Students

Manchester University students first asked the university authorities to sell shares in companies with South African interests in October 1972. In response to a student campaign, the University Council agreed to press companies in which it held shares to pay higher wages. This was rejected by the student union and students occupied the Council Chamber. They argued that all investment in South Africa supported apartheid and the university must disinvest. This newsletter urged students to attend a union general meeting to discuss the next step in the campaign. 

In January 1973 a general meeting of Bristol University Students Union asked the university to withdraw its investments in South African companies and in British firms with South African interests. It requested the University Council to invite a student spokesperson to its next meeting. The report called for informed debate and argued that the high returns on South African investments were the result of the low wages paid to African workers.

LSE students were among the first to campaign for disinvestment from South Africa. This leaflet advertised a week of action on Southern Africa in 1973. It included meetings on Zimbabwe (Southern Rhodesia) and Mozambique, as well as a teach-in with representatives of the African National Congress, the South West Africa People’s Organisation and the AAM.

In 1973 the student union at University College Swansea voted to call on the university authorities to sell shares in companies with South African interests. This pamphlet set out the case for disinvestment.

In September 1971 the NUS, AAM and Committee for Freedom in Mozambique, Angola and Guiné set up a student network to coordinate student campaigning on Southern Africa. Every year in the 1970s and early 1980s the network held a conference to discuss campaign priorities. This is the report of the second conference, held at Aston University, Birmingham in July 1973. It was attended by 80 delegates representing 24 colleges. Student action concentrated on disinvestment from Southern Africa, fundraising for the liberation movements, campaigning for political prisoners and the cultural, academic, sports and consumer boycotts.

The 1973 NUS/AAM student network conference agreed a programme of action that concentrated on persuading universities to disinvest from companies involved in South Africa and raising material support for the Southern African liberation movements.

Poster advertising the Southern Africa Liberation Fund set up by the NUS as a clearing house for funds raised by local student unions for the Southern African liberation movements. Collecting material aid was one of the main activities of British students who took action on Southern Africa in the 1970s.

In 1974, students at University College London asked the college authorities to establish whether companies in which the college held shares had dealings with the South African military or paid below subsistence wages.They demanded that the college disinvest from any such companies. This pamphlet reviewed the South African operations of firms in which University College held shares. In the early 1970s students at over half Britain’s colleges and universities took action for disinvestment from South Africa.