On Friday 16th October, the old enemy of Loliondo and Ngorongoro, Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa, visited Wasso as part of the election campaign. On the stage, with incumbent Ngorongoro MP William Olenasha and CCM’s councillor candidate for Orgosorok ward, Mohammed “Marekani” Bayo who also is OBC’s community liaison (and who received much praise from the MP), Majaliwa, unlike what would have been expected, did not declare that the horrible proposal by the Multiple Land Use Model review team had been stopped.
In this blog post:
The MLUM
review proposal
Reactions to
the MLUM review proposal
Majaliwa/Olenasha/Marekani
horror show in Wasso
Now
If you still haven’t, please read my long blog post about the horrors of the past five years. http://termitemoundview.blogspot.com/2020/10/five-years-of-disappointment-and-terror.html
The MLUM
review proposal
On 22nd September
2019, what can only be described as a plan to kill pastoralism and Maasai
culture and life in the whole of Ngorongoro district was presented at the
Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority (NCAA) headquarters. Attending were the
Ngorongoro Chief Conservator, Freddy Manongi, the Minister for Natural
Resources and Tourism, Hamisi Kigwangalla, the Ngorongoro MP William Olenasha,
NCAA staff, the District Chairman, the District Executive Director, the
district CCM leadership, and members of the Pastoral Council that represent the
indigenous residents in the NCAA. A couple of days later Manongi was boasting
about this plan in the press - where it was also presented as marking the
occasion of World Tourism Day and of 60 years of the Ngorongoro Conservation
Area Authority.
The report - The Multiple Land Use Model of Ngorongoro Conservation Area: Achievements and Lessons Learnt, Challenges and Options for the Future – was finalized after a joint monitoring mission from the UNESCO World Heritage Centre, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) once again visited Ngorongoro in March 2019, and in their report reminded that they wanted the Multiple Land Use Model review completed to see the results and offer advice, while again complaining about the visual impact of settlements with “modern” houses, and so on. Recommendations and concerns from the UNESCO have in the past repeatedly led to a worsened human rights situation.
The proposal of the MLUM report is to divide Ngorongoro into zones, with an extensive “core conservation zone” that’s to be a no-go zone for livestock and herders, and this includes the Ngorongoro Highland Forest with the three craters Ngorongoro, Olmoti and Empakaai where grazing these past few years has already been banned, not through law, but through order - which is what can happen to those living under the yoke of the NCAA, while having weak (or worse) leaders. This has led to a loss of 90% of grazing and water for Nainokanoka, Ngorongoro, Misigiyo wards, and a 100% loss of natural salt licks for livestock in these wards. The proposal is to do the same with Oldupai Gorge, Laitoli footprints, and the Lake Ndutu and Lake Masek basin. Further, the proposal is to annex to the NCAA 1,500 km2 in Loliondo and Sale, mostly in the Osero - important dry season grazing, the loss of which would have disastrous knock-on effects, but that for years has been lobbied for by OBC that organizes hunting for Sheikh Mohammed of Dubai, and successfully resisted by the Maasai - and turn most of it into a no-go-zone, but allowing hunting – and to do the same with the Lake Natron area. The reason for including Loliondo and Lake Natron is in the report explained as an estimated 25% loss of tourism revenue when the upgrading of the Mto-wa-Mbu - Loliondo road has been finished and tourists will use that route to Serengeti.
The proposal for the 1,500 km2
Osero in Loliondo to a large extent fulfils what OBC have been lobbying for
since before funding the land use plan proposing it. In the Osero in Loliondo
division 1,038 km2 are to be for tourism (hunting, unlike in the rest of NCA,
“core conservation sub-zone”) conservation, and research while all other human
activities will be banned. It will be a no-go zone for herders and livestock,
while 462 km2 of Loliondo GCA in Malambo in Sale division is proposed to be the
same, except that some grazing will be “allowed” (“transitional zone”). Though
any move to annex the 1,500 km2 Osero to NCA and implement this plan would be
contempt of court, since there’s an ongoing case in the East African Court of
Justice, where the Tanzanian government finds itself sued for its violent
attempts at alienating this land.
The proposed resettlement
areas are small and already populated, and the areas in Ngoile and Olbalbal are
semi-deserts lacking water or grazing. People are to be removed from the wards
of Nainokanoka, Nayobi, Ngorongoro, and Misigyo, while the wards with “human
settlement zones” will have their grazing and water areas turned into
no-go-zones (“core conservation zone”) like Endulen where 80 % of grazing and
water is found in Ndutu.
