23 September 2008
Apartheid class action group in US court again
Legal Affairs Correspondent
THE Khulumani Support Group would hold pickets in three provinces on Thursday to coincide with the reopening of its long-running lawsuit in the New York District Court, the groups media advocacy co-ordinator, advocate Sipho Mantula, said yesterday.
The group filed a lawsuit in November 2002 in New York against 23 corporations and banks on the basis that they had aided and abetted the apartheid government in gross human rights violations. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of 87 people against multinational companies including BP, DaimlerChrysler, Ford, Rheinmetall, Shell and Total.
Judge John Sprizzo dismissed the suit in November 2004, saying that forcing companies to pay reparations would hurt foreign investment in SA.
However, Khulumani lodged an appeal with the US Second Circuit Court of Appeals. The court ruled last year that the Alien Tort Claims Act provided jurisdiction for the case to be heard.
The corporations filed a motion in November last year to stay that decision , pending their petition to the US Supreme Court. In May this year, that court ruled that it lacked the necessary quorum of six justices to issue an opinion.
In law, when the Supreme Court lacks a quorum, the lower court ruling is affirmed. The case will return to the District Court on Thursday and, according to Mantula, will set the trial date.
Mantula said the matter included four categories of gross human rights violations, including disappearances, arbitrary and prolonged detentions without trial, assault and injury, and extrajudicial killings.
http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/topstories.aspx?ID=BD4A849064
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Royal Dutch Shell conspired directly with Hitler, financed the Nazi Party, was anti-Semitic and sold out its own Dutch Jewish employees to the Nazis. Shell had a close relationship with the Nazis during and after the reign of Sir Henri Deterding, an ardent Nazi, and the founder and decades long leader of the Royal Dutch Shell Group. His burial ceremony, which had all the trappings of a state funeral, was held at his private estate in Mecklenburg, Germany. The spectacle (photographs below) included a funeral procession led by a horse drawn funeral hearse with senior Nazis officials and senior Royal Dutch Shell directors in attendance, Nazi salutes at the graveside, swastika banners on display and wreaths and personal tributes from Adolf Hitler and Reichsmarschall, Hermann Goring. Deterding was an honored associate and supporter of Hitler and a personal friend of Goring.
Deterding was the guest of Hitler during a four day summit meeting at Berchtesgaden. Sir Henri and Hitler both had ambitions on Russian oil fields. Only an honored personal guest would be rewarded with a private four day meeting at Hitler’s mountain top retreat.
IN JULY 2007, MR BILL CAMPBELL (ABOVE, A RETIRED GROUP AUDITOR OF SHELL INTERNATIONAL SENT AN EMAIL TO EVERY UK MP AND MEMBER OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS: 
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