Decline and fall in South Africa

[CuriousPrimate]

<rant mode>
I don't know whether any one outside of South Africa has even been aware of the Jacob Zuma (ex-deputy president of the country) rape trial, but even for SA it reached some farcical levels. For instance, as a criminal trial it was announced that JZ couldn't be found guilty if he actually believed that the accuser had been asking for sex ? she had been walking around the house in her bedclothes, which he took as a SIGN. This alone has opened up a potential defence in a country which has the highest rape statistics in the world.

The defence also brought out a whole load of people to cut the accuser to pieces, including a couple of men she had accused of raping her back when she had been a teenager. A relative stole her private journal and it somehow ended up in the defence's hands and was given as evidence, and then to cap it all JZ claimed he wouldn't catch HIV/Aids (she was positive, a fact which he had known) because he was healthy and he took a shower after sex.

The character assassination was enough for the judge to find JZ not guilty. But I find it so unbelievable that half this stuff was accepted as evidence.

It has just been announced in the news that the ANC has welcomed him back as deputy president, and that his supporters consider him to be a good bet for the next president of SA.

Sometimes this place seems so third world...
</rant mode>

[Lucifer]

unbe-fucking-lievable.

i dunno what else to say.   

[Happeh]

<rant mode>
I don't know whether any one outside of South Africa has even been aware of the Jacob Zuma (ex-deputy president of the country) rape trial, but even for SA it reached some farcical levels. For instance, as a criminal trial it was announced that JZ couldn't be found guilty if he actually believed that the accuser had been asking for sex ? she had been walking around the house in her bedclothes, which he took as a SIGN. This alone has opened up a potential defence in a country which has the highest rape statistics in the world.

The defence also brought out a whole load of people to cut the accuser to pieces, including a couple of men she had accused of raping her back when she had been a teenager. A relative stole her private journal and it somehow ended up in the defence's hands and was given as evidence, and then to cap it all JZ claimed he wouldn't catch HIV/Aids (she was positive, a fact which he had known) because he was healthy and he took a shower after sex.

The character assassination was enough for the judge to find JZ not guilty. But I find it so unbelievable that half this stuff was accepted as evidence.

It has just been announced in the news that the ANC has welcomed him back as deputy president, and that his supporters consider him to be a good bet for the next president of SA.

Sometimes this place seems so third world...
</rant mode>

Bigot. The same thing happened in the Kobe Bryant case in the USA 2 years ago. The courthouse had 3 or 4 "leaks" of information. The judge apologized to the woman. Instead of putting someone in jail or calling for investigations.

Kobe Bryant got off too. He makes way too much money for basketball to go to jail for raping a woman. They did what it took to get him off and back to making money.

You don't hear about that. You just hear about those "bad" africans. Sort of like the USA saying China is a torture country when the USA has been torturing people in Europe and Guantanamo and everywhere else. Those chinese are bad people. White people feces do not stink.

[Happeh]

unbe-fucking-lievable.

i dunno what else to say.? ?

Are you capable of saying anything else?

Anything intelligent that is?

[Postperson]

It's not quite as bad as PNG, very violent, very corrrupt, very macho culture, lots and lots of rapes, including child rape. Last place in the world I'd go.

[CuriousPrimate]

Child, and more specifically baby, rapes happen here quite often too. It is believed to be a cure for AIDS, or at least this is what they claim in court (if it ever gets that far).

[Peter]

Wouldn't it be rather lethal for the baby to be fucked by something the size of it's forearm?

[Peter]

I guess not, these days at least:

On Nov. 11, a nine-month-old baby girl from Kimberley in the Northern Cape who survived a gang rape underwent a full hysterectomy and will require further surgery to repair intestinal damage, a hospital spokesperson said. The baby from Louisville was left unattended by her 16-year-old mother when six Upington men allegedly raped her. The baby had undergone a full hysterectomy and she suffered extensive damage to her colon and anus as well The six men, aged between 22 and 66, appeared in the Kimberley Magistrates Court on charges of rape and indecent assault on Monday.

[Beowulf]

Wouldn't it be rather lethal for the baby to be fucked by something the size of it's forearm?

Well, it wouldn't do the baby much good, that's for sure. We really could do with seeing less of that sort of thing. It's just not cricket.

I guess not, these days at least:

On Nov. 11, a nine-month-old baby girl from Kimberley in the Northern Cape who survived a gang rape underwent a full hysterectomy and will require further surgery to repair intestinal damage, a hospital spokesperson said. The baby from Louisville was left unattended by her 16-year-old mother when six Upington men allegedly raped her. The baby had undergone a full hysterectomy and she suffered extensive damage to her colon and anus as well The six men, aged between 22 and 66, appeared in the Kimberley Magistrates Court on charges of rape and indecent assault on Monday.

Maybe the gang members just had small dicks.

[Silk]

It's not quite as bad as PNG, very violent, very corrrupt, very macho culture, lots and lots of rapes, including child rape. Last place in the world I'd go.

South Africa was already on my list of fucked up places to never step foot on, but yeah Papua New Guinea is even worse.

[Peter]

Sadly, my friend and ex is going alone to Africa next year to drive up it.  I don't know exactly where she plans to go, but she intends to be there for a few months, and has been saving up for it for the past couple of years.  She's very determined about it, and nothing's going to convince her to change plans.

[CuriousPrimate]

Hope she's not doing it on her own.

South Africa's travel magazine had its journalists do the route in 2004. Two books were published which might be worth looking at:

GETAWAY GUIDE CAPE TO CAIRO AND OTHER OVERLAND ROUTES
Author(s): Mike Copeland
Publisher: Sunbird
ISBN: 1919938079
Published: 2004

JUST ADD DUST: A JOURNEY FROM CAPE TOWN TO CAIRO
Author(s): Don Pinnock; Justin Fox; Mike Copeland
Publisher: Kwela Books
ISBN: 0795701918
Published: 2005

[Peter]

Thanks, and yes, she is doing it on her own.

[CuriousPrimate]

Gulp.

A woman, on her own, through Africa.

She's got bigger balls than I have.



Single women travelling through Africa are not safe. Hell, she wouldn't be particularly safe in SA, and it's the safest country on the continent. I have friends who are travel journalists, one works at Getaway, and the stories are not pleasant.

But I guess she is old enough to make up her own mind.

Tell her to

1. Write a will, and
2. Take out life insurance leaving the money to someone she loves.

(And this is me trying not to be too negative about the idea.)

[Beowulf]

Single women travelling through Africa are not safe. Hell, she wouldn't be particularly safe in SA, and it's the safest country on the continent. I have friends who are travel journalists, one works at Getaway, and the stories are not pleasant.

Gosh. 

You might live in Africa yourself, but I'd like to hear what Happeh, our resident expert from California has to say about this.