It’s been some
time since I wrote a summary about OBC and the 1,500 km2, a lot has happened,
and there has been much misinformation, mostly from government and “investors”,
but unfortunately also from well-meaning quarters.
Very short
version:
OBC have been hunting in Loliondo since 1993.
There were extrajudicial evictions in 2009 from the
sought-after 1,500 km2 next to Serengeti National Park. People eventually moved
back.
In 2011 a draft district land use plan – funded by OBC
– proposed turning the 1,500 km2 into a protected area. This was strongly
rejected by the district council.
In 2013 Minister Kagasheki made statements threatening
to take the 1,500 km2. The threat was revoked by the PM, who said the land belonged
to the Maasai that should continue their lives as before. This promise has not
been put in writing.
After 2013 there haven’t been any open official statements from the Tanzanian government announcing
any interest in grabbing land in Loliondo.
There have however been alleged threats in closed
meetings, and a media campaign against the Maasai of Loliondo. A written
declaration from the government is needed, and so is continued vigilance.
The sections of
this blog post are:
Loliondogate in the 90s
New Millennium
The Extrajudicial Evictions in 2009
The District Land Use Plan Revealed in 2011
Kagasheki’s Horrible and Twisted Threat in 2013
The Confusion in 2014
This blog post is
based on a longer version that’s delayed. I have probably left out some
important aspect, and I will write other summaries in the future.
Loliondogate in
the 90s
On 11 November 1992 the then Minister for Tourism, Natural
Resources and Environment (as was the name of the ministry at the time),
Abubakar Mgumia, granted the Loliondo Game Controlled Area (North and South)
hunting blocks “for a period of 10
calendar years, renewable effective January, 1993” to Brigadier Mohammed Abdul
Rahim Al Ali from Dubai, deputy minister for defence of the United Arab
Emirates. The minister’s letter refers to a letter from Brigadier Al Ali of 14
September 1992. It was Mgumia who – in this letter granting the hunting block -
advised the Brigadier that a “company
should be formed to manage the Concession Area as agreed and in accordance with
Tanzania Company laws and regulation”. The minister also reminded Al Ali
that an agreement should be drawn between him and Ngorongoro District Council,
that he should strictly abide by all wildlife laws and regulations, and that
TAWICO should be allowed to use the area for their clients until 31 March 1993.
Mgumia added that Al Ali’s agreement to contribute 25% of the revenue to the
District Council was over and above the normal contribution. (MTNRE/A/100/4/97)
OBC’s general manager did in 2007 write that, after a hunting safari on a
presidential permit in 2001, Al Ali made a courtesy call to the then Prime
Minister John Malecela, and an expression of interest in acquiring the Loliondo
hunting block was made. Al Ali had already been to Tanzania for hunting several
times since 1985. (Ndaskoi, 2010)
Latest information is that Al Ali is Lt. General,
Assistant Under-Secretary of the Ministry of Defence in the UAE, and also
chairman of the board of Al Ali Property Investment. The company he started for
the purpose of hunting in Loliondo is Otterlo Business Corporation (OBC), which
isn’t a corporation, and probably not even a pro profit company.
 |
| Otterlo is a small village in the Netherlands, with an impressive hunting lodge. Don't know if there's a connection |
The now de-facto extinct Loliondo GCA that’s OBC’s
hunting block is some 4,000 square kilometres and comprises the whole of
Loliondo division and part of Sale division of Ngorongoro. The third division
of Ngorongoro District, south of Loliondo, not in the hunting block, is
Ngorongoro Conservation Area where the Maasai live under the rule and severe
restrictions of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority, and that does serve
as a horror image for Loliondo not be turned into. Loliondo’s location with the
Republic of Kenya to the north and to the west Serengeti National Park - to
which much land was lost in 1959 - has had consequences. It should be made
clear that this means that Loliondo lies to the east of Serengeti. Too many
articles mention another cardinal point that starts with “w”. Don’t do that… The
Lake Natron Ramsar site is found to the east of Loliondo. When this blogger has
travelled to Loliondo, the usually mentioned as 400-km bus trip from Arusha has
never lasted less than 10 hours. (Google Maps says 363 km for the Crater route,
while the currently preferred route by the bus company is the hotter and
dustier Lake Natron route).
There are three Maasai sections in Loliondo - the
Purko, the Loita and the Laitayok –which has facilitated the use of divide and
rule tactics.
The at the time member of parliament for Ngorongoro,
Richard Koillah, District Commissioner Leban Makunenge and other government
officials toured the six villages of Loliondo Division that bordered the
national park trying in vain to convince the villagers into signing the
agreement allowing Al Ali to hunt on their village land. After failing they went on to sign the
contract between Al Ali and the Ngorongoro District Council for “wildlife
conservation, management and rural development of Loliondo Game Controlled
Area” themselves, without involving the villagers. Ahmed Saeed Abulrahman
Alkhateeb signed for and on behalf of H.E. Brigadier Al Ali. The Ngorongoro DC,
Col. Leban Makunenge, signed for the central government while the District
Executive Director signed for of the Ngorongoro District Council. The late
Richard Koillah, then MP for Ngorongoro, signed the contract on behalf of six
villages; i.e., Ololosokwan, Soitsambu, Oloipiri, Olorien-Magaiduru,
Loosoito-Maaloni and Arash The villages of Piyaya and Malambo are not mentioned
anywhere in the contract. (Mkataba kwa Ajili ya Kuhifadhi na Kusimamia
Maendeleo ya Wanyamapori Ilikuleta Maendeleo ya Vijiji katika Eneo la Loliondo
Game Controlled Area: South and North, 1992)
Villages registered according to the TAMISEMI Act No.7
of 1982 could at the time legally enter into binding agreements on their own
behalf.
The deal was closely followed in the Tanzanian press
and came to be known as “Loliondogate”. Besides bypassing the villages this
scandal consisted of granting the hunting block for 10 years instead of the
habitual 5 years, and doing this when TAWICO (a parastatal that had managed
hunting blocks in Tanzania until the Wildlife Division took over in 1988) had
already been granted the concession from 1991 to 1996. According to the press,
both the board of directors of TAWICO and the director of wildlife issued
protests, but in vain. Mary Ndosi who first represented OBC in Tanzania used
the P.O Box of the Attorney General and there were allegations that Al Ali was
a personal friend of President Mwinyi. Widely covered was Al Ali’s hunting trip
to Longido (a more arid area east of Loliondo) in January 1993 together with
the current ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, who at the
time was UAE Minister for Defence. They were accompanied by the Tanzanian
ambassador to UAE and an entourage of 67 people. Even Minister Mgumia admitted
to the paper Mfanyakazi that there were hunting excesses, and the hunters flew
off with live zebras and antelopes, one of which dropped dead at Kilimanjaro
International Airport. At the airport was Abdulrahman Kinana, the Minister for Defence
and National Service at the time, representing the Tanzanian Government. (Ndaskoi,
2010) Even the New York times reported that the hunters from Dubai
significantly reduced the population of gerenuk in Longido.
Tanzanian press does far too often mix up Longido and
Loliondo, but this was not the case of the Mfanyakazi in 1993.
On 7 February 1993 Mgumia announced that OBC would
start its hunting activities in the Loliondo Game Controlled Area on 1 April
1993.
The journalist most closely following the deal was
Stan Katabalo, in the Mfanyakazi from 20 January 1993, until he passed away
under disputed circumstances on 26 September 1993. Stan Katabalo got much of
his information from Moringe ole Parkipuny, the first MP for Ngorongoro who had
been outmanoeuvred and frustrated by one-party politics, and founded the first
pastoralist NGO in Loliondo, and Tanzania, in 1990. On 2 May 1993 when
Parkipuny was driving home from Loliondo “town”, some 300 meters before
levelling with the Loliondo police station, the police fired at his car from
the back. The bullet broke the glass of the rear door, went between his shoulder
and ear, and smashed the windscreen. The policeman who fired the gun was known.
