Parliament
23-24 May
The
Kidupo director
The
Jamhuri again
The
turn of events in the NCA
Summary
for newcomers
In memory of Moringe Parkipuny, today missed for four years.
This blog has been silent for too long and it’s partly
because Loliondo is waiting for Prime Minister Majaliwa to say something about
the 1,500 km2 that the “investor” OBC, some journalists, and parts of the
Tanzanian government, notably the Minister for Natural Resources and Tourism,
want alienated for a protected area. On 20th April the report by Arusha
RC Mrisho Gambo’s select committee – that had been targeted by the PM to find a
“solution” - was finally handed over to PM Majaliwa. Then silence and waiting
has apparently been the mood in Loliondo. Strangely, the report hasn’t been
made public, but it’s known that it recommends a Wildlife Management Area (WMA,
a protected area that still is village land) as the way forward to “solve the
conflict”, which is a kind of defeat, that due to the seriousness of the
situation has been seen as a victory, when the Maasai of Loliondo have managed
to reject a WMA for a decade and a half since it would give more power to
“investors” and the Director of Wildlife, while grazing land would have to be
vacated for the “investor”.
Bunge
(Parliament)
In parliament on 23rd and 24th May,
while discussing the budget of the Ministry for Natural Resources and Tourism, the
Loliondo land issue was a matter of concern, with differing views. Atashasta
Nditiye, chairman of the Standing Committee on Natural Resources and Tourism that
made the most outrageously co-opted visit to Loliondo in March (described in
this blog) presented the usual OBC view that the land had to be “protected”, and
kept repeating the lie about “25 NGOs” that are stirring up conflict and should
be closed down. Maybe those repeating the lies could name any NGO, other than
PWC and Ngonet, that has been heard speaking up for land rights. Even those two
are currently very silent, and their directors were in the RC’s committee that
came up with the compromise proposal. Esther Matiko, shadow minister for
natural resources and tourism presented the opposition view calling into
question the whole contract with OBC, but lacking any deeper knowledge about
Loliondo. The CCM MP for Geita, Joseph Msukuma, harshly attacked his own minister
for natural resources and tourism, Maghembe, for his anti-pastoralist policies,
especially in the lake zone, and reminded of the Standing Committee’s visit to
Loliondo where Maghembe wants to evict the pastoralists to accommodate OBC.
Cecilia Paresso, special seats MP for Chadema, asked
the pertinent questions about where the people the government want to evict in
Loliondo are to go, and if a move anywhere wouldn’t lead to increased conflict.
She also asked what exactly the government’s interest with OBC is.
The
Kidupo Director
In late May, or early June, Gabriel Killel, director
of the since some years back “investor friendly” NGO Kidupo, was imprisoned for
six (or some say three…) months for insulting no other than the Primary Court
Magistrate in connection with the “case of the Ndinoni family” (of which I’ve
been unable to obtain details). Killel had appealed this sentence in the
District Court where a hearing was scheduled for 13th July. These
are not the only cases this NGO director had pending, but there’s another one
for physical assault on the Chadema special seats councillor Tina Timan. Killel
was in late 2014 by this blog revealed as a participant of a delegation to
Dodoma in support of Thomson Safaris and OBC, after which he started
threatening those he suspected of having shared the information. Since then,
his attacks on those speaking up for land rights have gone from bad to worse,
with even appearances in the rabidly anti-Loliondo paper the Jamhuri. On Channel
10 in January Killel took an unprecedented step for a Loliondo pastoralist, and
even for the most ardent defenders of land-grabbing “investors”, of explicitly
agreeing with the alienation of the 1,500 km2 where he has his own cows. The
court cases – some for violence - give further hints of Killel’s mental health,
that will hardly improve in prison, but at least he will be kept away from
doing harm for a while. On the 12th Gabriel Killel was sentenced to one
year in prison for the attack on Tina Timan. Some reported four years, but that
was due to confusion. “Nobody” attended the appeal on the 13th, but
currently one year in prison is what awaits Killel. He’s expected to appeal
this sentence.
