The Anti-Apartheid Movement and British policy towards South Africa during the Rivonia trial
Arianna Lissoni
(History Department, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London)
Introduction
Britain, in her unique position as the former colonial power and the major investing country in South Africa, had been one of the main targets of Black South Africans’ diplomatic efforts since the establishment of the Union in 1910. By the end of the Second World War and following the election of the National Party in 1948, most of the hopes for British support for the predicament of Black South Africans shifted to the United Nations (UN) and the newly independent colonial states. Nevertheless, because of her economic and historic links Britain, and London in particular, continued to hold a special relationship with South Africa. From the 1950’s, British support did eventually start to come, not from the Government though, but from anti-apartheid and church groups, the Communist Party and sections of the Labour and Liberal Parties. Moreover, ever since the late 1940’s, a growing number of South Africans had been arriving in London, which, after Sharpeville and the banning of the African National Congress (ANC) and Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC), became a centre for the exiled liberation movements to continue their struggle from abroad.1
In June 1959, following a call for the boycott of nationalist goods by the ANC in South Africa, the Boycott Movement was started in London. In March of the following year, as the emergency situation in South Africa intensified, the Anti-Apartheid Movement (AAM) was formed to co-ordinate all anti-apartheid work and to keep South Africa’s apartheid policy in the forefront of British politics. From the onset, the Movement, which “operated […] as an instrument of solidarity with the people of South Africa”, was characterised by an “umbilical cord relationship with the [liberation] struggle”.2 For the next forty years the AAM campaigned for a sports, cultural, academic, consumer, arms and economic boycott of South Africa to help bring apartheid to an end.
This paper will concentrate on two crucial campaigns launched by the AAM in 1963-4 and assess the extent of their influence on British policy towards South Africa: the World Campaign for the Release of South African Political Prisoners (WCRSAPP), and the campaign for economic sanctions against South Africa. Although the main the impetus for the starting of these campaigns came from the Rivonia trial, they soon developed into long-standing crusades concerning two key areas of solidarity work: protesting against all political trials and executions and exposing the conditions under which opponents of apartheid were imprisoned or held without trial, and petitioning for the imposition of economic sanctions through collective action at the UN.
II. Rivonia
After Sharpeville, the ineffectiveness of non-violent methods had led the South African liberation movements to embark on a path of violence. In December 1961, the birth of Umkonto We Sizwe was announced as “an independent body […] under the overall political guidance” of the “national liberation movement”.3 The turn to violence was explained as a strategic necessity:
“The time comes in the life of any nation when there remain only two choices: submit or fight. That time has now come to South Africa. We shall not submit and we have no choice but to hit back by all means within our power in defence of our people, our future and our freedom”4.
On July 11, 1963, the South African police raided the headquarters of Umkonto We Sizwe at Lilliesfam in Rivonia (Daily Mail picture). Three months later, eight men, representing virtually the whole of Umkonto’s High Command, were on trial in Pretoria. The accused, Walter Sisulu, Nelson Mandela, Govan Mbeki, Dennis Goldberg, Ahmed Kathrada, Rusty Bernstein, Elias Motsoaledi and Raymond Mhlaba, were charged with 222 acts of sabotage and of inciting to commit sabotage in preparation of guerrilla warfare, armed invasion of the country and violent revolution. Under the 1962 Sabotage Act, the accused faced the death penalty. (Picture of the accused)
On October 8, 1963 (the day the Rivonia trial began), Oliver Tambo addressed the UN General Assembly with these words: “I cannot believe that the United Nations can stand by calmly watching what I submit is genocide masquerading under the guise of a civilised dispensation of justice”.5 Three days later, the General Assembly passed a resolution, by a vote of 106 to 1 (South Africa), condemning the South African Government’s apartheid policy and calling for the end of all political trials and the unconditional release of political prisoners. Britain, the US, France and Australia, however, abstained on the operative paragraph requesting the abandonment of the “arbitrary trial now in progress”.6
III. “A Rope of Strength”
In November 1963, the World Campaign for the Release of South African Political Prisoners was set up in London under the auspices of the AAM as a separate but attached committee. Its purpose was “to organise support for the implementation of the [October] UN resolution”.7 Jeremy Thorpe (Liberal MP) was Secretary, Humphrey Berkeley MP (a Conservative who had been involved in the campaign for the abolition of capital punishment in the UK) was Chairman, and Dick Taverne (Labour MP) was Treasurer. The World Campaign Committee included representatives (as well as from the AAM) from the Africa Bureau, the Defence and Aid Fund, the Movement for Colonial Freedom, Christian Action, the Society of Friends, and the United Nations Association; Amnesty International, two South African refugees (Sonia Bunting and Harold Wolpe), the SAIC and the ANC also participated as observers. Similar committees were established abroad.