Reactions to the MLUM review proposal
After complaints, Kigwangalla
agreed that three “community representatives” would be added to the MLUM review
team, and the NCA wards visited again. In NCA there were several meetings and much
frustration over the slow and weak response by leaders. On 5th
October 2019, the Pastoral Council finally issued a statement, but it seemed
weak, and compromised, and it misrepresented Loliondo, and on 29th
October a statement by the ward councillors of Ngorongoro District was even
weaker.
The MLUM review team again
toured the wards and could again observe people’s unsurprising rejection of any
evictions. The community views were briefly mentioned in the new version of the
report, but the “community representatives” were side-lined, which they
panicked about, refusing to share the new version of the report, in which exactly
the same genocidal proposal was repeated.
Then, chief conservator
Manongi, partly accompanied by the chairman of the Pastoral Council, toured
development projects funded by the NCAA all over the district, including
permanent structures for a JWTZ military camp in Lopolun, next to Wasso.
It was reported that at a
regional CCM meeting there were assurances that there was no way that the ruling
party would support the proposal for evictions. Some suspected that the
intention was to bring people to despair and then present the president and
other leaders as saviours when declaring that the plan had been stopped, but the
proposal just kept being insisted upon by people in and around the Ministry of
Natural Resources and Tourism. Some traditional leaders from NCA went to see
the CCM secretary-general Bashiru Ally.
On 14th April 2020
the Pastoral Council, traditional leaders, and village and ward leaders from
Ngorongoro Conservation Area held a press conference in Arusha with a stronger
statement than the previous one. They called upon the president and the prime
minister to intervene against the abuse committed by the MLUM team - together
with chief conservator Manongi whom they wanted removed - that have proposed
measures to remove over 15 villages and turn the Maasai into refugees in their
own country.
Meanwhile, a MOU was signed
between the Ngorongoro Pastoral Council (PC), the Ngorongoro District Council,
and the Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority (NCAA), after pressure by the
Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism and others, for funds to bypass the
PC to instead go to the District Council, and for PC employees to be directly
employed by the NCAA. The reason for this was mismanagement and corruption
among PC members, but at the same time it gave more power to the person
corrupting them – chief conservator Manongi.
Several young professionals
from NCA wrote an open letter to president Magufuli about the injustices,
threats, and mismanagement going on in NCA.
On 23rd April 2020
a collection of leaders from Ngorongoro were summoned to Kigwangalla in Dodoma,
and were promised four new community representatives, and that the Ngorongoro
residents should compose their own ideal proposal, submit it to the committee,
and send him a copy. At a feedback meeting in Mokilal the MP was booed by the
attendants who wanted to cut all engagement with the MLUM team, but finally the
MP side managed to impose their view that the offer of appointing four
community representatives should be taken, but that it this time should be
accompanied by public pressure. There was strong disagreement about who should
be appointed.
In May, the councillor for
Endulen reported about how NCA rangers were conducting an operation, invading
villages to interrogate people about houses that had been built and doing reconnaisance of areas under threat of mass eviction, even using a plane, and
that the rangers then went to the market at Naiborsoit where they arrested
three women small-scale traders that were taken to Loliondo and illegally
detained for 48 hours. The councillor said that the NCAA had decided to suspend
all building permits for organizations and individuals, since they will be
evicted anyway, and that they were saying that the Multiple Land Use Model
review report had the blessing of the president. He wondered how this could
happen after the promises given by Kigwangalla in April, he also wondered how
the new “community representatives” had been given terms of reference than more
looked like preparing for evictions than preparing a community proposal to be
sent to Kigwangalla. The councillor advised Kigwangalla that the exercise
should be stopped until chief conservator Manongi is retired, or otherwise
removed, together with the permanent secretary of the Ministry of Natural
Resources and Tourism (Adolf Mkenda who was replaced in July, since he wanted
to contest for the Rombo parliamentary seat). The councillor was full of praise
for DC Rashid Mfaume Taka who had arrested the rangers who brought the
small-scale traders to Loliondo (this DC and human rights criminal would
normally have sided with the rangers) and later he published messages from the
DC who assured that chief conservator Manongi had in no way ordered the
hooligan rangers who were entirely acting on their own behalf, and he blamed
imperialists and the opposition for trying to create hostility between citizens
and their government.
At the meeting of all
councillors of Ngorongoro District Council that ended on 3rd June
2020, the information was that the NCAA had approved funding of 5 billion TZShs
for the task of expanding its boundaries – according to the proposal in the
MLUM report - to become 12,000 km2 and to include the Osero in Loliondo and
Lake Natron. This included the cost of “relocations”. Reportedly, the
councillors resolved to work against the plan regardless of consequences, and
were discussing the way forward – but then the elections got in the way … and
they became busy praising the government.
