Text of Press Conference
Jubilee South Africa
12th of May 2005

At the beginning of this week, the Minister of Finance approved the takeover of ABSA by Barclays, and indications are that ABSA shareholders are accepting Barclays’ revised offer. This is an entirely disagreeable state of affairs. Neither the Government nor ABSA Bank has questioned the history of Barclays in South Africa.

The facts are clear and are a matter of public record:

Ø In 1976, Barclays bought R10 million in Defence Force Bonds
Ø Between 1972 and 1978, Barclays helped the Apartheid Government to obtain nearly US$500 million in loans.
Ø In 1974, Barclays participated in a US$15 million Eskom Eurobond issue.
Ø In 1979, Barclays purchased R20 million of SASOL shares
Ø Between 1982 and 1984, Barclays’ loans to South Africa totalled US$725.4 million.

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Despite recent announcements in the press, Barclays did not leave South Africa in 1986 because of moral reasons. It left because of sustained pressure from students and human rights activists in the United Kingdom.

And, despite a clear record of support for Apartheid, Barclays chose not to appear before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. It made a conscious decision not to seek amnesty and come clean.

Barclays was not alone in ducking this responsibility. Twenty-two other foreign corporations have also been identified as having aided and abetted the Apartheid regime, and all of these corporations dismissed the TRC.

Because of this, business’s catastrophic failure to appear before the TRC, the Khulumani v. Barclays lawsuit was launched in the US. This lawsuit charges these corporations with aiding and abetting a criminal industry known as Apartheid.

This lawsuit has brought forth significant opposition, including the South African Government. In 2003, the Minister of Justice sent an affidavit to the US Court stating that the lawsuit was contradictory to SA sovereignty and against foreign investment. On November 29, 2004, Judge Sprizzo, of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, dismissed all of the apartheid-related lawsuits consolidated in his court. He stated that he did not believe aiding and abetting claims could be brought under Alien Tort Statute, a decision very much in the minority of U.S. jurisprudence. Plaintiffs immediately appealed to the Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, which covers New York.

However, Judge Sprizzo had neglected to clarify if his dismissal applied to all of the defendants, so the higher Court instructed Plaintiffs to withdraw their appeal and ask the lower court to make this technical correction.

Judge Sprizzo has since issued his clarification, and, on the 27th of April 2005, the case was lodged on appeal in the Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit.

We at, Jubilee South Africa, urge the South African Government, in the name of clarity and human rights, to withdraw its affidavit.

And, likewise, Jubilee South Africa urges the Government to reconsider its position regarding the imminent takeover of ABSA by Barclays. Without an examination of the past and a more critical examination of the economics at play, this deal is not good for South Africa. The South African Government has been remiss in not looking at the moral and ethical dimensions of this takeover.

South Africa does not need vulture capital and the unapologetic return of a multinational corporation that put profits above human life and dignity. Indeed, nothing has changed. Neither Barclays nor ABSA seem to recognise the primacy of human rights and basic ethical interaction, and appear to agree with Cecil John Rhodes’s vision of re-colonised Africa.

Steven Booysen, CEO of ABSA, recently bragged in The Star that, “…we will rule the continent.”

This kind of disrespectful attitude and the abject failure to address a shameful past has galvanised Jubilee South Africa to mobilise all resources and dig in for a long, hard and wide-reaching campaign against Barclays. Jubilee South Africa will not give up, and will continue to march, picket, advocate and educate against this takeover until Barclays & ABSA ambition are thawrted.

For more information contact:

MP Giyose, Chair of Jubilee South Africa
Tel: +27 46 624-2557
Cell: +82 350-0361

George Dor, Jubilee South Africa General-Secretary
Tel: +27 11 403-4858

Dennis Brutus, Jubilee Patron and Plaintiff in Khulumani v. Barclays
Tel: +27 11 403-7624/22

Tristen Taylor, Apartheid Debt and Reparations Campaign Coordinator
Tel: +27 11 403-7624/22
Cell: +27 84 250-2434
[email protected]