In this blog post:
The
interview on Kwanza TV
A
reminder of the spectacular U-turn
Summary of developments of the past decades
Summary of developments of the past decades
Update: I’ve since 10th November been
hearing reports about beatings and evictions in wide areas around OBC’s camp, in
serious violation of the interim orders, and will publish a blog post as soon
as I’ve got more details.
On 31st October, Kwanza TV aired a lengthy interview with the Minister of Natural Resources and Tourism, Hamisi Kigwangalla, and in this interview he talked about Loliondo for a few minutes. As known by followers of this blog, almost exactly a year ago Kigwangalla made the most splendid promises about Loliondo, including promising that OBC would have left before January 2018. Then sadly he made a complete U-turn that I’ve also written about in several posts. In advance, Kwanza TV had been asking the public to submit questions for the minister. The question I submitted wasn’t asked though… “Mh @HKigwangalla, tufanyeje na”syndicate”ya OBC inayotesa wananchi Loliondo?Ulilisemea hili mwaka jana, hata kuahadi OBC ingaliondoka kabla ya 2018! Tunafahamu ulishabadilika kuhusu OBC. Umebadililika pia kuhusu mkurugenziMollel uliesema alitaka kukuhonga? @kwanza_tv #chukuahatua” (translation: what should we do about OBC’s syndicate that persecute people in Loliondo? You talked about this last year, even promising that OBC would have left before 2018! We know that you have changed about OBC. Have you also changed about director Mollel who you said wanted to bribe you?) I hope it didn’t sound like I believe that Kigwangalla accepted Mollel’s supposed offer. I think his reason for throwing the Maasai of Loliondo under the bus are far more ambitious and long-term than US dollars 100,000, or 200,000 into his pocket.
Instead,
the part about Loliondo was introduced by a question about who has the hunting
blocks in Loliondo and if they government considers them beneficial for the
country’s economy. Kigwangalla started by saying that there’s only one hunting
block (there was actually Loliondo North and South, but now there’s been one
“investor” since 1992/1993) that’s the whole 4,000 km2 Loliondo Game Controlled
Area. Kigwangalla correctly states that this includes towns and the district headquarter,
and that it’s registered village land, but he adds that his ministry also
considers it a protected area, and that the cause of conflict would be
conflicting laws. No, it’s definitely not a protected area, and the cause of
conflict isn’t that it could legally be turned into such, but that it’s
what parts of the government, for many years openly lobbied by OBC, and maybe
less openly by others, want it to become, which would lead to the destruction
lives and livelihoods – and logically increase conflicts with neighbours,
since the Maasai would have to go somewhere else - by taking away important dry
season grazing from people who already lost huge areas with the creation of
Serengeti National Park. Though “conflict” is hardly the correct word when one
side uses defamation, threats, violence, illegal arrests, and malicious
prosecution to totally silence anyone who could speak up on the other side. Blinding
injustice and extreme repression would be more exact. Kigwangalla
adds that water catchments for several rivers critical for the survival of
Serengeti National Park are found in Loliondo, that people can do whatever they
want with their land, and that this is a problem since there are many people
and livestock.
The
minister also mentions that the Wildlife Conservation Act of 2009 calls for the
separation of village land and Game Controlled Area within 12 months of it
coming into operation. He claims that former Minister Kagasheki decided to turn
1,500 km2 (known as the osero, or bushland where OBC have their core hunting
area) into Game Controlled Area and 2,500 km2 into village land, but that the
Maasai refused, and since then there has been a conflict back and forth. Kigwangalla briefly mentions that OBC hunt on the 1,500 km2, and that the company is owned
by people said to be princes from Dubai… Kigwangalla incorrectly adds (or lies, since he knows this very well) that
people don’t live in the 1,500 km2 and pretends to be unaware of the importance of the
area for pastoralism. WCA 2009 came into effect in June
2010. Before that, in the catastrophic drought year 2009 OBC’s rangers assisted
the Field Force Unit illegally evicting thousands of people, burning their
houses in the 1,500 km2, and dispersing cattle into extreme drought areas while
committing many other horrible crimes, and 7-year old Nashipae Gume was lost in
the chaos and is yet to be found. Then, as Mollel boasted about to the
press, OBC funded in its totality 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 area, prohibits human activities, and can’t overlap with village
land. The land use plan was strongly rejected by Ngorongoro district council in
early 2011. Kagasheki didn’t make his land grab move until 2013, and it
consisted of shameless lies that the whole 4,000 km2 would mysteriously have
become a protected area, and the Maasai were “landless” people who would be
gifted with 2,500 km2. Eventually, after many meetings, protest delegations to
Dar es Salaam and Dodoma, and support for the Maasai from both opposition and
parts of the ruling party, the then PM Pinda in a speech in Wasso on 23rd
September 2013 declared that the land belonged to the Maasai that should go on
with their lives as before Kagasheki’s threats. Sadly, after 2013 everything
went downhill with increased divide and rule, eventually extreme repression
that silenced almost everyone, and in 2017 another illegal operation with mass
arson, and many other human rights crimes.
