South Africa: Rape verdict due on ex-deputy president

South Africa’s former deputy president Jacob Zuma faces a judge’s ruling today in a rape case that has sent mixed messages on Aids and sexual violence and tested political loyalties.

With the public intensely focused on the trial since it began in March, Judge Willem van der Merwe is allowing live TV and radio broadcasts of the verdict.

Zuma denies raping a 31-year-old, HIV-positive family friend at his home in November, saying the sex had been consensual.

His supporters say the allegations are part of a political plot to destroy any hope of him succeeding Thabo Mbeki as president in 2009.

Yesterday a crowd of around 10,000 people cheered when Zuma arrived at a township concert in Johannesburg, underlining the 64-year-old former freedom fighter’s wide popularity among South Africans.

“You make me feel at home and proud of joining the struggle at an early age so that we can be free,” said Zuma, who during apartheid was imprisoned on Robben Island, and then from exile headed the military wing of the African National Congress.

Zuma said court rules prevented him from speaking about the rape accusations, but he thanked the crowd for coming to the concert, organised by The Friends of Jacob Zuma Trust to raise funds for his spiralling legal costs.

“Your support is very important, and it gives me the strength to go on,” he said in Zulu, according to the South African Press Association.

Zuma’s Zulu traditions have been a constant theme during the trial. Busloads of supporters from the KwaZulu-Natal province, Zuma’s main power base, came for the concert and for an overnight vigil outside the Johannesburg High Court.

Authorities are boosting security around the court and urging Zuma’s supporters to accept whatever verdict is read.

“An appeal is made to all supporters to respect whatever the outcome of the court proceedings may be and to refrain from any form of violent and unruly behaviour,” police said in a statement.

Throughout the trial, crowds of Zuma supporters – and smaller numbers of women’s rights activists – staged daily rallies outside the court.

Most analysts agree the rape trial has destroyed Zuma’s presidential chances. It is not the first scandal Zuma has faced, having been sacked by Mbeki in June amid a corruption scandal. He goes on trial for those allegations in July.

In the rape trial, Zuma testified that the woman, whom he knew since she was a small child, had encouraged him with mobile phone messages and flirtatious behaviour and did not resist his advances.

The woman told the court she “froze” when faced with his advances and said she would never have agreed to having sex without a condom.

As a former head of the South African National Aids Council, Zuma shocked many by arguing, against scientific evidence, that there was little danger of him contracting HIV from unprotected sex, and that his taking a shower afterwards reduced the risk of transmission.

Doctors and health activists fear Zuma’s testimony could undermine years of prevention campaigns against a virus that has infected up to six million South Africans – the highest number anywhere in the world.

Women’s groups say the case has increased awareness of rape in South Africa, where 114 cases are reported per 100,000 people, compared with a rate of 32 per 100,000 in the US. From 2003-2004, more than 55,000 rape cases were reported to police, compared with 44,750 from 1994-95.

However, television footage of the alleged victim being heckled as she arrived in court and aggressive cross-examination of her sexual history has prompted fears that the trial will deter women from reporting rape crimes.