Here are my thoughts.
The original "basenji" was nothing more than a village dog that had similar type. Only the western world has "made" them what they are today where they can produce rather uniformly.
Every founder basenji - past and present - have come from areas that had dogs that were not what the founder thought were typical. Historical (and current) records show dogs that barked, had "funny" colors, had sickle tails, longer coat lengths, etc. What does this mean? It means our founder dogs were picked solely based on their phenotype as genotype would not be known until bred. Why would it be any different for people in the late 30's, early 40's then it would be for us now? IMO it would not be - we would still need to be picking foundation stock based on phenotype - trying to pick the closest that conforms to our man made breed standard - which can be rather hard when picking puppies; some of our original founders were I believe adults when chosen making a bit easier to see what you are going to get. This means I am not so quick to write off native dogs that do not 100% conform to the breed standard - esp. since I feel the breed standard was based more on our human founders preferences vs. reality. I mean if only 1 out of 10 native dog has a short back - what is the reality?
Until the stud books close and certain groups of dogs are either not presented and/or accepted the implication that there is something "wrong with them" is not kosher, IMO. Each group has done their own thing - some heavily health tested and bred to domestics, some heavily heath tested and bred only to others in their group, some have done bare minimum testing (from what I can see on OFA no eyes or hips on the parents) and have bred to their own group and some have done a bit of everything, and some are perhaps taking their time before presenting them to the BCOA for inclusion. I don;t really know so can not presume to speak for them.
In a world according to me - I think it would be a good thing to leave the stud book open indefinitely for native stock making sure that we have things in place - such as our current protocol - to make sure that not every dog born in Africa gets in. Due to conflict and strife in their native land it has been difficult if not downright dangerous to go back to get more native stock therefore our window of opportunity with regards to the AKC is closing rapidly!
As for Manu being an expert - can anyone show/list for me her credentials saying as much as I can not find anything on the 'net. As far as I know she is no more of an expert then Rose Marie - as both have been to Africa and both own Native dogs from a similar region. As always - I like to have as many facts as possible before leaping to a conclusion. Thanks.