Kigwangalla
continued, index finger moving in the air, describing the 1,500 km2 as place
where over 600,000 wildebeest calves are born each year. That's not correct
and sounds like one of the estimates for calves born in the Serengeti migration
each year, and while there’s some calving in the osero, most are born in the short
grass plains of the Ndutu area of Ngorongoro Conservation Area and southern Serengeti. The
minister made no effort to explain the critical importance that the 1,500 km2
osero has for the Maasai, but seemed to imply that they simply are stubborn.
Most
frightening was Kigwangalla’s description of the planned chombo maalum, special
authority, announced by PM Majaliwa on 6th December 2017, but then
fortunately delayed. He explained that the government’s plan is that the whole
of the old Loliondo GCA (4,000 km2, more than the whole of Loliondo division,
including Sale division) is to be turned into a “Loliondo Special Conservation Area”,
under the Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority (NCAA), and that the people will
be involved, and so will photographic and hunting investors. The investors,
especially those least respectful of land rights (OBC and Thomson Safaris)
hardly need more influence when they already get the service of slander, persecution
and arrest of anyone who could even think of criticizing them… I’ve spent three
nights in police cells myself, and the servants of investors in September this
year so intensely wanted a Belgian woman to be me that she had to spend several
nights arrested until her fingerprints “sadly” were found not to match mine. Local
people suspected of being able to speak up have been illegally arrested for longer
periods, among other harassment. Kigwangalla says that a legal bill will be prepared for this “LSCA”
that will be placed under the Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority (NCAA). For
Loliondo, the Ngorongoro Conservation Area is a horror image of what should
never be allowed to happen to them, since people living under the almost
colonial rule of the NCAA aren’t allowed to practise subsistence cultivation,
and are being excluded from one grazing area after the other. Malnutrition
among children in NCA is much worse than in Loliondo.
The
court case brought by four Loliondo villages to the East African Court of
Justice isn’t mentioned by Kigwangalla, but this case will stop any dangerous “LSCA” idea.
Then
the interview moves on to another Loliondo issue, away from the osero, Loliondo
Forest One in Orgosorok and Oloirien-Magaiduru wards, not far from Loliondo Town. The bigger former Loliondo Forest Two in Enguserosambu is a community forest. As far as I've understood, the forest is more relevant when talking about water catchments than is the osero. The reporter reads a
question sent by a villager, “Msitu wa
#loliondo one ni msitu uliopo chini ya halmashauri ya wilaya ya #Ngorongoro.
Kwa miaka uharibifu umekua mkubwa mno. Jamii imehamasika kuhifadhi kama msitu
wa jamii. Je si wakati muafaka kuukabidhi kwa jamii?” (Translation: Loliondo
Forest One is a forest under the Ngorongoro District Council. For years
destruction has been bad. The community has mobilized to conserve it as
community forest. Isn’t it time to hand over it to the community). This makes
Kigwangalla and the reporter giggle, the minister says, “Pole, ole”, and
explains that the current movement is away from the community and to central
government, that even in his home district Nzega community forests become
deserts, and the government will not hand over Loliondo One to the community.
