Ngorongoro
has a new DC after the human rights criminal and perjurer Rashid Mfaume Taka has
been retired. I must remind of the crimes committed by the old DC, but know
very little about the new one. On 27thJune, the Ngorongoro councillors
issued a statement about the land conflicts in the district. This is an
improvement that I must write about. As feared when I was writing the latest
blog post, at least 35 MPs visited Ngorongoro. As usual, this post could have
been published several days ago.
In this blog post:
A
reminder of the crimes committed by former DC Rashid Mfaume Taka
Tourism
by parliamentarians, and soldiers
A reminder of
the crimes committed by former DC Rashid Mfaume Taka
On 19th June,
President Samia Suluhu Hassan made rearrangements in her team of district
commissioners. The Ngorongoro DC, human rights criminal and perjurer Rashid
Mfaume Taka, was retired, and the new DC is Raymond Stephen Mangwala, former secretary general of the CCM Youth Wing, UVCCM.
A district commissioner (DC, mkuu
wa wilaya) is the highest representative of the central government in the
district and is hand-picked by the president. The DC heads the District
Security Committee that includes the District Administrative Secretary, Officer
Commanding District (head of police), Commanding Officer of the Tanzania
People’s Defence Force units in the District, District Security Officer (chief
spy), District Immigration Officer, District Militia Advisor, and District
Prisons Officer. Some would say that there hasn’t been much of a change in
attitude since DCs were appointed by the colonial governor to control the
natives in every corner of the territory. Others, or everyone actually,
recognise securing the hegemony of the ruling CCM party as the main duty of a
DC. However, in Loliondo the Ngorongoro DC even more than controlling local
people on behalf of president and party, does so on behalf of the investors
Otterlo Business Corporation (OBC) that organize hunting for Sheikh Mohammed of
Dubai and lobby to turn their 1,500 km2 core hunting area into a protected area
and the American Thomson Safaris that claim to be the owners of a 12,617-acre
private nature refuge that they occupy. Anyone suspected of being able to
criticize these “investors” has been interrogated by the Security Committee,
threatened, defamed, called a Kenyan, or illegally arrested. Intimidation and
human rights crimes worsened considerably during Rashid Mfaume Taka’s time in
the district, which was under the presidency of John Pombe Magufuli, who had appointed
him.
Rashid Mfaume Taka’s arrival
in Loliondo in 2016 coincided with a wave of lengthy, brutal and bizarre
arrests of people accused of having communicated with me (this blogger). The
aim was obviously to intimidate everyone into silence, sadly not without
partial success that in 2018 would become total. Initially it was believed that
Mfaume Taka, who had a background as a university lecturer, was a new kind of
more civilized DC and that he wasn’t involved in the arrests that – among
others – were supposed to have been planned by his predecessor, the ignorant and
thuggish Hashim Mgandilwa, a special task force from Dar es Salaam, and the
“journalist” Manyerere Jackton, who at least boasted about being very involved
indeed, as did the local NGO coordinator Gabriel Killel.
Later in 2016 and the first
part of 2017, when PM Kassim Majaliwa had tasked RC Mrisho Gambo with setting
up a select committee to “solve the conflict” concerning the 1,500 km2 that
OBC, people in and around the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism, and
others, wanted converted into a protected area, it was already clear that
Rashid Mfaume Taka wasn’t any better than previous DCs. In fact, the severely
weakened local leaders that reached a compromise proposal in the form of a WMA,
which would have been unthinkable a year earlier, talked about RC Gambo, not at
all about the DC, as their “only ally” and this ally had some serious
limitations that would soon be shown when insulting villagers for protesting
the WMA idea, and later when not saying one word while village land was invaded,
and massive human rights crimes committed.
In August 2017, Rashid Mfaume
Taka was confirmed as a human rights criminal. On 13th August 2017,
Serengeti and Ngorongoro Conservation Area rangers, assisted by OBC rangers,
anti-poaching squads, local Loliondo police, and others set fire to five bomas
in Oloosek, on village land and far from the national park. The rangers said
they had orders to remove livestock, housing and people from the 1,500 km2 that
OBC, Minister Jumanne Maghembe, and others wanted to alienate from the
villages. The illegal operation would go on for over two months and hundreds of
bomas were razed from Ololosokwan to Piyaya. There were beatings, illegal
seizing and auctioning of cattle, herders were illegally arrested and taken to
Mugumu at the other side of the national park. Village centres became congested
with people and animals. 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. There was terror and panic
everywhere, and painful disappointment with the inaction of some leaders.
