Photos

The AAM Freedom Bus was destroyed by unknown arsonists in February 1992. The bus toured Britain asking the British public to support the demand for one person one vote in South Africa after the release of Nelson Mandela from prison in February 1990. In the photo AAM staff member Gerard Omasta-Milsom is surveying the wreckage. 

AAM supporters marched up Whitehall to the South African Embassy to protest against the killing of around 40 township residents at Boipatong on 26 June 1992. They asked the British government to support international monitoring of the violence in South Africa. Among those carrying the banner (left to right) are Peter Hain MP, Billy Nair, Patsy Pillay, Bob Hughes MP, Archbishop Trevor Huddleston and Ken Campbell, General Secretary of the Fire Brigades Union. After the march, Walter Sisulu and Trevor Huddleston led a vigil outside the South African Embassy in memory of those who died.

Walter Sisulu led a march up Whitehall on 26 June 1992 to protest against the massacre of residents of Boipatong township in the southern Transvaal. He called for sanctions to continue against South Africa until there was agreement on a new constitution. The protesters later held a vigil outside the South African Embassy.

On the night of 17 June 1992 around 40 residents of  Boipatong township were massacred in an attack by supporters of the Inkatha Freedom Party. The police did nothing to stop the killings and were later accused of complicity. The massacre was part of a pattern of killings by the IFP and undercover forces. Trevor Huddleston spoke at the funeral of the victims on 29 June. In the photograph he is seen with AAM Executive Secretary Mike Terry and Rev Dr John Lamola, Head of the South African Council of Churches Justice and Social Ministries Department.

In the first three years of F W Klerk’s presidency, at least 7,000 South Africans were killed in political violence perpetrated by the Inkatha Freedom Party and undercover forces. In its September 1992 Month of Action for Peace and Democracy, the AAM called on de Klerk to take measures to stop the killings.

TUC General Secretary Norman Willis with shopworkers leader Garfield Davies and Rodney Bickerstaffe, General Secretary of the public sector workers union NUPE, at the AAM’s stall at the 1992 TUC annual congress.

These women were part of the Europe-wide demonstration outside a meeting of European Community Foreign Ministers held at Brocket Hall, Hertfordshire on 12 September 1992. They asked the EC to press de Klerk to take measures to end the violence in South Africa, so that negotiations for a democratic constitution could go ahead.

Every year in the late 1980s and 1990s the AAM held a prize-winning raffle to help fund its campaigns. In the photo AAM Chair Bob Hughes MP draws the winning ticket in the 1992 raffle, with staff members Mamta Singh, Vanessa Eyre and Gerard Omasta-Milsom looking on. The AAM depended on fund-raising initiatives like this to pay for its campaigns. It received no government grants and no significant funding from grant-giving bodies.