Photos

After the unbanning of the South African liberation movements in 1990, the AAM launched a ‘Call to Freedom Declaration’ on 26 June. The declaration called for an elected constituent assembly to agree on a new constitution for South Africa. Left to right: TUC president and NALGO officer Ada Maddocks, TUC General Secretary Norman Willis, Ron Todd, General Secretary of the transport workers union and Barbara Switzer, Deputy General Secretary of the supervisory workers union MSF sign the declaration at the 1990 TUC congress.

AAM demonstrators lined the entrance to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s country residence, Chequers, when South African President F W de Klerk arrived there in July 1990.

Supporters of Southern Africa the Imprisoned Society (SATIS) asked Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher to intervene on behalf of the Upington 14, sentenced to death on 26 May 1989. Thirteen men and a woman, 60-year old Evenlyn de Bruin, were sentenced to hang because they were present at a demonstration during which a black policeman was killed. The sentence was overturned in May 1991.

Demonstrators blocked the entrance to the South African Airways office at Oxford Circus on 3 September. In 1990 the AAM campaigned stepped up its campaign to persuade holidaymakers to not to visit South Africa. One of the few sanctions Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher agreed to was a voluntary ban on the promotion of tourism to South Africa or Namibia, but the British government did nothing to put this into practice.

On 11 October 1990, designated as UN South African Political Prisoners Day, Southern Africa the Imprisoned Society (SATIS) held a vigil outside the British Foreign Office calling for the release of all South African political prisoners. SATIS asked the British Prime Minister to press President de Klerk to implement his pledge to free the prisoners.

Representatives of British local authorities joined a protest against the inclusion of South Africa and Bophuthatswana in the World Travel Market at Olympia in November 1990. One of the few sanctions Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher agreed to was a voluntary ban on the promotion of tourism to South Africa and Namibia, but the British government did nothing to put this into practice.

Southwark AA Group supporters picketed a Shell garage in South London in 1990. After Nelson Mandela’s release, the AAM kept up its campaign for a boycott of Shell and for sanctions to pressure the South African government to agree a genuinely democratic constitution.

Members of Notting Hill AA Group asked shoppers to boycott South African gold in Kensington High Street, West London, as part of the AAM’s Month of Action against apartheid gold sales in December 1990.