He was given orders by the officer commanding district to shoot. No action was
taken against the shooter, or anyone else.
On 17 April 1993 the BBC Swahili Service announced
that President Mwinyi had removed Abubakar Mgumia from the Ministry of Tourism,
Natural Resources and Environment which he was heading in connection to the
Loliondogate scandal. In 1994 a Parliamentary Select Committee produced the
Marmo Report detailing abuse and irregularities concerning OBC (this blogger
has spent years screaming for this report, but have failed at laying my hands
on it). In 1996 the Warioba report named OBC as one of the most corrupt
companies in Tanzania (I’m looking for this report too).
After the controversies, OBC's 10-year permit was at
some point revoked, but then renewed for a regular 5-year period in 1995 and
has since kept being renewed.
New Millennium
By 2000 OBC had adopted a hostile attitude towards
cattle. Ben Gardner (Tourism and the
politics of the global land grab in Tanzania: markets, appropriation and
recognition, 2012) has written that a series of droughts had made the area
next to Serengeti National Park more essential for herders to graze their
animals, and families had re-established their homes into the area after having
been away due to problems with cattle rustlers from west of the park.
While OBC’s hunting block is the whole 4,000 km2, and
they could therefore hunt rats around the DC’s office, the core hunting area,
where they actually hunt, is an area next to Serengeti National Park, described
as a “corridor” of 1,500 km2. This osero or bushland is an important dry season
grazing area for the Maasai. Conservation organisations had already at
different times proposed the alienation of this area as a “buffer zone”.
 |
| Rainy landscape in the 1,500 km2 in October 2011 when nearby areas were much dryer. |
 |
| OBC's airstrip in September 2015. |
Unlike what’s often mentioned in the press, land in
Loliondo has never been sold, or about to be sold, to OBC.
In 2001 the Kenyan organisation MERC wrote an
ambitious report about OBC in Loliondo, with much focus on Loliondogate-style
hunting abuse. This was a long time ago, and MERC have not kept it up. This
organisation worked together with Moringe Parkipuny who was reportedly not
happy when he got to know that the report was still circulating over a decade
later.
In 2002 the Kenyan journalist John Mbaria wrote
several articles in the East African about OBC’s hunting excesses and how these
were gravely endangering Kenyan wildlife. This led to a rebuttal by the
Tanzania Wildlife Department claiming total legality, environmental responsibility
and benefits out of the ordinary to the local economy. Local activists from
Loliondo (Ndoinyo/Meitaya, Ngoitiko) joined in describing the bypassing of the
legal land owner – the villages – and disturbing grazing as the main problems,
and not the probable (even if not as severe as described by Kenyans) but hard
to prove hunting excesses. They also emphasised that OBC’s contributions were
goodwill, had no binding mechanism, and did not compensate for the extraction
of natural resources. Around this time was journalist Ted Botha interested in
writing about Loliondo, but since not a single editor wanted the story he instead
wrote about the article that never was. The Washington Times did run a short
article about Loliondo in March 2002.
Loliondo villages started getting threatening letters saying
that livestock would be evicted from the 1,500 km2, and in December 2007 they
got a letter from the then DC Jowika Kasunga ordering them to discuss a
proposed new contract between the villages and OBC. He cautioned that
discontinuing OBC’s hunting block was not an option and warned villagers to
stay away from inciting against the contract.
One year later, in the afternoon of 8 August 2007,
Molonget Konerei and other herders were out looking for lost sheep. At sundown
they were passing OBC’s yard in Soitsambu when behind them came one or more
vehicles. The herders ran off in panic in different directions and when they
got home they discovered that Konerei was missing. They returned to the site
where they found a puddle of blood at the roadside. Konerei’s dead body was at
Wasso Hospital. Local authorities concluded that it was an ordinary road
accident. OBC staff said they had been out pursuing poachers when they hit
Konerei killing him instantly. He left behind a widow and three children. Some
of the herders said they had heard gunshots, and Konerei’s family wanted a new
post mortem.
In February 2008 did the traditional leaders send a
letter to the DC urging him to ask OBC to stop acting violent against the local
people. They also asked the DC for a physical meeting between the leaders and
Brigadier Mohammed Abdul Rahim Al Ali in person to discuss the conflict between
his company and the pastoralists of Loliondo. A week later a delegation from
Loliondo went to Dar es Salaam to ask the government to intervene.
The Minister for Natural Resources and Tourism, Shamsa
Mwangunga, visited Loliondo in March 2008 warning tour operators that had
direct contracts with the villages that they were operating illegally. In the
late 1980s private tour companies began entering into agreements with villages
in Loliondo for camping and walking safaris. These agreements were first
encouraged by the authorities, then declared illegal, and then made to pay fees
directly to the central government. The government wants Wildlife Management
Areas to be the only option for community involvement in wildlife tourism. The
direct contracts have often been described (by Fred Nelson, Ben Gardner and
others) as used by the Maasai as a strategy to strengthen the position of the
villages as landowners, against the central government (or the state, but
everyone in Loliondo talk about the “government”).
The DC coerced the villages to sign a Memorandum of
Understanding with OBC. This MoU, however, lacked both a timeframe and a
mechanism to raise payments to the villages. The contract did provide the
establishment of a joint management committee to coordinate grazing and hunting,
contrary to the lack of experience or intention of the company to respect
pastoralism. There never were any meetings though. (This blogger does not have
the MoU)
The Extrajudicial
Evictions in 2009
On 18 May 2009 the District Administrative Secretary
for Ngorongoro, Mabuga, wrote a legitimate order, amri halali, on behalf of the DC to the Executive Officers of
Arash, Orgosorok, Soitsambu and Malambo Wards and to the Executive Officers of
Ololosokwan, Soitsambu, Oloipiri, Arash, Olorien-Magaiduru and Piyaya Villages.
The order read that on 15 May 2009 the Arusha Regional Commissioner, Isidori
Shirima, sent a 4-person commission which joined the Ngorongoro District
Security Committee and sat on 16 May with an agenda of finding a strategy to
end the “invasion problem” and environmental destruction in the hunting block
belonging to OBC. The order gave the “invaders” a 7-days ultimatum to vacate
the area that is referred to as the hunting block (kitalu cha uwindaji), but
obviously meaning the 1,500 km2 “core hunting area”.
None of the villages responded to the letters, since
they assumed that the MoU was between the company and the villages and the
government had no say in this.
In May and June, the Arusha Times reported how OBC had
donated 100 tonnes of grain to the residents of Ngorongoro District and that
the hunters had assisted in anti-poaching operations.
On 4 July the paramilitary Field Force Unit from
Arusha descended on the pastoralists in western Loliondo. They arrived in
vehicles loaded with armed men and drums of petrol. They set on fire whole
homesteads, destroying everything inclusive of some young animals in the
enclosures, houses and family grain reserves in stores.
Around 200 permanent and temporary bomas were burnt to
the ground, including grain stores and young goats also perished. Many cases of
beatings, humiliations and sexual assault have been reported. Several children
were lost in the chaos and terror and one of them – 7-year-old Nashipai Gume
from Arash – has not been found, ever since.
