When few hours, minutes in Tanzania, remain of this
year 2020, the only thing I can say is, at least Ref No. 10 of 2017,
Ololosokwan Village Council & 3 Others (Kirtalo, Oloirien and Arash) vs the
Attorney General of the United Republic of Tanzania continues in the East
African Court of Justice …
In this blog
post:
The horror of the state of
things
NCAA workshop to incite
journalists against the Maasai of Ngorongoro
Criminal rangers again seizing
cattle on village land in Arash
A reminder of the case in the
East African Court of Justice
After these five years of
lawlessness and repression that has led the whole of Tanzania to resemble the
kind of police state that’s been present Loliondo for too many years, something
terrible should have been expected, but the violent shamelessness with which
the election was stolen was still shocking. As reported earlier in this blog, the
rigging and violence reached Ngorongoro in its worst form when on election day
the police and NCA rangers opened fire at unarmed voters who were protesting
the removal of opposition polling agents to facilitate vote rigging, and 23-year
old Salula Ngorisiolo was killed. Now there’s a court case against the victims
of the murderous election violence, and against the opposition councillor
candidate together with the former councillor (the two weren’t even there at
the polling station). A hearing set for 29th December was postponed until
26th January.
Leaders in Ngorongoro district
have been almost fatally weak the past five years, much the same ones remain,
further weakened and now also very illegitimate. Some are not only weak, but dangerous
people formally employed by some of the worst enemies of the Ngorongoro
pastoralists, like three ward councillors employed by OBC. The worst case is
Ololosokwan where the old councillor used to speak up, and now the new
councillor is OBC’s assistant director …
I hope it isn’t true, but it does
seem like most ward councillors share the MPs bizarre strategy of, outspokenly and
attacking those who say otherwise, pretending that the genocidal MLUM review
proposal, that keeps being insisted on by people in and around the Ministry of
Natural Resources and Tourism, just doesn’t exist, even though it was very
openly announced, written in black on white and all shades of green, and every
protest against it has been met with promises – not of the report being thrown into
the rubbish bin – but of “participatory” amendments to the horror. Though at
least the new district council chairman, the councillor of Endulen, Emmanuel
Oleshangai, has seemed to have a genuine concern about the proposal, even if he’s
a split personality who can one moment express his fear and panic, and the next
moment go out of his way praising the government. Infuriatingly, the vice
chairman is OBC’s community liaison and none other than OBC’s assistant
director is now the chairman of the committee for environment and land.
OBC remain in Loliondo even if
reportedly lying low since their director was locked up for a lengthy stay in
remand prison, but gaining local political influence, and their wishes are very
well catered for in the MLUM review proposal. Thomson Safaris continue
occupying 12,617 acres and nobody dares to speak up about them since several
years. One of the few benefits of the pandemic is that this horrible tour
operator has been hit by it, but according to the extremely scarce reports I
get from Sukenya they are still, without tourists, chasing cattle. The case
concerning their land grab continues in the court of appeal, but information about
it isn’t shared with the villagers (or anyone else), and Thomson are still “befriending”
leaders. I’ve been told that the village chairman sent the court a forged
letter saying that the villagers agree with Thomson’s occupation of the land,
but some young people from Sukenya wrote another letter setting the record
straight.
In Ngorongoro Conservation
Area (NCA) important grazing areas are out of reach since 2017, besides many
other restrictions, including some new ones that I’ll write about later. As
said, since September 2019, people in and around the Ministry of Natural
Resources and Tourism have kept insisting on a Multiple Land Use Model (MLUM) review
report proposing the alienation of most grazing land in NCA, plus most of the
Osero in Loliondo GCA, and wide areas in Lake Natron GCA. This plan is so
insane, practically genocidal, that from the start many people expected the government
representatives to declare it stopped and appear as “saviours”, but it still hasn’t
happened, not even when PM Majaliwa visited Loliondo during the election
campaign, and only mentioned that everything would be so “participatory” …
NCAA
workshop to incite journalists against the Maasai of Ngorongoro
On 28th December,
in a workshop arranged by the Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority (NCAA) for
editors and senior journalists and headed by the Permanent Secretary to the Ministry
of National Resources and Tourism, Aloyce Nzuki, these journalists were
instructed to use their pens to increase the numbers of foreign tourists to
Tanzania. I would be surprised if climate change was even mentioned by the “conservationists”
unless to incite against pastoralists. Actually, it later surfaced that the journalists
were told about a “bright roadmap” for Ngorongoro including a new airport,
petrol station, and investment in multiple new tourist accommodations.
