The new issue, with a focus on tourism, of Third World Resurgence magazine has an article that I’ve written about Thomson Safaris. It serves as the summary I should have written some time ago.
Other articles in the magazine are:
Tourism – a driver of inequality and displacement -
Anita Pleumarom
Tourism and the biosphere crisis: Provisions for
inter-generational care - Alison M Johnston
Rise of the aerotropolis – Rose Bridger
Tourism for women’s rights? – Albertina Almeida
The puputan struggle against the Benoa Bay reclamation
project – Anton Muhajir
Tourism, the extractive industry and social conflict
in Peru – Rodrigo Ruiz Rubio
Tourism and the consumption of Goa – Claude Alvares
The occidentalisation of the Everest – Vaishna Roy
The getthoisation of Palestine – tourism as a tool of
oppression and resistance – Freya Higgins-Desbiolles
The bitter irony of ‘1 billion tourists – 1 billion
opportunities’
Maasai fight eviction from Tanzanian community land by US-based ecotourism
company
Pastoralist land in Tanzania is under threat because of commercial agriculture and conservation. In some places 'philanthropic' ecotourism companies also add to the problem. This article focuses on a case in Loliondo.
Susanna Nordlund
IN Loliondo, the northern
division of Ngorongoro district, near Serengeti National Park in Tanzania,
Thomson Safaris, a safari company from Boston, USA, claims to be developing
12,617 acres of Maasai grazing land into a model for community-based tourism and
conservation initiatives, with the goal of fostering a symbiotic relationship
made possible by ecotourism. It calls the land its private Enashiva
Nature Refuge (or sometimes Eastern Serengeti Nature Refuge).
The Maasai on whose land
Thomson's project takes place, on their part, report about harassment, beatings
and arrests of 'trespassers', and three villages surrounding the nature refuge
are, with the support of Minority Rights Group International, involved in a
court case to regain their land.
The tour operator from Boston
came to claim ownership and right to manage Maasai land after 10,000 acres in
Soitsambu village were in 1984-85 allocated to the then parastatal Tanzania
Breweries Ltd (TBL) for barley cultivation. The minutes of the meeting in which
the village council is supposed to have agreed to the land transfer look highly
anomalous and are in the name of 'Sukenya village'. Sukenya was at the time a
sub-village of Soitsambu, and would not become a village until a
quarter-century later. TBL cultivated 100 of the 10,000 acres in 1985-86 and
700 acres in 1986-87 while the Maasai continued using the rest of the land as
before. Thereafter TBL stopped cultivation altogether and left due to
conditions that were too dry for barley and due to opposition.
In 2003-04, many years after
having left, TBL managed to secure, despite allegations of forgery by the
Maasai, a 99-year 'certificate of occupancy' for 12,617 acres, which they then
put up for sale in 2006. This is how Thomson Safaris, through its sister company
created for this purpose, Tanzania Conservation Ltd, came to buy Maasai land.
These companies are subsidiaries of the parent company Wineland-Thomson
Adventures Inc., owned by Rick Thomson and Judi Wineland.
Since Thomson's intention was
to create its own private nature refuge, it started restricting grazing on land
that the Maasai depended on for the cattle on which their livelihoods and
culture are based. Needless to say, this required use of force, and herders
risked beatings and arrests when accessing grazing or the nearest watering
point in the 'nature refuge'.
Maasai resistance has been
made difficult due to elaborate divide-and-rule tactics. Thomson did not need
to develop these tactics, which were already in use by the central government
and another investor in the area: Otterlo Business Corporation (OBC), which
organises hunting for the highest levels of United Arab Emirates society and
was granted the hunting block - right to hunt in Loliondo - in 1992 without the
consent of the Maasai.
OBC does not claim to own any
land, but with its authority from the government it has caused much abuse and
conflict trying to manage it. This is aggravated by a system in which the
District Commissioner - the highest central government representative in the district
- and district officials work for the interests of the central government and
investors against the interests of local people.
The main threat by OBC is
against 1,500 km2 of dry-season grazing land bordering Serengeti National Park
(there was already a huge loss of land when the Maasai had to leave the
national park in 1959). In 2009 there were violent extrajudicial evictions from
this area by a special police force, the Field Force Unit, and OBC's rangers. A
7-year-old girl, Nashipai Gume, was lost in the evictions and has not been
found.
