Lawyers who have brought class-action suits against international companies in a bid to win reparations for victims of apartheid in South Africa said on Tuesday they could suspend legal action as a result of a church mediation bid.
Anglican Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane said that his proposals for ”a forum for dialogue,” had met with a ”positive response from the victims’ groups… as well as the lawyers.”
The archbishop would not reveal the identities of any corporations contacted over his proposals, but said ”we are talking to people in business … we’re trying to find out some agreeable formula”.
John Ngcebetsha, the South African lawyer who with US attorney Ed Fagan has filed lawsuits against companies under the auspices of the Apartheid Claims Taskforce (ACT), said the plaintiffs held talks with Ndungane on Thursday, and ”gave him the go ahead” to pursue mediation.
”We would welcome an amicable solution. Lawsuits are a last resort,” he said, adding that his legal team had offered to ”suspend the legal action, provided the defendants come to the table with the right attitude.”
Bishop Rubin Phillip of the eastern province of KwaZulu-Natal, who was with Ndungane at a synod of bishops meeting in Durban, confirmed that the archbishop’s plan to mediate a settlement includes the lawsuits filed by both the ACT and by Jubilee South Africa — a coalition of 4 000 non-governmental organisations.
Ngcebetsha and Fagan have filed suits against companies such as British-based mining company Anglo American and Swiss banks UBS AG and Credit Suisse Group.
The Jubilee South Africa suit alleges that 20 companies, including US-German auto giant DaimlerChrysler, aided and abetted the apartheid regime.
But Ndungane said: ”For the good of South Africa, and nation-building, we should pursue dialogue and see what we can come up with… I don’t want to talk about guilt.”
He said he hoped to ”enable both the litigants and defendants in the class action case to have a forum for dialogue, to try to resolve the issue through negotiation rather than going through the courts.”
Asked whether he is envisaging a settlement along the lines of Germany’s holocaust victims’ fund, Ndungane said: ”We have no idea what the end game will be… the modalities of where we take the process from there will be determined by the people round the table.”
In July, 2000 Germany signed a deal with the United States and Holocaust survivors to create a 10-billion deutschmark compensation fund, stipulating payment could not begin until all legal claims originated in the United States against Germany and its industries were dropped.
Other companies that Fagan and Ngcebetsha have signalled may face action from the ACT include Bayer AG, Eli Lilly Co, El DuPont de Nemours and Co and Dow Chemical Co. – Sapa-AFP