Students

After  Nelson Mandela’s release in February 1990, the AAM campaigned for support for the ANC in its negotiations for a democratic constitution. This leaflet asked students and young people to support the AAM’s ‘South Africa: Freedom Now!’ campaign.

After agreement was reached on 27 April 1994 as the date for one person one vote elections in South Africa, the AAM campaigned to ensure the elections were free and fair. Its Countdown to Democracy programme focused on voter education. This leaflet asked for donations for a special Education for Democracy in South Africa Fund, supported by the main British teacher unions and the National Union of Students.

Chris Child became involved in the campaign to make Barclays Bank withdraw from South Africa when he was a student at Durham University. He was an Anti-Apartheid Movement staff member from 1976 to 1982, initially as Trade Union Secretary and later as Deputy Executive Secretary. He was responsible for the AAM’s work with trade unions, the disinvestment campaign, Namibia and liaising with local AA groups.

This is a complete transcript of an interview carried out as part of the Forward to Freedom AAM history project in 2013.

Anna Kruthoffer (now Anna Murray) first became aware of the Anti-Apartheid Movement when she was a student in the late 1980s. She became an activist in her local AA group in Hackney when she moved to London. She was the secretary of Hackney AA Group and the London AA Committee, which co-ordinated the work of London anti-apartheid groups. In April 1994, she worked in the ANC’s Johannesburg regional office in the run-up to South Africa’s first democratic election.  

In this clip Anna recalls how she was drawn into the Anti-Apartheid Movement, meeting political exiles from South Africa and Namibia and establishing links in the local community.

 

Gerard Omasta-Milsom joined the Anti-Apartheid Movement as a student at Bristol University, where he was an activist in Bristol University AA Group. In 1988 he joined the staff of the Anti-Apartheid Movement as Field Officer, responsible for coordinating the activities of local anti-apartheid groups. He became the AAM’s Campaigns Officer, remaining in post through the period when the AAM dissolved itself and set up a successor organisation, Action for Southern Africa (ACTSA) in 1994–95.

 

This is a complete transcript of an interview carried out as part of the Forward to Freedom AAM history project in 2013.

 

 

Tim Oshodi joined the Anti-Apartheid Movement as a student activist in 1985. He was Chair of the London School of Economics AA Group and took part in an occupation of the LSE to pressure it to disinvest from South Africa. He was a researcher for the AAM's disinvestment campaign, and a member of the AAM National and Black Solidarity Committees. He was a founding member of Friends of Simukai, an group that worked in solidarity with freedom fighters in Zimbabwe. Tim is currently involved in solidarity work with South African based housing activists.

This is a complete transcript of an interview carried out as part of the ‘Forward to Freedom’ AAM history project in 2013.

Vijay Krishnarayan became involved in the Anti-Apartheid Movement in 1984 while studying town and country planning at Oxford Polytechnic. As student union president, he was elected to the National Council of the student section of the Labour Party and in 1988 took part in the Mandela Freedom March from Glasgow to London. In 1989, he campaigned against the rebel cricket tour to South Africa before moving on to a career in civil society organisations, promoting people-to-people solidarity.

This is a complete transcript of an interview carried out as part of the Forward to Freedom history project in 2013.

Paul Blomfield set up Sheffield Anti-Apartheid Group in 1978 and served as its Secretary until the early 1990s. In 1976 he visited South Africa after the Soweto school students uprising at the request of the ANC. His report of the visit is on this website (stu25. IUS Solidarity Mission Report). He is now the Labour MP for Sheffield Central.

This is a complete transcript of an interview carried out by students at Sheffield Hallam University in 2013.