Zimbabwe's Information Minister, Tichaona Jokonya, dies

HARARE – TICHAONA JOKONYA, Zimbabwe’s Information and Publicity Minister has died.

Jokonya, 68, died in the early hours of Saturday morning after collapsing in a bath tub at the Sheraton Hotel following a dialysis treatment at one of the country’s hospitals yesterday.

He was today set to meet with managers from state-controlled media entities where he was expected to read the riot act to some of them, possibly firing one or two, especially after his new programme to streamline the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Holdings from the nine different companies created by his predecessor. The meeting was now expected to go on in his absence following his condition.

“It is sad that the minister passed away early this morning and we suspect it was cardiac arrest,” one senior official from his ministry told zimbabwejournalists.com. “He lived at his farm in Beatrice but after the treatment yesterday he was unwell to travel long distances so he had to put up in Harare. He has had a long standing kidney ailment which required dialysis.”

Jokonya, Zimbabwe's former permanent representative to the United Nations, has been poorly for some time now, a situation many believe could have resulted in him being recalled to Harare where he replaced Jonathan Moyo as Information Minister.

The minister had an extended sick leave earlier this year. Upon his appointment the media fraternity in Zimbabwe exhaled hoping he would be able to work with them so they could repeal or amend some oppressive media laws that had been pushed through Parliament by his predecessor.

But Jokonya, who earlier had indicated he was prepared to thaw frosty relations between the independent media and the government, turned and started attacking the independent media as traitors working to tarnish the country's image. Instead of healing the damaged relations, he attacked those in Zimbabwe who work with the international media to publish stories about things happening on the grassroots level in the country.

"You know what the end of a traitor is?" he asked during a press conference last week.

"The end of a traitor is always death. The unfortunate thing about a traitor is that you are killed by both your own people and the person whom you are serving," he said. Many who worked with him thought he was a soft person set to improve frosty media relations but was lately under pressure and trying to be tough in the face of mounting criticism that he was not as tough as Moyo.

Jokonya, was born on December 27, 1938 in Chikomba district of Mashonaland East. He began his diplomatic duties as ambassador to Ethiopia between 1983 and 1988. He went back home after his stint in Ethiopia only to get the top UN positing in 1992.

Upon being recalled in 2003, he assumed the post of chief executive for the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority. In 2005 he replaced Moyo as Information minister. Mourners are gathered at his farm in Beatrice.