Martin Plaut worked as a BBC News journalist from 1984 to 2012 and is a member of Chatham House.
16 Facts About Martin Plaut
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Martin Plaut was born in May 1950 in Cape Town, South Africa, to a furniture designer father and an artist mother.
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Martin Plaut attended Cape Town High School and worked in his father's shop in Cape Town from 1969 to 1973.
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Martin Plaut obtained a degree in social science from the University of Cape Town, where he participated in the sit-in during the Mafeje affair in 1968.
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Martin Plaut joined National Union of South African Students while studying.
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Martin Plaut held senior roles in the party, connecting it with the internal resistance to the South African apartheid system.
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Martin Plaut resisted the wish by the African National Congress to be considered the "sole legitimate representative" of South Africans, since other major resistance groups, including the Pan Africanist Congress were recognised as legitimate by the Labour Party.
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Martin Plaut worked for two years as an associate fellow at Chatham House, leading research into Africa, afterwards remaining a member.
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Martin Plaut joined the BBC in 1984, reporting mainly on the Horn of Africa and southern Africa, and parts of West Africa.
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Martin Plaut became the Africa editor for BBC World Service News.
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Martin Plaut attributed the mafia-like nature of the Eritrean state in 2017 to the historical role of the Eritrean People's Revolutionary Party, a Leninist party that secretly controlled the much broader Eritrean People's Liberation Front in the fight for independence.
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In 2017, Martin Plaut argued that the quality of reporting on African conflicts by Western media had worsened due to budget drops, fewer correspondents in Africa, and difficulties in persuading editors to fund journalists' travel to Africa.
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Martin Plaut stated that careful preparation and having a strong support team, as was his case at the BBC, is "essential for a successful assignment".
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Martin Plaut has published several books on his studies of African wars and politics, and observations of areas of London.
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When interviewed by Amnesty International in 2019, Martin Plaut stated that he had been harassed by PFDJ members and supporters several times.
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At a 3 February 2014 University of London conference, Martin Plaut was shouted at and accused of taking bribes by the First Secretary of the Eritrean embassy.