Partial Victory for the Maasai of Loliondo in the High Court and the Tanzanian Government Responds with the Most Destructive Contempt of Court, but Now at Least Some Criminals are Sued

 

On 19^th September the High Court in Arusha declared that the 1,502 km² brutal land theft called “Pololeti Game Controlled Area” in Loliondo was null and void for lack of consultation and for having been replaced by a “Pololeti Game Reserve” declared by the president. Besides that the same lack of consultation (including the abduction of all councillors of affected wards on the eve of the brutal and unlawful military demarcation attack) applies to the game reserve, it has its own court case with a court order to stop all operation until determination of the case. The relative independence shown by the court was a pleasant surprise, but it should not have come as a surprise that the Tanzanian government is lawless, issued a statement with its own “interpretation” of the ruling, increased harassment and threats, and after a brief reprieve, returned to seizing cattle and the situation is dire. Now those most directly involved, with concrete evidence of contempt of court, have been sued in their personal capacity, including DC Raymond Mwangwala.

 

The Tanzanian government, funded and facilitated by Germany (the Germans should not be allowed to get away with this …) continues its efforts to legitimize the massive, brutal and unlawful land theft.

 

The 77th Ordinary Session of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights is currently being held in Arusha and the journalist and activist Odero Charles Odero has there been harassed about his citizenship for speaking up about Loliondo and Ngorongoro. Then the ACHPR has been questioned for its government commandeered visit early this year and for not finishing its report. 

 

In Ngorongoro Conservation Area - not to be mixed up with Loliondo - restrictions and illegal suffocation of every aspect of life continue at the same time as incessant government propaganda to make the Maasai relocate. The people that following protests in Endulen were mass arrested are now harassed by having to report at Karatu Police Station every four days. The NCAA has again denied adulterated replacement salt, for which there were laboratory result already almost two years ago. At least it seems like the horrible chief conservator Freddy Manongi is finally retiring.

 

Almost every issue mentioned in this blog post needs to be written about in its own long blog post …

 

Where is Oriais Oleng’iyo?

The criminals just keep escalating their crime. When I had finally posted this blog post I got reports that TANAPA rangers had seized hundreds of cattle in the 1,500km2 area and driven them to Serengeti by force!

Updates at the end of the blog post. 

In this blog post:

The ruling - Miscellaneous Civil Cause No. 21 of 2022

The government’s malicious interpretation of the ruling

Grazing and violence after the High Court ruling

At last sued for contempt of court!

Odero harassed about citizenship at ACPHR session – with good events and traitors

Continued pressure for German-funded crime legitimization

The Germans MUST be sued for their relentless facilitation of violent dispossession

We also have the cases in the East African Court of Justice

Brief Loliondo hunting block background

Briefly about the 2022 threats leading up to the brutal and illegal demarcation

Briefly about the brutal and illegal demarcation of an illegal "game reserve"

NCA, bye bye Manongi, and the government again denies well-documented adulterated salt, UNESCO again

Apologies and reflexions on very long and horribly delayed blog posts

 

The ruling - Miscellaneous Civil Cause No. 21 of 2022

On 19^th September 2023, in the High Court in Arusha, Judge Joachim Tiganga read the ruling in Miscellaneous Civil Cause No. 21 of 2022, the judicial review challenging former Minister of Natural Resources and Tourism Pindi Chana's Government Notice (GN) No.421, of 17^th June 2022. This GN was signed a week after the start of the brutal and lawless military attack on Loliondo that on legally registered village land demarcated a protected area and evicted the Maasai from 1,502 km² of important grazing land. Chana, in GN No.421 declared this land as a “Pololeti Game Controlled Area”. Then the GN No.421 was publicly announced by the minister in a government propaganda Zoom seminar on 22^nd June 2022, the day before she participated in a military celebration of the violent and illegal demarcation. This ruling very clearly establishes that the “Pololeti Game Controlled Area” is null and void. The written version (available on 30^th September) reduced my positive impression, since there isn’t any trace of empathy for people who’ve suffered enormous dispossession, violence, and upheaval of lives and livelihoods.

