Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Zuma comes under fire over Khwezi
Call for independent women’s forum
WOMEN activists remembered Fezekile Kuzwayo, President Jacob Zuma’s rape accuser, at a panel discussion hosted by the non-profit Inyathelo in Woodstock yesterday.
Kuzwayo, who until recently was know as Khwezi to protect her identity, died after a long battle with HIV/Aids last month.
Researcher and analyst Nomboniso Gasa said Zuma should be shamed for having sex with a woman who could be viewed as his daughter.
Kuzwayo was a family friend’s daughter. She alleged that Zuma raped her in 2005. The president, who was acquitted, said it was consensual sex. She was 31 at the time.
Gasa said: “As a Zulu man he would have known this was his child. He would have known that even if she threw herself on him, touching her was unrecognisable.
“He would have said: ‘My child, please don’t do this.’
She added: “What did he do with the relationship of trust?
“He held her in his arms when she was 10 days old. That’s how well he knew her.”
Gasa said that instead, Zuma had painted himself as a victim, saying he was being framed by his enemies.
Wits student Simamkele Dlakavu also talked at the event about “naming and shaming rapists”.
She was one of four women who stood up with posters reminding Zuma of Khwezi when the president held a press conference about the local government election results in August at the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) in Pretoria.
Their handwritten posters read: “I am one in three”, “Ten Years Later”, “Khanga” and “Remember Khwezi”.
Dlakavu said: “We know that rape happens in this country. The silence we need to break is who the rapists are. We know sometimes they are fathers, uncles, brothers, our lecturers. We need to name and shame them.
“Even at our protest at the IEC we wanted to make sure of the burden of shame. There must be some cost to their rape.”
Dlakavu said they were also dealing with sexism during student protests through the Fallist movement.
“At Wits (University) at my residence, black women held management accountable. And they took a rapist out of his room to make him feel uncomfortable,” said Dlakavu.
“Fallist black women are taking into account there must be a social cost to rape.”
Veteran Cape Town journalist Zubeida Jaffer said Khwezi’s case was “simply outrageous” . She also condemned women’s groups that stood by the president.
“We are trapped in our different political organisations and they prevent us from taking action,” said Jaffer. “We need an independent women’s organisation that can speak out without fear or favour.”
She said women needed to mobilise for solidarity beyond political or organisational allegiances.
“We have not formed a huge women’s organisation at grassroots level.
“We need to form an organisation where people will be present in different commun- ities and speak out,” she said.
Inyathelo organised the event to mark International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, which was held yesterday.
The global day is endorsed by the UN and coincided with the launch of the national 16 Days of Activism campaign against violence towards women and children.