At first there were reports
that Nzuki and Chief Conservator Manongi would have refused to discuss the mass
eviction zoning proposal of the Multiple Land Use Model review report, but according
to an article in the government-owned Daily News on the 29th, it
seemed like drumming up the urgency to implement this genocidal proposal became the main topic of the workshop, advocated for by all officials, and according to the newspaper a big percentage of attendees supported mass evictions. The main
argument is to create a population panic. Population has increased in
Ngorongoro as in the rest of Tanzania, but included in the number are those
who, like Manongi himself, have moved in to benefit from the wild streams of
money from tourists that want to experience the world attraction that
Ngorongoro has become with the Maasai living there, in their home. Maasai Rights, a website by anonymous people setting the record straight about the MLUM review proposal has
already responded to the population panic argument.
 |
| Chief Conservator Freddy Manongi at the workshop. Photo: John Bukuku |
Fortunately, the new district
council chairman, Emmanuel Oleshangai, at least spoke up in social media about
the Manongi workshop, even if he very much directed his lamentation about “the
power of money and the use of media to tarnish the reputation of the innocent civilians
of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area” towards the Chief Conservator
personally. The chairman mentions that journalists have been paid 700,000 TShs
to co write false news and share cooked reports with the aim of convincing the
government that NCA is in danger, while not mentioning the construction of
luxury hotels in critical areas. The chairman mentions that they have built a
hate narrative, but that no lie lasts forever. He adds that population isn’t
static anywhere, Tanzania included, and then he directs his words towards Chief
Conservator Manongi, asking him to leave, since he has only brought lies, hatred,
and abuse, and fired local people without due process. He ends the message
with, “#Ngorongoro ni yetu, wenyeji siyo tasa, wanahitaji Maisha mazuri na siyo
wakimbizi #Manongi go home soon: umeshindwa kazi, one sided stories hazina
faida kwa jamii hii.”
Refreshing as it is to see the
new chairman speaking up after all terror and silence, the problem isn’t
Manongi alone. It’s everyone in and around the Ministry of Natural Resources
and Tourism, international conservation, not least the UNESCO, “investors”, and
others. Nobody from the government has spoken up against the genocidal
MLUM review proposal, and many local leaders, the MP and deputy minister included,
are pretending that it doesn’t even exist! There’s a lot of work to be done.
I hope to soon be able to report
about strong reactions against this anti-Maasai workshop.
 |
| Spot OBC's journalist here ... Photo: NCAA |
Update: the anti-Maasai
newpaper the Jamhuri published articles about the workshop in their 5th
and 12th January issues, and after having published this blog post,
I found video of OBC’s big defender Manyerere Jackton at the event, inciting against the Maasai.
Criminal rangers again seizing cattle on village land in Arash
Around 18th
December large herds of cattle, goats and sheep were illegally seized by Serengeti
rangers on village land in the Lolchoki are of Arash. I’ve been having problems
getting details, and will have to return to this issue. The rangers demanded
huge fines to release the livestock. Apparently, the owners, who I’m told weren’t
getting any support from the passive councillor, raised money from relatives to
engage journalists in reporting this crime (this is how things are done in
Tanzania …), and some villagers met reporters in Karatu on the 20th
and in Arusha on the 21st. In all the horror it was encouraging that
people, during times like these, dared to do something, and I was expecting
full information via media, but there wasn’t anything published or broadcast. The
livestock were released – reportedly without losses – on the 23rd,
and apparently there were “negotiations” with Tanzania National Parks (TANAPA)
that didn’t want any media coverage.
