Report examines Swiss ties with Apartheid South Africa

The report condemns Swiss investment in Apartheid South Africa Keystone Archive

Switzerland was a leading investor in South Africa during the Apartheid era, according to a newly published report.

The report, commissioned by the independent Switzerland-South Africa Research Group, condemns the decision by Swiss financial institutions to invest in Eskom, the South African state electricity utility.

The group has called for a formal investigation of the Swiss ties with Apartheid South Africa.

The author of the report, Gottfried Wellmer, said Swiss investment in Eskom was made “indirectly, in the form of loans, public bonds and trade credits from the largest Swiss banks.”

Wellmer told swissinfo that Switzerland was the third most important international investor in South Africa during the 1950s. During the Apartheid era the Swiss government continued to offer Export Risk Guarantees to Swiss businesses wishing to invest in the country.

The latest report details the way in which the South African government sought and found foreign investment for its electricity utility and focuses on labour relations and employee conditions at Eskom.

“Most of Eskom’s employees were migrant workers,” Wellmer said.

“They lived in single-sex barracks and got the same wage as miners working underground…and the Swiss government was certainly aware of this.”

Switzerland refused to apply international sanctions against South Africa between 1985 and the early 1990s, arguing that they did more harm than good to the oppressed population.

Closer examination

The Switzerland-South Africa Research Group has urged the Swiss government to establish a formal and independent body to investigate the country’s relations with Apartheid South Africa.

“We want to see a body which would have the same powers as the Bergier Commission,” said Martina Egli, a member of the research group.

The Bergier Commission, set up five years ago to investigate Switzerland’s wartime dealings with Nazi Germany, will publish its definitive findings in March.

In 1999, Swiss parliamentarians rejected a proposal to establish a similar independent commission with a mandate to investigate Swiss-South African relations. The Swiss government is set to vote on the issue again later in the year.

Wellmer insists an independent commission of experts would bring the debate over Switzerland’s commercial dealings with the former South African government into the public domain.

“I would appreciate it very much if archives both in the private sector and in government hands could be fully opened…so that the historical truth can be established by Swiss citizens,” he said.

“I think that’s their right and they should be given it,” he added.

Government probe

In November of last year, the Swiss government announced a parliamentary committee would re-open a probe into links with South Africa’s former Apartheid regime.

Committee members were given the authority to question witnesses, examine documents in Switzerland and abroad, and were also provided with the assistance of an independent expert.

But Egli says the committee must be replaced by a public body with the mandate to carry out its own investigation headed by a panel of independent experts.

“Without an independent authority,” Egli says, “financial institutions like the National Bank are under no obligation to reveal any documents relating to South Africa.”

“And the government simply doesn’t have to reply to our questions,” she added.

Future relationship

The Research Group says it will continue to press the government for the establishment of an independent commission.

“Of course, the truth is never pleasant,” Wellmer says.

“But the point is that we owe it to the victims of Apartheid to stand up to the truth. Otherwise, we will not be able to have an honest, open relationship with the country in the future.

“And I think we are talking about our future relationship [with South Africa] when we are dealing with the past.”

by Ramsey Zarifeh