1960s

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.

Under the headline ‘OAU backs freedom fighters’, AA News highlighted the setting up of a commission of military experts by the Organisation of African Unity. It reported on a new spirit of militancy at the AAM’s annual general meeting, with calls for sit-ins and the establishment of a ‘Fighting Fund’ for the guerrilla fighters in Zimbabwe. Resolutions included a call for ‘greater democratisation’ of the AAM’s structures and a review of racial discrimination in Britain. The issue reported on the setting up of a SWAPO campaign committee calling for the release of all Namibian political prisoners, focusing on the 37 SWAPO members on trial under the Terrorism Act.

This issue raised the alarm on rumours that the Labour Government was about to abandon its limited arms embargo against South Africa. It reported on a speech by ANC Acting President Oliver Tambo in Central Hall Westminster and on the refusal by several student unions to host an all-white rugby team from the Orange Free State. In an interview, former political prisoner Wilfred Brutus told how he escaped re-arrest by rowing out into the Indian Ocean, where he was picked up by a passing ship.

This issue headlined the trial of the 35 remaining accused SWAPO members facing a death sentence under South Africa’s Terrorism Act. Its editorial contrasted the courage of guerrilla fighters who had infiltrated Rhodesia's Wankie valley with British businessmen profiting from apartheid. The newspaper reported on protests outside the headquarters of British companies investing in South Africa and on Sir Alex Douglas-Home’s pledge that a future Tory Government would resume arms sales. In a special feature on African trade unions, it exposed the decision by the Trade Union Council of South Africa (TUCSA) to exclude its few remaining African affiliates from membership.

The March issue’s editorial condemned the proposed government restrictions on the right of Kenyan Asians to settle in the UK as a step towards ‘importing apartheid’ into Britain. It condemned the decision of the International Olympic Committee to readmit South Africa to the Mexico Olympics. The issue highlighted the plight of over 100 prisoners condemned to death by the illegal Smith regime in Rhodesia. A lively letters column argued the case for and against the launch of armed struggle in Southern Africa.