As known, this was far from
the first time rangers illegally seized cattle on village land to drive them
into the national park and demand fines. It also happened during and after the illegal
mass arson invasion of village land in 2017, and in 2018 when soldiers were –
among other crimes - seizing cattle to assist OBC, the rangers were initially
reticent after having been told off by Kigwangalla the previous year, but soon
joined in, and tortured some sheep owners from Arash, which had a horrible
impact.
An analyst has told me that
this kind of extortion has for decades been common in districts where pastoralists
are minority. That it happens in Ngorongoro with a huge majority of pastoralists
in the district council shows that something is very wrong with the governance
of this district.
A lid seems to have been put
on information about this illegal seizing of livestock, but I hope to be able
to return with more information.
The
case in the East African Court of Justice
On 16th November, three
of the respondent’s (government side) witnesses – DC Rashid Mfaume Taka, SENAPA
park warden, Julius Francis Musei, and SENAPA geographic information systems
officer, Ali Kassim Shakha – were finally cross examined. I haven’t seen any video
or transcripts, but reportedly it all went very well. Though exposing such
perjurers who so thoroughly have documented their own lies can’t have been too
difficult. The coming months the applicants (the villages) and the respondent
(Tanzania’s attorney general representing the government) will file written submissions.
Ref No.10 of 2017 concerns
important Maasai dry season grazing land bordering Serengeti National Park, in
villages of Loliondo division of Ngorongoro District. The loss of this land would
lead to destruction of lives and livelihoods far beyond the applicant villages,
and logically to increased conflict with neighbours, since there isn’t any
alternative empty land to go to, except for the National Park. This land
belongs to the four applicant villages (and a couple of other villages), since
they in the 1970s were registered under the Village and Ujamaa Villages Act,
then in 1982 under the Local Government (District Authorities) Act, and then
got further protection as village land belonging to the village assembly (all
adult villagers) managed by the village council under Village Land Act No.5 of 1999.
Eviction from this land is in complete contravention and violation of the
Constitution of the United Republic of Tanzania, Village Land Act 1999,
Wildlife Conservation Act, 2009, and the Treaty for the Establishment of the
EAC.
The Tanzanian government has
for many years been under pressure to evict the Maasai, not least as Otterlo
Business Corporation (OBC), that organizes hunting for Sheikh Mohammed of
Dubai, has the hunting block (the right to hunt) in Loliondo GCA (more than the
whole of Loliondo division) since 1992, and would prefer not to have people and
livestock in their core hunting area next to Serengeti National Park.
The close relations between
the “investor” OBC and the representatives of the central government (the
successive DCs, DEDs, Immigration officials etc) have led to a local police
state in which anyone who could speak up against OBC and another “investor”
(the American Thomson Safaris that claim ownership of a 12,617-acre “Enashiva
Nature Refuge”) has been called to the Ngorongoro security committee,
threatened, defamed, illegally arrested, and accused of being “Kenyan”. This
police state has worsened considerably the past five years.
In 2009, the government, via
an order from the DC’s office, implemented by the Field Force Unit assisted by
OBC rangers, conducted an extrajudicial mass arson operation in the disputed
area, in which multiple human rights crimes were committed. Among other crimes
thousands of cattle were dispersed during an extreme drought, and 7-year old
Nashipai Gume from Arash was lost in the chaos, and hasn’t been found ever
since.
A draft district land use
plan, funded by OBC, proposed turning their 1,500 km2 core hunting area into a
“protected area” that would restrict other human activities than hunting and
tourism. This plan was rejected by Ngorongoro District Council in 2011, and
thereafter parts of the government, not least through successive ministers of
natural resources and tourism, have sought to bring back this plan for land
alienation and eviction, but this has so far not succeeded.
In 2013, Minister Kagasheki,
in a vociferous and outrageously misleading way (pretending that the whole of
Loliondo would be a protected area and the Maasai “landless”), tried to
implement the land alienation proposal from the rejected land use plan. Due to
local unity and support from both opposition and ruling party, Kagasheki was
defeated by the Maasai, and PM Pinda declared that they were safe on their
land.
Thereafter, with Minister
Nyalandu, the government and the investors focused on further divide and rule,
trying to – with success in some cases - buy off the local leaders.