A reminder of the spectacular U-turn
Hopes
were raised when in a cabinet reshuffle on 7th October 2017
Kigwangalla replaced Maghembe as Minister for Natural Resources and Tourism. An
illegal operation, officially ordered by DC Rashid Mfaume Taka, funded and
implemented by Tanapa/Senapa, had started on 13th August 2017,
hundreds of houses were burned to the ground, cattle were being seized, people
beaten and illegally arrested, water sources blocked, and women raped by
rangers - while some leaders, notably the previously much trusted MP, stayed
silent. This violent attack came “unexpectedly” at a time when everyone was
waiting to hear a decision from PM Majaliwa. In late 2016, after increased
repression with the aim to silence everyone in Loliondo, and a report by OBC
complaining to the ministry about the Maasai, Majaliwa had tasked the Arusha RC
Gambo with “solving the conflict”. Gambo set up a select, non-participatory
committee that was to reach a proposal that had to be either a Game Controlled
Area as in Wildlife Conservation Act 2009 which is complete land alienation, or
a Wildlife Management Area (WMA), that’s still nominally village land but hands
more power to investors and government, and had been resisted for a decade and
a half in Loliondo. Minister Maghembe, like the leaders of parastatals under
his ministry, was strongly for a GCA 2009 and showed up in the osero in January
2017, together with the “journalist” Manyerere Jackton, who by now has written
over 50 articles inciting against the Loliondo Maasai, to declare that the
1,500 km2 had to be taken before the end of March, and then in March he took a
standing parliamentary committee on a Loliondo tour that was so co-opted that several
members complained to the press about being used to rubberstamp the minister’s wish
to hand the land to OBC. Though OBC weren’t alone in wanting to take the land
away from the Maasai. Serengeti Chief Game Warden Mwakilema told the Standing
Parliamentary Committee on Land and Natural Resources that German funds for a
Serengeti Ecosystem Development and Conservation Project were subject to the
approval of the land use plan that would alienate the 1,500 km2 of important
grazing land next to Serengeti National park. Mwakilema’s words led to big
protests against both OBC and the Germans, 600 women marching in Wasso, and
the district council decided not to accept the money, which consequently wasn’t
signed by district chairman Siloma. These weren’t the only protests, but the
RC’s committee when on a tour to mark “critical areas” was met with almost
violent protest in village after village. Though by this time all local leaders
were already in favour of a WMA, as a lesser evil, and they saw RC Gambo as
their “only ally”. On 21st March 2017 the RC’s committee through
voting reached the proposal of a WMA, which at this time was seen as a
victory, on 20th April the proposal was handed to Majaliwa, and a
long wait to hear the PM’s decision started – and was then interrupted by
massive human rights crimes.
The
crimes continued unabated despite an interim stop order by the government organ
Commission for Human Rights and Good Governance, and the silence by some
leaders (not all) was shocking and demoralizing. A 21st September
the case against the government was filed in the East African Court of Justice
by the villages of Ololosokwan, Kirtalo, Oloirien and Arash, and on 7th
October came the good news that Maghembe had been removed in the cabinet
re-shuffle.
At
first, Kigwangalla seemed like a disappointment. A very brief mention of
Loliondo in his inauguration speech on 9th October 2017 sounded like
he had already been fed a story by OBC’s friends. At a public meeting in
Ololosokwan on 11th October the Maasai pleaded with Kigwangalla to
come and visit them to hear their side of the story instead of listening to
rumours, but things kept deteriorating, and on 19th October 2017 Kigwangalla
issued the most bizarre letter ordering cattle and tractors from “outside the
country” to leave Loliondo within seven days, or they would be nationalised,
and claimed to have been “informed” about 200 Kenyan tractors! To make matters
worse, on 12th October an article by the spokesperson (who sadly
passed away in a road accident in August 2018 in which Kigwangalla was injured)
for the Ministry for Natural Resources and Tourism was published, in which he
argued for a return of the Kagasheki-style land alienation threat.
Hopes
were again raised when in a meeting with tourism stakeholders on 22nd
October, Kigwangalla said that hunting blocks with conflict, like Loliondo and
Lake Natron, would not be renewed until the conflicts were solved. The same day
surfaced a timetable for a visit by Kigwangalla to Loliondo on 26th – 27th October
2017, but meetings with the victims of the ongoing illegal operation didn’t
seem to be anywhere in this timetable.
Kigwangalla’s
visit to Loliondo went beyond all expectations. On 26th October,
after meeting with the Ngorongoro Security Committee that was deeply involved
in the ongoing human rights crimes, Kigwangalla held a public meeting in which
he stopped the illegal operation and ordered the release of cows not involved
in any court case. Though the minister was overly diplomatic and didn’t show
any understanding of power relations saying said the problem isn’t solved by
one side using guns, but at the same time mentioning that the other side using “harsh
words” doesn’t solve anything either and must be stopped. The following day, 27th
October 2017, after a tour of areas of interest, Kigwangalla held a meeting in
which he declared that OBC’s hunting block wouldn’t be renewed and that the
company would have left by January 2018. By this time, Kigwangalla was a hero
in Loliondo.
