Former president Nelson Mandela has criticised apartheid lawsuits against South African companies in foreign courts, saying South Africans do not need “outside interference”.
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Mandela was speaking on Monday at a function in Cape Town where De Beers chairperson Nicky Oppenheimer formally announced the hand-over of the historic Rhodes Building in the city centre to the Mandela Rhodes Foundation. De Beers is one of several South African companies that have been targeted in multibillion-rand claims in United States courts for its role in the apartheid era.
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Standing alongside Oppenheimer, Mandela said President Thabo Mbeki and his government had come out “clearly and unequivocally” on the issue of apartheid reparation suits against South African companies. “South Africans are competent to deal with issues of reconciliation, reparation and transformation among themselves without outside interference, instigation or instruction. We have dealt with our political transition in that manner and we are capable of dealing with other aspects of our transformation in similar ways.”
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Mandela Rhodes Foundation CEO Shaun Johnson said the foundation was set up in 2002 when the United Kingdom-based Rhodes Trust, which administers the famous scholarships, decided to redirect some of its resources to South Africa, where Rhodes’s wealth originated. He said the foundation would be trying to make a “real intervention” in capacity-building in South Africa.
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Source: Full article “Madiba slams apartheid cases” appeared on the news24.com website
