Europe Has No Appetite To Probe Banks Who Helped Prop Up Apartheid SA

Riyaz Patel

Belgium and Luxembourg are refusing to investigate the role of European banks in supporting and profiting from apartheid.

More than a year after submitting a complaint, the Centre for Applied Legal Studies (CALS) based Wits University, in concert with Open Secrets, say they have now been notified that the authorities in Belgium and Luxembourg have dismissed their claim to investigate these economic crimes.

“Belgium’s Kredietbank (now known as KBC Group) and its sister bank in Luxembourg (now known as KBL) are responsible for facilitating illicit money flows that allowed the apartheid regime to secretly buy weapons despite mandatory arms sanctions introduced by the United Nations in the 1970s and 1980s,” their submission read.

“Not only was the banks’ assistance vital to keeping the apartheid government in power, but they also profited from these transactions – building their companies on the suffering of millions of people,” a joint CALS