Criminal acts were also committed against several
other people. FFU officers have been accused of attempts to rape a girl in
Arash. Other reports from Ololosokwan speak of tying up two young men the way
donkeys are and thereafter forced to haul a cart like animals. On 4 July police
officers in Soitsambu shot in the air spreading fear allegedly making a woman
to miscarry. On 12 July a 70-year old man from Arash was beaten up and some of
his money stolen by police officers. The officers then ordered his three wives
to inflict ten strokes each on his back in the presence of everyone around, and
thereafter the police officers took away TSh 100,000. The home of 90-year old
Orkoskos Yaile, born in Karkamoru sub-village (inside the 1,500 square
kilometres) was burnt to the ground and he lost many animals.
In addition to the other atrocities some 60,000 heads
of cattle were pushed out of the dry season grazing area forcefully by the FFU
squads into an extreme drought-hit area and calves were left behind in the
stampede. This significantly worsened the alarming rates of cattle deaths of
this 2009 drought.
Legal and Human Rights Centre affirmed that:
Firstly, the
eviction of Maasai from their original land (Loliondo Game Controlled Area) was
unlawful because, their villages are registered; therefore they are residing in
accordance with the law.
Secondly, they
have the right to live in accordance with their culture and tradition.
Thirdly, the
eviction process did not follow the legal procedures– of securing a court order
and that the police acted on the unlawful order of the District Commissioner as
there is not any law in Tanzania which gives him powers to order such an
eviction without the court order. (Tanzania
Human Rights Reports, 2009)
The evictions are widely seen as part of the
anti-pastoralist drive that began already when president Kikwete in his
inauguration speech in December 2005 incited against pastoralists – and then
followed a series of anti-livestock operations full of human rights abuse.
The then MP for Ngorongoro, Kaika Saning’o Telele,
demanded answers in parliament. Shamsa Mwangunga, the Minister for Natural
Resources and Tourism at the time, replied that the Arusha Regional
Commissioner (RC) had told her that the operation was executed by the Arusha
Region. She also said that the RC had assured her that the pastoralists were
consulted and given enough time to move out of the area voluntarily and that
the pastoralists themselves decided to set their homes ablaze since they were
moving out of the area anyway. The minister claimed that there was no conflict
between OBC and the Maasai since the investor was involved in many development
projects, but accused unnamed people and institutions of instigation. The MP
went to Loliondo and saw smouldering ashes and met with fury and troubled
minds. Mwangunga, also visited the district on 15 July. It was expected that
she would meet the Maasai community and especially the victims of the
evictions, but she only met a small group of government leaders. The minister
then ordered a halt to the eviction until certain issues were clarified – but
the operation continued. She also felt sorry for the excessive use of force by
the FFU team but she called it a normal thing for this force to overdo. The
minister repeated that OBC had been collaborating with the villages and the
government, and any other party interfering would be dealt with accordingly. If
need be, NGOs would be de-registered.
A month after the evictions DC Elias Wawa Lali told an
investigative team led by the NGO network FemAct that the operation was
necessary to protect the environment, that it was legal, and carried out in a
way paying due regard to human rights.
The European Union sent its own fact-finding mission
to Loliondo on 6 September. The Danish Ambassador, Bjarne H. Sørensen, complained
that “Local Government Authorities failed
to facilitate us in this visiting the affected villages. However, through
consultation with others we were able to see and hear that evictions and
burning of bomas indeed have taken place”
On 28 September 2009 Ngodidio Roitiken went herding in
the Mbarashani area of Soitsambu. 'The
police came and found me looking after cattle. They tear gassed us. Something
hit me and I fell down unconscious. I later found myself in Wasso Hospital'
(Roitiken to Ndaskoi, 21 December 2009). According to the then Regional Police
Commander, Basilio Mateo, Ngodidio had been hit by a tear gas canister.
Ngodidio was, after a tug of war between relatives and the police, taken to
hospital in Arusha. He lost his eye and was together with four others charged
with trespassing, environmental destruction and threatening the police. The
case was dismissed for lack of evidence, almost five years later, on 4 February
2014.
 |
| Ngodidio
On 14 September Minister Mwangunga issued a press
statement saying that OBC’s core hunting area had been empty (sic!) before
March 2009 when pastoralists – most of them Kenyan – suddenly moved in and they
had to been evicted to protect the environment and the tourist hunting business. Very ominously, the minister warned that in
the years to come the new Wildlife Conservation Act would separate Village Land
from Game Controlled Areas. It should be remembered that the new act had not
come into effect. Too many have written that the evictions would have been a
result of this act.
|
There have been many reports about the evictions, and
most of low quality. There’s a widely distributed report by the government
organ, Commission for Human Rights and Good Governance (CHRAGG) that, after
consulting with some officials on 14-18 September 2009, concludes that there
were no human right abuses during the operation that included an order of “daily prayer before engaging in the
exercise” by the acting DC (DC of Karatu since the new Ngorongoro DC Elias
Wawa Lali was on a leave, according to this report). Of greater interest is the
reason given by District Natural Resources Officer Masegeri Tumbuya Rurai, “For almost five consecutive past years it
is alleged, OBC has failed to effectively utilize their licence and enjoy their
hunting rights due to this invasion. After rigorous follow up it is this year
that the government, after witnessing the migration, considered their concern
and deliberated on the evacuation. The government was left with no option other
than respecting and honouring of the contractual obligation”. Not a single
victim was interviewed by CHRAGG.
H.H Sheikh Hamdan Bin Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum,
Crown Prince of Dubai, a.k.a Fazza posted pictures on his website and Facebook
page from a hunt in Loliondo 2009 together with his father Sheikh Mohammed of
Dubai and a big entourage.
 |
| Those I've asked say that the kori bustard is not in the quotas.
On 6 November 2009 MP Telele tabled a private
statement in Parliament. In the 14-point submission, he sought explanations
from the Minister for Natural Resources and Tourism on reports of gross
violation of human rights during the eviction of pastoralists from OBC’s
hunting area in Loliondo. Mwangunga replied that an eight-member Commission did
not find any human rights violation and that no woman was raped and there was
no food reserves and animals burnt. She also repeated her claim that OBC’s
hunting area had been “invaded”. The Standing Committee chaired by MP for
Kongwa, Job Ndugai, was asked to investigate the conflict and report back in
the next session of parliament, on 6 February 2010. (Ndaskoi, 2010)
|
The tabling of the Ndugai Report in parliament was
scheduled for 9 February 2010. On the evening of the 8th the
legislators from the ruling CCM party met in Dodoma. Ndugai dismissed all 14
complaints raised by the MP for Ngorongoro as baseless. Telele protested and
demanded that the report should be tabled in parliament the next day, the MP
for Longido walked out of the meeting in protest and the MP for Kiteto revealed
that he knew the villages well and, in his capacity as the Executive Director
of the Arusha Diocesan Development Office, he was in 1990 instrumental in the
demarcation of the villages in the contested area and that the land in question
belonged to the villages. The prime minister vowed that under no circumstances
would the Ndugai report be read in the national assembly. Instead the government
would send another committee to Loliondo to investigate the allegations. (Ndaskoi,
2010)
The District Land
Use Plan Revealed in 2011
On 23 November 2009 in an article entitled, ”Maslahi binafsi yanachochea mgogoro
Loliondo”, the Habari Leo had reported about OBC’s managing director Isaack
Mollel and his suggestions for “solving” the conflict. Mollel complained about
the selfish interests of politicians and NGOs inflaming the conflict, about the
usual “Kenyans” and others “invading without paying”, the anti-Arab attitude
and over too many tour operators in the hunting block which Mollel claimed was
a “protected area”. According to the article, Mollel described the hunting
block as belonging to Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum of Dubai, with no
mention of Al Ali. Mollel declared that OBC was ready to remain with the core
hunting area instead of the whole hunting block that’s all of Loliondo Division
plus part of Sale, and in this hunting block are many villages, the “towns” of
Loliondo and Wasso with the district headquarters, the DC’s office and Wasso
District Hospital. The hunting block is a permit to hunt and not to own land,
but if Mollel is to be taken seriously he was saying that even the DC had
“invaded”. This core hunting area – from where people had been evicted and were
planning to return - is a dry season
area that would seriously affect people far beyond Loliondo if turned into an
exclusive area for OBC. Mollel announced that OBC had given the Office of the
Arusha RC TSh.156 million for
surveying the land.
