Extreme Violence Has Again Erupted in Loliondo, Violating Interim Orders, and Nobody is Speaking Out

In wide areas around the camp of OBC, that organizes hunting for Sheikh Mohammed of Dubai, people are being attacked and beaten, and chased away together with their cattle. This is not only a crime against human rights and Tanzanian law, but it’s a serious violation of interim orders issued by the East African Court of Justice on 25^th September this year.

Beatings in areas of Kirtalo village have been reported since 10^th November, and bomas are again being burned, under unprecedented silence. The situation has kept deteriorating as I’ve been writing on this blog post while getting piecemeal information from many people on the ground.

This time the crimes are mostly being committed by soldiers from the Tanzanian army that have a camp set up in Lopolun since March this year.

A young man studying far from home tells me: “Very stupid, let them be beaten until they learn to report all sort of inhumane happening to them”, “If they can bear brutality let them move on WITH their stupidity”, “Let them be beaten mercilessly until they demonstrate”, “It doesn't start today or the day after today but the issue is a long planned process that gonna drag the life of Maasai”. I will never accept this, and I know that there are many Tanzanians who don’t accept living in a gangster state, and will do what they can to stop the brutality, however stupid, or not - at least they have not always been this passive … - the Maasai of Loliondo may be.

Never has an urgent blog post been more delayed …

Update: on 21^st December 11 more bomas were burned down by soldiers in Leken, Kirtalo. Blog post on the way. 

In this blog post:

Brief recent background

Massive violation of interim orders in wide areas around OBC’s camp, with updates

Summary of developments of the past decades

The Spectacular U-turner Kigwangalla has Commented on Loliondo in a TV Interview

In this blog post:

The interview on Kwanza TV

A reminder of the spectacular U-turn
Summary of developments of the past decades

Update: I’ve since 10^th November been hearing reports about beatings and evictions in wide areas around OBC’s camp, in serious violation of the interim orders, and will publish a blog post as soon as I’ve got more details. 

On 31^st October, Kwanza TV aired a lengthy interview with the Minister of Natural Resources and Tourism, Hamisi Kigwangalla, and in this interview he talked about Loliondo for a few minutes. As known by followers of this blog, almost exactly a year ago Kigwangalla made the most splendid promises about Loliondo, including promising that OBC would have left before January 2018. Then sadly he made a complete U-turn that I’ve also written about in several posts. In advance, Kwanza TV had been asking the public to submit questions for the minister. The question I submitted wasn’t asked though… “Mh @HKigwangalla, tufanyeje na”syndicate”ya OBC inayotesa wananchi Loliondo?Ulilisemea hili mwaka jana, hata kuahadi OBC ingaliondoka kabla ya 2018! Tunafahamu ulishabadilika kuhusu OBC. Umebadililika pia kuhusu mkurugenziMollel uliesema alitaka kukuhonga? @kwanza_tv #chukuahatua” (translation: what should we do about OBC’s syndicate that persecute people in Loliondo? You talked about this last year, even promising that OBC would have left before 2018! We know that you have changed about OBC. Have you also changed about director Mollel who you said wanted to bribe you?)  I hope it didn’t sound like I believe that Kigwangalla accepted Mollel’s supposed offer. I think his reason for throwing the Maasai of Loliondo under the bus are far more ambitious and long-term than US dollars 100,000, or 200,000 into his pocket.