On
4th November 2017 Kigwangalla returned to Loliondo on a surprise
visit and the following day surfaced information that he would have fired the
Director of Wildlife, Alexander Songorwa, on suspicions that Songorwa would
have shared secret government information with the press and made up stories to
incite conflict in Loliondo. In a video of Kigwangalla in Loliondo that’s still
online he strongly and clearly declares that he’s going to clean up his house.
Rangers from Klein’s gate had worked for the “investor”, invading village land,
and they would be transferred. Kigwangalla says he had witnessed a syndicate at
the service of OBC and that this reached all the way into his ministry. He had
directed the Prevention and Combating Corruption Bureau to investigate OBC for
corruption, starting with questioning the director, Isaack Mollel, who had been
boasting everywhere about having bribed his predecessor with 200,000 US
dollars, while saying that 100,000 would be enough for this little boy
Kigwangalla. "Siwezi kujaribiwa nasiwezi kuchezewa, siko hapa kwa bahati mbaya" ("I can't be tested,
and I can't be played with, I'm not here by chance") is the title of the
video on Youtube.
Though
OBC never showed any signs whatsoever that they were packing. In social media
OBC’s assistant director (a local traitor) told me his employer was there to
stay and that I would have a heart attack, while OBC’s PR officer (Mollel’s
brother) informed me that, "OBC is waiting for you to come and pack them
off".
On
13th November 2017 Kigwangalla announced that he had received a
delegation headed by the German ambassador and that the Germans were going to
fund community development projects in Loliondo, “in our quest to save the
Serengeti”. Alarm was raised in Loliondo that the district chairman would have
signed secretly, which some already had suspected. The chairman denied having
signed, but said that he would since he fully supported the idea that wasn’t
any threat to the 1,500 km2, in which he was joined by the Ngorongoro MP who on
14th November said he had checked with Kigwangalla that the funds
were for the whole 4,000 km2 area, not excluding the 1,500 km2. The Serengeti
Ecosystem Development and Conservation Project is to be implemented by none
other than the Serengeti National Park Authority that implemented the massive
human rights crimes of 2017, and by Frankfurt Zoological Society that’s been
lobbying against Maasai land rights since the 1950s!
On
6th December, PM Majaliwa announced his disappointing and
frightening decision that a “special authority” was to be set up to manage the
land, but his information was so vague that nobody was sure what it really
meant. Clearer was that he said that OBC was staying, but Mollel would be
investigated for corruption. For a while, some people kept saying that Mollel
would be replaced, but as of now, a year later, he stays put as OBC director.
For months, Kigwangalla kept silent about what had happened to his big and loud
promises.
On
13th December 2017, the CCM secretary general (now retired) and
OBC’s old friend Abdulraham Kinana, visited Kigwangalla’s Nzega Rural
constituency where he handed motorcycles to CCM workers together with the
minister.
On
5th February 2018, Kigwangalla explained the matter in a Whatsapp
group:
“1.
Mollel is history. Taratibu za kuondolewa na kampuni yake zinaendelea.
2.
Loliondo kwenye new structure will need OBC, Thomson &Beyond na wawekezaji
wengine zaidi! So tumeona ni busare tujipange upya.
Only
Mollel ni kwikwi.”
(1.
Mollel is history. Procedures by his company to have him removed are ongoing.
2.
Loliondo with the new structure will need OBC, Thomson, &Beyond and more
other investors! So we saw it wise to arrange ourselves anew.
Only
Mollel is troublesome.)
This
message made the threat of a special authority all the more frightening, since
it would “need” investors with zero respect for land rights.
Kigwangalla
refused to comment anything in open social media until 23rd March,
when photos from a hunting trip by Sheikh Mohammed of Dubai, his crown prince
and an entourage were being shared on a fan page of the crown price. He
welcomed the hunters and asked them to be ambassadors for Tanzania. To a
question about what the government is doing to protect Loliondo, Kigwangalla
said that there isn’t any “sin” in hunting, since the hunters follow the law
and bring business and employment to Tanzania, and people in Loliondo aren’t
abused. The opposition politician Zitto Kabwe asked, “Hawa sio OBC
uliowafukuza? Ama?” (Aren’t those OBC that you drove away? Or?), and
Kigwangalla’s reply to him was:
“Hawa ni
wateja wa OBC. Tunafanya restructuring ambapo tutaanzisha mamlaka maalum ya
eneo la Uhifadhi la Loliondo, wananchi watabaki na ardhi yao na pia watahitaji
wawekezaji. Uchunguzi wa kina umebaini shida siyo wawindaji, ni kiburi cha
baadhi ya staff wao na presha ya malisho!”
