International sanctions-busting banks and companies could be faced with legal claims amounting to billions of rands following legal claims launched on Monday by apartheid victims against institutions which propped up the racist system.

The Apartheid Reparations International Legal Claim, launched by various law firms based in the United States, Gauteng and the Eastern Cape on behalf of the victims, is mainly aimed against Swiss and American banks. Some big companies which made fortunes from bankrolling apartheid will also find themselves served with papers.

The legal team includes jurists, scholars, historians, economists, politicians, members of the clergy and activists from many parts of the world.

Addressing a media briefing on the launch at Soweto’s Hector Peterson Memorial, the team’s lead counsel and former Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) commissioner Dumisa Ntsebeza said the action was open to all interested victims or relatives of those who suffered in the form of torture, detention, banishment and even forceful removals.

A similar media briefing was held simultaneously in Zurich, Switzerland. Ntsebeza, who is currently a visiting Professor at the University of Connecticut’s school of law, said that most TRC commissioners had “always” felt the commission had placed too much emphasis on perpetrators.

Ntsebeza stressed, however, that although the TRC had made several recommendations for reparations, Monday’s gathering was not about this.

“What however, flows from that is what some of us used to articulate: that the reconciliation process in South Africa will not be complete and meaningful for as long as the TRC addressed only the reconciliation that must take place between perpetrator and victim,” he said in a statement released at the briefing.

“Some of us articulated even then that reconciliation should also take place between apartheid benefactors and the victims of that evil order –between the haves and the have nots, between the rich and the poor,” he said.

Ntsebeza said the monetary amount involved would be determined by information from records of the defending institutions, which the lawyers would ask them to keep.

The initial claims have been filed on behalf of Lulu Petersen, younger sister of Hector Petersen who was the first victim of police shooting during the June 16 students riot of 1976; Sigqibo Mpendulo, the father of two 12-year-old twin brothers who were shot dead in a 1993 police raid at a house in Umtata; Ntebeza’s brother Lungisile who was detained and banished several times; and Themba Maqhubela, a US citizen who fled South Africa after refusing to testify against Ntsebeza in a political trial.

A victims’ claims hotline — 086-110-1697 — has also been opened to the public.

Ntsebeza said the question of a cut-off date would be raised by defending institutions themselves.

Eastern Cape lawyer Lizo Mbambisa said that although initial claims were against two Swiss and one US bank, more claims against institutions in other parts of the world, including South Africa, would follow.

Among those attending the briefing was Nombulelo Makhubu, mother of Mbuyisa Makhubu who was photographed carrying the body of the dying Petersen in the internationally acclaimed photo.

Makhubu, whose son has since disappeared without trace for more than two decades, attended at the invitation of the lawyers but has not yet filed her claim.

US lawyer Diane Sammons said the claims were being made in the US under laws that permit non-US citizens to file claims of human rights and torture victims in that country’s courts against companies that do business there.

The compensations claims were described by the Jubilee South Africa Campaign as “a milestone” marking a turning point in South African’s struggle for truth, justice, and reconciliation.

Apartheid Reparations International Legal Claim spokesman Neville Gabriel said: “This is a high point in a long battle that we started more than three-and-a-half years ago with the call for the cancellation of apartheid’s illegitimate debt by the same banks”.

Gabriel said his organisation had repeatedly warned over the past two years that such action would be taken as a last resort by victim groups if the matter was not dealt with by international corporate and political representatives through a decisive process of dialogue and negotiation.

“However, they rejected our calls with contempt. This international court action should therefore not come as a surprise,” he said.

South African Press Association (Johannesburg), June 17, 2002