As far as I know, nothing more
was heard from Kigwangalla, except that he went on to threaten Lake Natron –
that’s included in the genocidal proposal – with a Game Reserve and a Wildlife
Management Area. On 11th June 2020, the permanent secretary to the
Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism, then still Adolph Mkenda, and
director of wildlife, Maurus Msuha, announced in media that there is to be a
Game Reserve in the Lake Natron basin. This was followed by a protest meeting in Engaresero, in which, among others, the councillor, Ibrahim Olesakai, and
village chairman, Yohana Meeli Laizer, reminded President Magufuli of his
statement from January 2019 against evicting rural people for conservation,
that there already are land use plans, that they don’t have anywhere else to
go, have lived in the area for a very long time after being evicted from other
areas, and asked him to reject the game reserve plan. Mkenda’s response was to
say that only the president can declare a Game Reserve, and that the ministry
had a map which showed areas for Game Reserve and for Wildlife Management Area
(WMA), but that it was to be used in “participatory” talks. As seen, “participatory”
(shirikishi) has become a catchword for those who want to impose the genocidal
plan, and every time they make a “participatory” change, they return with the
same proposal.
So, on 26th June,
Minister Kigwangalla after a meeting with district leaders from Longido,
traditional leaders, and Arusha Region declared in social media to have
embarked on a most important trip to ensure the sustainable conservation of
Lake Natron. Kigwangalla’s message was that Lake Natron Game Controlled Area
(all of it village land) was to be divided into a Game Reserve and a WMA, and
that he had received technical advice about how to implement this. The decision
to establish a Game Reserve was based on a cabinet decision following the
recommendation of the committee of ministers sent by the president to address
land use disputes. A committee was set up to do “ground truthing” and advice
the government about the conflict resulting from the change of land use, and
this committee reportedly consists of experts from the ministry, members from
the Arusha RC’s office, the DCs of Longido, Ngorongoro and Monduli, and
representatives from the concerned villages.
On 1st July, a
statement addressed to President Magufuli from the traditional leaders of
Ngorongoro ward - the villages of Mokilal, Kayapus and Oloirobi - in Ngorongoro
district was read by Njamama Medukenya and Sembeta Ngoidiko on Global tv. These
leaders called for the president to hear their longstanding cry about their
land that keep being stolen for conservation and tourism, and ask him to stop
the current proposal, while reminding of that since they were evicted from
Serengeti in 1959, there have been multiple violations of the Ngorongoro
Conservation Area Ordinance.
Even though his supporters had
assured me that MP Olenasha was very much concerned and working hard against
it, while contesting for the CCM candidacy for the Ngorongoro parliamentary
seat, he chose to deny the eviction threat, calling it “propaganda”.
On 13th September,
the councillor of Endulen posted in social media, apparently in a panic, about
a visit to NCA by the permanent secretary of the Ministry of Constitutional and
Legal Affairs, adding that while other Tanzanians are busy finding leaders that
will bring them development the coming five years, people in Ngorongoro live in
fear and doubt due to various ongoing committees working to undermine the
rights of the people. “We are alive and watching from a distance”, he wrote. Laws
and ordinances must be changed to impose the genocidal proposal, but according
to social media posts by the ministry the reason for the visit was to talk to
NCAA workers about not being drunk at work and not stealing things, and to do
some domestic tourism. Preceding and following his post the councillor has
written uncountable others, but with over the top praise for the government of
John Pombe Magufuli …
Majaliwa/Olenasha/Marekani
horror show in Wasso
On 16th October,
the election campaign had brought PM Majaliwa to Loliondo. On the stage in Wasso,
there was much mentioning of development projects followed by an annoying sound
effect like a gun with a silencer followed by a truckload of glass bottles
dumped into a container, or so it sounded to me. Now
Majaliwa had the opportunity to declare that the terrible threat that had been
insisted upon by people in and around the Ministry of Natural Resources and
Tourism for over a year would definitely not be implemented, that everyone
could go on with their lives as normal, and no land would be taken. He could
even have declared that chief conservator Manongi had been removed from his
position. The PM could have become as popular in Ngorongoro district as his predecessor
Pinda became in Loliondo when he stopped Kagasheki’s terrible threat against
the 1,500 km2 Osero in 2013. Since the proposal is so insane, some people more
or less expected that it was a kind of ploy that would be used to make current
leaders into saviours when stopping it. Though instead of this Majaliwa
insisted on denying, deflecting, and using the horrible word “participatory”
(shirikishi).