People eventually moved back,
but in 2010-11 a draft district land use plan - paid for by OBC, as its
managing director had told the press - was revealed which proposed turning the
1,500 km2 into a protected area (not protected from hunting). This plan was
strongly rejected by the District Council, and the government seemed to back
off. Then in 2013 the Minister for Natural Resources and Tourism at the
time made statements that the 1,500 km2 would be taken from the Maasai for a
protected area - but he did this in a very roundabout way, pretending that the
whole of Loliondo was protected and the Maasai would be generously 'given' the
remaining land.
After many meetings and
protest delegations to Dar es Salaam and Dodoma, Prime Minister Pinda in
September of the same year revoked the threat in a speech - but this has still
not been put in writing. In August 2012 the online petition site Avaaz had,
without much explanation or detail, launched a petition against the threat
posed by OBC, and this led to more international coverage that, while of great
help, was unfortunately not always very fact-based.
The land occupied by Thomson
is just outside the 1,500 km2 and adding to the problem. There are three Maasai
sections in Loliondo - the Purko, the Loita and the Laitayok - and OBC has
focused on working with Laitayok leaders to divide and rule. Thomson has done
the same, and the same leaders that express support for OBC also do so for
Thomson.
Soitsambu has over the past
five years been split up into several villages, and Enashiva Nature Refuge now
falls within the areas of Sukenya and Mondorosi villages. Thomson has tried to
use this to its advantage, but the villages have joined in a court case to get
back the land. This case is based on the fact that the land had returned to the
Maasai through adverse possession due to TBL's long absence before transferring
it to Thomson for a paltry $1.2 million.
Accounts of arrests and
beatings
Through the years there have
been many accounts of arrests and beatings by Thomson's guards together with
the police. Visitors have experienced how young herders run away in a panic
upon seeing a vehicle.
In 2008 Lesinko Nanyoi from
Enadooshoke next to the nature refuge was shot in the jaw, having to spend
months in hospital, after the police were called in to deal with a
confrontation between herders and Thomson guards, and started shooting.
Authorities absolved both the guards and the police of blame for the shooting,
and Lesinko is yet to see any justice.
In 2012-13 Thomson dragged a
group of herders, two minors included, to court for 'trespass'. The case was
eventually dismissed since the herders had a good lawyer from the Legal and
Human Rights Centre and the plaintiffs were contradicting themselves.
In January 2014 several
herders were beaten up by Thomson's guards and the police, and taken to the
tour operator's camp. This angered warriors (young men) who wanted to burn down
the camp, and the police fired shots into the air.
Thomson has through the years
- with minor adjustments according to time and to who is asking - flatly denied
any wrongdoing and claimed to be victims of a minority with selfish interests
that are spreading lies about it. How specific it is about this minority
varies, but many have heard the story narrowed down to the founder and director
of the non-governmental Pastoral Women's Council, Maanda Ngoitiko, who was born
and raised just north of the land that Thomson claims ownership to. In April
this year Ngoitiko was named Tanzania's Rural Human Rights Defender of 2014 by
the Tanzania Human Rights Defenders Coalition.
Thomson has also been very
active and aggressive in online PR for Enashiva Nature Refuge, and has received
several awards, not least one from the Tanzania Tourist Board in 2009 for the
nature refuge.
Charity is one weapon in
Thomson's war for managing Maasai land. This is also something it shares with
OBC. Its charitable branch FoTZC has built classrooms and teachers' housing
with funds raised from former tourists. Thomson is very proud of a women's
group that sells beadwork to its tourists. It has also built a dispensary in
Sukenya; in May 2015 there were protests against the land grab and against the
increasingly 'investor-friendly' - now voted out - MP for Ngorongoro,
Telele, who was there to inaugurate the dispensary. The Minister for
Health who had also been flown in left early because of the protests.
Foreigners wanting to report
about Thomson have got into trouble: In 2008 a photographer from New Zealand,
Trent Keegan, who wanted to investigate alleged attacks on the Maasai had
told friends he was worried for his own safety after being approached by the
police and Thomson's guards. He then decided to leave Tanzania for Nairobi.
Tragically, a few days later, he was found beaten to death in a drainage ditch
in the Kenyan capital. Keegan's laptop and phone were stolen, but not his money
and credit card. Two men charged in 2008 with his death (allegedly in the
course of a robbery) were acquitted for lack of evidence, as was another man in
2011.
Keegan's friend Brian
MacCormaic from Ireland, who was working as an adviser to a school in the area,
met with Rick Thomson and Judi Wineland to inform them about the complaints the
Maasai had against their employees on the ground. When MacCormaic wanted to
leave the meeting, the atmosphere became threatening; he was held up by 10
armed men arriving in a Thomson vehicle and not let go until after phone calls
were made to the Irish Embassy and the Regional Commissioner. Later, outside
the District Commissioner's office, Thomson's manager Daniel Yamat boasted to
MacCormaic about having files from his laptop. Later in a meeting, this
manager, according to those present, also presented files that appeared to be
from Keegan's laptop to the District Commissioner.
