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ANC representative Ruth Mompati spoke at the renaming of Sheffield Polytechnic Student Union building as the Nelson Mandela Building. Sheffield Polytechnic was one of many student unions to rename buildings after Nelson Mandela in the 1980s.

The Ciskei in the eastern Cape was one of the fragmented parcels of land that South Africa designated as an African ‘homeland’ or Bantustan. It was given nominal ‘independence’ in 1981, but its stooge government was totally dependent on South Africa. This leaflet publicised an AAM vigil and meeting to protest against mass detentions of Ciskei residents who had supported a bus boycott in protest against a hike in fares.

This Declaration was adopted by the London Borough of Camden in December 1983. Similar declarations were adopted by most inner London boroughs.

In 1979 South Africa conducted a secret nuclear test and it became clear that it was trying to develop a nuclear bomb. The AAM campaigned to stop Western countries, especially West Germany, supplying it with nuclear technology.

Letter from Malcolm Rifkind, Minister of State at the Foreign Office, replying to a request from Des Starrs, Chair of Southern Africa the Imprisoned Society (SATIS), for the British government to intervene on behalf of the Kassinga detainees. In 1978 South African armed forces killed around 600 Namibian refugees at Kassinga refugee camp in Angola and took hundreds more prisoner. Five years later some of them were still held in detention in Namibia. Malcolm Rifkind turned down the request for a meeting on the grounds that he had already met an AAM delegation to discuss repression in the Ciskei.

In 1983–84, South Africa made a determined effort to get back into world rugby, starting with a Welsh Rugby Union sponsored youth tour of Wales. The South African team was invited by the Welsh rugby union to tour South Wales in December 1983–January 1984. Several Welsh local authorities refused to allow them to play on their grounds. Wales AAM supporters occupied the pitch during the game against Gwent in Monmouth.

In 1983–84, South Africa made a determined effort to get back into world rugby, starting with a Welsh Rugby Union sponsored youth tour of Wales.  There were widespread protests and several local authorities refused to allow the games to take place on their grounds. At the final game in Llanelli on 7 January, over 300 people marched through the town to the ground.

This Declaration was made by an Inter-Faith Colloquium on Apartheid organised by the AAM’s President, Archbishop Trevor Huddleston, in March 1984. The Colloquium led to the setting up of the AAM’s Multi-Faith Committee, which held its first meeting at the Central Gurdwara in London at the beginning of 1985.