Zambian police were never asked to probe allegations of the rape of Jacob Zuma’s rape accuser when she was a teenager because the ANC in exile sorted out its own problems, the Johannesburg High Court heard on Friday.
”Unless if somebody was killed — then the government of Zambia would be involved. In short, we were solving our South African problems. Zambians were not involved if it was rape,” said Nzwaki Siqashe.
Siqashe and a fellow comrade ”Promise” were tasked by the African National Congress with investigating an assault claim by the 13-year-old girl which gave rise to an investigation into whether she had been raped by two comrades.
”You were not Zambian government officials. So, are you saying that the Zambian law did not apply to you so you could do what you like?” state prosecutor Herman Broodryk asked in cross-examination.
”As the ANC was South Africans, there was no need to hand it over to the Zambian government. We solved our own problems and we were capable of solving our own problems,” she replied.
”But this was more than a problem,” said Broodryk. ”This was an offence committed on Zambian soil.”
This set off a tense exchange between the two with Siqashe saying that she would say it in Afrikaans to Broodryk if she could because he kept asking her the same question. She also said it was a democratic country and she could choose not to answer it again.
”I have answered it and I won’t answer it again.”
When Broodryk testily asked for the relevance of Afrikaans, Judge Willem van der Merwe intervened saying she had clearly said that the ANC regarded the Zambian authorities as having nothing to do with them and they tried to deal with problems themselves.
The trial featuring the country’s former deputy president and the deputy president of the ANC has taken its toll since it started on March 6. Tension runs high in the battle for court seats and a sign marking the media seats has been doctored to read ”smeardia”.
Broodryk continued his cross-examination and Siqashe said the girl’s mother was not present when she and Promise ran their investigation. Although no oaths were taken, they presumed people were telling the truth.
But she said that she and Promise regarded themselves as guardians of the children and the ANC’s legal department oversaw the findings.
The two comrades had their allowances docked for six months and they had to work on a farm.
Siqashe said the one man — Godfrey — was punished for having a relationship with a 13-year-old, but not for rape because they had both consented to having an intimate relationship. The girl was examined by a doctor who said she had not been penetrated. They concluded Godfrey had been rubbing his penis between the girl’s thighs.
”It ended up as consensual and a love relationship between the two,” she said. Broodryk asked her if they had concluded there was no rape. ”Yes, in short there was no rape.”
She told the court she felt the other man — Charles — had been punished unfairly because they decided to take the word of a child over his. They had spoken to people living in the same house as Charles and they had said they never saw the girl in his house.
”That’s why I say he didn’t get a fair trial from us because once [the complainant] alleged that Charles had raped her we didn’t do anything because according to us a child could not lie.”
The sentence the two got reflected the seriousness with which the party took sex with a child, she said.
The complainant has written about the two men in her unpublished memoirs and some of the paragraphs were read out to the court last month.
She denied alleging at the time that they raped her and asked to be allowed to say that consent is irrelevant if a 13-year-old is involved.
Zuma’s defence has used this episode to say she has a history of making false rape allegations and the state has had a trauma psychologist say that previous rapes contributed to her freezing and not calling for help on the night of November 2 last year when she alleges Zuma raped her.
Broodryk asked Siqashe if she would be surprised to hear that the complainant denied there was ever any consent. ”Yes, that would surprise me because she did concede that there was consent; that they were having a love relationship,” she said.
Broodryk asked her if she was politically aligned with ”Zuma’s camp”.
She replied: ”I joined the ANC in 1976 — the only ANC I joined. I did not join comrade Thabo [Mbeki’s] ANC or comrade JZ’s ANC, I joined the ANC united. And I did not like, even for a day, to see the ANC disintegrate. I’m not pro or anti anyone.”
Van der Merwe said this was the first explanation on that question throughout the trial he could really understand. Some of Zuma’s supporters believe there is a political conspiracy to stop him from becoming the next president of the country.
Asked for her reaction to the rape allegation against Zuma, she replied: ”I would ask that we not delve into that question.”
Zuma says he and his accuser had consensual sex.
The trial continues on Monday. — Sapa