Jacob Zuma, a man still a captured even in retirement

[View in browser]( [Mail & Guardian]( M&G Mornings | Wed 12 Jul   [Ron Derby] Former president Jacob Zuma is a man still captured even in retirement. What else are we to say about his representation of Belarus — yes, Belarus — late last week at a Zimbabwean conference about carbon markets. According to a Bloomberg report, our former and sickly president used the July 7 speech at the conference in the “magical” Victoria Falls to unveil a plan by the Belarus African Foreign Trade Association (BAFTA) to list two million carbon credits on the new exchange. Officials from Belarus’s National Agency of Investment and Privatisation said the credits come from a Siberian forestry programme. It is wondrous that our former president is speaking on behalf of an East European country and a forest almost 15 000 kilometres away from his retirement home of Nkandla in KwaZulu-Natal. It’s odd, to say the least, and, at its worst, rather worrying, given South Africa’s position in this rather more dangerous geopolitical stage the country finds itself in regarding Russia’s war in Ukraine. Belarus is a former Soviet republic and a close ally of Vladimir Putin’s Russia. During Zuma’s nine-year presidency, he, too, was very close to the Russian leader. When Paddy Harper asked for clarification about just who the former president was speaking on behalf of last week, his spokesman denied it was Belarus and insisted it was for BAFTA. Is there a difference? During Zuma’s term of office, it became rather clear that there was a “Gupta Enterprise” behind all his decisions; he was merely a pawn. Even now, more than five years after leaving office, it seems he is still a man willing to do the bidding of others. But, I could be wrong. 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