Local leaders claimed to have
been caught by surprise, and that they had only heard about an operation to
remove people and livestock from Serengeti National Park. After all the hard
work by activists and some local leaders another illegal mass arson operation,
like the one in 2009, should not have been possible, but in 2017 everyone was
weakened and more or less silenced after the local police state had worsened, while
a police state at national level had developed.
Soon appeared publicly an
official letter from DC Rashid Mfaume Taka, dated 5th August 2017.
In this letter the DC orders the removal of livestock and housing from
Serengeti National Park, and “bordering areas” (village land). The order does
of course not have any legal ground at all and should have been taken to a
court of law as soon as being received. Another letter, written on behalf of
the Chief Park Warden of Serengeti National Park, William Mwakilema, to Rashid
Mfaume Taka on 4th August, was also shared in social media, and
revealed that the Ngorongoro Security Committee, headed by the DC, on 23rd
June 2017 ordered the Serengeti National Park management to plan the operation
to remove livestock from the park, and “from the boundary”. The letter also
informs the DC that funds for the implementation have been obtained and that
the TANAPA leadership had approved the operation.
On 17th August
2017, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism issued a press statement
explaining the “removal of cattle and housing from Serengeti National Park
and the boundary of Loliondo Game Controlled Area”. Quoting the words of
the DC it’s explained that the operation in Loliondo GCA would take place on a
90 km stretch from north to south and with a width of 5 km – which means
village land and is a confession of crime in an official document.
In OBC-friendly press (Matinyi, Operesheni Loliondo yapotoshwa, 21.08.2017) the DC was quoted saying that the operation was not about removing people from the 1,500 km2, since the PM had not yet made his decision about that issue. Though the same article quotes Maghembe talking about the 1,500 km2 Loliondo “Game Reserve”, as if OBC’s land use plan would have been approved and implemented. In an article (NGO ya Uingereza yamjaribu Magufuli) by OBC’s journalist Manyerere Jackton (who when he’d thought Mfaume Taka was a more civilized kind of DC had been slandering him) was after the DC ordered the illegal operation quoting him as someone telling the truth. The DC is in the article quoted as saying – as is also shown by a map prepared by TANAPA for the operation - that 89 bomas had been burned inside Serengeti National Park and 241 bomas or ronjos in the 5 km “border area” (village land). The DC and the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism were saying that village land had been invaded because people were entering the national park too easily, while Maghembe went on unquestioned for 30 minutes on Azam tv showing the map from the land use plan rejected in 2011, pretending that it had been implemented and that the Maasai had invaded their own land.
Despite of protests by a
section of local leaders that had not yet been silenced, a court case filed by
four villages in the East African Court of Justice (still ongoing) and even an
interim order by the government organ Commission for Human Rights and Good Governance
(demanding a stop to the evictions and the government to explain the operation),
the illegal operation wasn’t stopped until 26th October 2017, a
couple of weeks after Maghembe in a cabinet re-shuffle had been replaced with
Kigwangalla.
In September 2018, more
illegal and thoroughly bizarre arrests were ordered by Rashid Mfaume Taka. A
Belgian nurse who had attended the wedding of the secondary school teacher
Clinton Kairung was “accused” of being me and had to spend several days in
police cells together with the groom, until Immigration in Arusha could confirm
that her fingerprints didn’t correspond with mine.
Despite of officially himself
having ordered the illegal invasion of village land in 2017, and despite of
being quoted about this in the statement from the ministry and in the OBC
friendly press, in December 2018 Rashid Mfaume Taka swore an affidavit for the respondent
(government side) in the case in the East African Court of Justice claiming
that the 2017 operation would only have taken place inside Serengeti National
Park! This wasn’t the respondent’s first lie. The initial response by the state
attorney was more in line with the lies by Minister Maghembe during the illegal
invasion talking about some “Wildlife Conservation Area” or “Game Reserve” that
just doesn’t exist.
