Good news has not been as plentiful as I hoped when Maasai representatives (the wonderful Noorkishili Nakero Naing’isa from Ololosokwan, Nengai Kilusu Laizer from Oloirobi, and advocate Joseph Oleshangai from Endulen) spoke truth to power in the EU parliament on 31st May and the councillors rejected the draft district land use plan for crime legitimation. Though on the anniversary of the military attack on Loliondo, several people spoke to media and the seizing of livestock seems to have stopped for a while (and then resumed …), at least in Ololosokwan, even if the stolen land, which is the biggest part of grazing land in Loliondo can only be accessed by its legitimate owners as thieves at night. The Germans are digging in their heels in their defence of their funding and facilitating of crime legitimation and in Joseph Parsambei the Loliondo land rights struggle has got its worst traitor ever.
For several weeks now Tanzanian
online discussions have been totally consumed with a Tanzania-Dubai Inter-Governmental
Agreement that has recently been ratified by parliament. The bone of contention
in the heated discussions is a deal with the Dubai state-owned company DP World
to control Dar es Salaam port, other mainland ports, inland container depots
ports, and related logistical corridor. The contract is indefinite, or
unspecified, and Tanzania shall not, without prior consent of DP World,
undertake any development project upon any of the said ports. Critics of this
deal are being threatened, harassed and arrested, and everyone is talking about
it. There is a connection to Loliondo, but sadly it seems like it has been
reduced to saying that Loliondo was sold to Dubai, as if we were again in 1992.
Remember that in February a
person who by Ikulu, State House, was referred to as "member of the Dubai
royal family" Sheikh Ahmed Dalmook Al Maktoum got a VIP treatment and a
MoU from President Samia, VP Mpango and Minister Chana. Chris Lang of
REDD-Monitor has written about the sheikh’s dubious company that aims to
greenwash the UAE’s massive carbon footprint.
It still feels like a nightmare
that the brutally and illegally demarcated “game reserve”, which the “investor”
OBC for years was lobbying for, does not go away and nobody is punished for abducting
all councillors from affected wards the night before the brutal and lawless
demarcation started and keeping them locked up for over five months, planting beacons
in a rain of teargas and bullets, with beatings, slashings, cuttings, rapes and
arrests. Thousands having to flee to Kenya, hundreds arrested and over sixty charged
with bogus immigration cases that were dismissed – without any attempt at
prosecution - months later, and nobody is held answerable. Destroyed houses,
stolen motorcycles and smartphones, seized and even shot livestock and nobody
is dealt with. Instead, it is celebrated in parliament. Many people are terrifyingly deep in
debt after being illegally fined when their cattle have been seized on the
stolen land for over a year now. Oriais Oleng'iyo – 84-years old at the time - who
was last seen on 10th June 2022, with bullet wounds and held by
security forces, has still not been brought back to his family, and the
enforced disappearance case filed by his son was, as mentioned in last blog
post, dismissed by the judge. There are several ongoing court cases, so many
that it’s hard for me to keep up, but I’m not getting much detail about them.
In Ngorongoro Conservation
Area (Ngorongoro division of Ngorongoro district), that is still mixed up with
Loliondo by too many people, suffocating restrictions and denial of social services
is still the government’s strategy to “convince” the Maasai to relocate to
other people’s land 600 kilometres away in Msomera, Handeni. Though both the
Msomera villagers and the Ngorongoro migrants are increasingly speaking up
about the unsuitability of this relocation. Dehumanizing ranger violence
continues and is sometimes reported. In July, the rangers smashed the teeth of the
child Joshua Olepatorro.
Also areas next to Lake Natron
are under threat, as many times before, and sometimes I’ve written about it,
but now I feel a terrible unease about not keeping up.
This blog post is unacceptably
delayed because of too much and too little information, my lack of focus, and
sadness over the silence.
In this blog
post:
Stolen grazing land and
criminal rangers
Violence in Ngorongoro
Conservation Area (NOT to be mixed up with Loliondo)
The rejected, German
facilitated, fake, and forced land use planning
For a brief reminder of what
the Germans do,
The maliciously misleading and
rejected NDLUFP document, including another Lake Natron threat
Anniversary of the biggest
crime and various people speaking up on the record
A most disgusting budget
speech by Mchengerwa
Amnesty report
Court cases
As always, updates will be
added at the end.
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| This rubbish has been rejected. |