In 2016 repression had worsened
considerably with several illegal arrests and malicious prosecution to silence
everyone. The insane accusations were of “espionage and sabotage” for having
communicated with me. OBC, and OBC loyal press, especially the vicious Manyerere
Jackton of the Jamhuri weekly newspaper, tried to stir up a sense of urgency,
and PM Majaliwa set out to “solve the conflict” tasking Arusha RC Gambo with
setting up a select committee. Minister Maghembe, and his ministry with all its
parastatals, very aggressively campaigned for OBC’s preferred proposal.
Much weakened and terrified
local leaders presented a compromise proposal (a WMA, not supported by many
villagers, and there were violent protests) in which human activities would be
restricted while the land would still belong to the villages. When this
compromise proposal was adopted by the RC’s committee and presented to the PM
it was celebrated as a victory by local leaders.
On 13th August 2017,
when everyone was waiting for the PM’s decision, village land was unexpectedly
to most local people again brutally and extrajudicially invaded as in 2009.
Hundreds of bomas were burned, there were beatings, illegal seizing and auctioning
of cattle, and herders were illegally arrested. Village centres became
congested with people and livestock. Those returning after the arson were
brutally beaten by the rangers who also destroyed makeshift shelters and blocked
access to water sources. Women were raped by the rangers. The last day of the
illegal operation some rangers shot 80 cows in Arash. This illegal operation
was officially ordered by the Ngorongoro DC, Rashid Mfaume Taka, and
implemented by Serengeti National Park rangers, assisted by NCA rangers, OBC rangers,
local police, and others.
The brutality continued unabated despite of interim orders by the Commission for Human Rights and Good Governance (a government organ), and it wasn’t stopped until 26th October 2017. On 21st September 2017, the villages of Ololosokwan, Kirtalo, Oloirien, and Arash filed Ref No. 10 of 2017 and Application No. 15 of 2017.
During the illegal operation,
Minister Maghembe – when talking to the press – was pretending that the 1,500
km2 would have been converted into the protected area proposed in the rejected
land use plan, and that it was the reason for the operation. DC Rashid Mfaume
Taka and Maghembe’s Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism, on the other
hand, were saying that the operation was taking place in a 5-kilometre wide and
90-kilometre long “border area” (obviously on village land) to prevent herders
from entering Serengeti National Park, and that it didn’t have anything to do
with the fate of the 1,500 km2 that the PM was to make a decision about (even
if it was the same land). To the OBC loyal press (NGO ya Uingereza yamjaribu
Magufuli, Jamhuri, 12-09-2017) DC Rashid Mfaume Taka was saying that 89 bomas
had been burned inside Serengeti National Park and 241 bomas or ronjos in the 5
km wide “border area” (village land). Nobody was at this time claiming
that the operation would only have taken place in the national park. That’s an
“afterthought”, and obviously a lie, that the government side came up with in
2018.
Kigwangalla was appointed as
new Minister of Natural Resources and Tourism on 7th October 2017
and on 26th October 2017 he stopped the illegal operation.
Kigwangalla also made grand promises, like that OBC would have left before January 2018. The promises were broken and OBC stay.
On 9th November
2017, the government side responded to Ref No. 10 of 2017 via a preliminary
objection that the villages couldn’t sue the government, since they were part
of the same government. This objection was dismissed by the court on 25th
January 2018. “Interestingly”, the government (Attorney General) in this
response pretended that the 1,500 km2 would have been turned into the protected
area wanted by the investor and the ministry, calling it the “Wildlife
Conservation Area” and the “Game Reserve” – when everyone was still waiting for
the PM’s decision!
On 6th December
2017, PM Majaliwa finally announced his decision. It was neither the protected
area from the rejected draft district land use plan that the Attorney General a
month earlier had pretended was already implemented, nor the compromise proposal
by the RC’s committee. The decision was to via a legal bill form a special
authority to manage the land, and it was a big disappointment, celebrated in
the OBC loyal press. Fortunately, the implementation just kept being delayed,
and hopefully forgotten.