 

The main point was that the court determined that there was no consultation when establishing the “Pololeti GCA”, when the law requires consultation with relevant authorities, which in this case are the 14 affected village governments and village assemblies, the eight wards, and the district council. This can’t have been hard to determine for any judge who’d like to maintain a minimum of credibility. On 9^th June 2022, on the eve of the launch of the illegal military attack on Loliondo, all councillors of affected wards, except one who fled, were abducted, charged with murder for a killing that took place the day after their abduction and locked up in remand prison, without a single court hearing, only postponements, until the case was dismissed by the Director of Public Prosecution on 22^nd November 2022. The latest message for PM Majaliwa before the attack was on 25^th May 2022 via “community recommendations” that the PM had requested and that clearly called for a stop to any plans of alienating the 1,500 km², investigations into human rights violations, and the removal of OBC. Many Tanzanian government officials and diplomats told the demented lie about “amicable agreement”.

 

The court also established that the disputed 1,502 km² area is wholly falling within village land, and that this is unchallenged by the government. This is not difficult to establish. Besides the obvious customary tenure for centuries, the villages have certificates of registry to show. The land was owned and used by the Maasai before and during colonial times under customary ownership, which was recognized by the Land Ordinance of 1923. In the 1970s the villages in Loliondo and Sale were registered under the Village and Ujamaa Villages Act, 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. However, the Tanzanian government has been lying rather wildly about this issue, in their efforts to accommodate OBC’s (and others more discreetly) lobbying for turning their core hunting area into a protected area.

 

Some, just some, of the government’s varying lies:

LIE: In 2013, Minister Kagasheki made a vociferous attempt at lying that the Maasai were landless, that the 4,000 km² Loliondo Game Controlled Area, which includes two towns, the district council headquarters and the DC’s office, would be a protected area, and that evicting them from the 1,500 km² lobbied for by OBC, and squeezing them into the 2,500km² with towns, district headquarters, agricultural areas, forest reserves and an American land grab, in reality would signify generously gifting them with this 2,500 km². This lie was stopped by PM Pinda, who recognized that the land was village land, and told the Maasai to go on with their lives as before Kagasheki’s threat. (Unlike what everyone is writing these days, there was NOT any evictions operation in 2013. Only a nasty attempt.)

 

LIE: During the illegal mass arson operation of 2017 Minister Maghembe was pretending that at some undisclosed point the 1,500 km² would have been turned into a protected area and that this area would have been invaded. At the same time the Ngorongoro DC and a statement from the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism were not denying the village land but said that the aim of the operation was to remove the Maasai from a border area, since they otherwise could enter Serengeti National Park “too easily”, and that it didn’t have anything to do with the 1,500 km², about which PM Majaliwa was to make a decision.

 

LIE (fortunately): In December 2017, PM Majaliwa announced his terrible decision, not denying that the 1,500 km² was village land, but saying that a legal bill would be prepared to place the management of the area under a “special authority”. Fortunately, there never was any legal bill.

 

LIE: The government’s first response to the 2017 case in the East African Court of Justice was the Attorney General lying that the 1,500 km² would at some unknown point have become some kind of protected area. Then the lie was changed to pretending that the mass arson had taken place in Serengeti National Park, when the government’s own documents show that the overwhelming majority of bomas were burned illegally on village land.

 

LIE: In 2022, for the military operation with brutal land demarcation, the concerted lie by all government officials and diplomats, was the most crazy terra nullius lie, saying that Loliondo had never since time immemorial been inhabited and that the British in 1951 declared it a protected area, which after independence was “invaded” by the Maasai – some foreign diplomats, during the brutal military attack against the Maasai, giggled stupidly when Minister Ndumbaro “reminded” them of this – and later extended to a lie about the Germans and 1891.

