YCL+input+post+Jacob+Zuma+rape+trial,+Castro+Ngobese



=__YCL Input to the post Jacob Zuma Rape Trial Seminar,__=

By: Castro Ngobese, National Spokesperson

 * __//St John’s College, Houghton, 21 May 2006//__**

On behalf of the National leadership of the Young Communist League, please accept our apologies for not coming on time, we apologise with all our red hearts.

It is a burdensome honour for me to address the leading minds of the South African society and the revolution. We are here today to discuss the post ‘Jacob Zuma Rape Trial’. I know some of you are interested to know our position as the Young Communist League and why we rally behind Msholozi.


 * THE ACQUITTAL**

On the 8th of May 2006 the Deputy President of the ANC was acquitted by Judge Willem van der Merwe on the charge of rape. As the YCL we welcomed the judgement and we indicated that we will contribute in dealing with sexual politics, sexual violence and formulate a concrete programme this milieu.

The judge found the Deputy President of the ANC innocent, but there has been a spiral attack on his moral integrity, HIV/AIDS etc from the bourgeois media, pressure groups and the intelligentsia. All of them had found the Deputy President guilty outside the competent court of law and had no respect for our countries constitution. As the YCL we had consistently throughout the case said that the right of both the alleged complainant and the accused should be respected. Secondly, we said both the alleged complainant and the accused should be accorded justice in a manner required by the constitution. Thirdly, we said that Jacob Zuma is in a rape trial, and we should allow the judge to determine whether there was rape on the 2nd of November 2005 or not.

The judge found that there was consensual sex and found the accused not guilty. Why there is this noise and hullabaloo if JZ was found not guilty. Is there an agenda against the Deputy President of the ANC and who are behind it and why?

Yes, there is an agenda against the Deputy President, the organs of class rule (of which the NPA, Judiciary and the media are very much part of) have been used to fight factional battles in the liberation movement so as to influence the succession impasse. The NPA said it had a prima facie evidence against the Deputy President and would not be able to prosecute him due to insufficient evidence, the latter also convened an off record media briefing attacking the Deputy President, the Scorpions unlawfully invades the houses of JZ and his close associates in a name of unearthing more evidence, the selective firing of the Director – General of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA), the surfacing of ‘Malume’ Ronnie Kasrils name in the rape case proceedings, the convening of a Media briefing seven days before judge Willem van der Merwe passes the verdict.

If we can all some up these things and ask ourselves is there a ‘political conspiracy’ to deal with JZ, we will find answers and the majority of us will indeed conclude that there is a ‘political conspiracy’.


 * OUR VIEW ON THE RAPE CASE**

The state conducted itself in a manner which they sought a guilty verdict at all costs. In this instance, the state could have compromised the accused. The role of the prosecution is to present the facts and allow the judicial officers to decide. In instances where the prosecutions seek a conviction at all costs, as we have seen the possibility of the On the 8th of May 2006 the Deputy President of the ANC was acquitted by Judge Willem van der Merwe on the rape charge. As the YCL we welcomed the judgement and we indicated that will contribute in dealing with sexual politics, sexual violence and formulate a concrete programme behind this milieu.

The judge found the Deputy President of the ANC innocent, but there has been a spiral attack on his moral integrity, HIV/AIDS etc from the media, pressure groups and the intelligentsia. All of them had found the Deputy President guilty outside the competent court of law and had no respect for our countries constitution. As the YCL we had been consistently throughout the case that the right of both the alleged ‘complainant’ and the accused should be respected. Secondly, we said that both the alleged ‘complainant’ and the accused should be accorded justice in a manner required by the constitution. Thirdly, we said that Jacob Zuma is in a rape trial, and that we should allow the judge to determine whether there was rape on the 2nd of November 2005 or not.

The judge found that there was consensual sex and found the accused not quilty. Why there is this noise and hullabaloo if JZ was found not guilty. Is there agenda against the Deputy President of the ANC and who are behind it and why?

