Arms Embargo

Examination of the role of the British company ICL in computerising the pass laws and supplying equipment to the South African police and military.

Letter to Foreign Secretary David Owen from the AAM’s Hon. Secretary Abdul Minty in November 1978 enclosing evidence of breaches of the British arms embargo against South Africa and calling for a parliamentary inquiry. 

In September 1979 South Africa exploded a nuclear device in the South Atlantic Ocean. An exposé of its nuclear programme, South Africa’s Nuclear Capability, was published by the World Campaign against Military and Nuclear Collaboration with South Africa. This sticker was produced as part of the AAM’s campaign against the sharing of Western nuclear technology with South Africa.

The AAM launched the World Campaign Against Military and Nuclear Collaboration in 1979. Its aim was to expose military and nuclear collaboration with South Africa and strengthen the UN arms embargo. Much of AAM’s international activity in the 1980s was through this campaign, collaborating with national anti-apartheid groups worldwide. Action included presenting detailed evidence to the UN about breaches of its mandatory embargo.

In 1979 South Africa tested a nuclear device in the south Atlantic Ocean. This report traced the development of South Africa’s nuclear capacity and showed how Western countries had helped create it.

In 1981 the AAM asked the British government to stop the sale of radar equipment manufactured by Plessey, a British electronics company, to the South African Defence Force. This pamphlet argued that the contract was in breach of the mandatory UN arms embargo.

In April 1981 the South African’s Energy Minister F W de Klerk announced that the country could manufacture uranium fuel elements. A UN report concluded that South Africa was now a nuclear power. This meeting, organised by Hackney AA Group and Hackney Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, featured the 1980 World in Action film ‘Follow the Yellow Brick Road’, which exposed Britain’s illegal imports of uranium from Namibia.

Leaflet advertising a conference on South Africa’s nuclear bomb and the campaign against British nuclear collaboration with apartheid.