On 25 February 2010 the Guardian (DSM) reported that
the minister for Lands, Housing and Human Settlements Developments, John
Chiligati, had declared that the Government had set aside TSh.157 million for land use planning in Loliondo. Chiligati
described converting the 1,500 km2 into a protected area as, “a bid to end the long standing conflict
between the two parties” and he introduced the shameless lie that consists
of saying, “More land will be taken from
the Loliondo Game Controlled Area and given to villages.”
Tension raised in Loliondo and on 6 April 2010 women
had started gathering to go to Loliondo town to hand in their CCM member cards
as a protest against the threat of creating a “buffer zone” in the dry season
grazing area next to Serengeti National Park. They also demanded that the
report about the evictions be tabled in parliament, and to be allowed to hold a
peaceful demonstration in Loliondo. They had to act since the men had failed to
protect the land. In Ololosokwan 400 women had gathered but were warned by the
police that they would be fired at if they moved to Loliondo. They neglected
the warning and set off, only to be intercepted in Oloipiri where they had to
listen to the DC and were put on a truck back to Ololosokwan. Another 60 women
coming from Enguserosambu were arrested and interrogated for hours, but 500
women, who had spent the night in the bush near Wasso, reached the CCM office
in Loliondo and handed in 1,883 party cards. They negotiated the afternoon with
CCM staff that agreed to keep the cards in one box and the women’s leader,
Kijoolo Kakiya would take them to Piyaya Village. If their demands were not met
by 16 April, the women said they would return, not with just the 1,883 cards
but thousands. In response the DC went after NGOs thought to have instigated
the protest. On 12 April three male civil society organisation representatives
– Samwel Nangiria, Robert Kamakia and Gasper Leboy – were arrested,
interrogated and locked up for the night by the Officer Commanding District.
However, threats kept multiplying in several meetings,
like one chaired by Chiligati in Loliondo, and at a CCM election campaign
meeting Shamsa Mwangunga declared that the government had “resolved” the
Loliondo conflict by demarcating areas for pastoralists and areas for the
wildlife conservation.
In early December 2010 through a constitutional suit –
misc. civil cause no. 15 of 2010 - filed in the High Court of Tanzania by
several civil society organisations (LHRC, PINGOs, NGONET and UCRT) to petition
the July 2009 evictions. The Attorney General, the Ngorongoro DC, the Officer
Commanding District, the Minister for Natural Resources and Tourism and Otterlo
Business Corporation Ltd were named as the defendants. To date nothing has
happened with this case since it has been impossible to gather the required
quorum of three judges in Arusha.
The new Minister for Natural Resources and Tourism,
Ezekiel Maige, visited Ngorongoro District in late December 2010. He held
meetings with the CCM District Political Committee and the District Security
Committee. The minister also visited the proposed “wildlife corridor” area and
did not find environmental destruction, contrary to statements made to justify
the “buffer zone”. The minister formed a committee headed by the DC consisting
of seven councillors from the wards bordering Serengeti National Park plus the
District Natural Resources Officer and the District Community Development
Officer. It was now thought that the threat had been averted.
In February 2011 the catastrophic Draft District Land
Use Framework Plan 2010-2030 was revealed. This plan not only included the
1,500 km2 of GCA as in Wildlife Conservation Act of 2009 – a protected area and
a huge land loss – but also proposed several Wildlife Management Areas. A WMA –
that while still nominally village land suits foremost the central government,
investors and conservation organisations that get more control over the land at
the expense of villagers – had been rejected in Loliondo a decade earlier when
it was strongly pushed for by Frankfurt Zoological Society and the central
government.
The plan was strongly and loudly rejected by the
Ngorongoro District Council, and the councillors, some of whom were known to be
friends of OBC, held a press conference in Arusha to protest. The district
council chairman, Elias Ngorisa, told the press, “We, as the voice of the Loliondo people, do not bless this land use
plan. We strongly condemn it and ask our government to view our people as ‘bona
fide’ citizens of this country”, “This plan conflicts with the laws of our
country. The Village Land Act, 1999 says that any change in the use of village
land should be decided by the village general assembly. What ground do these
technocrats have to plan for us and, worse still, plan for vacating us from the
area?” he wondered.
On 22 July 2011 the village of Ololosokwan received a
letter from the District Executive Director’s office acting on a request by the
Land Commissioner that demanded the handing in of the title deed for the whole
of the village land. The reason for this request was that the Land Commissioner
had discovered “conflict between this village and its neighbours” (baada ya
kubainika mgogoro kati ya kijiji hiki na majirani zake). A protest delegation
from the village went to Dar es Salaam, and Ololosokwan keeps the title deed.
The victims of the evictions re-built their houses and
it was thought that the government had been defeated. Some leaders participated
in reconciliation ceremonies with OBC. When this blogger visited, a couple of
inebriated village leaders told me that they were now friends with OBC that was
building them a village office and would never again disturb grazing.
In August 2012 Avaaz launched their “Stop the
Serengeti Sell-Off” petition. It was bewildering for leaders that still thought
the government was defeated and the petition was so vaguely written that it was
signed by some people who were against Maasai land rights. Though soon enough
Avaaz’s help would be very much needed.
Kagasheki’s
Horrible and Twisted Threat in 2013
On 27 January 2013 the at that time Minister for
Natural Resources and Tourism, Khamis Kagasheki, held a number of “stakeholders”
meetings in Loliondo. Attending a “stakeholders” meeting when you, like the
Maasai, are a “rightsholder” is a clear warning sign. Kagasheki wanted investors to work together
and warned that he could be compelled to ban all human activities in the area.
The last weekend of February 2013 Kagasheki returned
to Loliondo with the message that the Game Controlled Area as per Wildlife
Conservation Act of 2009 was the best “solution” for Loliondo. In the worst
Orwellian way, the Minister explained to the media that in fact the Maasai were
“landless” and would now be “given” the land that they already occupied –
except for the 1,500 km2 “corridor” that would “remain under government
control”. The condition for this “offer” would be that the community should
form a Wildlife Management Area. The move was described as “addressing
historical injustices”. Unfortunately, journalists present lacked the necessary
background information or will, to realize that in fact the historical
injustice was about to happen if this latest move would be realized.
Then on 21 March after a brief meeting in Arusha with
top district leaders Minister Kagasheki showed up again in Loliondo. Local
leaders had got information that Kagasheki was sent by the president to
announce that the 1,500 km2 corridor would be taken by the government as a Game
Controlled Area to protect wildlife and water catchments. The local leaders
refused to enter the District Council conference hall to join the minister.
Instead they demanded that he should answer questions from people outside the
hall. Kagasheki suspended the meeting and took off to Arusha in a fury. The
leaders and other citizens who were around waiting for the minister talked to
the media to express their views on the matter. Ololosokwan ward councillor
Yannick Ndoinyo told journalists, “We are
not ready to surrender even one meter of our land to investors for whatever
reason” and several other leaders had the same message.
