Zuma guilty of something

The controversial rape trial of Jacob Zuma ended yesterday with his acquittal. Despite the verdict, the reputation of South Africa's former deputy president has been disastrously tarnished.

Zuma, still a wildly popular figure within the ruling African National Congress, was accused of raping a young woman; Zuma said the sex was consensual. Zuma knew the woman to be HIV positive yet he did not use a condom during the allegedly consensual sex. He also said he took a shower after the sex because he thought it would minimize the likelihood of him getting HIV himself. Zuma was widely ridiculed for the latter and scorned for the former. He was once chairman of South Africa's AIDS/HIV council. Then again, given his former boss' incomprehensible stances on HIV/AIDS (South Africa has the most HIV positive people in the world), perhaps Zuma's incoherent acts aren't surprising.

The young woman was a friend of the family who said she viewed Zuma like an uncle. Even if the sex was consensual, totally aside from her HIV status and ignoring the fact that he's married, was it in any way appropriate for Zuma to have sex with a woman half his age and who viewed him with paternal reverence? Is he a pervert, a predator, a bully or all three?

What seriously hurt the woman's credibility at the trial, and probably led to Zuma's acquittal, was the fact that she'd previously made false rape claims against other people. Yet if the woman viewed Zuma with such respect, as everyone agreed, then why would she fabricate rape claims against someone she had such high regard for? I don't know if what happened was actually rape, but why would she tear down her father figure if it were only consensual sex?

Tragically, the young woman has been forced into exile because of the way she's been demonized in some parts of the press and by the populist Zuma's fanatical political supporters. South Africa is believed a crisis of unreported rape. The way Zuma's accuser was smeared even before the trial started is only going to make the crisis of rape and silence worse.

If Zuma is not guilty of a crime, he is certainly guilty of violating the confidence of a young woman who trusted him and doing so in the most sickening and irresponsible of ways.