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Southern Africa the Imprisoned Society (SATIS) was a coalition that worked for the release of political prisoners in Southern Africa. Two hundred people attended its founding conference on 8 December 1973. They set up a campaign that brought together the AAM, IDAF, National Union of Students and the Ruskin and AUEW (TASS) Kitson Committees. For the next 20 years SATIS worked on behalf of political prisoners and for the release of all those detained without trial. In the 1980s it led campaigns to save the lives of political activists sentenced to death by the apartheid government.

Poster produced by Southern Africa the Imprisoned Society (SATIS) soon after its launch on 8 December 1973. SATIS was set up by the AAM, International Defence and Aid Fund (IDAF), National Union of Students, the AUEW (TASS) and Ruskin Kitson Committees and London Trades Council. It campaigned on behalf of political prisoners throughout Southern Africa for the following 20 years.

This badge reproduced the cover design from the Penguin Books edition of ‘The South African Connection’, published in 1973. The book contested the argument that the growth of manufacturing industry in South Africa would bring about the end of apartheid and set out the case for disinvestment. 

This petition was one of the first initiatives of Southern Africa the Imprisoned Society (SATIS), set up by the AAM, International Defence and Aid Fund (IDAF), National Union of Students, and Ruskin College and AUEW (TASS) Kitson Committees in December 1973. SATIS also asked supporters to adopt individual prisoners and organised a series of vigils on the steps of St Martin’s-in-the-Fields. The petition was signed by over 30,000 people and presented to the Chair of the UN Special Committee Against Apartheid at the AAM’s Freedom Convention on 30 June 1974.

Poster advertising the Southern Africa Liberation Fund set up by the NUS as a clearing house for funds raised by local student unions for the Southern African liberation movements. Collecting material aid was one of the main activities of British students who took action on Southern Africa in the 1970s.

Students were at the forefront of the boycott of Barclays Bank. Student unions banned Barclays from freshers fairs and students picketed Barclays branches to persuade others to close their accounts. This leaflet set out the ways in which the bank supported apartheid.

The British Lions 1974 rugby tour of South Africa went ahead despite widespread protests. This leaflet exposed South Africa’s new ‘multi-racial’ sports policy as window-dressing for apartheid. It was produced by Stop All Racist Tours (SART), an umbrella group set up to oppose the tour. The leaflet was distributed outside the England v Wales match at Twickenham on 16 March. 

In the wake of the Guardian exposé of the poverty wages paid by British companies in South Africa in 1973, this report examined the role of the international banking system in the systemic exploitation of black workers. It showed how the South African economy depended on European and American banking conglomerates for investment and to fund its expansion into the rest of Southern Africa. Counter Information Services produced a series of reports in the 1970s focusing on the operations of economic sectors and individual British companies, including a report on Consolidated Gold Fields.