 

LIE:  Miscellaneous Civil Cause No. 21 of 2022, and its applications, was on 4^th November 2022, responded to by wildlife conservation officer Emmanuel Daniel Pius, saying that the demarcation was carved out of the 4,000 km² Loliondo GCA that he claimed had been a “reserved area” since 1951, and that the villagers have never used the 1,502 km² or been harassed by the respondents, but that the reason for the demarcation was “persistent encroachment” and increase in human population pressure, grazing, agriculture and settlement. Then he said that “Pololeti GCA” doesn’t involve the applicants’ villages, since those are outside the demarcated area, without explaining where the villages are if the whole 4,000km² has been a protected area since 1951. He claims “consultation and participation leading to consensus” regarding the 1,502 km² reserved area and 2,498km² (where the DC’s office – like colonial officers’ for decades before 1951, when the current Maasai sections were already long-established in the area - and the district council headquarters are found) “allocated to villagers for settlement and other human activities”, while at the same time saying that leaders (all councillors from affected wards, except one who fled) were arrested for “perpetuating resistance” against the demarcation process in Loliondo and instigating violence against government officials involved in the process (a case dropped by the Director of Public Prosecution after over five months of postponements). This individual has also replied to the contempt of court Application No.2 of 2022, in which he uses totally different lies - about Serengeti, like the later set of lies used in response to the 2017 case in the East African Court of Justice - even when it is the 2022 demarcation – first as an open threat and then as a crime that was committed - that is the contempt.

 

Back to the ruling, the judge said that the old 4,000 km² Loliondo Game Controlled Area (LGCA) did not cease to exist with the enactment of Wildlife Conservation Act 2009, but that it continues to co-exist with village land. GCAs declared under Fauna and Flora Conservation Ordinance 1951, or Wildlife Conservation Act (WCA) 1974 can and do totally overlap with village land and don’t restrict human activities, while GCAs enacted under WCA 2009 restrict all human activities – like national parks but allowing hunting, exactly like game reserves - and can’t overlap with village land. As long as it’s not a protected area, which it isn’t, this does not really matter. Huge areas all over Tanzania are old GCAs that don’t interfere with local land uses, overlap with village land, and only demarcate boundaries of hunting blocks. What’s peculiar with Loliondo is that a new GCA that is the same as a game reserve, was declared on top of the old GCA, and then changed to a game reserve, which is the same thing, and requires the same consultation, but is declared by the president.

 

The “Pololeti Game Controlled Area” is now, according to the court, dissolved for two reasons: mandatory consultation was lacking, and the president's decision to on 14^th October 2022 (publicly announced on 1^st November) declare a “Pololeti Game Reserve” on the same land automatically repealed its status.

 

GN No.604 of 14^th October 2022, the president’s GN declaring a “Pololeti Game Reserve” -after the case against the minister’s GN had been filed - is dealt with in its own separate court case, the judicial review Miscellaneous Civil Cause No. 178 of 2022. On 22^nd August 2023, the court ruled that this case can proceed, and prohibited operation of the GN until determination of the case. This means that after the “Pololeti GCA” was declared null and void, all operation of the “game reserve” is stopped by court order, which apparently the NCAA - that’s since September 2022 is managing the stolen village land - first decided not to respect, until the lawyers on 26^th September wrote to them that they will file a criminal complaint against anyone seizing livestock contrary to the court order, and then again stopped respecting after the attorney general’s office released its peculiar interpretation (see below) of the ruling. Since the president’s GN just replaced that by the minister, exactly the same lack of consultation applies to that GN, and by logic it must also be declared null and void.

 

Then there is a more questionable part of the ruling that was read on 19^th September. The Court found no evidence linking Minister Chana to the decision to deploy security forces or use military force in the Loliondo operation and found that the minister was not involved in demarcating village land. Therefore, any illegalities in this process can’t be attributed to the minister. This sounds strange when you have seen Chana next to PM Majaliwa in Loliondo on 23^rd June 2022, participating in a stomach-turning military celebration of the extremely brutal and lawless attack on the Maasai. And when announcing the null and void GN on 22^nd June 2022, Chana made it clear that the demarcation was being done in accordance with it (the GN does indeed detail the beacons) and boasted about how all beacons had already been planted.

 

Pindi Chana table banging in agreement with the PM's threats and lies against the Maasai.

Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised that a judge will not throw away any kind of credibility by denying such an obvious crime – even if just described as a failure to comply with the law to conduct consultation, and not the massively and openly shown brutality and lawlessness that took place while every government representative was engaging in horribly obvious lies - but still I’m pleasantly surprised. However, those who committed this crime must be hunted down using other means. Many people have been involved in the brutal and lawless theft of grazing land and none of them must be allowed to get away.

 

Nobody can now stop the Maasai landowners from grazing their animals on their own land. Though it should not be forgotten that the very violent land theft was committed in flagrant violation of an injunction against it in the East African Court of Justice that was issued on 25^th September 2018. More than court rulings and court orders are needed to obtain justice – and more is being done, while even more should be done.

 

The government’s malicious interpretation of the ruling

On 4^th October 2023, the government released its own, rather malicious, “interpretation” of the ruling in the high court. In a statement, signed by Prisca J. Ulomi - one of those who have been sued for contempt of court -  from the office of the attorney general (one of the two respondents in Miscellaneous Civil Cause No. 21 of 2022) the government recognises that the “Pololeti Game Controlled Area” is no more, but without mentioning the lack of consultation that’s one of the main points in the ruling. The statement also recognizes that there’s a court order prohibiting operation of the “Pololeti Game Reserve” until determination of the case concerning the president’s GN No.604 of 2022, Miscellaneous Civil Cause No. 178 of 2022. The obvious bad intentions of the statement consist of pretending that the status quo that should continue until determination is a protected area where grazing without a permit from the director of wildlife is not allowed. The argument for this wilful and malicious stupidity is based on saying that the ruling mentions that the 4,000km² Loliondo Game Controlled Area exists since 1951. As said before … this GCA does not restrict human activities, totally overlaps with the customary land tenure that was there since before colonialism and has always co-existed with village land. If the government is to continue pretending that it’s a protected area, the DC’s office, the district council headquarters, the towns of Wasso and Loliondo, hospitals and agricultural areas must be chased away for trespassing.

 

Grazing and violence after the high court ruling

The loss of livestock and impoverishment has been steep in Loliondo after most of the grazing land, and particularly dry season grazing land, was stolen by the government right before the bad dry season of 2022, expecting the Maasai to just squeeze into remaining areas where there’re two towns with district headquarters, agricultural areas, forest reserves, and Thomson Safaris’ ugly land grab. Many have got into terrible debt since first TAWA rangers and then those from NCAA (after the illegal protected area was placed under their management), assisted by police and Serengeti rangers, have been extorting from livestock owners a demented 100,000 TShs per head of cattle and 25,000 per sheep or goat for grazing on their own land. Grazing has only been possible like thieves at night, when large predators become a much more acute threat than at daytime.

 

After a NCAA ranger (remember that Pindi Chana in September 2022 announced that the illegal protected area had been placed under the management of NCAA) on 5^th May 2023 was lightly injured by arrowshot by an unknown hero archer, some said that the rangers stopped patrolling at nighttime. By June it became much harder to get somewhat full information about livestock seizures, or about anything happening on the ground.

 

As mentioned, on 22^nd August, the high court ruled that Miscellaneous Civil Cause No. 178 of 2022, the case dealing with the president’s GN No.604 of 2022, declaring a “game reserve” can proceed and prohibited operation of the GN until determination of the case. When on 19^th September Miscellaneous Civil Cause No. 21 of 2022, the minister’s GN No.421 of 2022, declaring a “game controlled area” was ruled null and void, this meant that the always illegal livestock seizures were also illegal to the high court. Still the NCAA rangers kept on seizing livestock. On 23^rd September, 352 sheep and goats were seized in the Ngimatuni area of Loosoito, Maaloni ward. Then 160 goats and 120 cows from Mbuken, Arash were seized in the same area on the 24^th. On the 25^th, 580 sheep and goats were seized in the Engurashi area of Manang' sub-village of Madukani, Malambo ward. In the Malambo case, the rangers were demanding “only” 24,000 TShs per sheep or goat, instead of 25,000.

 

On 26^th September, lawyers on behalf of Ndoriany Koros, whose goats and cows were seized on the 24^th, wrote a letter to NCA chief conservator Manongi, Pius Rwiza, conservator of “Pololeti Game Reserve”, Robert Laizer, who is in charge of the rangers in the fake and illegal protected area at Arash, and the director of wildlife Maurus Msuaha – telling them that they will file a criminal complaint against anyone illegally seizing livestock contrary to the court order. The same day all seized livestock were released without extortion.

