By Melanie Nathan, July 02, 2010
Exclusive: Release accused Name despite South African Law requiring confidentiality.
Andile Ncoza the man accused of brutally raping Millicent Gaika back in April, was given bail but no one came to bail him out. Even his family opposed bail at the hearing. Today he was formally charged in the crime of rape and attempted murder and his case is remanded to July 13th for a trial date to be set.
Ncoza, had his bail set at R500.00 ($68.00) which caused an International outcry.
Although rapists are convicted in South Africa and often, given the statistic of 500,000 rapes per year, there are more walking the streets than those arrested and convicted.
This is no wonder given the corruption of the powerful in command, and control such as the ex-police Sebeli who has just been convicted on corruption charges. Lest we forget the South African President himself, Jacob Zuma, who has a rape trial tucked neatly under his belt.
I reported reported extensively about the brutal Rape and attempted murder of Soccer Player Millicent Gaika, a lesbian who was raped for the third time, for being a lesbian, in what has come to be known an act of “corrective rape.”
Millicent Gaika of Gugulethu Township alleged her attacker “acted like an animal who wanted to kill” and said “I thought he was going to kill me; he was like an animal. And he kept saying: ‘I know you are a lesbian. You are not a man, you think you are, but I am going to show you, you are a woman. I am going to make you pregnant. I am going to kill you.” This is the third time Millicent has suffered such brutality.
At the time we commented that the South African Justice Department had done very little to combat hate crimes and rape in general.
The glitz of World Soccer has masked the truth and done little more than continue to serve the “ostrich neck in the ground mentality” that has plagued South Africa since the day Jan Van Riebeck found its soil, in 1652.
The soccer player, Gaika, a victim of ‘corrective’ lesbian rape as it is paradoxically termed, was rescued while being strangled with barbed wire by a group of neighbors who heard the screams. They were able to wrestle the accused to the ground. There is no question of identity and the witnesses are numerous. The South African Government has no special project to curb such hate crimes and no assistance to help victims such as Millicent.
The South African government is absolutely complicit in injustice and business will go on as usual and you, the world too – are now complicit in hailing the World Cup Soccer in a Country where 500,000 women are raped every year. Ironically Millicent is a soccer player herself as are many other of the victims of this reprehensible crime. But no one seems to think this should shed any light on the plight of South Africa’s continued crimes against women.
Rape to change a gay person’s sexuality, is commonly known in the townships as “correctional rape”.
The trend of raping lesbian women to make them heterosexual is increasing rapidly in South Africa. Ncoza who appeared in the Wynberg Regional Court will receive a fair trial while the victim remains penniless and although determined, remains in desperate fear of testifying.
I learned the name of the accused through confidential sources, and while in South African Law he cannot be named until such time as he has a trial date, we have decided to release his name.
Why should we give him anonymity based on laws that firstly do not apply to us in the international media, and secondly based on the fact that this Accused seems to be getting better treatment at this point than the victim and the next 500,000 women who will be the victims of rape in the next 12 months!
The case against him was postponed (continued) until July 13, when a trial date would be set.
Millicent and a group of 15 such victims are sharing a two room cabin with little money for food or other necessities of life. They live in fear of more attacks.
Melanie Nathan Photo By SF Weekly