AFRICANS OPPOSE LITIGATION AGAINST USA CORPORATIONS

October 2 2003--The lawyers are instituting litigation against companies who were signatories of the Sullivan Principles on fair labour, and they are claiming that their operations in the then apartheid South Africa aided and sustained the country's racist government which perpetrated gross human rights violations against the indigenous populations.

Over 30 US corporations are being sued in a landmark case which African critics allege to be a campaign of economic blackmail against the new South Africa, and that it is meant to frustrate foreign investment in the sub-Saharan country.In South Africa where there is a growing unemployment rate, with almost half the population believed to be living under the poverty datum line, while 20.1 percent of the adult population is reeling under the Aids scourge, the litigation has already experience some disapproval.

The South African government has vigorously reacted to the legal interpretation asking the lawyers to cease and desist from the proceedings.Former president ,Nelson Mandela feels Soth Africa's own Truth and Reconciliation Commission could be more purposeful in correcting the wrongs of the past, than US courts which are so remote form the situation on the ground.

In New Vision papers published by National Center for Public Policy Research this month, John Meredith of the African-American leadership network known as the Project 21, says that the litigation which is being brought under the Alien Tort Claims Act , a law enacted in 1789 to prevent pirates from disposing of booty in US seaports, does not contain any specific allegations that the corporations committed human rights violations in South Africa.

"The law, which allows foreign plaintiffs to litigate in US courts , lay dormant for some 200 years , before the lawyers managed to convince a judge that it might be used to sue American companies with investments in South Africa," says Meredith.

Meredith says that the Federal judges should respect the wishes of Presidents Mbeki and Bush, "The Bush Administration agrees and has filed a brief seeking to limit ATCA lawsuits in US courts on the grounds they pose a direct threat to national security and foreign policy interests and could hinder America's war against terrorism."

South Africa's Minister of Justice, Pennell Maduna, warns that the US lawsuits threaten foreign investment in the country, and notes that the South African government is "talking to the very same companies named in the lawsuits about investing in post-apartheid South Africa."




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