At a time when the internal opposition in South Africa had been severely hampered, the AAM played a crucial role in publicising the trial in progress and in organising international pressure. The Rivonia campaign represented, as Ruth First (Picture of Ruth First) told the AAM National Committee on her arrival in London, “a rope of strength to people in South Africa”.8 Throughout the winter and spring of 1964, the AAM and the WCRSAPP worked to ensure that the Rivonia trial received the widest possible publicity. 197,387 signatures were collected for a world-wide petition demanding the release of political prisoners and submitted to the UN. Solidarity messages were sent to the accused and their families by British MPs and other personalities. Lobbies of Parliament and Early Day Petitions were organised so that the matter would be debated in the House of Commons.
In March, Tambo appealed to the UN Special Committee on Apartheid (which had been established in November 1962) to express the “feeling that not enough is being done at the international level to challenge […] the South African Government”.9 His appeal was followed by a WARSAPP memorandum to all the major Western governments and the Special Committee, who were asked “to consider how best, by diplomatic, political, economic and other pressures” they may exert their “influence to save the lives of […] brave opponents to apartheid”. In particular, the UK and US governments, “whose pressures would be felt most strongly in South Africa”, were pleaded “to use their great influence and prestige”.10
In May, the AAM wrote a letter to the British Prime Minister, and a delegation led by AAM President Barbara Castle MP (and including Lord Gardiner QC, Eric Lubbock MP, Abdul Minty, and Raymond Kunene of the ANC), met the Minister of State at the Foreign Office on May 19 to present yet another memorandum. This called on the Government to take action by making clear to South Africa that the passing of death sentences “would seriously imperil the relations between the two governments”, by requesting “the cancellation of all the death sentences imposed on political prisoners and the release of political detainees”, and by offering asylum to the Rivonia accused and all other political prisoners.11
As the trial drew to a close, the campaign was stepped up (Slovo-Dadoo picture). Fifty British MPs, led by Berkeley, marched from the House to the South African Embassy to present a petition signed by over 100 MPs. A three-day vigil was held outside South Africa House during the days preceding the sentence. On June 11, seven of the defendants were found guilty and the following day they were sentenced to life imprisonment. (picture of the Star)
When he pronounced his verdict, the South African judge referred to the unprecedented international action around the trial. Indeed, the AAM had succeeded in activating a mass national and international campaign so that it could “with justification claim that the world-wide support for the men on trial contributed to the fact that they were not given the death sentence”.12 Moreover, for the first time, thousands of people had become involved in the activities of the AAM, whose work had been “internationally recognised by the press and speeches in the UN Security Council as a major factor in the outcome of the trial”.13 But as far as the British Government was concerned, the Rivonia Campaign had failed, at least on the surface, to break its “ignoble silence”.14 Before turning to the Government’s behaviour during the trial, the reasons underlying this silence will be examined.