Majaliwa’s mention of the MLUM
proposal was as if he had never been informed about it, had never seen the
report, and didn’t expect anyone in the audience to have any knowledge at all. He
complained about those saying that people will be evicted from Lake Natron and
Ngorongoro. He asked everyone to stop such talk, since the president had
prepared everything so well making clear that community participation is needed
in community interests, and that it’s people who are coming to ask for votes who
are misleading everyone. “Why has the conflict in Ololosokwan over 1,500 km2 calmed
down?”, he asked, and someone could have told him a long story of horror, in
which Majaliwa himself features prominently …, and shown him that the
alienation of that land too is included in the MLUM proposal … He added that
besides the economy there’s the interest of conservation, but it must be “participatory”.
Digging deeper into the irrelevant, Majaliwa said that the president had sent a
delegation that toured the areas, and that he had removed more than 7 Game Controlled
Areas. Those GCAs are already village land. If degazetting them means that the
threat of having them turned into protected areas is removed maybe it could
have some relevance, but that has nothing at all to do with Ngorongoro, as
neither Loliondo nor Lake Natron GCAs are even on that list. Instead they
feature in the MLUM proposal, and Kigwangalla was publicly threatening Lake Natron
in late June. Majaliwa treated the audience as complete idiots, and nobody
raised their voice.
MP Olenasha mentioned a conflict
that had been going on in Loliondo GCA for 30 years and that after president
sent PM Majaliwa it has calmed down and now there’s peace. That’s some
astonishing – even if I by now really should have got used to anything … way of describing the Osero threat by someone who knows every twist and turn,
and is aware of what a dangerous person Majaliwa is to the Osero and to
Ngorongoro as a whole. I’ve written this many times and with much more detail,
but some of what has happened during Olenasha’s term as MP is:
In 2016, there was a sharp
increase in intimidation, threats, and illegal arrests - and this silenced many people, and notably
the two local NGOs that used to speak up about land rights. OBC initiated yet
another media campaign against the Maasai, with their own report, and their “journalist”,
Manyerere Jackton, calling for Majaliwa to alienate the 1,500 km2 Osero.
Majaliwa tasked Arusha RC Gambo
with setting up a committee to solve the conflict, while Minister Maghembe and
everyone in and around the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism heavily pushed
for turning the 1,500 km2 Osero into a protected area as in the district land
use plan, funded by OBC, that was rejected by the district council in 2011. Soon
local leaders in Loliondo found that Gambo, and certainly not Majaliwa, was
their “only ally”. Though they were weakened to the point that they agreed to a
Wildlife Management Area, that they had rejected for a decade and half (and against
which there were spontaneous protests in village after village) as a compromise
proposal to be presented to Majaliwa, and celebrated it as a victory when Gambo’s
committee decided upon this proposal.
Unexpectedly and unthinkable to
many, when everyone was waiting to hear Majaliwa’s decision, on 13th
August 2017 an illegal eviction and arson operation like the one in 2009 was
initiated in the Oloosek area of Ololosokwan and then continued all the way to
Piyaya. Beatings, arrests of the victims, illegal seizing of cows, and blocking
of water sources followed, and towards the end cows were even shot in Arash. Women
were raped by the rangers. The illegal operation went on until 26th October,
but the MP never publicly spoke up against it. Other leaders, like the
Ololosokwan councillor, were still speaking up.
In NCA, after a visit by
Majaliwa in December 2016, pastoralists were in 2017 blocked from several
grazing, water and saltlick areas, most notably Ngorongoro Crater, but chief
conservator Manongi stretched this to include the Northern Highland Forest,
Embakaai and Olmoti craters as well as the Lake Ndutu basin.
In early October 2017, Maghembe
was replaced by Kigwangalla who after a few weeks stopped the illegal operation
and made some big promises that OBC would have left Tanzania before the start
of 2018, which he later backtracked on.
Majaliwa delivered his decision
on 6th December 2017 and even if somewhat unclear, the decision was
a terrifying disappointment: a special authority to manage the land after a
legal bill had been prepared. This was however delayed, and the only thing that
was heard were rumours that the land would be annexed to NCA.
2018 was the year of terror in
which everyone was silenced. Local police led by acting OCCID, Marwa Mwita,
conducted an intimidation campaign to derail the case in the East African Court
of Justice, but even worse impact had a military camp that was set up in Lopolun
near Wasso. In June, the soldiers started attacking and torturing various
groups of people, and in November when OBC were preparing their camp for guests,
these soldiers were beating and chasing away people and cattle from wide areas around
OBC’s camp, and then they started setting fire to bomas in areas of Kirtalo and
Ololosokwan while all leaders stayed silent fearing that the crimes had
been ordered by President Magufuli. On 21st December, the soldiers
burned 13 more bomas in Leken in Kirtalo. Only in mid-January 2019 did the RC,
and the MP, make a statement about the arson, but without mentioning the
soldiers, and in such a vague way that it was hard to understand what they were
talking about. After that, people started saying that it was OBC’s director, Isaack
Mollel, who directly had contracted the soldiers.
