pic8906. ‘Apartheid is bankrupt: No debt rescheduling’

Supporters of End Loans to Southern Africa (ELTSA) leafleted shareholders outside the annual general meeting of NatWest Bank in April 1989. They were asking the bank not to take part in an agreement to reschedule South Africa’s foreign debt. In 1985 South Africa was forced to announce a moratorium on its debt repayments, a crunch moment in the decline of the apartheid economy which led to the opening of negotiations in the early 1990s.