Event: Holding Apartheid's Banks to Account
- Lee-Anne Bruce
CALS and Open Secrets invite you to a discussion on accountability for apartheid era economic crimes
Date: Thursday, 19 April 2018
Time: 12:30 – 14:00
Location: Centre for Applied Legal Studies
First Floor, DJ du Plessis Building
Wits University West Campus
Note: Light snacks will be served
Speakers:
- Michael Marchant – Investigations and Advocacy Researcher at Open Secrets
- Khuraisha Patel – Legal Researcher at Open Secrets
- Wandisa Phama – Head of Business and Human Rights at CALS, Wits University
Accountability for apartheid economic crimes: Can we start with the banks?
New evidence shows that two European banks were at the centre of the apartheid era international arms money laundering machinery. For nearly two decades, Belgium’s Kredietbank and its subsidiary in Luxembourg were responsible for facilitating up to 70% of all illegal arms transactions that allowed the apartheid government to secretly buy weapons despite mandatory UN arms sanctions. These and other banks have never been held accountable for their role in supporting apartheid. In the face of this widespread impunity, is there any way to hold these financial giants to account? Open Secrets in partnership with CALS is taking the fight for accountability for historic economic crimes to the banks’ doorstep in Europe using international accountability frameworks.
Please join us for a discussion on what civil society can do to hold these banks to account for crimes that cast a long shadow on our present
RSVP: Lee-Anne Bruce at leeanne.bruce@wits.ac.za by 17 April 2018