The last week of May 2018, local
police led by the acting Officer Commanding Criminal Investigation Division Ngorongoro
District initiated a campaign to derail the case via intimidation against
leaders and common villagers in the villages that had sued the government. The
village chairmen were prevented from attending a court hearing in the East
African Court of Justice, since they had to present themselves at Loliondo Police
Station. Some people who weren’t silenced in 2016 have been “hiding” in fear
since May 2018.
At the hearings in June 2018,
the government’s witnesses introduced a new version of events – differing
sharply from what the Attorney General had claimed in November 2017 – now
claiming that the mass arson operation would only have taken place inside Serengeti
National Park.
In March 2018, a military camp
for some 40 soldiers of the Tanzania People’s Defence Force had been set up in Olopolun
near Wasso “town” in Loliondo. From late June to late August 2018 there were
several incidents of soldiers from this military camp attacking and torturing
people.
On 25th September
2018, the court delivered its ruling on Application No.15 of 2017, and issued
interim orders restraining the respondent from any evictions, burning of homesteads,
or confiscating of cattle, and from harassing or intimidating the applicants.
On 8th November
2018, while OBC were preparing their camp, soldiers started attacking people in
wide areas around the camp, and after a couple of days these soldiers,
assisted by OBC rangers – in flagrant and brutal violation of the interim
orders – burned down bomas in some areas of Kirtalo and Ololosokwan. Beatings
and seizing of cattle continued in some areas, and on 21st December
2018 the soldiers descended upon Leken in Kirtalo and burned 13 bomas to the
ground. The silence by all local leaders during these crimes were among the
most terrifying and infuriatingly disappointing moments of my over a decade of following
the Loliondo land struggle.
In December 2018, the witnesses
from the government side - DC Rashid Mfaume Taka, DED Raphael Siumbu, park
warden Julius Francis Musei, geographical information system officer Alli
Kassim Shakha, and even wildlife officer Nganana Mothi … – swore affidavits claiming that the 2017
mass arson operation would only have taken place in Serengeti National Park.
This was quite outrageous perjury when it was the DC himself who on 5th
August 2017 issued the order for the illegal invasion of village land, and had
been quoted about it both in a statement from the Ministry of Natural Resources
and Tourism and in the OBC loyal press. A map from TANAPA, used by the attackers
during the operation, also clearly shows that most bomas were burned on village
land.
In 2019, after further illegal
arrests in January – this time of people accused of having met me at Olpusimoru
market in Kenya when besides that it wouldn’t have been a crime, I was in
Sweden and they in Tanzania … - there
were some promising developments when the president issued a statement saying
that he wasn’t happy about seeing rural people being evicted for conservation all
over Tanzania (when more information about this statement was revealed it was
proven quite worthless for Loliondo and Ngorongoro) and then OBC were
apparently weakened when their director was locked up for a lengthy stay in
remand prison while being “investigated” for economic crimes.
On 22nd September
2019, what can’t be described in any other way than as a genocidal plan to kill
pastoralism and Maasai culture and life in the whole of Ngorongoro district was
presented at the Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority headquarters. A
multiple land use model review report not only catered to OBC’s wishes proposing
to evict pastoralist from most of the 1.500 km2, and another area in Loliondo
GCA, but to do the same in vast tracts of Lake Natron GCA, and most of
Ngorongoro Conservation Area. Any implementation would obviously be contempt of
court. After protests, the minister has promised “participatory” amendments,
but then the same insane proposal keeps being insisted upon. The proposal, for
its genocidal insanity, was half-expected to be a ploy to be withdrawn during the
2020 election campaign – but even PM Majaliwa when visiting Loliondo on 16th
October 2020 insisted on saying that it would all be “participatory”.
Now, while most local leaders
are using the ostrich strategy, NCAA and the MNRT focus on inciting the press
against the Maasai of Ngorongoro. As far as I know, nothing has been heard from
the new Minister of Natural Resources and Tourism, Damas Ndumbaro.
Obviously, in 2021 the East African
case must be won, and regional and international legal action must be used to
protect the other areas under threat. And let it be the year when the panicked
silence is broken.
Susanna Nordlund
sannsus@hotmail.com
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