Australian Council for Overseas Aid, undated

The South Africa research files cover several aspects of its liberation struggles and the transition of the South African economy from an apartheid system to a free African state. The records consist of documentation about the activities of the African National Congress (ANC); the effects of apartheid policy on southern Africa; the sentiments of African businessmen towards the economic and political future of South Africa; financial involvement of the United States and other countries who were seeking potential opportunities in South Africa’s marketplace; and possible solutions to the health care crisis in apartheid South Africa. Of note are the files related to labor relations and demonstrations, activities, and developments of resistance in South Africa. Also of note are topics files about restoring confidence in southern Africa after decades of tumultuous civil conflict.

The research materials collected by the Africa Fund encompass brochures, bulletins, news clippings, pamphlets, position papers, reports, speeches, and publications. The bulk of the research files range from 1972-1990 and are organized alphabetically with a limited amount of posters and photographs throughout.

Main topics include: apartheid, detentions, political prisoners, South African economy, education, health care, housing, human rights, and violence against the majority South African population, labor relations, labor wages, sanctions, trials, divestment campaigns, and women's rights.

Of interest are the African National Congress (ANC) files, dating 1963-1999, and encompassing bibliographies, news clippings, journals, magazines, pamphlets, and reports highlighting the organization’s political involvement with the liberation of South Africa. Also present within the ANC files is a pamphlet published by the United Nations Centre against Apartheid, titled, I Have Done My Duty to My People and to South Africa (1982).This pamphlet centers on Nelson Mandela's statements made from the dock at his trial on November 7, 1962.

The small amount of apartheid files, dating from 1950 to 1988, comprise news clippings, reports, and several pamphlets describing the social and economic impact of the Nationalist Party's regime on South African citizens. Apartheid's discriminatory laws came into power in South Africa through the Nationalist Party in May 1948. Under the government-enforced policy all people of color were separated from white Africans in most aspects if their lives, including restricted and separate living areas, restaurants, schools, public transportation, and health facilities. One pamphlet, in particular, Anatomy of Apartheid, defines the complex policy of apartheid and provides answers to some questions frequently raised on race discrimination in South Africa. Apartheid in Practice pamphlet comprises 300 statements that offer a clear and accurate description of apartheid and list the most important laws that affected the civil rights of Africans, persons of mixed ancestry, and Asians in South Africa.

The Africa Fund Bantustans files include news clippings, reports, bulletins, pamphlets, and essays describing life inside of the South African homelands and the effects of apartheid policy on southern Africa. As a system of labor control, the 1913 Land Act passed by British controlled South Africa, set aside land area for Africans. Later acts, such as the policy of apartheid strengthened this segregated land policy. These South African Bantustans confined black South Africans to restricted land areas, which represented 12.4% of the land surface. Yet, black South Africans constituted 75% of the country's population. During apartheid, 3.5 million people had been forcibly removed from their land to the ten government-appointed Bantustans. These ten homelands were established as self-regulating nation-states for ethnic groups in South Africa, specifically for the purpose of marginalizing the population. The files are arranged alphabetically by homeland.

Of interest are the Business Attitudesfiles that describe the sentiments of African businesspeople towards the economic and political future of South Africa and topics of restoring confidence after decades of tumultuous civil conflict. The files address the anxieties of African businesspeople and their concerns for social and political reform. The African business community suggested the economic outlook of South Africa depended upon political reform.

The research files for Canada concern the country's involvement with race reform in South Africa. The research material consists of documents that support Canadian concerns with liberation struggles of the people in the region. One report that the SACTU Solidarity Committee (Canada) published, Trafficking In Apartheid (1985), studies Canadian trade with South Africa and investigates the myths and claims by the South African minority regime. They suggested that sanctions towards South Africa would cause major setbacks, such as massive unemployment in the industries of Japan, North America, and Europe. Other claims suggested that sanctions would hurt black South Africans the most and the Canadian government could not function without South Africa’s minerals. The study documented Canadian complicity with apartheid and pleads the case that further efforts of economic sanctions against South Africa would provide an effective catalyst to eliminate apartheid.

The Changefiles, dating from 1970-1992, contain news clippings and publications regarding the changing face of apartheid and the transition of political power from the white minority regime; yet, however, change in South Africa occurred in a discontinuous and at times violent manner. The fundamental changes covered from an apartheid regime to a new society include political reform, talks and negotiations among political parties, and reinventing South Africa’s economic and political system. Also found within the Change files are news clippings regarding examples of how the new government made major efforts to assist with dismantling the apartheid system, including changes in black politics reestablishing the once banned ANC and Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) organizations in 1982.

