Barclays and Shell

On 1 March 1987 the AAM launched a boycott of Shell as part of an international campaign organised with groups in the USA and the Netherlands. Shell was joint owner of one of South Africa’s biggest oil refineries. It was a lead company in South Africa’s coalmining and petrochemicals industries. During the March Month of People’s Sanctions activists picketed Shell garages all over Britain. The photograph shows members of the local Liberal Party picketing a Shell garage in Hackney, north London.

In March 1987 the AAM launched a campaign for a boycott of Shell products as part of an international campaign to make Shell withdraw from South Africa. This report showed how Shell supported the South African Defence Force and collaborated with the apartheid government’s illegal occupation of Namibia. It was a revised British edition of a report originally produced by Dutch anti-apartheid organisations.

This leaflet advertised a picket of Shell’s London headquarters on 13 May 1987, the eve of the company’s annual general meeting. Over hundred people, including Labour MPs, joined the demonstration, organised by the London Anti-Apartheid Committee. The following day protesters asked questions about Shell’s operations in Southern Africa at the AGM, forcing the directors to abandon the meeting. The action took place during an international week of action on Shell, 11–17 May, when the AAM’s London Committee organised demonstrations outside over 100 Shell garages.

Sheffield AAM picketed a Shell garage as part of an international week of action to force Shell to pull out of South Africa, 11–17 May 1987. All over Britain local anti-apartheid groups picketed Shell garages asking motorists to boycott Shell. The AAM launched its ‘Boycott Shell’ campaign on 1 March. Shell was joint owner of one of South Africa’s biggest oil refineries. It was a lead company in South Africa’s coalmining and petrochemicals industries.

The leader of Southwark Council in south London, Anne Matthews, joined a picket of a local Shell garage in May 1987. The picket was part of an international week of action, 11–17 May, when the AAM’s London Committee organised demonstrations outside over 100 Shell garages in London. Shell was joint owner of one of South Africa’s biggest oil refineries. It was a lead company in South Africa’s coalmining and petrochemicals industries. The AAM launched its ‘Boycott Shell’ campaign on 1 March 1987.

Nottingham AA Group supporters picketed a local Shell garage as part of the AAM’s ‘Boycott Shell’ campaign, launched on 1 March 1987. The boycott was part of an international campaign, co-ordinated with groups in the Netherlands and the USA. Shell was joint owner of one of South Africa’s biggest oil refineries. It was a lead company in South Africa’s coalmining and petrochemicals industries. 

Reading Anti-Apartheid Campaign leaflet asking local people to take action in support of the campaigns for the reprieve of the Sharpeville Six, sentenced to death in South Africa, and the release of trade unionist Moses Mayekiso, one of five people charged with sedition. The leaflet also advertised the Shell boycott and the AAM’s national ‘Sanctions Now!’ demonstration on 24 October 1987.

Shell co-operated with the South African authorities in Namibia, in defiance of the UN termination of South Africa’s mandate. It also supplied fuel for the South African Defence Force in its war against guerrilla fighters from the South West Africa People’s Organisation (SWAPO) in northern Namibia. This leaflet was distributed during the international Week of Action on Namibia organised by the AAM and Namibia Support Committee, 27 October–3 November 1987.