Diplomat East Africa celebrates its second anniversary of unparalleled reporting, analyses and insights. DEA’s MOHAMMED WARSAMA brings some highlights

Diplomat East Africa has just turned two, and with this issue we mark this important milestone. The year just ending has been challenging but highly exciting for us, and we believe we have been responsible for some authentic landmark reporting in the rarefied area of diplomatic journalism.

When we launched our inaugural issue in January 2010, we said in our mission statement that we would provide a Door to the Region and a Window on the World; we have. We just did not anticipate how much the world, as we knew it then, would change and how big a window we would need to let in and accommodate the monumental shifts we were witnessing.

We therefore, have decided to share with you our reader, advertiser, colleague and well-wisher a valedictory walk down memory lane as we consider the highs and lows of the momentous year that has just passed. Who would have imagined that the Arab Spring would have such a dramatic and cataclysmic impact on the political landscape of the Maghreb and North Africa? It all started innocuously enough with a young Tunisian who, apparently tired of his lot, set himself on fire.

The ensuing inferno, it would seem, consumed more than him; the street protests that erupted in Tunisia saw the regime collapse and the president flee to Saudi Arabia. Algeria was next; the regime did survive but not before some rapid adjustments were made in the governance and human rights areas.

The regime in Egypt was not so lucky and authoritarian President Hosni Mubarak was forced out; the Muammar Gadhafi regime in Libya fought back, but the UN, Washington and NATO decided to move in and protect the protestors from the regime’s backlash.

We captured all this for you and in a predictive headline recapped Gadhafi’s taunt to his tormentors; ‘Come and Get Me…’ and they did. Somewhere along the line, the brief in Libya was shifted from protecting civilians to regime change. Under NATO bombings, Gadhafi fled to his hometown to save his life; he was finally captured hiding in a culvert and was shot dead on the streets on his Sirte hometown like a common thief.

The crisis is still unfolding in the Greater Middle East states of Yemen, where  regime change is eminent and in Syria where President Bashar Assad is desperately fighting for his political life.

We brought you all these developments in our Global Stage pages. But we did not confine ourselves to the Maghreb and the Middle East. We also covered the tsunami that devastated Japan and the British royal wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton that captured the world’s attention. We had some comic relief too - the fall of the mighty as exemplified in the rape case against the International Monetary Fund’s then Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

But this does not mean that we neglected the East Africa and Horn of Africa region. We stayed true to our undertaking to Open the Door to the region and our record abundantly bears us out.

powder keg

The same goes for our commitment to facts and to telling situations exactly as they are. We were the first media house to flag the crisis in Somalia as a powder keg waiting for just a spark to explode and to underline the seriousness with which we treated the matter; we sought an exclusive interview with Dr Jean Ping, the man who runs the African Union Commission.

We met Ping in Kampala during the 15th Annual meeting of the AU, where he admitted that the Somali imbroglio posed a major threat not only to the region but also to the international community. He spoke at length about the AU’s plans for the country and the fight against terror in the East Africa and Horn region. We promised we would stay with the story and we have. As it turned out, the AU chief’s lofty promises have turned out to be no more than wishful thinking.

Of the AU force promised to stabilise Somalia, only Uganda and Burundi have actually sent troops to the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM). So far the 9,000 soldiers have been confined to the capital Mogadishu where they protect the beleaguered government of Sheikh Sharif Ahmed.

Our prediction that it was only a matter of time before another country in the region followed in Ethiopia’s footsteps by sending troops into lawless Somalia to eject the warlords and the militia has come to pass. Ethiopia sent its army into Somalia in late 2006 to oust the Islamic Courts Union, which had threatened to attack Addis Ababa.

Exactly five years later on October 15, 2011, Kenya sent its armed forces into Somalia in hot pursuit of the terror militia Al-Shabaab after it attacked the country’s economically strategic tourism sector. But we had voiced our concern over the threats the militia roaming freely in Somalia posed to the region much earlier. In our August issue, we had as our cover story the failed government of Sharif and the perils the warlords and militias in Somalia posed to the region and continent as a whole.

We rightly pointed out that lawless Somalia was a fertile ground for both homegrown and international terrorists; that the rampart piracy problem in the Indian Ocean has forced up shipping costs as vessels have either to travel deeper in the sea or take the longer route through South African ports.

But that is not the only problem the piracy poses to the region; for a fee the pirates are known to allow ships to dump toxic waste into the Indian Ocean off the Somali coast. Indeed, after the December 2004 tsunami that hit the Indian Ocean, some of the waste was washed off shore forcing the Nairobi-based UNEP to launch a major investigation.

Insecurity in Somalia did, however, hamper the investigation. Due to the lack of security and state control over Somali waters and the port, illicit cargo such as narcotics and arms have found their way into the country and region. This has worsened the dangerous problem of the proliferation of small arms, for which Somalia and the DRC are the worst culprits. We have also given considerable coverage to another hot spot in the region – the Sudan - both before the spilt and after.

