An American court should not decide a class action law suit seeking reparations for apartheid from international companies, the Swiss government said on Tuesday.

“We are particularly concerned about the extraterritorial application of US laws,” said Swiss ambassador Eric Martin of the multi-billion rand law suit, which targeted a number of international companies, including some Swiss banks.

Martin, who was addressing a group of South African journalists in Berne, said the Swiss government was following the developments in the Washington district court “very closely” and were in regular contact with stakeholders across the world.

He said the Swiss government had a great interest in the position taken by the South African government and was “impressed” with President Thabo Mbeki’s stance on the matter, as well as utterances by Justice Minister Penuell Maduna explaining the South African’s “clear position” on the issue.

The South African government opposed to the US litigation.

“The Swiss government is not directly involved in the case . . . we are mainly observers . . . (but) we consider it inappropriate to resolve it in a US court,” said Martin, highlighting the clear separation between the Swiss government and private companies.

He said legal actions such as the class suit could not answer economic and human rights operations violations.

“(We) don’t think litigation will solve the problems of the past,” he said, adding that they were expecting a decision from the presiding judge in the matter towards in end of the month.

“(We) hope the judge will dismiss the plaintiff,” he said.

South Africa’s ambassador to Switzerland, Nozipho January-Bardill, said while the South African government did not support the litigation for the same reason as the Swiss, “we also said we can’t stop our citizens from pursuing any action they want to take. It is their constitutional right to do that and we won’t stand in their way.”

Wendell Roelf, iAfrica.com, February 10, 2004