Cablegate in the Congo: Mapping the Digital Trail of Wikileaks Cables about the “Forgotten” DRC Lisa Lynch On November 28, 2010, the transparency group Wikileaks began to release the most widely circulated documents in its brief history of leaking: a cache of diplo- matic cables downloaded from US intelligence networks by a disaffected soldier and made public through collaboration between Wikileaks and the New York Times , the Guardian, Der Spiegel , El País , and Le Monde . In the weeks following the first dis- closures made by these five partners, media outlets throughout Europe and North America inundated readers with reports on what was quickly termed “Cablegate,” republishing tantalizing selections from cables covering everything from Silvio Ber- lusconi’s deals with Vladimir Putin to corruption in Afghanistan. 1 In the months to come, Wikileaks would go on to work with scores of additional, regional outlets, allowing for the distribution of cables in Latin America, Asia, and the Middle East. As the cables traveled beyond the first waves of media partners, however, Cablegate was seen through a different lens. Wikileaks’ collaboration with Ameri- can and European media outlets has been celebrated by Western observers as an example of how a free press should operate in liberal democracies and as a dem- onstration that the new online tools that route around potential censorship have helped advance the rise of a “transparency movement” that will force greater gov- ernment accountability. 2 But in countries ranging from Pakistan to Belarus, press Radical History Review Issue 117 (Fall 2013) DOI 10.1215/01636545-2210455 © 2013 by MARHO: The Radical Historians’ Organization, Inc. 49