Photos

Early in 1989 more than 300 South African detainees went on hunger strike in protest against their detention without trial. Altogether over 1,000 people were held without charge, some of them for over two years. The ANC held a solidarity vigil outside South Africa House and Southern Africa the Imprisoned Society asked British Foreign Office Minister Lynda Chalker to tell the South African ambassador that his government must release the detainees. 

The Upington 14 were sentenced to death on 26 May 1989 because they were present at a demonstration during which a black policeman was killed. They included a 60-year old woman, Evelyn de Bruin. Anti-apartheid supporters picketed the South African Embassy in London calling for clemency for the Upington 14. After an international campaign for their release, the sentence was overturned in May 1991.

The AAM held its first women only conference on 3 June 1989, following a Month of Action in March, which publicised the impact of apartheid on South African women. All over Britain, women held meetings, exhibitions and benefit concerts.

Anti-apartheid supporters protested at Downing Street on the eve of President F W de Klerk’s visit to Britain in June 1989.

UDF President Albertina Sisulu was the main speaker at an AAM rally in London on 20 June 1989 protesting against F W de Klerk’s visit to London. She said de Klerk was trying ‘to improve apartheid and not to abolish it’. She was on her way the USA to meet President Bush. On her way back from the USA she led a UDF delegation which met British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

Albertina Sisulu, President of the banned United Democratic Front, and Sister Bernard Ncube of the Federation of Transvaal Women held a press conference in the House of Commons  on 13 July 1989. They were on their way back to South Africa from the USA, where they met President George Bush. During their stay in London the UDF delegation met Margaret Thatcher, the first time a British Prime Minister had met black South African anti-apartheid leaders since Josiah Gumede and Sol Plaatje held a meeting with Lloyd George in 1919.

In June 1989 the AAM held its first ‘Freedom Run’ in Brockwell Park, Brixton, south London in June 1989. The Freedom Run became an annual event where stalls sold anti-apartheid badges, T-shirts and other goods, and sponsored runners raised funds for the AAM.

This Wales AAM supporter was asking passers-by not to buy products from South Africa. He was taking part in a demonstration outside the Holiday Inn in Cardiff. The Holiday Inn group had a chain of hotels in South Africa. The AAM’s countrywide Boycott Apartheid 89 campaign focused on tourism and imports of coal and gold, as well as wine and fruit.