IV. Britain’s “special interests”
The British Government’s strong concern with South Africa’s stability stemmed from what the British Prime Minister, Sir Alec Douglas Home, called “our special interests”15 in the Republic. In economic terms, they consisted of over 900 million pounds worth of investment and of an annual volume of export trade of some 250 million pounds, including “invisibles”.16 Britain was also “mindful of the intimate relationship to the Republic of the High Commission Territories”, which depended “to a great extent upon South Africa for their economic life”,17 and which represented a potential area of conflict because of their strategic position - being outside South Africa’s political and police control and within the area of Greater Southern Africa at the same time. Strategically, South Africa was important to Britain’s defence requirements because of the facilities she enjoyed at the Simonstown naval base. The 1957 Simonstown military treaty gave Britain overflying and staging rights in peacetime and war, even when South Africa was not belligerent. Moreover, the sea route around the Cape represented a key communication link with the Middle East and the Far East to Western defences against Communism.18 Under the Simonstown agreement Britain was also supplying weapons to South Africa, although pledging at the UN not to provide weapons which could be used for internal repression. Finally, the perennial “kith and kin” feeling represented a further factor binding Britain and South Africa together.
British policy accordingly had to balance Britain’s short against her long-term interests. Britain’s economic stake, strategic interests, and her position in the High Commission Territories meant that she could not afford to break off relations with South Africa. At the same time, Britain should try not to convey the impression that her “association with Dr Verwoerd’s Government is particularly warm or close” because of the harmful consequences it would have on Black African opinion and of the possibility that, in a not too distant future, political power might pass to the African majority of the population.19
V. “A Safety Net”
Throughout the Rivonia trial, demands for the intervention of the British Government were dismissed on the grounds that representations would be negatively received, thus prejudicing the chances of commuting the sentences once the verdict was reached.20 What was holding back the British Government, however, was most likely the fear of South African retaliation on Britain’s “special interests”.21 As domestic and international pressure around the trial mounted and South Africa’s isolation increased, Britain’s position became more and more uncomfortable.
Following Tambo’s second appeal to the UN and the WCRSAPP memorandum, the Special Committee on Apartheid presented its report to the Security Council in April. The report suggested that the Security Council should require the South African Government to desist from all measures against persons who opposed their radical policies within a brief time limit, or else new mandatory steps should be taken. The Special Committee also urged all Heads of State to intervene with the South African Government to prevent the death sentences from being passed on the accused in the Rivonia and other political trials.
The debate about sanctions against South Africa at the UN centred around the contention that South Africa represented a threat to international peace. If so designated, under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, international action would no longer be regarded as interference with the internal affairs of a country and the Security Council could order mandatory measures.
On June 9, just two days before the final verdict was reached, the Security Council passed a resolution urging the South African Government to end the trial in progress and grant amnesty to the defendants and all other political prisoners already sentenced to death. Britain, together with the US, France and Brazil, abstained.
Commenting on Britain’s abstention at the UN, The Guardian wrote:
“Wherever plans are discussed to end the subjection of Black South Africans, Britain counsels delay, restraint, vacillation. To the rest of the world, and doubtless to the South African Government as well, Britain appears to be engaged in a prolonged fighting defence of South African interests, with never a point conceded until it has been overrun”.22
At the heart of British policy, which appeared to the opponents of apartheid as a “safety net under the [South African] Government”,23 lay a “sharpening dilemma” between “keeping on terms with the regime on the one hand, and avoiding outrage to Black African opinion on the other”.24
VI. Nigeria’s Special Request
Britain was very anxious about the reactions of African states to her policy towards South Africa. Her economic links with African countries,25 and her colonial past, made Britain particularly vulnerable to African opposition to South Africa.
Nigeria represented the main threat to Britain. Through her leading position in Africa, Nigeria could organise co-ordinated retaliation, undermine British interests in Nigeria itself, or turn to other Western states (e.g. the US) in order to exert her influence on Britain.
