1970s

This issue led on the AAM’s demonstration against the resumption of British arms sales to South Africa. It reported on the conference resolution asking the Labour Party NEC to give material and moral support to the Southern African liberation movements. A centrespread exposed South Africa’s attempts to diversify its overseas investments and find new markets in Japan, Western Europe and the USA. Basil Davidson described his visit to the liberated areas of Angola. Hawker Siddeley worker Ron Cook told why he would resign from the company if it supplied its missile system to South Africa.

AA News again led on the shopping list of weaponry that South Africa had submitted to the British Government. It reviewed the student day of action against British companies helping to build the Cabora Bassa dam in Mozambique and profiled ICI, exposing its support for white minority regimes throughout Southern Africa. A centrespread analysed the failure of Rhodesian sanctions and accused the British Government of planning a deal which would sell out to the white minority regime. Margaret Dickinson described her recent visit to Niassa province in Mozambique and appealed for material support for the people living in areas liberated by FRELIMO. 

AA News began 1971 with a redesign: its front page featured a Janus-like Prime Minister Edward Heath facing both ways on apartheid. The issue focused on the AAM’s campaign against the Conservative Government’s decision to resume arms sales to South Africa. Over 100,000 people signed a Declaration opposing the sales and thousands attended nationwide meetings and rallies. AA News featured major British companies with big stakes in apartheid and reported on the spread of FRELIMO guerrilla activity to Tete province, home of the Cabora Bassa dam. It exposed South Africa’s growing economic ties with Israel, Ivory Coast and Iran. 

The March issue exposed leading Tory MPS who profited from apartheid through their holdings in companies with big stakes in South Africa. A special article featured the far-right Monday Club, founded in 1961 in reaction to Harold Macmillan’s ‘wind of change’ speech. A centrespread described the inequalities of the apartheid education system. Guy Clutton-Brock, recently deported from Zimbabwe, told how Zimbabweans looked to the liberation movement ZAPU for the removal of the minority white regime, rather than to the British Government. AA News endorsed an appeal by SACTU for support from British trade unions.

The April issue slated South Africa’s white-led churches for their failure to take any meaningful steps to oppose apartheid. It exposed the decision by the British Steel Corporation to hand over its South African operation to the government-owned Iron and Steel Corporation of South Africa. It attacked the failure of the Nixon administration in the USA to implement anti-apartheid policies and revealed French collaboration with South Africa’s armed forces. A centrespread featured the education and social systems being built by the liberation movements of Portugal’s African colonies in the areas they had freed from Portuguese control. 

The British Government was about to launch new talks with the illegal Smith regime in Zimbabwe, warned AA News. The issue previewed demonstrations against the Springbok rugby and cricket tours of Australia. It reported on the disruption of Barclays Bank’s AGM by supporters of the Dambusters Mobilising Committee and on the US Presbyterian Church’s challenge to Gulf Oil over its oil shareholdings in Angola. Former political prisoner Lewis Baker told how life under apartheid drove people to break the law and described the living conditions of long-term political prisoners. Former conscript Howard Smith told of his experiences in the South African Defence Force.

The June issue exposed the lie behind the apartheid government’s claim that the Bantustans could develop into ‘separate black states’. It again focused on British corporations with big stakes in the apartheid economy, including the mining company RTZ and engineering company GKN. It reported on Zambia’s attempts to reduce its economic dependence on South Africa and on Ivory Coast’s new alliance with the apartheid government. A former Portuguese army soldier explained why he had refused to serve in the war in Mozambique. 

A round-up of anti-apartheid action included reports of the AAM’s ‘Partners in Imperialism’ conference on 4 July and the demonstrations against the Springbok rugby tour of Australia. AA News exposed South Africa’s new sports policy, under which segregated black teams would be allowed to tour overseas, and the apartheid government’s hopes to win economic advantage from Britain’s membership of the European Economic Community. It reported on how South African Defence Minister P W Botha was greeted with smoke bombs when he visited the British Defence Ministry. A centrespread explained the significance of the Cabora Bassa dam in Mozambique.