Yes, there is an agenda against the Deputy President, the organs of class rule (of which the NPA, Judiciary and the Media are very much part of) have been used to fight factional battles in the liberation movement so as to influence the succession impasse. The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) said it had a prima facie evidence against the Deputy President and would not be able to prosecute him due to insufficient evidence, the latter also convenes an off record media briefing state trampling on the rights of the accused becomes high.

All those who had found Zuma guilty (including some amongst you) before the judge could even hear the merits of the case found it difficult to accept the findings, and you are victims of intellectual atrophy. This has led to new charges being formulated in media houses, research institutes, academic chambers and golf courses. Civil society organizations have been co-opted to join the chorus of these new charges. The possibility that the charges were laid for political reasons becomes more glaring, and the facts that there was no intention to find him guilty on the rape charge but on other issues becomes more apparent. We need to emphasise and cascade this point that Deputy President was found not guilty for the charges laid against him in the JHB Court and that’s the Bottomline b’cos YCL says so!

The state in cahoots with women activist intensified their campaign against women and children abuse by relaunching the 16 Days against Women and Children abuse as 365 days….New organizations were formed in the process, all of them showing signs of a desperate crew hungry for a guilty verdict. Thus applications to become friends of the court were filed, insults were hurled and yet avoided by the mainstream media, the //sub judice// rule was broken on several times and thus the justice system was nearly held into hostage by those who believed that the judge may err and find Zuma innocent.


 * MORALS AND PRESIDENTIALISM**

Now that Jacob Zuma has been acquitted of the rape charges, commentators will be engaged in the decontextualisation and selection of facts to create a fiction to justify why Zuma should not be the next President of the ANC and the country. People are entitled to elect a leader of their own choice, based on their own moral convictions. But their morality cannot be imposed on others. As the leading minds of our country you should be agitating and propagating for Zuma’s private life to be left alone.

Whilst doing that, you should be incisively cautioning an insunuation or tendency that is beginning to loom large that uses selective morality and undemocratic criteria to determine leadership within the liberation movement and society in general. Moral persons accept that no one has a right to harm or dehumanize others. Zuma has been found innocent; therefore his sexual act with his ‘complainant’ was not immoral because there was consent, not force.

He has shown courage and leadership in the face of mockery, ridicule and venom displayed against him. He has committed himself to the struggle against women and children abuse and HIV/AIDS.


 * LESSONS TO BE LEARNED**

Firstly, Jacob Zuma was not the constitutive body of the struggle against women abuse. His case is less than 1 in 9 of victims of rape. The fact that he is the Deputy President of the ruling party did not mean that whatever happened in court meant that there would be a disgress in the struggle against women and children abuse. Even the Deputy President of the ruling party deserves a fair trial no matter the stakes. Many people including you believed that for the course against women and children abuse to have been championed, Jacob Zuma was inevitably supposed to found guilty. This led to the highest form of cheap populism and opportunism.

Secondly, there is a wrong assumption that if it happens right to one it then rains gravy for the rest. The approach of civil society organizations to the Jacob Zuma (and to some degree Bennedicts Vilakazi’s) rape complainants was that if she wins, then all rape and women abuse shall cease. Hogwash. The approach that if we make one woman a President of the country therefore this shall translate into massive ‘empowerment’ and in changing the lives of all women in a mere technical argument which amounts to a political manouevre rather than a genuine struggle of the national democratic revolution for women emancipation.


 * WAY FORWARD**

Jacob Zuma is not the be all in politics, he is a victim of the bourgeoisie, the emerging middle class who want to sway the National Democratic Revolution into their own selfish class interest using the State through golf courses and breakfasts. We should be preoccupying ourselves with the broader challenges facing our country, particularly the working class and the poor and how do we reclaim the ANC of Joisa Gumede, of OR Tambo and Albert Luthuli to remain true to the aspirations and interest of the working class and the poor. And what is our relationship to state power as the working class and the poor.

In peroration we would like to thank the organizers for inviting us and we hope in future we will be invited in shaping the intellectual battles in society and the revolution.


 * Socialism in our lifetime!**

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