Apartheid Victims' Case Against Some Multinationals Returns to US Courts

In a closely watched matter, applicants are accusing multinationals such as IBM, Daimler, General Motors and Rheinemetall of supporting South Africa's erstwhile racist rulers

Apartheid victims' class action suit against a number of multi-national companies is back in the New York courts next week when the South Africa Apartheid Litigation (SAAL) will appeal their grounds to be heard.

Should Judge Shira A Scheindlin give them the green light, they will then begin the process of gathering the hard evidence to substantiate their claims that Ford, IBM, General Motors, Daimler and Rheinemetall each propped up the apartheid regime in various ways and are responsible for a battery of human rights violations against tens of thousands of South Africans.

Should Judge Scheindlin knock them back, then they will have one last chance to appeal at the Supreme Court.

In many respects it's astounding that the SAAL, the umbrella of the cases brought by Dumisa Ntsebeza and the Khulumani Support Group, have even come this far because of the far-reaching consequences of a successful action.

Not only would the five giants named above have to admit guilt in supporting what the United Nations once called "a crime against humanity" and be forced to pay out billions of US dollars in compensation, but it would set a precedent for victims of bad business all over the world, beyond the apartheid era. The consequences of a successful action on the part of the South Africans are potentially enormous.

"That's what this is about," says 55-year-old Lungisile Ntsebeza, a brother of Dumisa Ntsebeza who brought the first class action in 2001 and one of the plaintiffs in the case.

Lungisile has patiently watched the case trawl through the New York courts for the past nine years. Prior to that he had watched the Truth and Reconciliation Commission come to what he felt was a disheartening close.

"It was more about reconciliation at the expense of the truth," he feels, which bothered him hugely as he felt South Africans would never truly find peace until the full truth was known and acknowledged and full reparation then granted.

Watching the success of the Holocaust victims, in 2001 they decided to pursue the companies which they allege had part bankrolled the apartheid regime at the expense of the political, social and economic rights of millions of black South Africans under the US Alien Tort Claims Act.

"My own case is denationalisation, the loss of my South African citizen rights," explains Lungisile, a professor of sociology at the University of Cape Town. His challenge is against IBM, the techno giant he believes developed the software to produce the identification books and documents that segregated South Africans for decades and denied them their citizenship. "They helped denationalise us," he says.

Lungisile was born and raised in the former Transkei town of Cala, about 160km north-west of Mthatha. He was the son of teachers and in many ways he was better off than most other folk around him.

The Ntsebeza family had a modest, though regular income and did not have to worry about where their next meal came from. But their standing in life did not incubate them either from the apartheid system. They were black South Africans and fell into the same second-class category as every other black person.

His "Book of Life" stated that he was from the Transkei bantustan, hence he couldn't move freely around the country. He couldn't work where opportunity may have presented itself. He couldn't apply for a South African passport. In effect, he couldn't officially call himself South African.

"I was discriminated and marginalised in my own country," he says. "But I wasn't the worst affected. Many people were tortured and suffered in ways worse than I did, but I still feel I have a case against apartheid. Apartheid affected all of us."

Being a victim of apartheid was an undignified experience. But much as he resented it, it gave him the resolve to fight the system. He became an activist in his early teens and for many years kicked back. He was detained in June 1976 under the Suppression of Communism Act and sentenced a year later to four years behind bars. Upon his release he was sent back to Cala, where he was ordered to remain.

So he started a bookshop and sold some of the hottest political and socio-political titles that were banned all around the country, though ironically not in the Transkei.

In the late 1980s, as apartheid began to relax, he moved to Cape Town to further his studies. His doctoral thesis was on land reform, his main focus of inquiry to this day.

"As I say, I wasn't the worst off. But this is not about me. It's about all of us. It's a class action about our past, which was made possible by the financial and technological support of big business.

Since they started out in 2001 there were many times when justice seemed inconceivable.

However Judge Scheindlin's appointment to the case some years ago has marked a shift from the previous conservative legal minds who presided over it, while former president Thabo Mbeki's removal from office two years ago erased one of their greatest challenges.

Success at this stage could come in one of two forms; a successful outcome of a trial or an out-of-court settlement.

Either way, Lungisile is not interested in his share of any material reward, saying he would like to see any future payout ploughed back into a trust or fund that would help uplift the South Africans which the democratic dispensation left behind.

And should they fail in the New York courts, he says he won't give up "because until such time as there is reparation, you can't have reconciliation. They go together".

The writer here has had discrimination visited upon her time and again because she is white and in South Africa and you dare to expose corrupt people that means you are satan. Especially if you expose opportunist race baiters like the one she writes about here. They want money for nothing.

Until racist blacks in South Africa can come to grips that they are every bit as racist as those they accuse we will never have peace. They will always try to link themselves with the Jews of the holocaust and will always try to emotionalize the issue. Meanwhile they do not want you to look at their patently racist policies.

In the years I have lived in South Africa I have seen great people, black and white, undermined by so many racist rats in high places. This country would be great but for a few people in the way of real progress.

They are the same as 0bama and his socialists. Strip the wealth of the productive sector to pay for their communist schemes.

Even if these black South Africans get some kind of extortion money out of IBM etc....It will last them ten minutes then it will be back to normal

This could happen any time a business deals with a country having a checkered history, especially if it supplies some of the black paint. I wonder how the Chinese would feel about the likes of Google and the Great Firewall they helped build, should they have a successful revolution and kick the commies out of power.

“It’s not about individuals. It’s about [social] justice.”

Just another expression for thievery.

“”It’s not about individuals. It’s about justice.””
Liar. It’s about getting money you haven’t earned.
About a dozen years ago some acquaintances of mine from South Africa were trying to relocate out of the country. They were limited to sending $10,000 a year(I believe per person in the family)out of the country. They had a business and were trying to get out before they lost everything.
Unfortunately, I lost contact with them and never found out what happened.

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