The now de-facto extinct Loliondo Game Controlled Area
originated in the 1950s and always existed alongside human activities. Only
hunting was regulated and required permits. With the Wildlife Conservation Act
of 1974 that regulated hunting everywhere the function of the LGCA changed to
limiting the borders of hunting blocks. Then with the Wildlife Conservation Act
of 2009 there were radical changes and Game Controlled Areas became protected
areas where livestock grazing and other human activities were no longer
allowed. This kind of change would naturally require gazetting following proper
procedures. Big areas all over the country are GCAs at the same time as village
land and an automatic conversion to the new kind of protected area would
require high levels of state violence and create hordes of internally displaced
people, many of whom have already suffered displacement for conservation. The
Wildlife Conservation Act of 2009 does specify that:
“the Minister may after consultation with
the relevant local authorities, and by order in the Gazette, declare any area
of land in Tanzania to be a game controlled area”,
”the Minister shall ensure that no land
falling under the village land is included in the game controlled areas”
“shall within
twelve months of coming into operation of this act and after consultation of
the relevant authorities, review the list of game controlled areas for
ascertaining potentially justifying continuation of control of any such area”.
The 2009 Act came into operation in June 2010 and none
of the land in Loliondo has been declared a new GCA. There was the proposal
that was firmly rejected by the Ngorongoro District Council in February 2011.
Kagasheki just made another attempt – using shameless lies.
All land in Loliondo became village land with to the
Village Land Act No. 5 of 1999 since it fulfils the following definitions - one
definition being sufficient to qualify as village land.
-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. (TNRF,
2011)
Some of the arguments that with Wildlife Conservation
Act 2009 Loliondo Game Controlled Area does actually no longer exist are:
-The GCA 2009 has never been declared as specified in
the act.
-Land laws take precedence over wildlife laws in
matters of land.
-The act clearly states that village land and GCA are
no longer allowed to overlap.
Then a GCA 2009 would lead to massive destruction of
lives and livelihoods, and have serious environmental knock-on effect in areas far
beyond Loliondo, and would therefore also go against the purported wishes of
the GCA supporters.
Thousands of people met in Oloipiri on 25 March 2013
and decided to stay united, end any involvement with OBC and, when the
government had announced the land grab, to initiate a court case with an
injunction plus a reclaim of Serengeti National Park, and that all political
leaders, including the MP, would resign from their posts.
On 26 March 2013 in Dar es Salaam Minister Kagasheki
announced publicly to journalists that the government would be grabbing the
corridor of important grazing land, but in the usual style he said that the
government was “keeping” 1,500 km2 and the people of Loliondo would be “given”
2,500 km2 where they would be “helped” to establish Wildlife Management Areas.
He added that, “There will be no
compromise with regard to any attempt to infringe the newly established
borders”. The minister did also warn NGOs and so-called “Kenyans” (the
standard accusation against Loliondo activists is to call them “Kenyans”) about
inciting the Maasai.
On 1 April 2013 a press statement from the Ministry
for Natural Resources and Tourism titled “Ufafanuzi Kuhusu Tamko la Waziri
Kagasheki Kuhusu Eneo la Pori Tengefu la Loliondo”, was released – followed on
the 7th by a somewhat differently worded version in English. These statements
insisted on the lies that Loliondo Game Controlled Area was a protected area
that “landless” people had “invaded” and that the government had taken the
decision of reducing the LGCA “to provide land to the growing landless
population in the area”. The 1,500 km2 had to remain LGCA to protect breeding
grounds, migration corridors and water catchments. The Swahili version added
that 25% of the country was protected areas “without conflict”. This version
did also detail that the problem in Loliondo was caused by NGOs, many led by
“foreigners” whose “secret agendas” had already been exposed.
Avaaz renewed their campaign with a somewhat clearer
petition. Survival International, Cultural Survival and Minority Rights Group
International also showed support.
A big meeting was planned for 2 April in Wasso, but it
was turned into a disappointment. Most councillors had abandoned the
resignation promises. There was no declaration made since the meeting had not
got a permit. CCM party cards were left littering the ground. Though more
meetings followed.
In the midst of this crisis MP Telele left for China
as a member of an investor-wooing delegation - led by the Director of Tourism
of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism.
On 4 April several Tanzanian land and human rights
organisations issued a joint press statement setting the record straight about
the laws governing the 1,500 km2 and about Kagasheki’s deliberate attempt to
mislead the public. The statement also emphasised that it’s OBC that’s
endangering the environment by its hunting practices and illegal constructions.
Around a thousand women had gathered in
Olorien/Magaiduru, camping out and holding meetings. On 6 April a CCM mission
led by the deputy secretary general of the party, Mwigulu Nchemba, met with
these women and other people that had gathered. The CCM representatives were
told in no uncertain terms that the community would fight to the last person
for their land and Nchemba’s conclusion was that the government’s decision was
contrary to the laws of the land and would adversely affect the local
community, and that he would refer the issue to the prime minister.
At the same time representatives of the opposition
party, Chadema, were addressing the public at a meeting in Soitsambu. Chadema’s
director for Legal and Human Rights Tundu Lissu and shadow minister for Natural
Resources and Tourism, Peter Msigwa, told villagers to support the opposition
party in opposing the government decision.
Kagasheki held a breakfast meeting with ambassadors
and representatives of international communities in the country complaining
about “37 NGOs” with “hidden interests” in Loliondo. The minster continued with
the lies about giving land to landless people. He even pretended to have a
disagreement with OBC – the sponsor of the rejected land use plan that proposed
the alienation of the 1,500 km2 – as if the company could go to court because
of the “reduction” of LGCA. Some three or four Loliondo NGOs are active in this
fight and none is led by a foreigner.
The team of advocates from Legal and Human Rights
Centre for the petitioners in misc. civil cause no. 15 of 2010 directed on 15
April a letter to Kagasheki warning him that his announcements were contempt of
court in the ongoing case, urging him to restrain from implementing his
decisions and that “In the event this
call is ignored or neglected we shall be forced to institute an application
before the court of law against you personally”.
On 13 April some twenty students from Loliondo who had
been enrolled at colleges and universities in the Arusha Region returned home
for the weekend to assist their people in this time of danger.
OBC’s Isaack Mollel, instead of addressing the Maasai
protests, directed his comments in the press to the Avaaz talk about “selling
the Serengeti”. The Guardian (DSM) reported, “However, OBC, an UAE multi-million-dollar hunting outfit has refuted
claims that it had purchased the wildlife-rich Loliondo Game Controlled Area
(LGCA)." “We have neither bought the land, nor conceived such an idea at
all because Tanzanian land laws do not allow foreigners to purchase land,” and
he went on describing OBC’s big contributions to central and local governments.
To the BBC on 18 April Mollel said, "The
people communicating for the Maasai are not the Maasai themselves. They make
sure that [there is] no clear understanding between the investors and the
indigenous people of Loliondo,"
On 18 April a delegation of representatives from
Loliondo that had waited some days in Dodoma, and before had been in Dar es
Salaam, had a meeting with PM Mizengo Pinda who came from a long meeting with
the CCM team that visited Loliondo and, judging from their public statements,
sided with the people. The PM agreed that the land does indeed belong to the
Maasai and he said that the announcements made by the Minister for Natural
Resources and Tourism would not be implemented. Though nothing of this was put
in any written document and Pinda also “advised” the delegates to establish a
WMA. He asked them to wait until he had talked with the president.
In parliament on 30 April opposition parliamentarian
Peter Msigwa made a presentation on Loliondo that was dismissed by one CCM
legislator after the other. MP Telele stood up and thanked the Minister for Natural Resources and Tourism and the government
for finding a “solution” to the Loliondo land conflict. This was the final nail
in the coffin of Telele’s credibility.