 

I shouldn’t give any importance to such people, but for a picture of how disinformation works in the local Loliondo police state, a local non-pastoralist opportunistic “friend” of the government and of “investors” wrote an “article” that he shared in WhatsApp and on Facebook that 2,005 heads of livestock had been released after the pastoralists at a meeting at the DC’s office had admitted to breaking the law and asked for forgiveness, and the DC intervened talking to the conservators for the sake of strengthening the relation between the protected area and the community, and making sure that the pastoralists will respect the law and protect the “game reserve” from unnecessary conflict. To illustrate the “article” this individual, Paul Dudui, used a picture from a meeting about trachoma from the previous day.

 

Initially I was told that people were still afraid of grazing their animals on the stolen land at daytime, and on the 29^th, 400 sheep were seized in Malambo, but directly released for a smaller bribe, without being taken to the camp where they’re usually held. Then a serious reclaim of the stolen land started, with reportedly widespread daytime grazing. People were regaining their confidence and faith in the legal system, which had been very low indeed. Still, on 1^st October, 98 cows, belonging to Ntayia, were seized in Ololosokwan and locked up at Klein’s gate. The rangers were demanding the usual extortion money of 100,000 Tshs per head of cattle.

 

The DC summoned all councillors and village chairpersons from 14 villages with land in the illegally demarcated and alienated land to attend a meeting at his office on 4^th October. Remember that being summoned to a meeting with the DC was how the councillors last year were abducted and locked up for almost six months. Only two councillors attended this meeting, in which the DC was reportedly very threatening, saying that livestock entering the 1,502km² area would be seized and auctioned. This was the same day as the attorney general’s office released the statement with the maliciously stupid interpretation of the court ruling.

 

On 5^th October, rangers were starting grass fires in the Klein’s area of Ololosokwan to disturb and harass herders. NCAA and JWTZ, Tanzanian army, vehicles were circulating Arash and Ololosokwan and the rangers and soldiers assaulted some young men, beating them and confiscating their phones, swords and spears. Still, they weren’t seizing any livestock.

JWTZ in Ololosokan.

First, on 6^th October, there was good news that the livestock seized in Ololosokwan and locked up for several days, had been released without any extortion of money. However, in the evening it was reported that at least seven people had been assaulted by the rangers and soldiers, including Arash ward councillor Mathew Siloma. Lemao Sharab was cut in the face with a panga and Leteng’ena Lupa was badly beaten. Councillor Siloma reported in WhatsApp that he was followed to his boma and taken to the heads of the operation who were accompanied by surprisingly many soldiers. He recognized the “conservator” of “Pololeti” Pius Rwiza, the acting commander of the soldiers stationed in Loliondo, and the officer in charge of border issues. The councillor was told that all livestock must be removed from the 1,502 km² area. Several youths were badly beaten and the councillor himself was forced to jump like a frog. Frog jump is common “punishment” used by Tanzanian security forces and even in schools.

 

On 7^th October, over 1,000 cows in five herds were seized in the Klein’s area of Ololosokwan. In Arash, and Maaloni, the following livestock were seized:

Kisoombe Ng'atuny, 70 cows - Arash

Nekaya Mutangung, 93 cows - Arash

Miseyeki Sikoyo, 140 sheep, 120 goats - Arash

Lulungen Sikoyo, 92 sheep - Arash

Barnoti Kukutia, 200 cows – Maaloni

 

On 8^th October 585 more cows were seized in Ololosokwan, and then some 100 more on the 9^th.

 

On 10^th October Ngorongoro youths - including several of the applicants - held a press conference denouncing the government’s contempt of court, the whole land alienation, with focus on the recent violence and seizures of livestock. They said that calves left in the bomas when the cows were seized could now not suckle, that the livestock seized in Arash were not fed or watered (in Ololosokwan they were), and that some smaller livestock had been suffocated. The youths reminded of that applications would be filed personally suing those involved in these crimes in contempt of court. 

