There
are election results.
An
unbelievable unjust – but not unexpected -court ruling was delivered, and there
will be an appeal.
There’s
some good, some bad and some downright ugly news, and this blog post has been
somewhat delayed due to confusion.
Elections
The new MP for Ngorongoro is William Olenasha who has
no track record whatsoever of being befriended by land grabbing “investors”. On
the contrary, William has always been more than helpful in the land struggle.
The District Council chairman Elias Ngorisa switched to the opposition after
losing the CCM elections. Ngorisa used to be on very friendly terms with OBC,
but has since 2013 spoken up for land rights, both against OBC and against
Thomson Safaris. The incumbent MP, Telele, who turned totally befriended by
“investors”, and then was appointed as Deputy Minister for Livestock and
Fisheries, was not even third in the CCM elections.
The opposition has advanced in Ngorongoro wards in the
recent elections. This has mostly happened due to CCM losers in the nomination
elections in August swiftly moving parties, and becoming instant heroes for
change.
The worst part of the election results is that the
horrendously “investor-befriended” incumbent councillor for the
Laitayok-dominated Oloipriri ward, William Alais, won the CCM elections and
then there was no opposition candidate.
In Soitsambu ward the incumbent Daniel Ngoitiko won
the CCM elections, and the losing candidate, Boniface Kanjwel, joined the
opposition, after which he returned and won the ward elections. Boniface was
the chairman of Soitsambu village before it was split up, and did then oppose
Thomson Safaris, but some are not sure about his capacity to deal with
“investors”. Others are confident he will always stand up for the land.
In Olorien-Magaiduru, with some - relatively - more
urban areas, the OBC employee Marekani again won the CCM elections, but then
lost to Metui Tipap who was a member of the opposition party Chadema since
before the elections.
In Loosoito-Maaloni the investor-friendly Long’oi lost
already in the CCM nomination election to Mbeka Rago.
In Enguserosambu that’s geographically not really
relevant to the “investors” Kaigil Ngukwo Mashati lost the CCM elections, and
joined the opposition, but it did not help him. The new councillor is William
Parmiria. Mashati has figured prominently in the nightmares of this blogger. As
councillor for Orgosorok, before the wards were split up, he spoke up against
OBC, but then as councillor for Enguserosambu he entered a “partnership” with
Thomson Safaris at the same time as he was having correspondence with me
pretending to be something completely different to what he really was. Parmiria
is seen as an activist.
Yannick Ndoinyo and Mathew Siloma continue as
councillors for Ololosokwan and Arash respectively. Yannick has written about
his election manifesto on land.
Ngorongoro District now has a total of nine non-CCM
councillors: eight from Chadema and one from ACT-Wazalendo.
Judgement
On 28th October the High Court in Arusha
handed down a ruling in the case against Thomson Safaris (“Tanzania
Conservation Ltd”) and Tanzania Breweries Ltd. More than five years after legal
proceedings started – and over two years after the current lawsuit was
initiated following the dismissal on technicalities of the first one – the
court ruled against the Maasai on all points except a minor one concerning TBL
adding 2,617 acres in 2004. The court decided not to do anything about a title
to Maasai grazing land being in the hands of family of four from Boston, or
their intent at converting the land use classification to tourism, and neither
were the Maasai awarded any damages for the violent exclusion from their own
land. While not entirely surprising, it
is sad that also the judiciary participate in the stupid/cruel farce in defence
of injustice. We are now at least six
visitors who have first-hand experienced the ridiculous harassment by local
authorities for doing nothing more than asking questions about Thomson Safaris,
and beating this in ridiculousness are the regular accusations against local
Maasai as “Kenyan”. Such an accusation was the first I ever heard from a friend
of Thomson, back in May 2008. It is hard to understand how the judge, district
commissioners, police, government employees, and not least local leaders who
have been “befriended” can act which such shamelessness. Maybe there’s some
clue in what I was once told about the former DC – a more reasonable man than
the current one, which does not say much – who had angrily confronted a land
rights activist and said, “you are not
going to take the food away from my children”.
Already the same day did Minority Rights Group International,
that is assisting with the court case, publish an excellent article, in which
MRG’s Head of Law, Lucy Claridge, says, “MRG
is dismayed by this decision. It is a setback for not only for the Maasai, but
for all indigenous peoples across Africa struggling to have their rights over
traditionally-owned land recognised and respected, “ adding “Although the community won on a minor point
concerning an illegal transfer of part of the land, no damages were awarded and
the conflict over land and resources remains. It is a significant defeat for
the Maasai of Loliondo, who depend on raising and herding cattle in this harsh
environment to earn their fragile living, and have had their main means of
survival jeopardised by both international investors and their own government.”
The messages from the Maasai’s lawyers, Wallace N.
Kapaya and Rashid S. Rashid, in the MRG article is, “‘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.”
It’s good that the appeal will be
speedy, but more has to be done. The focus can’t lay exclusively on lawsuits.
Thomson’s land grab does almost not exist for Tanzanian media, and a concerted campaign
is needed.
As mentioned many times, and as will in the future
again be mentioned in more detail, TBL got 10,000 acres of Maasai grazing land
for barley conservation in a very irregular way in the mid-80s, cultivated a
minor part of it for a few years, while the Maasai continued grazing their
cattle on the rest of it, and then TBL left. The whole of the land returned to
the Maasai, but many years later, in 2003/2004, TBL obtained a right of
occupancy to 12,617 acres that they in 2006 sold to Thomson Safaris. This tour
operator from Boston has worked in collusion with the police and other local
authorities to turn the land into their own private Enashiva Nature Refuge, and
this has led to uncountable cases of harassment and beatings of the legitimate
Maasai landowners, minors being taken to court, Lesinko Nanyoi and Olunjai
Timan being shot, and the most nauseating PR campaign presenting this crime as
a “model for community-based tourism”.
Thomson Safaris will continue spending thousands of
dollars on lawyers to defend their violent prestige project. They have to be
stopped!
Susanna Nordlund
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