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Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Nov. 27, 1997
issue of Workers World newspaper
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COSATU demands reparations from South African exploiters

By Monica Moorehead

The general secretary of the Congress of South African Trade Unions told the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in early November that a number of South African business representatives who submitted testimony claiming to have been opposed to apartheid were "lying through their teeth."

The TRC has been holding public hearings to allow victims and supporters of the apartheid regime to give submissions to determine who should and should not be granted amnesty.

Sam Shilowa, the leader of the 1.8-million-member union federation, called the white corporate executives "liars." For three days they had paraded one by one before the commission to state how "remorseful" they felt for not having opposed apartheid enough.

Some had the gall to say they had not personally profited from apartheid. Others said they had no other choice but to cooperate with the racist regime.

They all came to seek amnesty from the TRC for their crimes committed under apartheid, a heinous form of capitalist oppression for profit.

COSATU prepared an impressive written expose of the history of capitalist exploitation in the decades before apartheid was legally sanctioned in 1948. Black and other oppressed South African workers had their labor brutally enslaved, especially in the gold and diamond mines.

The COSATU submission speaks to business’s collusion with the apartheid state and how workers’ human and union rights were infringed upon under apartheid.

The report points out that the corporations were the invisible supporters of apartheid when it came to the hated pass laws and cooperating with the police and military. These greedy executives made billions of dollars in profits and lived in the lap of luxury while the South African people became impoverished beyond belief.

These are the same corporate bosses who worked hand in hand with the apartheid state in order to "undermine and crush the trade unions," COSATU says.

The COSATU submission points out that the apartheid regime banned 17 anti-apartheid organizations in 1988. What was the response from the leaders of big business? They refused to speak out against the regime at a meeting held on the crisis in Broederstroom.

These bosses were not ignorant of what was happening under apartheid; they were willing partners in a diabolical conspiracy.

The study vividly illustrates the total complicity between the corporations and the racist white regime to outright steal the land and the wealth from the Black South African masses.

Jay Naidoo, who was COSATU’s first secretary general and is now a government official, told the commission: "No one can stand on this platform and speak the truth, claiming that they didn’t benefit from apartheid. There was overwhelming evidence that business had collaborated with the former government in suppressing and brutalizing black people."

Corporate criminals

The list of corporate magnates who testified at the TRC read like a Who’s Who in the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. Some of the main characters include the head of the Chambers of Mines, a pioneer of the migrant labor system; Anne Bernstein from the Centre for Development and Enterprise, who stated that corporations exist to make money and not uphold moral standards; Sanlam, an insurance giant, who "apologized" for renting a building to the police where Black Consciousness leader Steven Biko was beaten to death in custody in 1977.

The Land and Agricultural Bank "apologized" for discriminating against rural Black farm workers. Hans Middelmann, former president of the Association of Chambers of Commerce, said: "We had nothing to apologize for in regards to its activities during the apartheid years. On the contrary, we did everything in our power to oppose apartheid." (South African Press Association)

The chairperson of the TRC, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, noted that none of the white-dominated unions, oil companies or white farming and wine-making cooperatives appeared before the commission to account for their complicity with apartheid.

The COSATU report concludes that if these business executives are genuinely sorry for their ongoing sordid role and that of their predecessors, they should provide concrete reparations. Such reparations could help pay a living wage to Black workers who are still being paid apartheid-like wages.

They could provide job training. They could compensate women, especially those subjected to demeaning farm and domestic work.

Reparations funds could construct a Workers Museum to pay tribute to the fallen heroes in the struggle against apartheid. They could facilitate the return of video footage and photos police took from union offices under illegal pretenses.

They could eliminate once and for all the migrant labor system, including the single-sex hostels that separate Black families by forcing husbands to live and work away from home.

If these big-business executives had hoped to rehabilitate themselves in the eyes of the South African masses, they were sadly mistaken. In emerging from their hidden boardrooms to the light of day, they are hoping that the TRC will take pity on them and recommend amnesty for them when President Nelson Mandela gets the final report next year.

No matter what decision is made, it is good that these profit-hungry corporate parasites felt the pressure of the powerful legacy of the anti-apartheid struggle to come forth to expose what their class will always represent— that is, preserving the capitalist system rather than making sure that the South African people and their representatives like COSATU receive real justice and equality.

As for the current economic situation, the legacy of apartheid is still a stark reality for the masses despite attempts by the African National Congress-led government to overcome many social problems. That is why the demand for reparations is a righteous one and deserves the international support of progressives everywhere.

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