British, US Companies face Slavery Law Suit by ABC News Online 11:21am 30th Mar, 2004   March 30, 2004.    Ten descendents of Africans who were shipped to the United States as slaves have filed a lawsuit seeking at least $US2 billion from two US companies and a British insurance giant accused of having profited from the slave trade.    The plaintiffs, whose ancestors were from Sierra Leone, Niger and Ghana, accuse Lloyds of London of having insured shipments of Africans to the US before slavery was abolished in 1860. FleetBoston Financial is accused of financing the operation and RJ Reynolds Tobacco Company of buying the slaves to work on its tobacco fields.    "We are suing them for genocide," Edward Fagan said, the plaintiffs' attorney. "They basically sought to destroy the communities, the people, the language, the culture of persons that were to become slaves." The attorney is well known for taking controversial cases.    Lloyd's is the world's biggest insurance market while RJ Reynolds is the United States' second-largest tobacco maker. FleetBoston is one of the biggest banks in the United States. The three companies have not publicly commented on the case. The lawsuit was filed in the US District Court of the Southern District of New York.    Mr Fagan forced Swiss banks into a $US1.25 billion settlement on behalf of Nazi victims in 1998, but was dumped last year by South African apartheid victims who had sought to sue large companies.    "For the last eight years every victim group in the world but one has been given its day in court," Mr Fagan said in a press conference. "The only group that remains is Africans or African-Americans." There have been other lawsuits to condemn US slavery, but Mr Fagan said his case is different because his clients can trace their roots back to their African ancestry.    Plaintiffs in the past "couldn't say what their connection was to these companies - that's all changed, there's DNA now," he said. "Each one of these individuals can tell you specifically where they came from in Africa. "We can tell you the Lloyds ship that was insured. We can tell you the ship that was financed by FleetBoston and we can tell you the one that went to Reynolds Tobacco."    - AFP
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