Geneva - South African debt-relief campaigners were reported yesterday to be considering lawsuits because of Swiss financial ties with apartheid, only days after the Swiss government started an inquiry into their former spy chief's ties with South Africa's apartheid regime.
Le Matin newspaper reported that members of the South African branch of the debt-relief group Jubilee 2000 would decide next Saturday if they should seek damages from the Swiss authorities or Swiss banks because of their role in providing loans to the apartheid regime.
The group has reportedly approached two lawyers at the centre of a successful $1.2 billion settlement in the US by Jewish groups, Holocaust victims and their heirs who tried to recover bank accounts hoarded by Swiss banks after the second World War.