The man who helped Jewish holocaust survivors receive $1.25 billion is at it again: this time on behalf of victims of the South African racist apartheid regime. Ed Fagan, the controversial lawyer, says he is fighting to secure billions of dollars for South African blacks. He is suing about 34 international companies which he has accused of profiting from apartheid. The case is now before a New York court.

Ed Fagan is known for going after big companies, and after winning the $1.25 billion from Swiss banks, he also won larger sums from German industry.

Already a major dispute has arisen about the representation in this case. The victims of apartheid were basically all Blacks, and the perpetrators were all whites. Now they are being represented by a white American, the government of which supported the murderous government of apartheid, especially during Ronald Reagan's administration, until Black Americans began mass demonstrations against the apartheid government in South Africa.

The question most Africans are demanding an answer to is: if the case is resolved and billions are awarded to the victims of apartheid then who stands to gain the most in this case? Will it be the lawyer who did not suffer any of the brutality of apartheid or the victims themselves?

The victims of brutality of apartheid deserve reparations. That is not in any doubt, but the question remains. Is Ed Fagan the right man to lead this crusade?

Apartheid ended in 1994 with the election of Nelson Mandela as President of South Africa. It was in 2001 when the rumblings of this suit began, and that was seven years after the fall of apartheid. None of the so-called high-profile Black lawyers had thought of bringing a suit such as Ed Fagan filed to punish those companies which had participated and profited greatly from collusion with the perpetrators of apartheid.

If the suit succeeds, and Ed Fagan wins the $70 billion for Africans and makes his 33% fee, I would be the last to argue that he doesn't deserve it since $40 billion that would go to the victims of apartheid. After all, all that the G8 countries have promised Africa in the next several years is a miserly $6 billion.

If Ed Fagan is courageous enough to take on the mammoth companies and win, then he deserves our accolade.

On the other hand the South African government has issued a stern warning to the wolf-pack of U.S. lawyers to desist from filing the suit. The South African government broke its silence on the controversy of the legal tussle when its Minister of Trade and Industry Alec Erwin, and President Mbeki both rejected jurisdiction over the case of reparations to apartheid victims. Erwin said the government would not allow any foreign judgments to be enforced in South Africa. “(It) is an abuse to use the law, unsound law at that, of another land to undermine our sovereign right to settle our past and build our future as we see fit. South Africans involved in this suit break that indefinable collectivist identity that was the origin of our strength. The government rejects the actions of legal practitioners in the USA to exploit our history and will not allow any judgment made in the USA or elsewhere to be carried out in South Africa,” said Erwin.

Mbeki also added his voice to the growing chorus of dissenters in South Africa. “We consider it completely unacceptable that matters that are central to the future of our country should be adjudicated in foreign courts which bear no responsibility for the well-being of our country and the observance of the perspective of our constitution and the promotion of national conciliation,” he said.