of The Namibian staff. Gwen’s commitment to a free press remained steadfast after Namibia’s independence in 1990, and her paper continued to adopt a watchdog role, this time over the new government of the South West African People’s Organisation (Swapo). n 1998 - African Eye News Service (AENS) African Eye News Service was the first media institution to be honoured with the MISA award. Based in the first South African province of Mpumalanga, AENS had established itself as one of the sub-region’s truly investigative news services. In its three years of existence, AENS, under the editorship of Justin Arenstein, had either halted or uncovered a series of corrupt practices in the public sector - some of which had led to public commissions of inquiry, or resignations of the affected officials. Its bold and extremely courageous reporting earned it several enemies in both the public and private sectors of the South African community. The agency attracted numerous multimillion rand defamation suits, and to date it had won every case. Its team of journalists, especially Mr. Arenstein, had also been the targets of physical and verbal harassment, including death threats and threats of assault, while also being personally maligned. Despite this harassment and hostility, the AENS team carried on its mission with excellence, exhibiting mature and professional journalism with depth and carefully verified detail. n 1999 - Bright Chola Mwape The late Bright Chola Mwape was still a young man when he tragically died as a result of injuries sustained in a car accident in August 1999. In 1994 Bright was Managing Editor of The Post, Zambia’s leading and only independent daily newspaper. An article in 1996, in which he criticised a Zambian politician for attacking a Supreme Court judge who had earlier struck an important victory for the Right to Protest and Freedom of Assembly, saw him being condemned to indefinite imprisonment. Along with his editor-in-chief Fred M’membe and fellow columnist, Lucy Sichone, Bright went into hiding to avoid being hauled off to prison. Later on Bright and Fred handed themselves over to the police in an act of defiance and bravery that challenged the Zambian Parliament to take their unjust decree to its logical conclusion. They were freed after 24 days. In 1997, Bright joined MISA’s regional secretariat to head the Media Information Unit. His disdain for the hypocrisy of the SADC governments was evident on the occasion of May 3 1999 in a dynamic speech he delivered in Windhoek, Namibia. In his speech, Bright angrily dismissed a proposed Media Award the SADC governments were considering, questioning their moral right to confer such an award amid their obvious reluctance to refrain from or condemn government infringements on the rights of the media. n 2000 - Geoffrey Nyarota Geoffrey Nyarota, as editor-in-chief of The Daily News in Zimbabwe has displayed skill and vision in keeping afloat the spirit and voice of independent media in a country where independent media exist in a minefield of treacherous laws and intolerant authorities. Geoff has come a long way since his days as a reporter at the Zimbabwe Herald newspaper. In the process he has also ploughed a lonely furrow which is unavoidable for people like him who fail to seek shelter in the ever convenient shade of complacency, silence or political cover-ups. As editor of the Chronicle, he exposed corruption in high places in what was to become known as the “Willowgate scandal”. The resilience of Geoff came of age in a sense, with the launching of The Daily News in March 1999. It was a magnanimous dream that had as its roots – service to the Zimbabwean citizenry. The newspaper has grown from strength to strength almost solely due to Geoff’s skill in assembling a team of some of Zimbabwe’s most skilled and professional newspaper practitioners in every field. The trail that The Daily News blazes has come at a price - the paper’s journalists have been harassed and attacked; in some parts of the country people can only read the paper in secret for fear of reprisals. The application of the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Acts in Zimbabwe has led to the closure of The Daily News and its sister paper, The Daily News on Sunday. So This Is Democracy? 2007 -284- Media Institute of Southern Africa