Leading African academic, security expert, and influential campaigner to secure opportunities in the United Kingdom for the continent’s companies, the Zimbabwean-born Tapera Knox Chitiyo, 65, passed away of bowel cancer, silencing a strong voice for Africans in international affairs.
Knox, a good friend, was an unassuming, diplomatic and humble individual, who played significant roles in Zimbabwe, the United Kingdom and globally, across a number of sectors. He was a polyglot, achieving excellence in many areas. He was highly respected by peers.
He was the United Nations Special Representative and Global Ambassador for the Removal of Landmines and Remnants of War. For many years prior to his UN appointment, he was a board member of the global NGO Mines Advisory Group (MAG), the global humanitarian organisation that finds, removes, and destroys landmines, cluster munitions, and unexploded bombs from conflict-affected areas.
He was for many years a leading light on the Business Council for Africa in London, an organisation that connects sub-Saharan Africa to the international business community, championing African businesses and promoting sustainable investment opportunities in Africa, serving on its board and as acting chairman.
In the UK, he was also a board member of the African Diaspora Group, an advisory group on African affairs to UK government policy-makers. He was also a member of the African Union’s Diaspora structure.
He was also active in sports organisations, serving on the Zimbabwe Olympics Committee as its UK representative. His diplomatic skills were recognised when he won the 2010 BEN/Sky TV Diplomat Award for "Contribution to Diplomacy". The award was established by Bright Entertainment Network broadcast via Sky in the UK to celebrate diplomatic achievements, diaspora involvement and positive country representation by missions and figures from Africa, the Caribbean, Asia, and the Pacific.
Chitiyo excelled in academia. For many years he was the Africa Fellow with the Royal Institute for International Affairs at Chatham House. Prior to joining Chatham House in 2012, Knox was the Africa Fellow and Head of the Africa Programme at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) in London, from 2007 to 2011. In South Africa, he was an Associate of the now closed down, Brenthurst Foundation.
I got to know him well when I lived in London and I worked on a project on how the United States Africa Command (AFRICOM) and NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), could effectively tackle the pirate and terrorism threats in the Horn of Africa - Somalia, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somaliland - which I presented to military leaders at the Royal United Services Institute in London.
Before emigrating to the UK, Knox was Senior Lecturer in War Studies and History at the University of Zimbabwe from 1992- 2003. He also co-founded the Centre for Defence Studies (CDS) at the University of Zimbabwe and was its Deputy Director. Knox has also taught on Zimbabwe’s Joint Command and Staff Course (JCSC) at the country’s Military Academy.
He wrote many critical academic papers. These include, “The Domestic and External Implications of Zimbabwe’s Economic Reform and Re-engagement Agenda” (2016); “Forging Inclusive Economic Growth in Zimbabwe: Insights from the Zimbabwe Futures 2030 Roundtable Series” (2019); “The Struggles for Zimbabwe, South Africa and SADC: Liberation War Theology and Post-Nationalism” (2008); “Land violence and compensation: reconceptualising Zimbabwe's land and war veterans' debate” (2000).
In a very insightful paper he co-authored with Lucy Mbugua in 2011, called “Towards a Multi- Faith Common Agenda for African Development and the Millennium Development Goals”, he argued the case for Africa’s faith groups to be catalysts to eradicate extreme poverty, hunger and disease, and to promote gender equality, combat patriarchy and fostered inclusive nation-hood.
His RUSI research on Zimbabwe, including his 2009 RUSI report “Making the Case for Security Sector Reform in Zimbabwe”, which analysed the deep influence of the Zanu-PF-dominated military and police on the country’s political transition, he argued that any positive long-term recovery in the country’s economy and political stability will need state security to “shift from protecting the state towards protecting its people”.
Trevor Grundy, the knowledgeable veteran British journalist on African Affairs, who lived and worked in Central, Eastern and Southern Africa from 1966 to 1996 wrote that because of Chitiyo’s “inside knowledge about business and political developments inside his mother country, Knox Chitiyo made a useful – sometimes vital – contribution to the way the British authorities handled issues between the two countries, first under the rule of Robert Mugabe, now under the control of Emmerson Mnangagwa”.
He was also a creative writer and loved traditional African music, dabbling in music-making on occasion himself. A 2021 poem of his, called Scrublands received an award nomination from The Voice newspaper, in Zimbabwe.
Farai Ian Muvuti, Chief Executive of The Southern African Times wrote that “Chitiyo was, in the end, more than the sum of his fellowships”. His poetry and jazz music was “reminder that the man who could brief a minister on security sector reform in the morning could just as easily lose himself in verse or a saxophone line by evening. That duality, the strategist’s rigour and the artist’s soul, was not a contradiction in him. It was the whole point of him”.
Chitiyo was the son of the late Dr McLeod Chitiyo, who was known as Zimbabwe’s first black pathologist and who was also the Medical Director of the National Blood Service of Zimbabwe.
Condolences to his wife Nhamburiko, his sister Cathrine and his family.
Prof William Gumede was the former programme director, Africa-Asia Centre, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London and author of South Africa in BRICS (Tafelberg)