Greetings,

THIS IS TO THOSE INTERESTED IN DISCUSSION: I’D APPRECIATE AN HONEST REPLY.

The following news article is the latest twist in the bizarre rape case involving former S/African vice president Jacob Zuma. The SCANDAL has ‘rocked’ South Africa since it became publicized in November 2005 and it even (somehow) threatened to divide the ANC along “ethnic lines”, at least last year and earlier this year when details surrounding the case were still only “rumours”, before the trial actually began. Some spoke or are still speaking of a “vendetta” against Zuma, saying he had been “set up” by his detractors and political foes (a somewhat skewed reference to President Thabo Mbeki and his ‘camp’) …

... [To understand this fragmentation, it is imperative to know the pivotal role Zuma played not only in structurally organising the ANC armed struggle in exile until about 1990, but also within the ANC to dissipate Zulus’ anger at being “left out” of the new System, seemingly, especially in the tensed-up atmosphere of ethnic/political violence & suspicion at around the time of the first democratic elections in 1994, when many “gangs” on both sides of the political divide—(the ethnically diversified ANC, on the one hand, and the Zulu-dominated Inkatha Freedom Party, on the other)—went on targeted killing sprees]…

… In this ‘hard-to-believe’ rape case now, the charges were filed almost 5 months ago, while the trial began sometime earlier this year, and is now I think being gradually concluded, with Zuma now taking the stand.

I have followed the case with interest from the very start, but I did not want to share these news snippets and testimonies from the “Mail & Guardian” due to the case’s political & gender-sensitive connotations (and also because the case was still being tried), but is the case perhaps now being sold as another piece of hot Afrikan propaganda-pie (as some people in S/Africa claim?), I don’t know ... But the case’s details have very much perturbed me more and more. And the biggest questions that have surfaced in my mind in this trial are:

1. HOW CAN A RESPONSIBLE MAN, MARRIED, AN HIV-ACTIVIST, HAVE EVEN ‘CONSENSUAL SEX’ WITH A KNOWN HIV-POSITIVE PATIENT, A FAMILY FRIEND, ESPECIALLY WITHOUT A CONDOM? (… They say Zuma was the plaintiff’s ‘father-figure’, or that she and Zuma had a father-to-daughter kind of relationship, since Zuma and her late father were comrades-in-arms in days by-gone. Zuma is 33years older than her and knows her from the time she was 5 years old!).

2. HOW “RESPONSIBLE” IS THAT OF ANY MAN AT ALL?

3. WOULD SUCH A MAN BE FIT TO BE THE NEXT PRESIDENT OF SOUTH AFRICA, AS HE STILL HOPES?

4. WHAT ROLE, IF ANY, DOES (AFRICAN) PATRIARCHAL CULTURE POTENTIALLY PLAY IN SUCH AN UGLY INCIDENT THAT ENDED UP BEING “UPGRADED” AS RAPE? … (because obviously, Zuma disagrees that it was “rape”)

5. DO NATIONAL HEROES NEVER FAULT, OR IS PUBLICITY RELATING TO THIS CASE NOW SQUARELY IN THE CONTROLLING HANDS OF THE “FOREIGN-INFLUENCED” FEMINIST MOVEMENT AND THE POWERFUL FOREIGN MEDIA OUTLETS?

6. HOW SHOULD MODERN AFRIKANS (OR ‘MODERATE AFRIKANS’)—MEN & WOMEN—IDENTIFY WITH THE CONCEPT OF FEMINISM (within the context of African culture), OR SHOULD FEMINISM HAVE NO PLACE IN AFRIKAN SOCIETY AT ALL?

7. AND IS FEMINISM AN ALIEN CONCEPT THAT COULD NEVER BE POSITIVE FOR THE CULTURAL AND SOCIAL WELL-BEING OF THE AFRIKAN WOMAN ON THE CONTINENT OF AFRIKA?

8. ARE THE “DEFENCE MECHANISMS OF FEMINISM” FOREIGN POISONOUS CULTURE?

These are only questions, and I don’t want someone to jump at my throat for posting them; I don’t wish to hurt anybody by posing them.

MEANWHILE, the Jacob Zuma Story (below):
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ZUMA TELLS COURT THAT HE'S HIV-NEGATIVE

Johannesburg, South Africa
04 April 2006 10:43

Former deputy president Jacob Zuma is HIV-negative, he told the Johannesburg High Court on Tuesday.

"Negative," said Zuma when asked by state prosecutor Charin de Beer for his HIV status.

Zuma is accused of raping an HIV-positive family friend, and has told the court that the consensual sex he claims they had was without a condom.

After he was appointed deputy president of the country, he was also appointed chairperson of the Aids Council.

Zuma said he had sex with the woman because the risk of contracting HIV/Aids was minimal.

"I knew the risk was very minimal," he said.

Zuma said he knew there was a risk but believed it was small, from knowledge he had gained while serving on the Aids Council.

He said he did not tell the woman his HIV-status, but he thought she knew he was HIV-negative.

"I don't see any reason why she would think I'm HIV-positive."

Prosecutor Charin de Beer asked Zuma why he had had discussions with people about herbs that could help fight the virus.

She put it to him that these people had approached him about these herbs because he was HIV-positive.

"No, that is not true," he replied.

De Beer also put it to Zuma that his not using a condom was an indication of rape.

The woman had earlier testified she would never have had consensual sex without a condom.

Zuma denied this, saying the woman had taken the initiative for them to have sex and when he was hesitant to go ahead after they found neither of them had a condom, she encouraged him. Zuma admitted that the rape allegation had caused his reputation considerable damage and that was the reason he took a decision to step down from certain African National Congress structures.

Before his cross examination started, he told the court he had sex with the woman for about 15 minutes.

When asked by his advocate, Kemp J Kemp what the intensity of the intercourse was, Zuma said: "it was normal sexual intercourse by two people who enjoy having sexual intercourse".

Zuma's HIV-status has been the subject of speculation since the trial began.

His most recent test was last month.

ZUMA TOLD NOT TO REFER TO 'SEX'

On Monday, Zuma said he was told by a lawyer not to say in a statement to police he had sex with the woman who accuses him of rape. He testified that his lawyer Michael Hulley had told him instead to write in the statement "after we shared each other's company privately".

Zuma gave the written statement to two police officers after they read him his rights at his Nkandla home in KwaZulu-Natal. In the statement, he denied raping the 31-year-old HIV-positive complainant.

Zuma denied pointing out the guest room as the alleged scene of the crime when police asked him to do so. "That is not true," he said.

Zuma also told the court that during a meeting with two women who the complainant referred to as aunts, they had asked him if he was willing to start lobola negotiations. He said they told him that it looked like a "love relationship".

They said, "You'd better marry her", and asked if it would not be better if lobola negotiations be initiated. "The very lobola issue was discussed at length."

They asked him what was on his mind. "I said to them, 'Well, if that is your wish, I have no problem with starting lobola negotiations.'"

Earlier on Monday, Zuma told the court he does not think he placed his rape accuser at risk of HIV/Aids or any other sexually transmitted disease by not using a condom. – Sapa