JOHANNESBURG, Oct 22 (Reuters) - South Africans seeking compensation for a host of damages ranging from apartheid reparations to occupational illnesses plan to march on President Thabo Mbeki's office in November, lawyers said on Wednesday.
"About 1,000 people are going to march from one ministry to another and end up in the Union buildings and hand a petition to the president," South African lawyer Gugulethu Madlanga said.
The march, scheduled for November 3, aims to pressure the government to support a multi-billion dollar class-action suits against some of the world's biggest firms such as Anglo American Plc , DaimlerChrysler , IBM and Gold Fields , which Madlanga says benefited from apartheid.
Madlanga, fellow South African advocate John Ngcebetsha and U.S. counterpart Ed Fagan earlier this month threatened to file occupational health lawsuits on behalf of workers against at least 13 multinational firms in November.
They also announced a new round of lawsuits targeting insurers and banks -- modelled on Fagan's successful holocaust case against Swiss banks -- seeking a total $100 billion.
"Every one of those companies that will be named in the petition (to Mbeki) has got in common at least two of the claims, occupational, apartheid or pension fund," said Fagan, best known for securing a $1.25 billion settlement in the 1990s on behalf of victims of the Nazi holocaust in World War Two.
The lawsuits have stirred controversy in South Africa, where the issue of reparations is still a sensitive matter in a society still suffering the legacy of nearly half a century of white minority rule.
Mbeki's government has said it does not support the lawsuits, disappointing the lawyers but giving comfort to big businesses which insist they did not benefit from apartheid.
But the suits have received support from some quarters, including anti-apartheid icon and Nobel laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who said on Tuesday apartheid victims had the right to go to any court to seek compensation.
Tutu, who headed South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, said he would have preferred that the issue be resolved in South Africa.