On 16 May 2013 various traditional leaders from
Loliondo gathered in Dar es Salaam demanding a meeting with the president.
Almost a month had passed since the meeting in Dodoma with the PM who expressed
his support and said he would refer the issue to the president. The demands
were not met and the delegation headed on to Dodoma to see Pinda. In Dodoma the
traditional leaders were joined by other delegations from Loliondo for a long
and costly wait until the PM on 30 May issued a letter with the government’s
statement to the RC. The letter, which never was mentioned by the RC, and was
not meant to be made public, recognised that the land belongs to the Maasai,
but was otherwise a disappointment mostly talking about looking into what
infrastructure there is in the 1,500 km2.
In an interview about Loliondo in the June 2013 issue
of the newsletter for hunters, African Indaba, Prof. Markus Borner – who until recently had been head of the
Africa programme of FZS and was still a board member – showed a surprising
ignorance about both Tanzanian law and the situation on the ground. Borner’s comments came after he had spent 30
years in Seronera in Serengeti National Park, and is out-of-touch assessment of
the acute threat was, “the present
proposal seems a good way forward”.
On 2 September 2013 a delegation sent by the Ministry
for Lands, Housing and Human Settlements Developments held a meeting with
councillors and civil society organisation representatives at Ngorongoro
District Council. Isaac Marwa, the Principal Surveyor of this ministry, is
reported to have said that there was no choice - after internal long
discussions between the prime minister and the ministers for Natural Resources
and Tourism and for Lands, Housing and Human Settlements Developments the government
had agreed to abandon its proposal of taking 1,500 km2 bordering Serengeti
National Park. He added that the issue of Loliondo had attracted long
discussions and campaigns across the world, including damaging the image of the
nation, and they had decided to appreciate that the land belongs to the
villages. A team of eight people would make a survey of the villages of
Loliondo and Sale led by councillors and village leaders and monitored by CSOs.
On 3 September the surveying team started with Sukenya
and Mondorosi. The following morning when going to continue on to Nginye,
Njoroi and Kirtalo the team was told to stop and immediately return to Dar es
Salaam. The council chairman who phoned the Minister for Lands, Housing and
Human Settlements Developments said that he had been told that the night before
the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism had issued a complaint wanting
the survey stopped. The minister said that the district council should follow
up with the prime minister and the president and not with her.
On 22-23 September PM Pinda visited Loliondo, and on
the 22nd Pinda and an entourage including Anna Tibaijuka, the
Minister for Lands, Housing and Human Settlements Development and Lazaro
Nyalandu, Deputy Minister for Natural Resources and Tourism (future minister)
landed at OBC’s airstrip and then visited various projects in Ololosokwan and
other villages. According to reports, the PM had not said anything at all in
Ololosokwan.
On the 23 September Wasso was overflowing with people
who wanted to hear what the prime minister had to say. In an emotional speech
the PM told them that the plan of taking 1.500 km2 was scrapped, that the land
was theirs and for their coming generations – and that the Minister for Natural
Resources and Tourism would not be allowed to bother them anymore. They were
asked to continue with their lives as before Kagasheki’s statements.
This was the end of the Kagsheki-style 1,500 km2 grab
attempt. The Tanzanian government has since not made any public statements – at
all – announcing any interest in taking land in Loliondo.
The Confusion in
2014
In April 2014 a bango kitita – matrix document or log
frame – based on the prime minister’s visit in September, was seen by some
people in Loliondo. Surprisingly, this bango kitita spelled out the
government’s continued “need” to take this land. There was a strange silence
and few people have seen this bango kitita.
Then Nyalandu, the new Minister for Natural Resources
and Tourism started holding closed meetings with Loliondo councillors, and is
said to have been threatening. On 27 July the District Council Chairman, Elias
Ngorisa, met with Nyalandu in Arusha and was reportedly told that President
Kikwete had instructed the minister to take the 1,500 km2. Later the same day
and at the same hotel, the African Tulip, the minister met with OBC’s general
manager, Isaack Mollel. Still no action was taken. Not even meetings to inform
the public. Suspicious rumours started circulating. The district chairman was
known to have been close to OBC – even praising the company in interviews in
2011 – until he changed during the Kagasheki crisis in 2013, and after that
consistently spoke up against the investors.
On Saturday 30 August Nyalandu flew into Loliondo to
meet with the councillors of the wards affected by the 1,500 km2. The
councillors did not share many details, but what’s been told is that the minister
was, according to those present, very threatening – talking about Game
Controlled Area, Game Reserve and National Park - and after he left OBC’s
Mollel and several other representatives for the hunters entered to make
promises. Later it has transpired Nyalandu also talked about TSh 1 billion of
compensation money. OBC requested a meeting with the councillors for 13
September and were told to also include CSOs, village leaders and traditional
leaders. The relative silence about this meeting worsened the mistrust.
After Nyalandu’s visit CSO representatives moved
around to inform people about the threat while OBC were moving around pushing
for the villages to sign a new MoU with them that would pay TSh 120,000,000 per
year per village in exchange for making bylaws for the protection of the
environment and tourism hunting, for prohibiting people from the village and
neighbouring country to “invade”, or for anyone to make permanent constructions
inside an unspecified hunting area.
More meetings followed. It was made clear that nothing
had been signed with OBC, but the silence about Nyalandu did not make
suspicions go away. Eventually on 25 September there was a big collision, but
ultimately the councillors went open with that they had been given TSh 300,000
each as “sitting allowance” at a meeting with OBC’s general manager, but had
not signed any document at all about the village land. The meeting concluded
that councillors and chairmen had ironed out their differences.
The council chairman was ordered to meet Minister
Nyalandu on 13 October in Arusha. There was information that the minister was
going to announce compensation money at the meeting. People thought that the
chairman would be corrupted and pressured him to refuse going to the meeting
and to leave Arusha as soon as possible, which is what he did.
On 3 November there was a district council meeting to
discuss the threat. Alarmingly a couple of leaders, led by the councillor for
Oloipiri, William Alais, refused to attend or to follow the recommendations
that were reached. Besides William Alais there were the chairmen of Oloipiri
and Orkuyaine – and Gabriel Killel of the NGO Kidupo, who had recently become
“investor-friendly”. The chairmen of Sukenya, Soitsambu. Ilopolun and
Oldonyowas, who come from the same Laitayok section - that has often been used for divide and rule
- did not follow Alais’ example.
Avaaz renewed the petition and the Guardian (UK) wrote
that the government of Tanzania was backtracking on its promise to “40,000 Masai pastoralists by going ahead
with plans to evict them and turn their ancestral land into a reserve for the
royal family of Dubai to hunt big game”.
Somehow the intents at buying off local leaders even led the British
press to write that there was an eviction notice and that “the Masai have been ordered to quit their traditional lands by the end
of the year”, which was false information. Nobody in Loliondo had heard of
such an eviction notice. Many articles of the same kind followed and it seems
to be the version of events that some international organisations now believe
in.
Both BBC Swahili and BBC English interviewed Minister
Nyalandu on 18 November. The minister said that everything about evicting
Maasai was a malicious lie and that he had visited Loliondo to talk about land
use planning. He was not asked why he, and not the minister for lands, would be
doing this.
