Diamond giants face £4bn apartheid claim

A £4bn (€5.83bn) lawsuit has been filed against the mining and diamond giants Anglo American and De Beers by former workers in South Africa who say the companies treated them like slaves under the former racist apartheid regime.

The suit follows the recent release of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission report which said that businesses who profited under apartheid should pay reparations or face lawsuits from victims.

The commission cited Anglo American, the country’s largest mining company, as an example of a corporation whose profits were enriched by “the systematic violations of human rights.”

Anglo American and De Beers workers were paid less than their white counterparts, beaten and intimidated when they tried to unionise, and were not compensated for workplace injuries, said John Ngcebetsha, a South African lawyer representing former employees here.

Furthermore, Ngcebetsha charges that the companies, eager to have a captive migrant work force, even helped initiate the repressive pass system that required blacks who worked in white areas to carry passes proving their employment.

Blacks and whites were not allowed to live in the same areas under apartheid, the racist white regime that lasted from 1948 to 1984.

Many families were split up when men got passes to work.

“The behaviour was tantamount to slavery,” Ngcebetsha said.

Officials from both Anglo American and De Beers strongly dismissed the suit filed in a US court, saying the issue of reparations should continued to be addressed within South Africa.

The case was filed in Nevada, Anglo America’s base in the United States, in order to get the company as an international body to account fully, according to Ngcebethsha.

The suit was filed by Ngcebetsha’s American colleague, Ed Fagan, a US attorney who was at the forefront of the landmark suit against Swiss banks and corporations that won £806m (€1.17bn) for Holocaust victims.

Based on that precedent, Fagan also filed a class-action lawsuit in the United States in June seeking billions of pounds in damages from corporations and banks.

Anglo American issued a statement in Johannesburg rejecting the most recent lawsuit.

“The question of whether reparations to individuals is an appropriate or effective way to assist in the rebuilding of South Africa is a matter to be resolved through South Africa’s democratic processes .... such a debate must take place,” the statement said.

“Not with lawyers purporting to seek resolution of such matters in foreign courts.”

A similar statement was issued by De Beers, which added that the company “believes the complaint to be entirely without merit.”