Wednesday, December 01, 2010
WikiLeaks saga-piqued African leaders, and the US scrambling to apologise? Thank God, we have the likes of wikileaks, who are essentially performing the extended role of Journalists anyway. Governments in Africa naturally won’t feel comfortable with such expose because most often their engagements are often against the interest of their citizens. For example, what was not true of the description of Kenya as a swamp of corruption?. The fact that John Githongo fled Kenya alone speaks volumes.
And the US? They have to be seen to be remorseful diplomatically, but nothing prevented US diplomats from going public about these obvious truths in the first place. I recall a former UK. High Commissioner to Kenya who did the latter and got thrown out of Kenya, but at least ordinary citizens heard him.
See more here.