A delegation from Loliondo consisting of political and
traditional leaders, and women’s representatives travelled to Dodoma. On 18 and
19 November some councillors: notably the council chairman and the councillors
for Soitsambu and Arash, plus the CCM chairman of the district tried in vain to
meet PM Pinda. The delegation issued a press release protesting Nyalandu’s
statements and making some demands like a written statement with the PM’s
earlier promises from 23 September 2013, the revocation of LGCA as should
already have been done according to Wildlife Conservation Act 2009, the
resumption of the land use planning abruptly stopped in early September 2013
after the complaint from the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism (there
are differing opinions about bow useful this request is) and the stopping of
tourist hunting in Loliondo, adding that if the Pinda fails to fulfil his
promises they will have to engage the world and reach his office in thousands.
They said they believe in peaceful means, but have lost their patience, and
their land will never be taken for the benefit of OBC. The “eviction notice”
was not mentioned, since it did not exist. This statement, unlike the imagined
eviction notice, did not have much repercussion in the press.
On 18 November 2014 the Jamhuri newspaper published a
letter from William Alais, the councillor for Oloipiri, to Mary Nagu, Minister
of State in the Prime Minister's Office for Investment and Empowerment. The
councillor complained about NGOs that are stirring things up when “the people
of Oloipiri ward” want to work with investors like OBC and Thomson Safaris (that
maintain a violent occupation of 12,617 acres of Maasai land). The only thing
making sense in Alais’ letter was a request for grazing rights in the national
park. Without this, keeping the councillor’s dangerous and demanding “investor”
friends happy would be quite unsustainable. The Jamhuri’s writer Manyerere
Jackton regularly writes about Loliondo in an extremely inciting style painting
the Purko and Loita sections, and the Loliondo NGO’s, as destructive and
“Kenyan”. On 6 November 2014 the Jamhuri published one more such article,
“Wakenya waingiza mifugo hifadhi ya Serengeti” (Kenyans enter cattle into
Serengeti NP) under the fake Maasai-sounding name “Adam ole Timan” (no such
journalist exists in Tanzania) and on 28 November the article, “Loliondo
yageuzwa Kenya” (Loliondo becomes Kenya) argued that 70 percent of the
population of Loliondo was not Tanzanian. Manyerere has written more than 15
articles inciting against the Loliondo Maasai.
On 23 November 2014 President Kikwete tweeted, “There has never been, nor will there ever
be any plan by the Government of #Tanzania to evict the #Maasai people from
their ancestral land.” The first part is an obvious lie since there were
extrajudicial evictions in 2009, the proposed land use plan in 2010/2011 and
Kagasheki’s threats in 2013. Otherwise it’s word against word about Nyalandu’s
visits to Loliondo. Some international organisations think that the tweet was a
reversal of the 2014 “eviction notice” that never was.
Division worsened with the councillors for three of
the seven wards affected by OBC – Oloipiri, Olorien/Magaiduru and
Loosoito/Maaloni – becoming more loud about their support for the
“investor”.
On 4 December there was a big meeting in Kirtalo. The
RC had declared that a permit was needed and the DC that it would not be
granted, but the meeting went on. Elders cursed the “investor-friendly” group
and it was agreed that the public would deal with misbehaving politicians. In the
morning before this meeting Samwel Nangiria, coordinator of Ngonet, was taken
for lengthy police interrogations, and a fully accredited (not that journalists
often are, or need to be, but this one was, contrary to what the DC told BBC
Swahili) international freelance journalist, Emily Johnson, was ordered to
leave Loliondo.
On 6 December Minister Nyalandu flew to Loliondo and
visited Oloipiri and Maaloni together with 25 journalists, most of whom did not
have any background information. The minister
informed the press that he would not hesitate to oust any investor, institution
or NGO that instigated conflict in the hunting area, and he again declared that
the British newspaper the Guardian was lying about Loliondo instead of
addressing what the councillors, whom he had met the past months, had to say,
even in their press release. The councillor for Maaloni addressed the press
saying that there was agreement between three of seven wards and OBC.
On 12 December Nyalandu locked himself up with seven
councillors and two NGO representatives. The DC did not allow the women’s
representatives, Tina Timan and Maanda Ngoitiko to attend. It was reported that
Nyalandu went on and on about living in harmony with the investor.
Better news on the 12th was that some Laitayok
traditional leaders held a press meeting shown on ITV denouncing William Alais’
article in the Jamhuri and the attempts at separating the Laitayok from the
rest of the Maasai in the struggle for the land as a stand by some politicians
and elites, and not the community. The laigwanak were, "Nasindol, Sumare,
Siiya and others”.
In a confused article in the RAI on 18 December MP
Telele lashed out against the NGOs saying they should be investigated by the
government, adding that DCs should have military background. He also expressed
the wish that Nyalandu should involve him when going to Loliondo. In this article Long’oi, “investor-friendly” councillor for Maaloni says
that people are stirring things up for personal benefit and without any reason
since Village Land Act No. 5 of 1999 does not allow the land to be sold. Then
in the same article OBC’s Isaack Mollel, as many times before, contradicts his
“friend” Long’oi and claims that Loliondo is “protected land” belonging to the government
- not village land.
On 21 December there was a meeting of councillors and
NGOs. Things were ugly and the councillors of Oloipiri, Loosoito/Maaloni and
Olorien/Magaiduru together with Gabriel Killel of Kidupo insisted on working
with OBC and the government - and not according to the Oloipiri declaration of
25 March 2013.
On 8 January 2015 Channel 10 ran a programme about
Loliondo, hosted by the reporter Jerry Muro, that could have been produced by
OBC themselves. The incitement against the Maasai was very similar to the style
of Manyerere Jackton in the Jamhuri. Some interviewees were the councillor for
Olorien/OBC employee, Marekani, and Parapara William who used to be a respected
opposition politician that suddenly switched to the governing party and was
elected chairman of Wasso, and also turned into a big friend of OBC. OBC’s
managing director Isaack Mollel was of course included. According to this
programme the problem in Loliondo was “Kenyans” and NGOs. Land rights weren't
touched upon and instead there were mentions of an “investor area”. The only
NGO representative that was allowed to say anything was the by this time
totally” investor-friendly” Gabriel Killel of Kidupo. People like the
councillor for Soitsambu and an immigration officer were only asked about
citizenship issues. OBC’s Mollel, besides talking about his company’s
development projects, illegal Kenyans, and useless NGOs, again claimed that
land belongs to the government and not to the Maasai.
 |
| Nyalandu welcomes Sheikh Mohammed upon landing in Arusha in January 2015. The trip was cur short when King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia passed away. |
On 5 February a meeting was held between the DC, the
Commissioner of Immigration, the Director of Borders from the Immigration
Department HQ and officials from the Ministries of Lands, Housing and Human
Settlements Development, and Natural Resources and Tourism. The meeting ended
with a resolution of having the Immigration Department undertake an
intelligence scanning and give feedback to the government on whether Kenyans
are in Loliondo or not.
10-14 February 2015 Serengeti National Park rangers
together with Loliondo administrative police set fire to 114 permanent bomas in
areas of Arash, and Maaloni. The rangers argued that they had orders from above
and that the bomas were inside Serengeti National Park. Many people, children
included, were left without food, shelter, or medical services. On the 18th
the RC visited the border with Kenya and flew over the national park boundary.
The same day he visited Ololosokwan where he told the villagers that their land
was safe and that they should disregards ideas that they would be “Kenyans”.
The following day the RC visited the Irmolelian area of Arash where he ordered
people to leave the areas inside the park within 14 days, and announced that
NGOs that had brought journalists would be dealt with. Researchers found that
the bomas had been inside the park according to the boundaries marked by hills.
Though most of them would be outside the park according to an unidentified
boundary marked by stone piles. People had been living in the area for years.
