An SA delegation of people who are suing international banks and companies for profiteering from apartheid, will attend an open conference of an apartheid class action in a New York court next week Friday.

A spokesman for Jubilee SA , a group representing apartheid victims, Neville Gabriel, said yesterday the court would be requested to present evidence against the defendants at this conference.

He said a meeting of individuals and organisations would be held tomorrow to forge a united front for the action.

The campaign, under the general banner of the Apartheid Claims Task Force, was launched in Soweto and Zurich on June 17.

The apartheid claims were for and on behalf of SA claimants and filed through local attorneys. The SA legal team in turn instructed attorneys in the US to pursue the case in New York.

“All parties in SA agree that the claims must be driven by local people, and they must be to the greatest benefit of the greatest number of those who suffered under apartheid,” said Gabriel.

Meanwhile, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu has thrown his weight behind the call for compensation. Yesterday he called on Swiss banks to pay compensation to the victims of apartheid.

“They should pay. They can afford it. And they should do it with dignity,” Tutu told the weekly news magazine Facts.

Tutu’s comments follow the filing of a class-action lawsuit in the US on behalf of apartheid victims seeking billions of dollars in damages from corporations and banks, including Swiss banking giants UBS and Credit Suisse.

The banks stand accused of hiding behind Swiss neutrality and undermining a United Nations embargo between 1985 and 1993 by helping the white regime with loans.

Xolani Xundu,  Business Day (Johannesburg), August 1, 2002