Of note are the Defense files, dating from 1970-1998, consisting of news clippings, discussion papers, and journals on military involvement that focuses on the strength and deployment of the South African armed forces. The development of South Africa's defense strategy was perceived as necessary to suppress all opposition to minority rule. Some of these events included the shooting of peaceful demonstrators at Sharpeville in 1960 and subsequent banning of the African National Congress (ANC) and the Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC).

Also of note are the Detentions files (1967-1989) and the Emergency files (1985-1987) encompassing new clippings, pamphlets, and reports related to detentions and detainees in South African prisons. Since the declaration of the State of Emergency on June 12, 1986, more than 20,000 South Africans and Namibians were detained by the South African army. The State of Emergency Regulations affected the life of every South African, which resulted in the detention of many black African leaders, dismantling resistance to apartheid education by targeting and detaining youth, and detentions masked in secrecy that resulted in the death of several detainees.

The small amount of Desmond Tutu files comprises news releases, interview excerpts, and news clippings pertaining to Archbishop Desmond M. Tutu's call for South Africanpeace talkand for an international peace-keeping force to assist in ending war in the South African townships. There is a limited amount of correspondence and reports about the internal conflicts within the South African townships. Of interest is the pamphlet, Statements: Occasional Papers of the Phelps-Stokes Fund: The Nobel Peace Prize Lecture: Desmond M. Tutu (November 1986). The publication called attention to the historic moment of December 1984 where Desmond Tutu received the Nobel Peace Prize for his non-violent efforts for liberation and unity among black and white South Africans. The document includes Tutu’s biographical profile, acceptance speech, and lecture.

The Economics filesaddress the financial involvement of the United States and other countries who sought opportunities in South Africa's marketplace. The development of South Africa’s economy was affected by the importation of foreign goods and foreign capital, where purchase of South African gold, diamonds, and other precious resources gave its economy a large financial boost and strengthened the economic structure of the country. Yet, during the 1970's, the growing black liberation movement and international pressure for social reforms brought its economic growth to a halt. Apartheid, combined with rebellion in Soweto and the decrease in the price of gold sent a clear message to foreign investors and banks to divest from the South African economy. These research files comprise news clippings and reports dating from 1969-1977.

The Economy files slightly defer from the Economics files, in which these files focus on the modern South African economy of the late 1980s to 1999 and the economy's macroeconomic strategies. The reports in these files document strategies listed to gain a competitive fast-growing economy; employment for all jobseekers; increased social services such as education and health; redistribution of income and other breaks for the poor; and clean and secure homes and work environments. News clippings and reports address economic policies to eradicate poverty and unemployment and the fight against a new form of apartheid – the divide between those who have jobs and those who do not, and those benefiting from a modern foreign economy versus those marginalized. Other materials in the files include pamphlets, reports, news clippings, and brochures.

The significance of the Goldfiles highlight the dominant role of the gold mining industry in South Africa and its effect on shaping an apartheid economy while simultaneously influencing foreign policy. By 1982, South Africa’s gold mining industry employed more than 400,000 workers and became the primary basis for South Africa's development. Most of the workers were of African descent and were paid minimum wages. Gold sales were important to the minority regime, in which funds from the sale of gold provided support for its advanced military forces. The research files include journals, news clippings, pamphlets, and reports dating from 1968-1999.

Health filescomprise bulletins, discussion papers, handbooks, news clippings, pamphlets, and reports about the historical perspective of health in South Africa under apartheid, in which health care facilities and health care practices were racially segregated. The resources in health care under apartheid were scarce and the lack of urgent care to the homelands had a harmful effect on all South Africans. One item of interest is a bulletin published by Health Policy Advisory Center (1985), which further discusses the destructive impact of apartheid on health care in South Africa and its impact on the care and health of children in that region. In 1970, Black South Africans experienced chronic malnutrition, poor sanitation conditions, and higher mortality rates due to the tarnished government policies. However, the most significant cause of poor health care in South Africa was poverty among the restricted homelands, where children suffered from malnutrition and a mortality rate of one casualty every two and half minutes. The bulletin also addresses possible solutions to the health care crisis in apartheid South Africa via protests within the international medical community. For example, liberal South African doctors resigned from the Medical Association of South Africa (MASA) in protest against the failure to convict three of its members involved in the concealment of injuries that led to the 1981 prison murder of Steve Biko, a former medical student and South African Black Consciousness leader. Biko's death urged a majority of the World Medical Association's (WMA) members to oppose the readmission of MASA. However, the WMA only limited MASA's membership, which led to the resignation of 15 member associations from Britain, Canada, Holland, Scandinavian countries, and majority of black Africa. In addition, the Stephen Bantu Biko file (1977) contains a photocopy of his affidavit from the South Africa Student Organization Terrorism Trial.

