Jacob Zuma this week sent out the message that the politico-legal drama playing itself out in the Johannesburg High Court was not the personal confrontation onlookers might have mistaken it for. Ever the politican, Zuma, wearing a stylish black chalk-striped suit, started Tuesday morning by shaking hands with the prosecutors and the policemen who arrested him.
One would think the 21st century would be the age of reason and tolerance. Sadly, for the faithful, the era is proving to be as traumatic as the days when it was heresy to dare suggest that the Earth was not the centre of the universe. In France, Muslims are forbidden by law from wearing their scarves at schools and other public spaces, because this offends that country’s proud secular tradition.
The Jacob Zuma trial, which has topped the national agenda since March 6, is set for its denouement. A lot is at stake: the next president, the battle against HIV and Aids, the role of women in society … With not only matters of state but also of life and death at stake, it’s no wonder then that the former deputy president’s supporters have since the beginning of the trial sought the intercession of the ancestors and God to help their man.
This week, Jacob Zuma delivered his testimony in Zulu. It was the type of language that would have had him laughed at by the KwaMashu youth. Having being declared by his foes according to the disputed hoax e-mails to be "the Zulu boy", but embraced by his supporters as "100% Zuluboy", Zuma has gone back to his KwaNxamalala village roots.
"When I told colleagues that, if I were ever charged with rape, I would love to have Jacob Zuma’s advocate, Kemp J Kemp, as my lawyer, I was met with derisory comments. I want to believe that my colleagues think of me as upright enough never to have to defend myself against such a heinous crime," writes Fikile-Ntsikelelo Moya.
She may not have screamed her refusal or given an explicit “no” to Jacob Zuma, and her psychological state may be in dispute, but these are not sufficient reasons to dismiss the Zuma rape trial complainant’s claim that she was raped. That, in effect, was Judge Willem van der Merwe’s rationale in dismissing the application by Zuma’s lawyer, Kemp J Kemp.
When a tearful Narend Singh, the KwaZulu-Natal minister for arts, culture and tourism, announced his resignation, he highlighted a politico-moral dilemma. For the first time in post-apartheid South Africa, an elected government official had quit purely because he had been caught with his pants down.
<a href="http://www.mg.co.za/specialreport.aspx?area=zuma_report"><img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/243078/zuma.jpg" align=left border=0></a>Jacob Zuma’s lawyers spent much of Thursday trying to establish that Zuma’s accuser is a serial rape complainant who has levelled numerous groundless accusations against men in the past. And after four days of testimony, his lawyers told the <i>Mail & Guardian</i> they might be able to apply for the dismissal of the rape charge against Zuma as soon as his accuser has finished giving evidence.
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/ 27 February 2006
Human rights lawyer and defence counsel in the Rivonia Trial, George Bizos, has added his voice to the growing chorus of legal protest over the government’s planned judiciary laws. He spoke to the Mail & Guardian.
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/ 17 February 2006
Not too long ago, the phrases ”leafy suburb” and ”dusty streets” were synonymous with white and
black areas respectively.