the formation of SACTU (South African Congress of Trade Unions) and reported on Swansea University students campaign to stop recruitment by South African companies.