Jacob Zuma, former South African Deputy President, gets off on rape...

Just over a month ago, I posted this article detailing some of the graphic and damningly-probative testimony by the HIV-positive woman who claimed that Jacob Zuma - her dead father’s best friend and the man she regarded as her adopted father – had raped her. In his defense, however, Zuma took the stand and testified that - although he may have done a stupid thing (by having unprotected sex with his putative daughter) - the sex was entirely consensual and he was not a rapist. Alas, the presiding judge agreed with Zuma.

Indeed, yesterday, as all of South Africa listened with high anxiety, Judge Willem van der Merwe read his decision acquitting Zuma, which he punctuated with the following paternalistic and gratuitous admonition:

….you should not have had sexual intercourse with a woman so much younger…who is HIV positive and the daughter of a friend.

(Although, perhaps Judge Lance Ito neglected to admonish OJ that he should not have driven away from the scene of his wife’s murder like a madman - breaking traffic laws and leaving his bronco badly parked on the street outside his home....)

Meanwhile, given the rabid and zealous support Zuma foments amongst mostly poor and uneducated South Africans, his accuser is reportedly making plans to flee into exile to escape their irrational vengeance; ironically, much as Zuma fled many years ago to escape the jack-booted defenders of the Apartheid regime….

But, despite appearances, Zuma is not universally loved in South Africa. In fact, as exceedingly brave women's rights activitists awaited the verdict with everyone else, they demonstrated their disgust with Zuma's behavior - in the face of threatening jeers from his supporters who outnumbered them about 100,000 to 1.

NOTE: Zuma’s supporters are now calling for him to “resume his official duties” - including those of deputy president. However, he faces another trial in July on charges of (financial) corruption; the very charges which compelled President Thabo Mbeki to sack him in the first place.

Let’s hope the judge assigned to render the verdict in this case is more judicial than paternal in his legal reasoning. Because, if he’s acquitted of the corruption charges as well, Zuma - arguable a morally-bankrupt rapist and thief - will become South Africa’s next president in 2009….


Jacob Zuma, rape trial