'I did not call her my daughter'

2006-04-03 12:38

Johannesburg - An explanation of Zulu culture and age-appropriate behaviour set the scene for Jacob Zuma denying on Monday that he had a father-daughter relationship with his rape accuser.

"No, that is very wrong for her to say there was a father-daughter relationship... there was never such a thing," Zuma told a packed Johannesburg High Court.

Zuma went into the witness box on Monday to tell his version of what happened on the night of November 2 last year when he is alleged to have raped a 31-year-old family friend at his home in Johannesburg. He has pleaded not guilty and is expected to tell the court that they had consensual sex.

Zuma said that Zulu tradition banned adults from talking about sex with children and an older girl would be given this job.

He did not remember her calling him malume (uncle) and denied calling her "my daughter".

He did not even refer to his own daughter as "my daughter".

He said the word malume means "my father's brother" in Zulu and took on a different form to describe whether the brother was older or younger than the father.

In exile during the anti-apartheid struggle, young children called older people "uncle" and when they themselves became involved in the struggle this changed to "comrade".

Answering a question from his lawyer, Kemp J Kemp, he explained that the Zulu word for rape is ukudlwengula but it could also be referred to as "trespassing in someone's kraal".

The different words were drawn from a language form called hlonipha (to respect) which contained words to be used when the meaning of something needed to be softened.

This could be observed in television programmes where using the original word would have been shocking.

He rejected testimony by the complainant's friend Kimi that she did not know the Zulu word for rape, saying that all Zulus would know it.

- SAPA