The
Jamhuri again
On 27th June (online 30th June)
another one of Manyerere Jackton´s ridiculously malicious articles appeared in
the Jamhuri. This time the “journalist” worked himself into a frenzy about a
human rights lawyer and a filmmaker that had “sneaked into Loliondo to dirty
the image of Tanzania”. Apparently the two were on a very brief visit to help
evaluate the work of Minority Rights Group International that’s assisting with litigation
against Thomson Safaris, and hopefully there is also something being prepared
about the 1,500 km2. I don’t know and I can’t find out… It seems Manyerere too
is getting impatient with PM Majaliwa’s silence and felt an urge to slander the
NGOs – accusations of Kenyan citizenship included – in case the PM’s decision
won’t be as favourable for the hunters from Dubai as this “journalist” so fervently
hopes - and works for - in now over 40 articles.
Another “article” was online on 12th July
and in this one Jackton is ranting about Maanda Ngoitiko of Pastoral Women’s Council
(PWC) being issued with a new passport when the “journalist” thinks she’s
“Kenyan”… I’m sadly not in contact with PWC in any way, but it’s known that
Maanda, at the time of illegal mass arrests and malicious prosecution in July
last year, was arrested when going to Arusha police station to pick up a new
passport. At that time Maanda, and three other people, were charged with the
most bizarre “espionage and sabotage” accusations, for allegedly being in
contact with this blogger. Manyerere Jackton now worries that Maanda has been
issued with a new passport in Dar es Salaam while being investigated in
Ngorongoro, and not having proven that she’s Tanzanian. The question is how one
proves such a thing when it’s not enough to be born and bred in Tanzania, and
having held a Tanzanian passport 2006-2016, the number of which Jackton in his
usual style provides us with, and which hardly even wasn’t Maanda’s first
passport. Obviously, the only way to prove that you’re “Tanzanian” to the
Jamhuri is to sing the praise of foreign companies that endanger pastoralist
land rights…
I too am mentioned in the article, as a prohibited
immigrant that would have been helped by NGOs to enter Loliondo to do
“incitement”. Just like everything else, this is not true. I still need help,
and my blog is still very much needed to set the record straight. All help is
more than welcome.
The
turn of events in the NCA
This blog is about Loliondo, but developments are
extremely worrying in Ngorongoro Conservation Area. Freddy Manongi, the
Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority chief conservator, has been planning
with frightening secrecy and speed a census of pastoralists and livestock within
the area and issuing of IDs to be used as entry permit for “legitimate area
residents of Ngorongoro Serengeti prior to the 1959 Serengeti eviction” as well
as marking the livestock found in the area. It’s widely feared that such a
non-participatory census will be misused by authorities known for regularly
expressing wishes for “reducing” humans and cattle. This issue has also been
raised in the parliament mid-May by Tundu Lissu (Chadema MP for Singida East
Constituency and oppositional chief whip) who described the residents of NCA as
extremely poor in contrast to any other part of the country because of the
restrictive policies against them.
“Despite
a host of guarantees after Serengeti colonial eviction and protective laws, the
people of Ngorongoro face a battle for survival they are scarily close to losing”, tells an NCA source, who now is anonymous, just like
those from Loliondo before they went silent… Last year, there were reportedly
secret directive dispatches to displace the inhabitants of the NCA by the
government for the benefit of tourism when several letters to implement the project
finally got viral before execution. “The
residents of NCA have suffered a long war of attrition to evict them and
thereby destroy their way of life. Where would they be relocated? Certainly
unknown, but the authorities do suggest it may be Jema or Loliondo all now
under threat of land alienation by the same regime”.
The NCA officials have lately been requiring the NCA
residents to show identity cards (never issued to them) for entry in the NCA. Due
to poverty attributed to the NCA policies and restriction for inhabitants’
development, about 90% of young men from Ngorongoro are said to be roaming
along cities inside and outside Tanzania seeking security work, and it’s not
known if they will be registered when the census project commences. The rushed
project certainly will not include the residents in the census itself as the
recruitment of the field personal was confidential and only made public after
deadline. Worse is expected by the residents that fear the census will not only
be done to get the appropriate NCA indigenous resident but attempt to justify
eviction. The newly appointed NCAA Board, that undemocratically governs
Ngorongoro Conservation Area (instead of the more or less representative
village governments), has only one NCA resident representative. It’s been
explained to me that, “the tragedy facing
the inhabitants of the NCA is not about the ravages of unpredictable Nature. It
is about flawed conservation theories, and irresponsible governance of both the
NCAA Board and the Central government while inhabitants do not have any say.