Soldiers from the Tanzania
People’s Defence Force that since March 2018 had been stationed in Loliondo had
for a couple of months been attacking and torturing various group of people
when they in November the same year started chasing away people of cattle from
areas around OBC’s camp that was being prepared for guests, and then went on to
setting fire to bomas in areas of Kirtalo and Ololosokwan. There hadn’t been
any kind of official order for this crime, and terrified local leaders who thought
it had been ordered by the president, did at this point of national terror not
dare to speak up in any way. Some of them went to ask the DC for the reason of
the violence, but Rashid Mfaume Taka just denied any kind of knowledge. When
the arson committed by soldiers resumed on 22nd December 2018 in the
Leken area of Kirtalo where 12 or 13 bomas were burned to the ground, the DC
had changed his attitude and wrote a Whatsapp message saying he had been
informed while out of the district, was sorry about what had happened and had
commissioned a team to go to the area. He assured people that there was not any
“operation” and that they should go on with their economic activities. In
mid-January 2019, RC Gambo made a vague, contortionist, statement against the
arson, and after that local leaders started saying that it was OBC’s director
Isaack Mollel who directly contracted the soldiers, and not the president.
Though I haven’t found anyone who doesn’t think that the DC was in on it.
On 7th January
2019, DC Rashid Mfaume Taka again ordered the arrests of the secondary school
teachers Clinton and Supuk whom he’d developed a habit of arresting, and Supuk
wasn’t saved even by having returned to CCM. They were kept locked up until the
13th while being denied access to lawyers and family. The “reason”
for these arrests – that coincided with the visit to the district by RC Gambo -
was having met with me at Olpusimoru market in Kenya on 6th January
2019, which both had not happened and obviously isn’t a crime. None of us had
been there, since I was in Sweden and Clinton and Supuk were in Tanzania. Two
people from Mondorosi were also arrested: Manyara Karia, former chairwoman of
Pastoral Women’s Council (PWC), and Kapolonto ole Nanyoi from Enadooshoke.
Manyara had attended a meeting at the Nanyoi boma for traditional and practical
preparations after the death of an old man, but “someone” had reported that it
was an uchochezi (sedition) meeting with white people present, and Kapolonto
was picked for being the closest relative of the boma owner who was fit enough
and available to be arrested. Onesmo Olengurumwa of Tanzania Human Rights
Defenders Coalition assisted by sending lawyers, contacting media, and making a
statement. As far as I know, this was the last time Clinton and Supuk were
arrested, and they were later promoted to school inspectors.
On 17th February 2019,
a team of seven cabinet secretaries from different ministries came to Loliondo
to inspect the 1,500 km2 Osero and report back to the ministers. Rashid Mfaume
Taka celebrated the victory of terror declaring that unlike on other occasions
of such visits, there wasn’t any kind of manifestation at all.
Ngorongoro division wasn’t
spared by this DC. On 16th April 2021 – while Ngorongoro people
continued under the threat of the genocidal MLUM review proposal since it was announced in September 2019 - eviction notices from the Ngorongoro Conservation Area
Authority were made public. In these notices, dated 12th April 2021
– and referring to a decision of 4th March by the Ngorongoro
Security Committee that’s chaired by DC Rashid Mfaume Taka - 45 families
accused of returning to Ngorongoro after being relocated to Jema in Sale
division in 2006 were ordered to leave Ngorongoro within 30 days from the day
the notice was issued. Further, more than a hundred house owners, accused of
building their houses without a NCAA permit were ordered to demolish them in 30
days at their own cost. On the list were even government buildings, like
several primary schools, dispensaries, village offices, a food store, a milk
project office, a village veterinary’s house, a maize grinding machine, and
even the police station and lockup at Endulen. Other buildings were two
churches, a mosque, a Pentecostal nursery school, and a Catholic pre-and
primary school. A third group of
approximately 174 other families accused of being illegal immigrants is listed
in the notice. While not clearly stated, it was assumed that they too were
ordered to leave.
After protests, this time even
by the otherwise shockingly silent MP William Olenesha whose house was on the
list, already on 20th April, a letter signed by chief conservator Freddy
Manongi himself revoked the eviction and demolition orders until further
notice. The reason for this was in the withdrawal letter stated as that the
notices caused confusion in the community, even though they did not concern
anyone who hadn’t returned to NCA after being relocated or built a house
without a permit. Still, on 5th May, Ngorongoro DC Rashid Mfaume
Taka was interviewed on Star tv and continued arguing for the evictions of
those who had returned from Jema.
