Payback Time!
Watch out zionist collaborators, your turn tomorrow!
Shell
added to list of companies facing apartheid lawsuits
By Nicol Degli Innocenti in Johannesburg
Financial Times
August 3, 2002
Royal Dutch/Shell, the oil company, is to be cited in a multi-billion-dollar
class action lawsuit brought by a team of lawyers on behalf of the
victims of South Africa's apartheid regime, a lawyer said yesterday.
"We have filed against seven companies and corporations
so far and in the next few weeks, probably before August 9,
we will file against another two or three including Royal
Dutch/Shell," said John Ngcebetsha of the Apartheid Claims
Taskforce.
Shell, which is accused of supplying the white minority regime
with oil in violation of an anti-apartheid embargo, will be
added to the list, which already includes IBM, the computer
company, Deutsche Bank, Dresdner Bank, CommerzBank, UBS, Credit
Suisse and Citicorp.
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"Were it not for
the conspiracy of these financial institutions and companies,
apartheid would
not have been possible."
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A total of 35 companies and banks, including Honeywell, Exxon Mobil,
Barclays and Natwest, have so far been identified by the task force.
Letters were sent to them in July to propose voluntary settlement
talks, and those that have not responded will be taken to court
in an effort to force them to pay reparations to the victims of
the apartheid regime.
The first hearing is scheduled for August 9 in New York. The team
of lawyers bringing the class action lawsuit is headed by Edward
Fagan, the US lawyer who in 1998 forced Swiss banks into a $1.25bn
settlement for victims of the Holocaust.
Mr Fagan claims reparations of up to $100bn could be won for the
victims of apartheid and says the case will finish in two to three
years.
In South Africa there is unease at what one activist called Mr
Fagan's "cowboy tactics" and relentless publicity-seeking.
"We should ensure that no one personality takes the spotlight
away from the cause itself and the victims of apartheid," Mr
Ngcebetsha said.
A statement released after a meeting of lawyers, trade unions,
victim support groups and church representatives in Johannesburg
said there was great "concern about the impression that has
been created that the matter of apartheid reparations is primarily
about large amounts of money".
While supporting the legal actions, the meeting recommended "a
united and co-ordinated approach to the legal claims process".
Mr Fagan says his crusade is built on principle rather than greed.
Companies that supported the white minority regime should face public
judgment: "Were it not for the conspiracy of these financial
institutions and companies, apartheid would not have been possible."
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