How Wikileaks set back Zim democracy

from the Atlantic:

Tsvangirai supports the sanctions to stop Mugabe, but it's unpopular to say so...now Wikileaks has revealed this, and so Mugabe is the winner.



To their supporters, WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange are heroes of the democratic cause. Assange himself has claimed that his organization promotes democracy by strengthening the media. But in Zimbabwe, Assange's pursuit of this noble goal has provided a tyrant with the ammunition to wound, and perhaps kill, any chance for multiparty democracy. Earlier this month, Assange claimed that "not a single person, as far as anyone is aware, has been harmed" by Wikileaks' practices. This is no longer true, if it ever was.

Any damage to democratic reforms from WikiLeaks likely comes not from malice but naivety.