Item 083 - «Angola Bulletin»

The Angola Comité (Angola Committee) was established in 1961 to support the freedom struggle in Angola. Leaders of the organization included Sietse Bosgra and Trineke Weijdema.

The Angola Comité supported the struggle against Portuguese colonialism by the liberation movements MPLA (Angola), FRELIMO (Mozambique) and PAIGC (Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde). It provided material support to those movements, organized a boycott campaign against Angolan coffee and support Portuguese war resisters. The whole of Southern Africa became the organization's focus.

In 1976, following the end of Portuguese colonialism, the Angola Comité was renamed the Komitee Zuidelijk Afrika (KZA) (known in English as the Holland Committee on Southern Africa) and concentrate its actions on the South African, Zimbabwean and Namibian freedom movements. KZA was involved in campaigns to isolate South Africa including campaigns for sanctions and divestment and against banks making loans to South Africa. With another Dutch organization, Werkgroep Kairos (Working Group Kairos/ Stichting Kairos), the KZA was active in the Shell boycott campaign and helped establish the Shipping Research Bureau which monitored oil deliveries to South Africa. It also campaigned in support of the sports boycott of apartheid South Africa.

The KZA had an important success in 1985 when it forced the banks to stop selling the South African gold coin, the Krugerrand. KZA provided material aid to liberation movements. After the end of apartheid, the KZA, the Anti-Apartheids Beweging Nederland (Dutch Anti-Apartheid Movement) and the Eduardo Mondlane Stichting (Eduardo Mondlane Foundation) established the Netherlands Institute for Southern Africa (NiZA). (Some pages of the website are available in English.)