OBC had not
been involved in the eviction of February 2015, but several international
organisations published articles saying that this was the case and that the
Maasai had now been evicted, to “make way for lion hunting” was added in one
article, while a press release by another organisation claimed that bomas had
been burned in Ololosokwan.
On 28 March Channel 10 aired another documentary
inciting against the people of Loliondo featuring the RC on his visit to
Loliondo, the director of TANAPA, the “investor-friendly” councillor for
Maaloni and OBC’s managing director.
The first half of April 2015 an anti-Kenyan team made
up of police, KDU anti-poaching squads, Immigration, Usalama wa Taifa
(intelligence and security service), Wildlife Department from Dar es Salaam,
Field Force Unit and Magereza (prisons) toured Loliondo villages arresting
those suspected of being Kenyan or of holding Kenyans. In Kirtalo the team was
joined by OBC rangers and ten Laitayok from Oloipiri councillor William Alais’
investor-friendly group whose victims were seriously beaten. Five Kenyans (real
ones from the Republic of Kenya that’s within walking distance) were jailed for
six months and fined TSh. 100,000. Several meetings were held across the border
in Kenya and decisions were made to close the border in response to the
mistreatment. Tanzanian children were prevented from returning to their schools
in Kenya, and the Kenyans attempted to prevent Loliondo Maasai from accessing
cattle markets across the border. After more meetings the cross-border issue
cooled down.
On 21 April the Jamhuri ran another article inciting
against the Maaasai of Loliondo. This time the article contained the names of
280 “Kenyans” in Loliondo, including Kundai Parmwat who was councillor for
Soitsambu for 10 years. The article lashes out against the NGOs that speak up
for land rights, calling them “Kenyan”. Though the only example of a Kenyan NGO
person in this article was special seats councillor Tina Timan who is married
to a former MP, has lived in Tanzania for over 25 years, has six Tanzanian
children – and does actually, according to all asked, not work for any NGO at
all.
On 27 April the Raia Mwema joined in. In a strange
editorial this paper called for the government’s support for the new DC, Hashim
Mgandilwa, in the work against Kenyan invaders and against the imaginary almost
40 international NGOs in Loliondo that are helping the Kenyans to undermine
conservation.
On 3 May 2015 two corrupt policemen that had with
impunity been extorting money from people for a long time were beaten up by
warriors at Ololosokwan market. This led to mass arrests, including of several
leaders that have spoken up against OBC - or were thought to be against OBC.
The leaders, including the councillors for Ololosokwan and Soitsambu, were
released without charges, but not before being forced to walk barefoot in front
of police vehicles the 8 kilometres from Wasso to Loliondo. The DC was trying
to make some point and told the press that the leaders had planned the attack
since they were opposed to the anti-Kenyan operation.
On 15 May 2015 the councillor of Oloipiri, William
Alais, together with the chairman of Oloipiri village and the Officer
Commanding District came to Kirtalo market telling people not to graze their
animals in the Indashat area claiming that it is in Oloipiri. Those addressed
refused since the area is disputed. Indashat, like Karkamoru market that OBC
want to close down, was inside Kirtalo sub-village and should therefore now be
in Kirtalo village, but the OBC-friendly councillor for Oloipriri is said to
want the area with the hunters inside his ward. (edit: OBC sadly succeeded in having Karkamoru market closed down some time the later part of 2015) The following day three men
Oleketuyuo Ngume, Ndalii Seret and Ngingir Naing'isa together with his
7-year-old son, were caught in Indashat while they were grazing and taken to
Loliondo “town” where they had to spend the night in a cell. In the evening the
police with the OCD fired shots at three bomas in Kirtalo making some people
run away in panic. Around 30 children were lost, but fortunately found during
the night.
The three arrested men, and one boy, were released on
the 17th. The same day there
was a crisis meeting in Kirtalo attended by some 400 Purko. The DC attended and
to calm down the situation he said he’d remove Laitayok bomas from the area
within three days. The meeting continued on the 18th, even after the
DC phoned the chairman of Kirtalo trying to stop it.
To the press the DC lied that he had ordered a state
of emergency due to infiltration of dangerous arms, and that people from
Kirtalo were out to wage war on Oloipiri. He also talked about the porous
border and an invasion of aliens from Kenya.
On 21 May there was a meeting between Kirtalo and
Oloipiri, together with the DC, to solve the conflict, and there was an
agreement that the bomas in Indashat should be removed. That’s one Laitayok and
one Purko boma. Grazing should go on as usual. The DC left the boundary issue
to the villages since it was beyond his scope.
In July 2014 it had been announced that the UAE Red
Crescent had started work on drilling 20 wells in Loliondo and the project –
part of the Water Aid (Suqia) initiative, launched by Sheikh Mohammed of Dubai,
and assisted on the ground by OBC - was handed over, by the current ambassador
Abdullah Ibrahim Al-Suwaidi, with much fanfare and media coverage on 19 May
2015. The press tried to paint some local leaders as supporting OBC, when they
were at the handing over because of the UAE ambassador. Besides divide and rule
tactics OBC use development projects,
such as water projects, to gain support. Roads, bridges, a dispensary, and
schools, like Loliondo Secondary School have been built by the company. Though
some of these projects, like the improvements at Wasso District Hospital and
its guesthouse, are being mixed up with aid from the United Arab Emirates
undertaken by the former ambassador to Tanzania Maj. General Mallallah Mubarak.
OBC's camp was up and running, but nobody thought
there would be guests until after the elections. Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al
Maktoum of Dubai did come for a visit with an entourage of 137 people 24-29
September 2015. Photos of two planes of considerable size at OBC's airstrip
appeared in social media and soon baseless accusations that Sheikh Mohammed
would have been allowed to leave with some giraffes were directed at the
governing party. There hasn’t been any evidence of OBC shipping out live
animals since the 90s and nobody in Loliondo had seen such a thing now, but
this didn't prevent some people – wanting to attack CCM - from trying to pass
off photos of captured giraffes in South Africa and a runaway giraffe in Italy,
both of the wrong subspecies, as were they from Loliondo. Someone also used
photoshop to put a captured giraffe next to Sheikh Mohammed's plane. Some live
animals, giraffes included, were taken to Qatar - not Dubai - in 2010 - not
2015- from Kilimanjaro International Airport - not Loliondo. CCM supporters
countered with claiming that the airstrip was not in Loliondo, but in
Mozambique... Loliondogate seems very
present in Tanzanian minds that have not even noticed the brutal extrajudicial
evictions in 2009, OBC's funding of the draft land use plan that proposed the
1,500 km2 land grab in 2010/2011, or Kagasheki's twisted threats in 2013 that
were revoked by the PM, but still not put in writing.
After the 2015 elections, the new MP for Ngorongoro is
William Olenasha, which is a radical improvement since he has always been very
supportive in the land struggle. Of the “investor-friendly” councillors only
William Alais of Oloipiri remains. The behaviour of the new councillors is yet
to be seen. President Magufuli has so
far not made any anti-pastoralist statements.
The Maasai of Loliondo keep the 1,500 km2 next to
Serengeti National Park. A written version of the PM’s promises from 23
September 2013 is needed, but even with such a document the Maasai would have to
stay vigilant since their land is sought after by many.
Susanna Nordlund
I’ve got most information about the early days from
Navaya ole Ndaskoi, and about later years from various people who do not wish
to be named. There are also some papers, and hundreds of newspaper articles of
varying quality about this issue, many of which will be listed in the longer
version.
To complete the longer version, I need some documents
that I’ve spent years asking for, among other things…
3 comments:
What an incredible analysis? The right of Maasai in Ngorongoro District has been strangled by superior interest groups. The battle against injustice must go on.
Thank you, Moses. Mapambano yanaendelea.
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