President Bush has failed to halt a $400 billion dollar lawsuit against BP, Barclays, Coca-Cola, Ford and many other transnational corporations, for their activities in South Africa during the apartheid years. The ambitious case was launched in 2002 and is being led by South African lawyers John Ngcebetsha and Dumisa Ntsebeza. The latter, who was chief investigator in the post-apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission, sees suing foreign firms for reparations as part of the Commission's ‘unfinished business’.
The lawsuit was filed by victims of human rights abuses and their families. One of the plaintiffs is Dorothy Molefi, whose 13-year-old son Hector Pieterson was murdered by police during the Soweto uprising in 1976, and whose image became iconic for the anti-apartheid movement. Another is Lungisile Ntsebeza, brother of Dumisa and sociology professor at the University of Cape Town, who spent six years in prison for his anti-apartheid activism. The plaintiffs claim that more than 50 major companies were complicit in ‘the single worst human rights violation in history’ by doing business in South Africa in contravention of the US’s Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act.