(These
are OBC’s clients. We’re doing a restructuring in which we will start a special
authority for a protected area of Loliondo, people will keep their land and
they will also need investors. Comprehensive investigation has revealed that
the problem isn’t the hunters, it’s the arrogance of some of their staff, and
the grazing pressure.)
In
a brief video shared by fans of the Dubai crown prince, his father Sheikh
Mohammed was seen in the company of Abdulrahman Kinana, just as when Stan
Katabalo was reporting in 1993 when Kinana was minister of defence, the same
office as Sheikh Mohammed was holding at the time. Now he’s Vice President and
Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates, and Ruler of of Dubai.
Some
people in Loliondo had been so convinced that Kigwangalla was genuine that they felt
sorry that he had to bow to the pressure from his superiors. I had already
seen his behaviour as deputy minister of health.
On
19th April 2018 OBC’s assistant director, handed over 15 Toyota
Landcruisers to the acting Director of Wildlife, Nebbo Mwina. Mwina said that
the government recognised the continued important contributions by OBC, wanted
them to continue developing the long-time relationship, and not despair because
of “underground talk” (maneno ambayo yanasemwa Chini chini). James Wakibara,
director of the Tanzania Wildlife Authority (TAWA) also wanted to thank OBC,
and especially the company’s director who couldn’t attend…
On
10th May the Ministry for Natural Resources and Tourism issued a
crazy statement on an ambitious report about Loliondo, that unfortunately
contained some important mistakes that are not being corrected, prepared by the
Oakland Institute. The report got significant media coverage, but this wasn’t
used at all by the silenced Loliondo activists. The ministry’s statement denied
any wrongdoing, or that the illegal operation would even have taken place, and
adds that measures to solve the conflict are underway, involving all "stakeholders". Oakland’s
intention is described in the classic way as wanting to smear mud on the government,
and create dispute between the government, the local community, and investors, with intent to cause breach of peace.
When
asked about corruption investigations on BBC Swahili, Kigwangalla quickly
brushed it off and said that he didn’t know if anyone is conducting such
investigations, and then continued talking about the committee that the PM
ordered the Arusha RC to set up and how very participatory it was. On Twitter, Kigwangalla
reacted by having a meltdown insulting people (not least myself) and going to
the extreme of claiming that nobody had ever lived in Loliondo GCA … and saying that the government had a solution
that’s acceptable unanimously by all parties …
Later
in May there was a vicious intimidation campaign, with multiple arrests,
against the applicants of the case in the East African Court of Justice. By this
time everyone was so intimidated that at first nothing was heard about the
abuse. And in late June to late August there were several incidents with
soldiers attacking and torturing people. In Ololosokwan apparently targeting
those that had many cattle, and in Sukenya people that were accused of
instigating others to graze on the land occupied by Thomson Safaris. The soldiers, that set up a
military camp in Olopolun in March 2018, are newcomers to violence and abuse in
Loliondo.
For
a long time, the only good news was that nothing was heard about Majaliwa’s
“special authority”, and it kept being delayed. Some had heard that the 1,500
km2 osero would be placed under NCAA, which added fears. In April there was a
secret meeting attended by village and ward leaders, and NGOs, to come up with
a “friendlier” proposal than the government’s, which was a strange thing to do
when there’s an ongoing court case to stop any such thing, but as far as I
know, nothing has come out of this. In his budget speech for the 2018-2019
financial year Kigwangalla mentioned that his ministry had prepared a draft for
a management strategy for Loliondo Game Controlled Area. As far as I know (which
maybe isn’t far at all in this case), nobody in Loliondo saw this draft. The
German funds were also in the speech. And, now in the interview on Kwanza TV he
said that more than the whole of Loliondo would be placed under NCAA as “Loliondo
Special Conservation Area”. This must obviously be stopped.
The
ruling by the East African Court of Justice on 25th September ordering
interim measures restraining the Tanzanian government from any evictions,
burning of homesteads, or confiscating of cattle, and also from harassing or
intimidating the applicants, was good news indeed, even if there also was some
confusion in the ruling. Hopefully, there will soon be a mechanism set up for
reporting any violations. Then the case must be won.