A significant portion of the collected records consist of the labor files describing labor relations in South Africa that involve the formation of labor unions, cost of living analysis in Soweto, Bantu real wages and employment opportunities, industrialization, foreign capital, and forced labor. For example, a pamphlet, titled Apartheid in South African Industry (1970), that the South African Congress of Trade Unions published, explains how the deterioration of employment opportunities, freedom of movement, and security of residence life temporarily halted the advancement of South Africa's labor industry by violating fundamental human rights and working conditions of employees in South Africa.

The mining industry became the backbone of the South African economy. Of interest in the Labor: Mining files is a speech given by James Motlatsi, the first President of the National Union of Mineworkers, South Africa. Founded in 1982, the National Union of Mineworkers (N.U.M.) aimed to provide education and inspiration for all organized mine, construction, and energy workers. Motlatsi's speech addressed the importance of a workers' strike on August 9, 1987. The strike became inevitable when their employers refused to increase workers' wages, refused to increase holiday leave days for Black South African miners, and refused to correct their labor conditions and environment while working in the mines. Additionally, the birth of the African Mine Workers' Union began with the South African Miners' Strike on August 12, 1946. One publication within the Labor: Mining files describes the background of the strike, where preparation began in 1941.

The Labor: Trade Unions files encompass news clippings, reports, and pamphlets and represent South Africa's efforts to protect their workers and promote security for all Africans in the same industry. Early trade unions in South Africa formed from 1881 and were considered crafted unions composed of white artisans whose main objectives were to protect their initial investment and standard of living. Formation of labor trade unions were forbidden for non-white African workers, which included Africans, Indians, and persons of mixed ancestry. Disputes among African workers were referred to white government officials, and strikes were considered punishable with a penalty of a monetary fine or three years of imprisonment. Other discriminatory laws prevented black South Africans to form trade unions, which included the Suppression of Communism Act, the Sabotage Act, and the formation of the Bantu Labor Regulations. Bantu Labor Regulations demanded all black South African workers to become contract laborers.

The Protests files (1972-1989) contain news clippings, books, reports, and writings regarding demonstrations, activities, and developments of resistance in South Africa. Of interest is the book, The Third Day of September: An Eyewitness Account of the Sebokeng Rebellion of 1984 by Johannes Rantete (Johannesburg: Raven Press, 1984). Rantete penned his first-hand account of the September 3, 1984 protests against rent hikes in Sebokeng and four other townships in the Vaal Triangle, a triangular area of land formed by Vereeniging, Vanderbijlpark, and Sasolburg, South Africa. The rent increase was proposed by black-run town councils, including Kuzwayo Jacob Dlamini, who was one of three councilors killed in mob violence. After days of eruption of protest strikes swept throughout zones in the Vaal Triangle, a mass meeting was held between local residents and the director of housing for the Orange Vaal Development Board. Residents addressed their concerns for the council to lower rents in their region and expressed their grievances towards unmet government demands. The day of protest is historically known as 'Bloody Monday' and considered the greatest day of protest in the history of Sebokeng. Additional files include news clippings and reports from the perspective of different nationalities and groups, including the outlook of black, white, and student protestors.

Of note are the Torture files, dating from 1970-1988, which encompasses booklets, news clippings, and summaries of reported torture cases of South African detainees. Detainees were subject to increasingly adverse conditions in South African prisons; some held indefinitely without trial and for the purpose of interrogation. Whether held under law provisions or under State of Emergency Regulations, large numbers of detainees were tortured or ill-treated by the police officers of the minority regime in South Africa. An item of interest within the files is a report, Torture of Detainees in South Africa, published by the Southern Africa Project of Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. The report details several methods of interrogation, abuse, and torture of detainees in South Africa and areas in Namibia since the enforcement of the State of Emergency Regulations. It also sheds light on the legal framework of each case and provides four affidavits from former detainees.

Also of interest are the Trials files, dating from 1956-1988, and include brochures, magazines, news clippings, and speeches. The Trial of Twenty-Two files highlights the trial of Winnie Mandela and 21 South Africans who were co-accused of charges under the Suppression of Communism Act. On May 11, 1969, twenty-two persons were arrested and jailed with charges of pro-Communist activities, of instigating guerrilla warfare, and organizing Africans in communist countries. The detainees were held in prison for five months prior to their trial that began at the Pretoria Magistrate Court on December 1, 1969, but two months later, the detainees were acquitted of all charges. After the charges were dropped, however, the acquitted were rearrested and held under the Terrorism Act. A protest speech given by J. Carlson on May 11, 1970 can be found within the files and describes all of the twenty-two persons in detention.

General files (1972-1998) conclude the South Africa research group and includes one-to-two- paged news clippings on a range of topics, including consumer boycotts and the Center for Defense Studies.