Impatience with “the compromise of British policy towards South Africa” had also created the feeling that unless Britain broke off trade relations with South Africa, Nigeria would withdraw from the Commonwealth.27
In mid-April, the Nigerian Foreign Minister F. M. Wachuku spoke to the British Ambassador in Lagos to express Nigeria’s concern over the fate of the accused in the Rivonia trial and especially asked that Britain arrange for her influence to be brought to bear on South Africa.28
A few days later, the Foreign Office reached the conclusion that Sir Hugh Stephenson, the UK Ambassador to South Africa, should approach the South African Government. So far, the British Government had refused to intervene, either officially or privately, despite pressures from the AAM and other solidarity organisations. The Nigerian request significantly prompted the government to make a move, although a cautious one. On April 23, Stephenson met Dr Muller (South Africa’s Foreign Minister) to convey the Nigerian message that the execution of Mandela and the others would greatly weaken the position of those countries who, like Nigeria, tried to counsel moderation. However, the South African reaction to the British informal representation, led the Ambassador to remark: “If we let it be known that we have made any sort of representations to the South African Government on this subject, we shall gravely prejudice the chances of their commuting the death sentences”.29 Therefore, Britain’s official attitude remained, until the end, that it would not be appropriate to take any action while the trial was in progress and the matter sub judice; the news of the British representation never leaked outside the Government.
VII. Economic Sanctions
The UN debate on economic sanctions had been paralleled in Britain by an escalating campaign led by the AAM. In the summer of 1963, a Steering Committee, with Ronald Segal as Convenor and the AAM as sponsor, was set up in view of an international conference on sanctions.30 The aim of the Conference was to work out the practicability of economic sanctions and their implications on the economies of South Africa, the UK, the US and the Protectorates. Knowing that the strongest opposition to sanctions came from the West (and within the West, Britain in particular), the Committee made every effort to attract as wide and varied a number of speakers and participants as possible so that the Conference findings would be regarded as objective. Through the ANC, whose representatives were also involved in organising the Conference, the Steering Committee was able to access many African Governments, a number of whom agreed to become patrons. Representatives from those Governments in the forefront of the campaign for sanctions as well as from all the major political parties in countries opposing sanctions, several youth organisations, and trade union federations were all invited to participate.31
The International Conference for Economic Sanctions Against South Africa took place in Friends House, Euston Rd, between the 14 and the 17 April 1964. The Conference was attended by a number of well-known international personalities as well as governmental delegations from thirty countries and unofficial representatives from fourteen others. The Tunisian Foreign Minister Mr Mongi Slim acted as Chairman. The Conference established the necessity, the legality and the practicability of internationally organised sanctions against South Africa, whose policies were interpreted as a direct threat to peace and security in Africa and the world. Its findings also pointed out that in order to be effective, a programme of sanctions would need the active participation of Britain and the US.32
The AAM viewed the Conference as a major success because of “the new seriousness with which the use of economic sanctions against South Africa is now regarded”.33 The Conference was also important because of the international recognition the AAM derived from it. For the first time, AAM leaders met a delegation of the UN Special Committee on Apartheid, and a long-lasting working relationship was established then between the two organisations. During an AAM public meeting held at the end of the Conference, Mr Diallo Telli, Chairman of the Special Committee, acknowledged the AAM as “in fact one of the most active and effective factors in the general international struggle against the dangerous and criminal racial policy” of apartheid.34
The British government’s response to the Conference was partly shaped by its opinion of the organisers, and partly by the potential consequences on the UN debate about South Africa. Despite the Steering Committee’s endeavours to avoid being associated with particular political influences, the Prime Minister described Segal, the Conference Convenor, as, although a “man of substance”, someone “for our own information suspected of being a Communist sympathiser”;35 the AAM, on the other hand, was, to put it quite simply, “under Communist control”.36
Although it was decided that no official observers should attend the Conference, the British Government was taking a keen interest in it. The main reason for such interest was that the Conference papers were to be circulated as a UN document and used by the Special Committee on Apartheid in its forthcoming report. The most likely effect of the Conference was to reinforce the already strong pressures at the UN for action against South Africa, either in the context of the Rivonia trial or of South West Africa. Therefore, the Government felt they had to “be prepared […] to comment in a convincing and properly informed manner upon any conclusions [of the Conference]”.
