Geoff Rodoreda in Stuttgart
The South African-led international campaign to get foreign companies that invested in apartheid to pay reparations to victims has moved a step closer to international court action, following meetings in Germany with organisers of the successful multibillion-rand compensation claim for survivors of Nazi labour camps.
Reverend Teboho Klaas, national coordinator of Jubilee South Africa, met in Frankfurt last week with Lothar Evers, director of Germany’s Association for the Survivors of NS (Nazi) Persecution, to discuss tactics for possible South African legal action.
Evers was a key figure in the historic deal signed two years ago to set up a fund of about R50-billion for survivors of Nazi slave camps and forced labour. The German government and industry contributed equally to the fund. The deal was signed because of threats of class-action lawsuits against German firms in United States courts.
Evers told the Mail & Guardian the US Alien Tort Claims Act might offer South Africans a possibility for reparations claims against multinational corporations that traded with the apartheid regime. The same US law had been used by Nazi survivors.
“In my view, there are many parallels between our case and the case of apartheid. For one thing, some of the firms involved in apartheid were also operating in Nazi Germany,” Evers said.
Klaas was in Frankfurt as part of a two-week speaking tour of Sweden, Denmark and Germany, organised to raise awareness about the involvement of European banks and other companies in apartheid. Speakers from Zambia and Mozambique were also involved. The “Tour of Witnesses” was funded by European NGOs belonging to the International Campaign on Apartheid-Caused Debt in Southern Africa.
Jubilee and its co-campaigners have been reluctant to talk about which legal options, if any, they might pursue in seeking apartheid reparations and the cancellation of foreign apartheid debt. But Klaas said the US court option now appeared the most likely, although legal action against foreign corporations “is still an option of last resort”.
He said campaigners were losing patience with governments, banks and firms that traded with or lent money to the apartheid regime.
“Those debts were incurred in illegitimate ways by an illegitimate regime. And those companies which participated in giving credits to or making profits from apartheid were also conspiring in oppressing and suppressing the people of South Africa,” he said.
A series of recent studies, funded by European NGOs, has sought to reveal the extent of the involvement of foreign firms in apartheid. One study on the role of German and Swiss banks found that during the period of international sanctions after 1985, German capital was the most important direct financier of the regime. By the end of 1993, according to the study, South Africa was indebted to German business to the tune of R14,6-billion. Most of that debt (R10,5-billion) was public sector debt: that is, money which had been lent to the apartheid government.
German banks have not refuted the findings of the study. Campaigners say two major banks, Deutsche Bank and Dresdner Bank, have agreed to discuss the issues involved, although no dates have been set for talks.