NATURE OF THE KHULUMANI CASE 1. Crimes against humanity, genocide, extrajudicial killings, torture, unlawful detention, and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment are violations of international law. All of these crimes were practiced by the apartheid regime of South Africa between 1960 and 1993. Apartheid itself is recognized as a crime against humanity and a violation of international law.
2. Plaintiffs, victims of apartheid-era violence, bring this action under the Alien Tort Claims Act, 28 U.S.C. ยง1350, against the corporations which aided and abetted or otherwise participated in these crimes. Plaintiffs are the personal representatives of victims of extrajudicial killing, or were themselves tortured, sexually assaulted, indiscriminately shot, or arbitrarily detained by the apartheid regime. Plaintiffs also lived under the apartheid system and were subject to the racial pass laws, forced relocations, job restrictions, housing restrictions, repression, lack of educational opportunity, poor housing and living conditions, and overwhelming injustices that characterized apartheid. 3. Recent historical evidence demonstrates that the participation of the defendants, companies in the key industries of oil, armaments, banking, transportation, technology, and mining, was instrumental in encouraging and furthering the abuses. Defendants' conduct was so integrally connected to the abuses that apartheid would not have occurred in the same way without their participation. 4. Beginning in 1950, the world community identified and condemned apartheid as a crime against humanity and instituted a variety of sanctions against South Africa, including embargoes on armaments, oil, and technology. These actions put the defendants on notice that their involvement violated international law and constituted participation in a crime against humanity. Nevertheless, Defendants provided substantial assistance to the apartheid regime, acting in the face of an unjustifiably high risk of harm to the African population. Defendants acted with deliberate indifference to the well-being of the African population and knew or should have known that their conduct endangered the lives of black South Africans. The defendants' conduct also satisfies the principles of third party liability which were imposed on corporate participants in crimes against humanity by the Nuremburg Tribunal. 5. Apartheid intentionally dispossessed, disenfranchised, dominated, and abused the black South African population from 1960 to 1993. Its consequences continue to date. This action seeks a measure of justice for its victims.
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