Suing over apartheid (17.10.07) | News24 - 0 views
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In tossing out the case in 2004, a US District Court judge John E Sprizzo noted that the US Congress had supported and encouraged business investment in South Africa as a way to achieve greater respect for human rights and a reduction in poverty.
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The US government has said the litigation would cause "significant tension between the United States and South Africa". Citi is considering its legal alternatives in the case, said Donna Oosthuyse, the global banking giant's chief operating officer in South Africa. She said the company had contributed more than R25m since 1999 in programmes focused on education, literacy and community development for historically disadvantaged South Africans. She said the projects were not reparations, but part of a business model that Citi practices everywhere.
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Denise van Huyssteen, a spokesperson for another of the companies in the suit, General Motors South Africa, said the company early on adopted the 1977 Sullivan Principles which encouraged more than 100 foreign companies to leave South Africa, a move that helped end apartheid. The company's website says that in 1987 "growing internal pressure in the US on GM to leave South Africa finally forced the company to pull out".
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