Susanna
Nordlund
Summary of developments of the past
decades
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. By 2018 there does no longer seem to be journalists of any kind.
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, the 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 destructive, “Kenyan” and governed
by corrupt 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 calling for the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism to
intervene against the destructive Maasai. 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 Loliondo leaders’ “only ally”, RC Gambo’s, committee
started marking “critical areas” while being met with protests in every
village. German development money that the standing committee had been told was
subject to the alienation of the 1,500 km2 was – after protests by 600 women –
not signed by the district chairman. On 21st March a compromise
proposal for a WMA (that had been rejected in Loliondo for a decade and a half)
was reached through voting by the RC’s committee, then handed over to PM
Majaliwa on 20th April, and a long wait to hear the PM’s decision
started.
While
still waiting, on 13th August 2017 an unexpected illegal eviction and arson
operation was initiated in the Oloosek area of Ololosokwan and then continued
all the way to Piyaya. Beatings, arrests of the victims, illegal seizing of
cows, and blocking of water sources followed. Women were raped by the rangers.
Many leaders stayed strangely and disappointingly silent.
The
DC and the Ministry of Natural Resources explained the illegal operation with
that people and cattle were entering Serengeti National Park too easily, while
Minister Maghembe lied that the land was already the “protected area” wanted by
OBC and others.
There
was an interim stop order by the government organ Commission for Human Rights
and Good Governance (CHRAGG), but the crimes continued unabated.
A
case was filed by four villages in the East African Court of Justice on 21st
September 2017.
When
in Arusha on 23rd September, President Magufuli collected protest
placards against Maghembe, OBC and abuse, to read them later.
On
5th October 2017 the Kenyan opposition leader, Raila Odinga, (who had met with
people from Loliondo) told supporters that his friend Magufuli had promised him
that all involved in the illegal operation in Loliondo would be fired.
In
a cabinet reshuffle on 7th October Maghembe was removed and Hamisi
Kigwangalla appointed as new minister of Natural Resources and Tourism.
Kigwangalla
stopped the operation on 26th October, and then made it clear that
OBC’s hunting block would not be renewed, which he had already mentioned in
Dodoma on the 22nd. On 5th
November, he fired the Director of Wildlife and announced that rangers at
Klein’s gate that had been colluding with the investor would be transferred.
Kigwangalla emphasized that OBC would have left before January. He talked about
the corruption syndicate at their service, reaching into his own ministry, and
claimed that OBC’s director, Mollel, wanted to bribe him, and would be
investigated for corruption. However, OBC never showed any signs of leaving.
Kigwangalla
announced in social media that he on 13th November received a
delegation headed by the German ambassador and that the Germans were going to
fund community development projects in Loliondo, “in our quest to save the
Serengeti”. Alarm was raised in Loliondo that the district chairman would have
signed secretly, which some already had suspected.
On
6th December, PM Majaliwa announced a vague, but terrifying decision
to form a “special authority” to manage the 1,500 km2 osero. He also said that
OBC would stay. Manyerere Jackton celebrated the decision in the Jamhuri
newspaper. Further information and implementation of this “special authority”
has fortunately been delayed, even if it was mentioned in Kigwangalla’s budget
speech on 21st May.
Sheikh
Mohammed, his crown prince, and other royal guests visited Loliondo in March
2018, and Kigwangalla welcomed them on Twitter. Earlier, in restricted access
social media, Kigwangalla had been saying that OBC weren’t a problem, but only
the director, Mollel, and that Loliondo, with the “new structure” needed more
investors of the kind.
An
ambitious report about Loliondo and NCA, with massive media coverage (and some
unnecessary mistakes) was released by the Oakland Institute on 10th May
2018, and Kigwangalla responded by denying that any abuse had ever taken place,
and threatening anyone involved with the report. He went as far as denying the
existence of people in Loliondo GCA.
In
May-June 2018 there was an intimidation campaign against the applicants in the
case in the East African Court of Justice, and silence became worse than ever.
From
late June to late August 2018 there were several incidents of soldiers from a
military camp set up in Olopolun in March the same year attacking and torturing
people.
On
25th September 2018 the East African Court of Justice ordered
interim measures restraining the government from any evictions, burning of
homesteads, or confiscating of cattle, and from harassing or intimidating the
applicants.
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