The injustice in Ngorongoro must be stopped.”
The dry season is very bad indeed this year, and grazing
in Serengeti National Park is fined with 50,000 Tshs per head of cattle…
Again
the Summary of the threat against the 1,500 km2
Remember:
That all land in Loliondo is village land per Village
Land Act No.5 of 1999, and more than the whole of Loliondo is also a Game
Controlled Area (of the old kind that doesn’t affect human activities and can
overlap with village land) where OBC has the hunting block. Stan Katabalo –
maybe Tanzania’s last investigative journalist - reported about how this
hunting block was acquired in the early 90s.
In 2007-2008 the affected villages were threatened
into signing a Memorandum of Understanding with OBC.
In the drought year 2009 the Field Force Unit and OBC
extrajudicially evicted people and cattle from some 1,500 km2 of dry season
grazing land that serve as the core hunting area next to Serengeti National
Park. Hundreds of houses were burned and thousands of cattle were chased into
an extreme drought area which did not have enough food or water to sustain
them. 7-year old Nashipai Gume was lost in the chaos and has not been found,
ever since.
People eventually moved back, and some leaders started
participating in reconciliation ceremonies with OBC.
Soon enough, in 2010-2011, OBC totally funded a draft
district land use plan that proposed turning the 1,500 km2 into the new kind of
Game Controlled Area that’s a “protected” (not from hunting) area and can’t
overlap with village land. This plan, that would have allowed a more “legal”
repeat of 2009, was strongly rejected by Ngorongoro District Council.
In 2013, then Minister for Natural Resources and
Tourism, Khamis Kagasheki, made bizarre statements as if all village land in
Loliondo would have disappeared through magic, and the people of Loliondo would
be generously “gifted” with the land outside the 1,500 km2. This was nothing
but a horribly twisted way of again trying to evict the Maasai landowners from
OBC’s core hunting area. There’s of course no way a Minister for Natural
Resources and Tourism would have the mandate for such a trick of magic. After
many mass meetings – where there was agreement to never again enter any MoU
with OBC - and protest delegations to Dar es Salaam and Dodoma, then Prime
Minister Mizengo Pinda in a speech on 23rd September the same year
revoked Kagasheki’s threat and told the Maasai to continue their lives as
before this threat that through the loss of dry season grazing land would have
led to the destruction of livelihoods, environmental degradation and increased
conflict with neighbours.
Parts of the press – foremost Manyerere Jackton in the
Jamhuri – increased their incitement against the Maasai of Loliondo as “Kenyan”
and governed by destructive NGOs. OBC’s “friends” in Loliondo became more
active in the harassment of those speaking up against the “investors”, even
though they themselves don’t want the GCA 2009, and rely on others, the same
people they persecute, to stop it…
Speaking up against OBC (and against Thomson Safaris,
the American tour operator claiming ownership of 12,617 acres, and that shares
the same friends as OBC) had always been risky, but the witch-hunt intensified
with mass arrests in July 2016. Four people were charged with a truly demented
“espionage and sabotage” case. Manyerere Jackton has openly boasted about his
direct involvement in the illegal arrests of innocent people for the sake of
intimidation.
In July 2016, Manyeree Jackton wrote an “article”
calling for PM Majaliwa to return the Kagasheki-style threat. In November 2016
OBC sent out a “report” to the press detailing the need for the alienation of
the 1,500 km2 of important grazing land. In mid-December 2016, the Arusha RC
Mrisho Gambo was tasked by the PM with setting up a committee to “solve the
conflict”, and on 25th January 2017 the Minister for Natural
Resources and Tourism, in the middle of the drought stricken Osero, flanked by
the most OBC-devoted journalists, and ignoring the ongoing talks, made a
declaration that the land had to be taken before the end of March. In March
2017 Minister Maghembe co-opted a Parliamentary Standing Committee, and then
the RC’s committee started marking “critical areas” while being met with
protest. On 21st March a proposal for a WMA was presented by the RC’s
committee, handed over to PM Majaliwa on 20th April, and we are
still waiting to hear something from the PM.
Susanna Nordlund
sannasus@hotmail.com
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