1970s

This report was published at the start of the Lancaster House conference that led to the independence of Zimbabwe in 1980. It made a detailed analysis of the illegal Smith regime’s military capacity and argued that it was impossible to achieve peace in Zimbabwe without disbanding the security forces.

In 1979 South Africa conducted a secret nuclear test and it became clear that it was trying to develop a nuclear bomb. With the World Campaign against Military and Nuclear Collaboration with South Africa, the AAM launched an international campaign for the extension of the 1977 UN mandatory arms embargo to cover all forms of nuclear collaboration. This petition was widely circulated, including to all local Labour Parties and branches of the engineering workers union.

The British based merchant bank Hill Samuel played a major role in mobilising loans from Western banks to the South African government and its parastatal corporations. This briefing from End Loans to Southern Africa (ELTSA) showed how in the 1970s Eurocurrency loans arranged by Hill Samuel made up a growing proportion of total overseas investment in South Africa. It listed the parastatal corporations for which Hill Samuel arranged loans between 1972 and 1978. ELTSA was set up in the early 1970s to campaign against Western banks involvement in Southern Africa.

Mike Terry was the Executive Secretary of the Anti-Apartheid Movement from 1975 until it was dissolved after the inauguration of Nelson Mandela as President of South Africa in 1994.

This is a complete transcript of an interview carried out in 2000 by Håkan Thörn.