The next US envoy will have fewer Kenyan guests at his dinner table

What you need to know:

  • WikiLeaks: Kenyan officials will feel less sorry for themselves after reading the gossipy description of the first lady of Azerbaijan

Leaked cables show diplomats mix play with work in letters home.

Not all the leaked diplomatic cables dwell on serious issues like corruption, politics and security. Some of them reveal that US diplomats with time on their hands occasionally sent home dispatches written in vivid prose that is more than a little entertaining.

Kenyan officials saddened by their description in the WikiLeaks cables will feel less sorry for themselves after reading this gloriously gossipy description of the first lady of Azerbaijan, Mehriban Aliyeva, for example.

A diplomat writing from the oil-rich former Soviet republic told the State Department that the first lady has difficulty showing a “full range of facial expression” following “substantial cosmetic surgery, (done) presumably overseas.

The cable says the first lady’s family is loathed in Azerbaijan for its extensive wealth accumulated through corruption under an economy that resembles feudal Europe.

But the cable returns again and again to her looks, saying she has undergone so much surgery she looks as young as her daughters.

The cable describes a September 2008 visit by “second lady Lynne Cheney” the wife of former US vice-president Dick Cheney where Ms Aliyeva and her two daughters played host.

“Prior to the Second Lady’s arrival, while the three ladies were waiting for Mrs Cheney’s car, one Secret Service agent asked ‘which one of those is the mother?’ Emboffs (embassy officials) and White House staff studied the three for several moments, and then Emboff said, ‘Well, logically the mother would probably stand in the middle.’”

Ms Aliyeva, the diplomats claim, is poorly informed about local and political issues, despite being an MP. She wears dresses that would be considered provocative.

The post is one of the most read US cables and made the Azerbaijan first lady the butt of jokes around the world, with the Guardian story that first reported the cable headlining its report, “WikiLeaks cable sticks the knife into Azerbaijan’s first lady”.

Another of the more expansive writers whose talents are revealed by the leaked cables is the former US ambassador to Eritrea, Ronald McMullen.

McMullen’s cables in 2009 describe Eritrea as a country run down by its ruling dictator Isaias Afewerki, who is described as erratic and paranoid. The ambassador issues this withering description of attempts by the president’s allies to reach out to the US.

“Members of Eritrea’s ‘American Mafia’ (senior party members who have lived or studied in the US) have taken the lead in signalling interest in improved relations,” the cable relates.

“On February 7, the ambassador and his wife were invited to spend the day on the family farm of Hagos Ghebrehewit, the ruling party’s economic director ... Lunch was served in a rocky gulch beneath a thorny acacia tree. The ambassador and his wife were treated to grilled sheep innards (matumbo) served with honey and chilli sauce but no silverware, washed down with a sour, semi-fermented traditional drink called, aptly, ‘sewa’.”

Some of the Kenyan ones are quite interesting, too. One published by Business Daily last week quotes former Safaricom boss Michael Joseph blaming a Chinese company for failing to maintain the systems they sell to Kenyan companies.

He claims, the cable states, that the Chinese offer fairly good equipment but he used a monosyllabic expletive beginning with ‘S’ to describe after-sales service.

When there are equipment problems later, he said, the Chinese run for the door, and matters are made worse by the language barrier.

Safaricom bought equipment last year from Huawei, but the deal was too good to be true. Huawei reneged and only delivered half the equipment promised in the contract. Joseph went to China, got the Huawei CEO to admit they had lied, and then forced it to cancel the contract.

All this will be scant consolation to local officials damningly described in the cables. One thing that is certain is that the incoming US ambassador will find it much harder than Mr Ranneberger did to convince guests to come to dinner at his home.