“The government of United Republic of Tanzania has never had any plan to
evict the Maasai people from their ancestral land” https://appablog.wordpress.com/2014/11/28/tanzania-refute-claims-to-evict-40000-maasai-from-their-land-in-ngorongoro/
This is a patently false and untrue statement. The
1,500 square kilometres dry season grazing land in question, bordering Serengeti
National Park, has already been under threat several times. This land is also
the core hunting area of Otterlo Business Corporation Ltd that for two decades
has held the hunting block (permit to hunt) that covers more than the whole
area of Loliondo Division. The Dubai-owned OBC organizes hunting trips for the
highest levels of United Arab Emirates society.
All land in Loliondo – the 1,500 square kilometres
included - is village land according to
the Village Land Act No. 5 of 1999 since it fulfils the following definitions -
and one definition would have been enough.
-Land within the boundaries of villages registered according
to the Local Government Act, 1982.
-Land demarcated as village land under any
administrative procedure or in accord with any statutory or customary law.
-General land that villagers have been using for the
twelve years preceding the enactment of the Village Land Act. This includes
land customarily used for grazing cattle or passage of cattle.
In 2009 there was a bad drought and many herders had
gathered in the dry season grazing area as OBC’s hunting season was starting.
On 4th July 2009 the paramilitary Field Force Unit
from Arusha descended on the pastoralists in the dry season grazing area. They
arrived in vehicles loaded with armed men, tightly standing up, and drums of
petrol. They set on fire whole homesteads, with petrol and explosives,
destroying everything inclusive of some young animals in the enclosures, houses and family
grain reserves in stores. Some 60,000 heads of
cattle were pushed into an extreme drought area, which significantly worsened
the alarming rates of cattle deaths of this drought. 7-year old Nashipai Gume from
Arash was lost in the chaos and terror and has to this day not been found.
People eventually moved back to their homes in the
1,500 square kilometres area.
In 2010 the non-participatory Draft District Land Use
Framework Plan 2010-2030 was presented. This plan included the 1,500 square
kilometres as a protected area (not protected from hunting) – and was financed
by OBC, as the company’s managing director had proudly declared in an interview
a year earlier. This plan was strongly rejected by Ngorongoro District Council.
In March 2013 the then Minister for Natural Resources
and Tourism, Khamis Kagasheki, started making extremely threatening statements
that the 1,500 square kilometres grazing area would be turned into a protected
area (of a kind that allows hunting). He did this by lying that the whole of
Loliondo was a protected area (!), that the Maasai were “landless” and that
they would be given the part of the land that would not be taken...
This threat by Minister Kagasheki was put stop to by
Prime Minister Mizengo Pinda when he on 23rd September 2013 in Wasso
in a highly emotional speech declared that the land belonged to the Maasai and
their coming generations, and nobody would be allowed to disturb them as
Minister Kagasheki had been doing. A written statement with this promise is
still being waited for.
The current alarm has been raised when Minister Lazaro
Nyalandu at several meetings with ward councillors from Loliondo has expressed
the Government’s continued “need” of taking the 1,500 square kilometres as a
protected area. Minister Nyalandu has denied this to the press saying that he
had been to Loliondo to talk about land use planning. This is word against
word, but it can be questioned why politicians that would benefit from riding
on the success of defeating Minister Kagasheki would make up such a lie. It can
also be questioned why Minister Nyalandu, not being minister for Lands, but the
head of a Ministry interested in expanding protected areas would come to
Loliondo repeatedly to talk land use planning.
A press release from 21st November by a
delegation from Loliondo that went to Dodoma can be found here. https://app.box.com/s/zvda7pjzo1kqayfazf3u
Sadly the press release from the Ministry for Natural
Resources and Tourism includes the ugly habit of talking “misleading, malicious and meant to tarnish the image of our country and
her international standing”. This way of using paranoia and xenophobia when
mistreatment of Tanzanian citizens is brought up is not worthy of a serious
nation, and much worse is the habit of accusing Tanzanians of being from a
neighbouring country when they speak up against injustice, as has again crept
up in the press.
The current urgent need is for a written statement
from the Government of Tanzania that no land in Loliondo will be turned into a
protected area (imposing a WMA is included here) – ever. Too much was lost with
the creation of Serengeti National Park and the Government’s, international
conservation organisations’ and investors’ hunger for wildlife rich pastoralist
land must be stopped from doing any further damage.
Susanna Nordlund
sannasus@hotmail.com
6 comments:
Thank you Suzanne for you good work in ensuring that the Maasai Pastoralists are not evicted from their lands. Those of in West Africa have gained a lot from your advocacy campaigns. Mohammed Bellor
Thank you, Mohammed. I’m not sure how much this blog is really helping, but I’m glad that it’s read in West Africa.
A rational and well written statement, Susanna. Short and to the point! Let's hope that Prime Minister Mizengo Pinda's speech in Wasso will soon be available as a written statement - affirming that the land in Loliondo belongs to the Maasai and to their descendants . . is there a reason why this statement is not forthcoming?
Susanna, I strongly agree with your comment that "Too much was lost with the creation of Serengeti National Park and the Government’s, international conservation organizations’ and investors’ hunger for wildlife rich pastoralist land must be stopped from doing any further damage." The Tanzanian government and the peoples of Tanzanian should be thanking the Maasai for already giving up some of their traditional pastoral lands instead of threatening them and giving their land away to foreign investors and land-grabbers.
Thank you, Scatt. I don't know why Pinda's statement has not been put in writing. The fact that the government still wants to take the land could be one reason.
As you see, a new blog post is very much delayed. There's a lot to write, but the unhelpfulness from those that can fact check and complete my information is simply unbelievable.
Post a Comment