Indeed, we are the only regional media to sit down with Sudanese President Omar El-Bashir and examine his country’s defining moment in the wake of the South’s decision to break away. We were back at it on July 9, 2011, during South Sudan’s independence when we dedicated our cover stories to Africa’s newest state and profiled President Salva Kiir like had never been done before. We pointed out the pitfalls that lay in his path.

Merciful, he has managed to side step the worst of these traps. However, our warnings about letting corruption spiral out of control abuse of his people’s human rights and intolerance to opposing views do not seem to have been heeded.

Still on the region’s beat, Diplomat East Africa dedicated considerable time and effort to the conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea. As part of that effort, we interviewed both their embassies in Nairobi, in the process giving them an opportunity to air their grievances and hopefully find a middle ground.

We also engaged the Djiboutian ambassador in Kenya, who gave some important insights into regional problems using the framework provided by the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD). As the name of our flagship publication suggests, we have interviewed as many as two dozen high commissioners and ambassadors. These include Rwanda’s former High Commissioner, the suave George Kayonga, who held the record of being the longest serving ambassador in Nairobi having been based in Kenya for nine years.

His views about Rwanda’s panacea for its troubled past which included one of the worst genocides in history were both profound and touching. Rwanda, he declared, had chosen the path of growth and healing.

It is a salutary message that all the feuding factions in Somalia, Ethiopia and Eritrea should take to heart.

Diplomat East Africa also played its part in the continent’s fight for human rights and in the campaign to end corruption. We added our voice to those calling on the Ugandan government to cease the abuse of suspects of the July 2010 bombings in downtown Kampala and of opposition leader Dr Kiiza Besiege and his colleagues.

Graft

We have also thrown our lot behind any genuine and legitimate effort to rid the world of the threats posed by terrorists. What we have questioned, though, are the means and the fact that such campaigns should never to be used to camouflage other crimes.

We have also been deeply involved in the fight against corruption both at the regional and continental level. We, indeed, derive immense satisfaction from the fact that we fully covered both the campaign and the collaboration between the Pan African Lawyers Union (PALU) and the African Development Bank (AfDB) in settling up the African Legal Support Facility, and the training seminar for lawyers in handling corruption cases.

This facility was set up to assist African governments tackle international graft and the increasing cases of Vulture Funds that prey on sovereign debt. We take particular pride in the fact Diplomat East Africa covered both the launch of the Facility and the inaugural training in Kigali as well as the seminar for lawyers from Southern Africa held in Cape Town.

We also took our civic duty seriously and placed the Green Agenda on a higher plane. Every month we have endeavoured to show how we can make Planet Earth a better place by seeking out those who have invested in the efficient use of energy and other resources.

Diplomat East Africa also did its bit in providing links between research institutions and the general public that consume their products and services. In this respect, we take great pride in mentioning our partnership with the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI) and the AU’s Inter-African Bureau for Animal Resource (AU-IBAR).

Covering and highlighting their ground-breaking work in scientific and medical research was truly spellbinding. We believe we are all the richer for the experience.

We paid similar attention to the business world, both local and international, and celebrated the regional success of retail giant Nakumatt Holdings, luxury car dealer Bavaria Auto, which is the franchise holder for the high-end BMW brand. We also partnered with the German Business Association in covering the wide range of businesses that either have a German connection or do business in that country we told the inspiring story of the Grain Bullk Handlers in Mombasa.

We examined the easy side of life too; sharing with diplomats and their spouses their lives away from the limelight and through our Odyssey pages took you to places you perhaps never ever knew existed. We believe we are all the better for the experience. And in our Envoys of Sport section we shook a leg and an arm occasionally as we covered sports that were way out of the common pitch.

But we also faced our hard moments too. When Kenya’s and the Commonwealth’s longest serving Attorney General Amos Wako called it a day, and were called upon to give a candid assessment of his performance; we found ourselves at a crossroads. Do we talk the much trodden path and paint a glossy picture of his performance or do we stay true to our calling and give an honest assessment? In the end, we believe, good judgment prevailed and we gave what in good faith we thought was an honest assessment of his two-decade-long term in office.

But it was not that straight forward when, as a country and continent, we lost the first woman Nobel Laureate Prof Wangari Maathai. Her death on September 25, 2011 struck too close for comfort. She was a cherished expert columnist for this publication and indeed, wrote for its inaugural issue.

We still did our part in paying our tribute. We have also critically examined Kenya’s military incursion into Somalia as it pursues the ragtag Al-Shabaab militia. All in all, we have really enjoyed putting this publication together month after month for the last two years, and can only hope you too have enjoyed reading it.

We promise to keep the same standard and quality you have come to associate with us as we heard into the future with confidence

We also take this opportunity to thank you our Readers, Subscribers and Advertisers for the support that you have so generously extended to us.

Magazines
October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 Dec 2010/Jan 2011 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 May-June 2010 March-April 2010 Jan-Feb 2010