Not much is known about Raymond
Stephen Mangwala, except that his background is as secretary general of the CCM
Youth Wing, and that he has been observed using thuggish rhetoric against the
opposition, which for the past few years has been regarded by many as a way to
popularity and influence. Some think we could be in for something much worse
than Rashid Mfaume Taka. I’m not so sure. Regardless of background and character,
anyone appointed as DC, especially in Ngorongoro, will turn into a sinister and
ridiculous figure. The way forward is through a new constitution that does away
with colonial relicts. Meanwhile, and always, everyone must stay vigilant and
speak out against all abuse, as soon as its is observed, and this requires a
significant break from the fear and silence of these past years.
On 27th June, the
Ngorongoro councillors’ meeting was attended by reporters from ITV and Azam tv,
and the councillors issued a statement about land conflict in Sale, Ngorongoro,
and Loliondo division. Apparently, this somewhat promising initiative was
initiated by the council chairman Emmanuel Oleshangai. Those seen speaking in
news clips, besides the council chairman, are Ibrahim Sakai, councillor of
Engaresero, Yohanes Tiamisi, councillor of Kakesio, and Shutuk Kitamwas, vice
chair of the important but almost fatally compromised Pastoral Council.
The statement explained the
legal status of the villages and said that the decision to announce the
position of the councillors was based on Minister Ndumbaro’s budget speech on 4
– 5th June, in which he stated that the Ministry had approved the
construction of access gates (for collecting fees) to NCA, Loliondo GCA and
Lake Natron. Judging by the minister’s explanation, it’s obvious that land use
and perhaps ownership are changing, said the statement, while reminding of that
the people of Ngorongoro depend on this land for their cultural and economic
life, and recognising that its richness in wildlife is an asset to the nation.
The statement explained that
the councillors are saddened by hearing such words from the minister without
any previous notice, and by seeing that there’s still a conspiracy to seize
village land. They are sad that despite of the fundamental community arguments
against the Multiple Land Use Model review proposal, the minister is still
arguing for evicting people and controlling land management in Ngorongoro
division.
Further, the statement said
that the councillors are saddened that the minister approves the construction
of access gates on village land in Loliondo when people are still waiting for
feedback from the PM’s committee formed in 2016 to address the Loliondo land
conflict.
Then the statement expresses
further sadness that the minister approves the recommendations by the Multiple Land
Use Model team to annex Lake Natron and Mount Lengai to NCA without the consent
of relevant village and district authorities. The councillors are saddened
because the people of the Sale Division, and especially the Lake Natron basin,
have complained about their land being invaded by the NCAA, TAWA, and hunting
companies, without being heard.
The statement says that the
councillors don’t oppose the good intentions by the government of preserving
and developing their natural resources, as long as the law and the interests of
the local community are taken into account.
The councillors see that this
move by the Minister of Natural Resources and Tourism to interfere with the use
of village land has a direct impact on the lives of the people of the villages
and disrupts community life, as it does not comply with land and local
government laws.
The councillors urge the government
to implement the following:
1. The Minister of Natural
Resources and Tourism should immediately (mara moja, I enjoyed seeing these
words again) suspend the implementation of the recommendation by the MLUM team
of alienating areas of Lake Natron and Loliondo as it was not participatory and
did not care for the public interest.
2. The Minister of Natural
Resources and Tourism should abandon the idea of installing gates on village
lands or changing the use of village lands.
3. Information on PM Majaliwa’s
committee on the resolution of the Loliondo land dispute should be made public
to the people of the Loliondo and Sale Division in Ngorongoro district.
4. The Minister of Natural
Resources and Tourism should respond to the public regarding the land dispute
over the Lake Natron basin and the encroachment on the area by the NCAA.
5. The Minister of Lands,
Housing and Human Settlements Developments should issue a statement on the
survey of villages in Ngorongoro district, to remove disputes that lead to
endless conflicts between land users.
6. The Ministry of Natural
Resources and Tourism should initiate a process of free and participatory
dialogue with all stakeholders to find lasting solutions to land disputes in Ngorongoro
district.