In January 2019 there were
more illegal arrests of innocent people, but in late February OBC’s director
Mollel was surprisingly arrested for some minor (considering what else he’s
been up to) corruption crimes, and held in remand prison for over a year and a
half while the hearings kept being delayed, and then released on 2nd
October 2020. This arrest is, even if far from any justice - since four DCs and
most government officials have, with much brutality, been working for Mollel/OBC and against the people
in a local police state, while “gifts” to the Ministry of Natural Resources and
Tourism have been given in broad daylight, and everyone except Mollel has got
away untouched – led to that OBC became more toned down, only engaging in some “anti-poaching”
using one vehicle, not harassing herders, and not inciting against the Maasai
in the press.
Though in the genocidal MLUM
review proposal presented by NCA chief conservator Manongi in September 2019 OBC’s
wishes are very well catered for as the threat against the Osero is renewed,
and as seen, every time there is a promise of a “participatory” change, the same
genocidal proposal is returned.
Further, the hunters have three
of their employees placed as CCM councillor candidates, not only in Orgosorok where there are non-pastoralist townspeople, and Oloipiri where leaders have for many years been "befriended by investors", but sadly, and much more than sadly, OBC’s assistant director is “contesting”
in Ololosokwan that used to be at the forefront of the land rights struggle and where there isn’t even an opposition candidate.
So, there’s not much to boast
about, to put it mildly, unless the current government is so insane and
dangerous that everything would have been even worse without Olenasha as a
silent MP, which could of course be the case.
Very briefly, Olenasha also
mentions that there are challenges in NCA and Lake Natron, but says that the
government’s decision will be participatory and local people will always be included
in talks about how to improve their lives in those areas … “Shirikishi” again. There’s
more to write about, like Olenasha’s praise of the Orgosorok CCM councillor
candidate (the MP has earlier at least kept a distance from OBC) and apparently
rude comments about the opposition candidate, Msukuma, but I can’t hear all details, and
everyone is too busy to assist me.
There were rumours that Tundu
Lissu would visit Ngorongoro on the 26th, and I hoped to write about it, but unfortunately, it didn’t
happen.
Now
This blog has traditionally tried
to avoid party politics, not least because the local leaders that most have
spoken up against the land threats have been from the ruling party, and I more
than I’d ever be allowed to tell have tried to act more or less as a secretary
to people in Loliondo. This time the opposition’s presidential candidate isn’t
some embarrassing CCM leftover, but a hero and a friend of Ngorongoro, while these
past five years have seen the whole of Tanzania turned into a police state,
like Loliondo has been for so many years, while in Loliondo itself fear,
silence and terrible abuse have dramatically increased. The Tanzanian government
has since President Magufuli took office waged a dirty war against the
opposition, and I may seem naïve thinking that a change could be just around the
corner, but please go out and vote for Tundu Lissu, and guard the votes if at all
possible!
Even though it was hard to
find anyone brave enough, there are opposition candidates for the Ngorongoro parliamentary
seat. Chadema had to bring in a guest called Jacqueline Swai who was unknown
in Ngorongoro, and even though she’s been campaigning and cheered on, to me still
has very blurry contours. I’ve been screaming for solid information about how
much she knows about the land threats and what she will do about them, but not
only this, but even her contact information, is impossible to get hold of. Though,
as some apparently serious people support her very much, and she’s riding on
the waves of Tundu Lissu, maybe she could do a good job.
ACT Wazalendo’s Ngorongoro MP contestant,
Supeet Olepurko, is a real Ngorongorian who knows all the land issues. He got
his papers in order the last second and was then disqualified by DED Siumbu,
appealed to the National Electoral Commission that after weeks re-admitted him
via a letter that Siumbu then sat on for another week. This and worse is what
has happened to many opposition candidates all over Tanzania. Unfortunately,
due to lack of funds, Supeet has not been able to do enough campaigning, and he
seems to be known as a humble maths teacher when too many people, notably some educated
youths (but I could be unlucky with my acquaintances), seem to favour traitors
and gangsters.
If praying were my style, I’d be praying for Ngorongoro, and Tanzania. Though I still have some hope for a change - very, very soon.
Susanna Nordlund
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