In 2009 British journalist
Alex Renton and photographer Caroline Irby visited Enashiva Nature Refuge with
an invitation from Thomson's manager in Arusha. The local manager Yamat refused
to answer questions, and some 10 minutes after leaving, the reporters were
picked up by the police. They were taken by the police to the District
Commissioner's office, after which they were escorted out of the district. The
District Commissioner's secretary told them they were acting on a complaint by
Thomson.
After having come across this
conflict in an online travel forum in May 2008, this writer, in 2010 when on a
tourist visit, asked the Ward Executive Officer (WEO) of Soitsambu if what was
written on Thomson's website corresponded with reality. The WEO phoned the
District Commissioner, who said he would answer my questions, but instead the
following morning I was picked up by the police and taken to the Ngorongoro
Security Committee. The District Commissioner took my passport and I had to go to
Immigration in Arusha, where I was declared a 'prohibited immigrant'. I visited
Loliondo in 2011 and 2013 without any problems.
In December 2014 American
journalist Jean Friedman-Rudovsky and photographer Noah Friedman-Rudovsky
managed to arrange an interview with Daniel Yamat and were taken to a community
meeting arranged by the councillor for Oloipiri, William Alais, whose letter
praising Thomson and OBC was published in the Jamhuri newspaper that was
stoking negative sentiment against the Maasai of Loliondo. Alais wasn't totally
happy with the reporters and called up the District Commissioner, and a lengthy
and threatening interrogation by the Security Committee followed. What
prevented any escalation was the reporters' explanation that they would spend their
last day in Loliondo visiting Thomson's projects, talking to their supporters
and interviewing Alais. Alais' men were told not to leave the reporters alone,
but even so the Thomson supporters they were introduced to had their own
complaints about harassment by the company's guards.
In 2010 a British social
justice organisation that works, among others, on the issue of land rights in
Loliondo received a letter from a London law firm instructed by Thomson. The
tour operator wanted to stop this organisation from mentioning it on the
organisation's website. An even starker example of Thomson's aggressive
litigiousness concerns the Stop Thomson Safaris website, started in 2012 by
anonymous people in Tanzania who had seen firsthand the effects of Thomson's occupation
on the residents of Loliondo and decided to raise awareness about the
situation. These people were sued and had to agree to a settlement to keep
their anonymity. The website was taken down.
Harassment
Local people who speak up
against the land threats are often victims of intense harassment. One tactic
often employed by authorities and not least certain segments of the Tanzanian
press is to accuse them of being 'Kenyan'. The most rabidly 'patriotic' journalist
extends this to claiming that 70% of the population of Loliondo would not be
Tanzanian.
In June 2015 I went to
Loliondo to get further information from the ground, but before I could visit
Sukenya and Mondorosi I was arrested, locked up for three nights without being
allowed to contact friends and family, and again declared a prohibited immigrant.
After being released in Kenya it was discovered that my computer had been
seriously tampered with during my arrest.
On the evening of 8 July 2014
Olunjai Timan was looking for cows that had been chased and dispersed by
Thomson's guards after his sons had been herding and the cows entered Enashiva
Nature Refuge. A Thomson vehicle appeared when Olunjai was on his way home,
there was an order to shoot and a bullet hit Olunjai's thigh. He was
hospitalised for a week. The identity of the policeman who fired the shot was
known, but the only action taken was to transfer him to another area. There
were protest meetings and warriors again wanted to burn down Thomson's camp but
were calmed down by elders. After more meetings the then District Commissioner
and district officials advised Thomson to allow grazing until the court case
was over. According to reports, herders have been entering with their animals
without suffering any violence.
In court the defendants were
to have been heard on 24 July, but the hearings were postponed until September
and then the judgment date was set for 28 October, when the court totally
failed to protect the land rights of the Maasai, ruling against all but one
minor point. The Maasai's lawyers, Wallace N. Kapaya and Rashid S. Rashid, told
Minority Rights Group, 'We are tremendously dissatisfied with this judgment and
intend to appeal it at the first opportunity. Based on the evidence at trial
the court did not come to a fair decision, and this judgment only serves to
cement the marginalisation of the Maasai in Ngorongoro in the name of
conservation.
The battle for justice goes
on!
Susanna Nordlund is an
independent blogger focusing on land-grabbing 'investors' in Loliondo,
Tanzania.
*Third World Resurgence No. 301/302, September/October 2015, pp 26-28
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