This statement is certainly a
move in the right direction by the councillors, moving towards the surface
after having hit rock bottom in 2018 and crawled beneath the bedrock at
election time in 2020. There have been several statements against the genocidal
MLUM review proposal by councillors and other leaders from Ngorongoro division,
and also statements from Lake Natron (Engaresero), but Loliondo leaders, apart
from a weak joint statement by all councillor early on, have buried their heads
deep into the sand. It should be remembered that the MLUM proposal is to turn
most of Ngorongoro division into either no-go zones for (local) people and
livestock, or areas with restricted grazing, while squeezing most residents and
their animals into small, waterless areas, and to annex areas of the Lake
Natron basin and Loliondo to NCA, turning most of OBC’s core hunting area into
a no-go zone for people and livestock while allowing hunting, exactly according
to what the hunters have been lobbying for, causing so much suffering.
Regarding PM Majaliwa, in
December 2017 he announced his terrible and disappointing decision to through a
legal bill, form a special authority to manage the disputed land in Loliondo.
This was vague and then the years passed without further information, or any implementation
(which isn’t possible anyway, since there’s an ongoing court case with interim
orders). In September 2019, the even more terrible proposal by the MLUM review
team was announced by chief conservator Manongi. Both Kigwangalla and Ndumbaro
have, when meeting with leaders from Ngorongoro, promised to do the MLUM review
afresh and in a participatory manner, but then they just forget about those
promises.
I wish the statement had
repeated the call to revoke the appointment of NCAA chief conservator Manongi.
It’s been heard in statements from Ngorongoro division, even if some erratic
and heavily compromised leaders will then invite Manongi to ceremonies as were
he their friend.
OBC are back to business as
usual in Loliondo. Talking about being compromised, three councillors work for
these UAE hunters that befriend all district officials, turning Loliondo into a
police state, funded the draft district land use plan proposing turning the
1,500 km2 Osero into a protected area to evict the Maasai landowners, and for
whose benefit there have been several mass arson operations and such terrible
violence. I wish OBC had been mentioned in the statement. I also wish that
Thomson Safaris had been mentioned, but their critics have been hiding for
years.
I can’t see that Ndumbaro’s
words in the budget speech were so much worse than what has repeatedly been
heard from the government. The difference must be that it’s easier to stand up and
breathe when you have a more even-tempered president, and political prisoners
are being released. The cheering of PM Majaliwa, who didn’t have any good news
about the land at all, after his visit just before the elections was among the
most demented things I’ve experienced. The silence, by all councillors, about
how police and NCA rangers on election day opened fired at unarmed voters who
were protesting the shameless election theft, killing Salula Ngorisiolo, will
never be forgotten, at least not by me.
Nobody else is to be seen, so
it is these councillors who most stop the land alienation plans, and now they
are doing something.
Tourism by parliamentarians,
and soldiers
On 30th June, after
finalizing a meeting in parliament, 35 MPs flew to Ngorongoro together with the
Deputy Minister of Natural Resources and Tourism, Mary Masanja. This is seen as
part of chief conservator Manongi’s efforts at engaging parliamentarians in his
war against the Maasai. Unfortunately, the NCAA has enormous funds for this
war. It was reported that in a few days, there was to be a meeting between the NCAA, the
Pastoral Council, and Ndumbaro, but I have not yet heard that such a meeting
would have taken place.
Not only MPs have engaged in
domestic tourism and indoctrination (which has hardly been paid from their own
fat salaries, I’m told, but from NCA revenue while NCAA policies lead to
malnourishment) but soldiers from the Tanzania People’s Defence Force (JWTZ)
recently did the same, as reported by Tanzanian media on 5th July, increasing
their “patriotism” purportedly learning about the wonders and ”challenges” of
Ngorongoro. For those who remember the unpunished human rights crimes committed
by these soldiers when employed by OBC in 2018, or the murder of Yohana
“Babuche” Saidea in 2019, their visit is almost as worrying as that of the MPs.
Unsurprisingly, as reported by this blog at the time, in 2020, the NCAA contributed
funds for the construction of a permanent military camp in Lopolun in Loliondo.
We are watching.
Susanna
Nordlund is a working-class person based in Sweden who since 2010 has been
blogging about Loliondo (now increasingly also about NCA) and has her
fingerprints thoroughly registered with Immigration so that she will not be
able to enter Tanzania through any border crossing, ever again. She has never
worked for any NGO or intelligence service and hasn’t earned a shilling from
her Loliondo work. She can be reached at sannasus@hotmail.com
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