Through some of its “friendly contacts” the Foreign Office managed to get hold of seven of the papers to be discussed at the Conference beforehand. Special attention was given to Worswick’s paper38 on the effects of sanctions on the British economy. The papers were studied in detail and a draft on points of rebuttal was produced.39 In the end, the British Government concluded that the Conference was unlikely to convince the opponents of sanctions in the UN. Britain, for its part, remained firm in its view that the imposition of sanctions would be unconstitutional “because we do not accept that this situation in South Africa constitutes a threat to international peace and security and we do not in any case believe that sanctions would have the effect of persuading the South African Government to change its policies”.40
The British Government’s suppositions about the impact of the Conference on the UN proved to be correct, and during the Security Council debate in June Britain managed to avoid the question of mandatory sanctions thanks to her collaboration with the US.
IX. Conclusion
1964 was a decisive year for the international struggle against apartheid. On the one hand, the Rivonia raid and trial gave a harsh blow to the underground resistance in South Africa. While Sharpeville had forced the liberation movement underground, the clamp down of the South African Government in 1963-64 severely disabled the internal opposition. Indeed, it would be another decade before the covert opposition inside South Africa could regroup and reorganise itself to pose an effective challenge to the apartheid regime. On the other hand, by the time the Rivonia trial ended in June 1964, the issue of apartheid had been successfully projected onto the international level.
Since its birth in the spring of 1960, the AAM’s role had been to campaign against apartheid in every possible field, and to inform the public about apartheid and its implications. In the first few years after it was founded the AAM principally functioned in response to events in South Africa. As the situation in South Africa deteriorated the AAM was able to offer an extraordinary response by pulling together enormous strength and resources. The major achievement of the Rivonia Campaign was to mobilise, on an unprecedented scale, domestic and world public opinion around the trial, thus helping to save the lives of Mandela, Sisulu and the others. The AAM also made every effort to persuade the British Government to adopt an enlightened policy towards South Africa, especially at the UN, and to exert its influence on the South African Government to prevent the imposition of the death sentences on the accused. Real politik concerns, however, prevailed over anti-apartheid rhetoric in the making of British policy.
Faced with the dilemma of protecting Britain’s economic and strategic interests in South Africa without alienating the African states or damaging “irreparably the prospects of future co-operation with an African Government”, the British government was at pains in trying to dissociate itself from South Africa’s apartheid policies whilst at the same time “maintain[ing] a reasonable working relationship with the present government”.41 Pressure from Nigeria eventually convinced Britain to make an unofficial representation to the South Africans. The unfavourable reaction to this timid move immediately led Britain to retreat to its position that any kind of intervention would not be in the interest of the Rivonia accused themselves. What the British Government probably had in mind, though, were Britain’s “special interests”. These same interests would continue to shape British policy towards South Africa over the next three decades.
Campaigning around the Rivonia trial also gave impetus to the question of sanctions. The International Conference on Sanctions was a major breakthrough in the development of an international sanction-based strategy. The Conference, however, failed to persuade the main opponents of sanctions, namely Britain and the US. At the UN, Britain consistently refused to accept that the situation in South Africa fell under Chapter VII of the Charter. Instead, in collaboration with the US, Britain worked for a carefully worded appeal on the Rivonia and other political trials to try to appease Afro-Asian countries and public opinion at home and abroad. By 1965, as international attention shifted to Southern Rhodesia as a result of Ian Smith’s Unilateral Declaration of Independence, the issue of economic sanctions against South Africa had lost momentum.
Footnotes
1. Barber, J., The Uneasy Relationship, London: Heinemann Educational Books for the Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1983, p. 2.
2. Minty, A., "The AAM - What kind of History?", paper presented at the AAM 40-year Symposium, South Africa House, London, 25-6 June 1999.
3. “Umkonto We Sizwe”, flyer “issued by the command of Umkonto We Sizwe” appearing on December 16, 1961, in Karis and Gerhart, eds., Challenge and Violence, p. 716.
5. Tambo, O., “Address to the Special Political Committee of the United Nations General Assembly, 8 October 1963”, in Tambo, A., ed., Preparing for Power: Oliver Tambo Speaks, London: Heinemann, 1987, p. 46.
6. Quoted in Karis and Gerhart, eds., Challenge and Violence, p. 675.
7. Minutes of the Executive Committee, 23 October 1963, AAM Archive, Rhodes House Library.
8. Minutes of the National Committee, 25 March 1964, AAM Archive, Rhodes House Library.
9. Tambo, O., “Address to the Special Committee Against Apartheid, 12 March 1964”, in Tambo, ed., Preparing for Power, p. 50.
