US Lawyer Sues European Banks on Behalf of Apartheid Victims
NCM Online, Paolo Pontoniere, Posted: Jul 08, 2002
U.S. lawyer Ed Fagan has filed a class action suit against three German banks for their role in supporting South Africa during the years of apartheid, reported German and British media this week.
Fagan, a renowned expert in the field of reparations lawsuits, had previously won compensation for the survivors of Holocaust victims from Swiss banks that held unclaimed Jewish accounts.
With his current suit, Fagan is seeking 51 million euros in a US-based class action. At first, he had targeted only Swiss banks Credit Suisse and USB as well as US Citigroup. Now Fagan is adding Germany's Deutshe Bank, Commerzbank and Dresdner Bank, along with US computer behemoth IBM.
Fagan, and about 100 apartheid victims, have accused the banks of loaning billion of dollars to the apartheid regime during the years in which UN economic sanctions had been imposed against South Africa. IBM has been included because, according to Fagan, the computer maker provided South Africa with the technology it needed to organize forced labor, to carry out murder, to torture and massacre.
"Were it not for the conspiracy of these financial institutions and companies, apartheid would not have been kept alive," Fagan wrote when filing his court case.
This case may be followed by other similar actions, hinted the plaintiff lawyers during their appearance in a Manhattan US District Court where the action was filed last week. "The targets are private US- and European-based multinational industries that profited from their business dealings in South Africa during the period from 1948 to 1993," said Dumisa Ntsebeza, the attorney who leads the legal team in South Africa.
German and British car manufacturers never withdrew from the country during the years of UN-imposed sanctions. British Aerospace and Barclay Bank did business directly with the South government during the 1970s.
While welcomed by some apartheid survivors, Fagan's legal action has left some survivors right groups uncomfortable. According to Thandi Shezi of the Kulumani victims rights group, the US-based class action is causing confusion among apartheid victims. Some believe that monetary reparations will soon be forthcoming, and that the US suit has displaced the recommendations for state reparations advised by the South Africa Truth and Reconciliation Commission. In 1998 the commission ruled that about 300 million euros should be divided between about 21,000 survivors.
European analysts believe that, unlike the case Fagan brought against the Swiss banks, this current action will be much more difficult to settle. The action in favor of the Holocaust survivors was focused against the banks of only one nation and gained momentum from the national guilt that Germany lives in relation to the Nazi persecution of Jewish people. Conversely, the current action includes charges against institutions in three different countries, with quite possibly more to follow. Citizens of those countries, although sympathetic with the victims of apartheid, will not feel compelled to pressure their governments to assure the victims compensation, as Germans did for survivors of the Holocaust.
Sources: Deutsche Welle, The Guardian
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