Pamphlets

The huge Cabora Bassa dam project in Mozambique was a collaboration between South Africa, Rhodesia and Portugal. The project was intended to supply electricity to South Africa. This pamphlet was written for the Dambusters Mobilising Committee, a coalition of groups set up to campaign against the involvement of British companies in the project. The pamphlet and a campaign poster were funded by the WCC’s Programme to Combat Racism.

Pamphlet documenting the use of torture in South Africa in the 1960s and 1970s. The pamphlet shows how the apartheid legal system was used as window-dressing for a totalitarian regime and covers key trials in the early 1970s, including that of Winnie Mandela. It was published by the International Defence and Aid Fund (IDAF) and distributed by the Anti-Apartheid Movement.

In September 1971 the National Union of Students, AAM and the Committee for Freedom in Mozambique, Angola and Guiné set up a student network to coordinate student campaigning on Southern Africa. The aim was to recruit representatives at every British university and college. The network campaigned for universities to disinvest from companies involved in South Africa and for a boycott of Barclays Bank. It raised funds for the Southern African liberation movements and organised protests against the arrest of students within South Africa. This handbook provided information for student activists.

This booklet tells the story of Hull students’ campaign to make the university sever its links with the food company Reckitt & Colman because of the company’s operations in South Africa. The Hull sit-in was one of many student disinvestment campaigns in the 1970s.

In the wake of the Guardian exposé of the poverty wages paid by British companies in South Africa in 1973, this report examined the role of the international banking system in the systemic exploitation of black workers. It showed how the South African economy depended on European and American banking conglomerates for investment and to fund its expansion into the rest of Southern Africa. Counter Information Services produced a series of reports in the 1970s focusing on the operations of economic sectors and individual British companies, including a report on Consolidated Gold Fields.

The AAM produced the first edition of this handbook describing the working conditions of black workers under apartheid in the early 1970s. It set out the case for pressuring British companies to withdraw from South Africa and was widely distributed among British trade unionists.

This report showed how the British company GEC supplied the South African Defence Force with sophisticated technology and worked closely with South African state corporations. It estimated that 40–50% of the black workers employed by GEC’s South African subsidiaries were paid below the minimum level recommended by the British government’s Code of Conduct for British corporations operating in South Africa. Christian Concern for Southern Africa (CCSA) was set up in 1972 to research and publicise the role played by British companies in South Africa. Its reports were widely distributed by the AAM.

Through its subsidiary company African Explosives and Chemical Industries (AECI) the British chemicals giant ICI had interests in South Africa dating back to the development of the gold mines in the 19th century. This report showed how AECI worked closely with the apartheid government and operated a strict colour bar in its South African operations. Christian Concern for Southern Africa (CCSA) was set up in 1972 to research and publicise the role played by British companies in South Africa. Its reports were widely distributed by the AAM.