10. PRO: FO 371/177036, Memorandum on South African Leaders in danger of sentence of death in the Rivonia trial and the fate of South Africa's political prisoners from the WCRSAPP, March 16, 1964.
11. PRO: FO 371/177036, Record of a meeting between the Minister of State and a delegation from the AAM held at the Foreign Office, May 19, 1964.
12. AAM Annual Report, October 1964, AAM Archive, Rhodes House Library.
13. Report of the Executive Committee to the National Committee, July 6, 1964, AAM Archive, Rhodes House Library.
14. PRO: PREM 11/5178, F. Brockway's MP remark on the British Government's attitude towards the Rivonia trial during a parliamentary debate on the UK's abstention in the Security Council vote on June 9, 1964, 15 June 1964.
15. PRO: FO 371/167557, Sir Alec Douglas Home, Instructions to Sir Hugh Stephenson when he takes up his post as Ambassador: UK policy towards South Africa, 12 June 1963.
18. PRO: PREM 11/5112, Prime Minister's reply to a letter from the Archbishop of Canterbury concerning South Africa's political trials and the supply of arms, 6 May 1964.
19. PRO: FO 371/167557, Sir Alec Douglas Home, Instructions to Sir Hugh Stephenson when he takes up his post as Ambassador: UK policy towards South Africa, 12 June 1963.
20. PRO: PREM 11/5113, Telegram from Sir H. Stephenson, Cape Town, to the Foreign Office, 4 April 1964.
21. The South African Government had in the past threatened the unilateral abrogation of the Simonstown agreement to remind Britain of the possible consequences of taking action against South Africa.
22. The Guardian, London, 16 June 1964
23. Minutes of the National Committee, 25 March 1964, AAM Archive, Rhodes House Library.
24. PRO: CAB 114/119, Sir J. Maud, Cape Town, to Lord Home, 14 May 1963.
25. PRO: CAB 114/119, Memorandum by the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations and by the Secretary of State for the Colonies, 30 July 1963.
26. Barber, Uneasy Relationship, p. 19.
27. The Star, Johannesburg, 9 May 1964.
28. PRO: PREM 11/5178, Telegram from UK Ambassador to Nigeria to the UK Embassy in Pretoria, 16 April 1964.
29. PRO: PREM 11/5178, Telegram from Sir H. Stephenson, Cape Town, to the Foreign Office, 23 April 1964.
30. Minutes of the Executive Committee, 20 June 1963, AAM Archive, Rhodes House Library.
31. Segal, R., “Introduction”, in Segal, R., ed., Sanctions Against South Africa, Penguin, 1964.
32. See the Conference Commissions Reports and their Findings and Recommendations, in Segal, Sanctions Against South Africa.
33. Annual Report, October 1964, AAM Archive, Rhodes House Library.
35. PRO: FO 371/17767, Telegram from J. Wilson to the UK mission to the UN, New York, 18th March 1964.
36. PRO: FO 371/17767, Guidelines to Her Majesty's representatives on the Conference of Economic Sanctions, 8 April 1964. Interestingly, further comments on Segal and the AAM in a letter from Wilson to D. C. Debbit (UK Ambassador to Denmark) dated April 3, (ibid.) have been deleted from the original documents.
37. PRO: FO 371/177167, Lord Dundee, 9 April 1964.
38. Worswick, G., D., N., "The impact of sanctions on the British economy", in Segal, ed., Sanctions Against South Africa.
39. PRO: FO 371/177167, Draft notes on points which might be considered for rebuttal, 6 April 1964.
40. PRO: FO 371/17767, Guidelines to Her Majesty's representatives on the Conference of Economic Sanctions, 8 April 1964.
41. PRO: FO 371/167557, Sir Alec Douglas Home, Instructions to Sir Hugh Stephenson when he takes up his post as Ambassador: UK policy towards South Africa, 12 June 1963.