Just over a month ago, I posted this article detailing some 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. 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 among 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 activists 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 that compelled President Thabo Mbeki to sack him in the first place.
iPINIONS hopes the judge assigned to the corruption case is more judicial than paternal in his legal reasoning. Because, if he’s acquitted of the corruption charges as well, Zuma — arguably a morally bankrupt rapist and thief — will become South Africa’s next president in 2009.
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Eric says
ALH
I’ve read many of your articles on Africa and all of them on this Zuma trial. For an American, you are remarkably well-informed about the issues. Moreover, you have an uncanny ability to write what many intelligent Africans think but dare not speak.
Thank you
Michelle says
Hi Anthony
The nerve of this guy. I just heard that he’s now apologized for not wearing a condom as if that was his only crime. Thanks for showing those few brave women protesting cause I was thinking no one in South Africa had a problem with his behavior.
Liz Coleman says
Anthony
This guy is a sicko. And he’s no different from Bill Clinton who got away with sexually harassing so many women in this country.
mark arrindell says
Hi im a black chap living in the uk after spending several years in CapeTown and i would just like to say i totally agree with everyword you have said regarding that creep “Zuma” when people of colour are fighting to get ahead across the world it sets us back when we have so called leaders behaving like corrupt rapist animals, its no wonder that as a race we are looked upon with such scorn!
pullo says
Only in africa can a theiving rapist end up as president! here in england the accusation alone is enough to sink someones carear.