 

The councillors of Ololosokwan, Arash, Malambo and Engaresero – under pressure by the cattle owners whose animals were held in bad conditions, particularly in Arash - approached the regional CCM secretary asking for help to release the livestock, and then the CCM secretary wrote to Arusha RC Mongella pretending that the councillors were agreeing with the land theft and grazing prohibition! In a meeting with the RC, he told the councillors to write a letter committing to keeping livestock off the stolen land, but they wrote a letter that while weak and pleading did not include such a commitment.

 

On 11^th October the livestock seized since the 7^th were released without extortion “fines”.

 

On 18^th October, the rangers were again seizing livestock: some eight herds of cattle in the Oltigomi area near Klein’s gate in Ololosokwan, and 650 sheep and goats and 48 cows in the Lengijape area in Arash. Several sources from Ololosokwan reported about that the manager, Melau Laltalia, of Taasa Lodge on the stolen land was very much assisting the rangers. It’s not the first time that Taasa Lodge is a problem.

 

On the 21^st 1,300 sheep and an unknown number of calves were seized in Malambo and taken to the Orn’goswa camp. More livestock seized in Iloope Ilokony, Arash on the 22^nd and in Leken in Kirtalo. In Ololosokwan the criminal rangers seized 332 more cows and there were filming drones everywhere.

Potot Lose 134 cows

Mzee Rotiken 112 cows

Leile boma 69 cows

Mzee Ngatuny 17 calves

 

Kambatai Kimeriai from Kirtalo was on 21^st October arrested with his motorbike when bringing food for his children. He was taken to Ololosokwan police station. When leaders tried to have him released, he was taken to Loliondo town by criminal rangers. This is part of the intimidation drive. On 23^rd October, Kambatai was released on bail and with two others reportedly charged with “trespassing into protected area”.

The livestock have still not been released and the owners are under heavy pressure to pay the extortion "fines". David Mkenga, head of the rangers at Klein's gate, and one of those sued for contempt of court, is threatening with auctioning off the cattle held there. There are various reports that the councillor of Malambo is much weakened/compromised, urging people to raise money and pay the extortion.

Now people are saying that the cattle at Klein's gate are not being fed.

 

When I had finally posted this blog post, I got reports that TANAPA had again seized hundreds of cattle in Oloipiri, Kirtalo and Loosoito/Maaloni, and taken them to Lobo in Serengeti National Park by force! Their way of operating is sadly known. They take cattle into the national park so that it will be a case for the court in Mugumu, which they hope will auction them.

Updates at the end of the blog post.

Total tourism boycott on Tanzania now!

Sued for contempt of court

Finally, on 23^rd October, the summons are out and I can write about those involved in the cattle seizures, against whom there is very concrete and obvious evidence, and who have now been sued in their personal capacity! They are:

Ngorongoro DC Raymond Mwangwala

“Pololeti” “conservator” Pius Rwiza

Prisca J. Ulomi, Head of the Government Communication Unit, who signed the letter from the attorney general’s office with the government’s “interpretation” of the ruling.

Robert Laizer, in charge of the rangers at Lengijape, Arash

David Mkenga, in charge of the rangers at Klein’s gate, Ololosokwan

Pius Rwiza SUED

Raymond Mwangwala SUED

There are so many people involved in these crimes that must be sued. Not least the bosses of the above-mentioned people, like RC Mongella, now retired chief conservator Manongi, and the director of wildlife Maurus Msuha. Then there are those, quite a few, even higher up in the hierarchy who must be seriously dealt with, ministers, PM and president.

 

We should thank the lawyers Joseph and Denis Oleshangai, Yonas Masiaya Laiser, Melau Alais, Jebra Kambole, Jeremiah Mtobesya and Mpale Mpoki for this. 

The court hearing is scheduled for 31st October.

 

Odero harassed about citizenship at ACPHR session – with good events and traitors

The 77th Ordinary Session of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights is going on in Arusha of all places. Human rights criminals like the Minister of Constitutional and Legal Affairs, Pindi Chana …, are holding speeches about human rights defenders. The very Tanzanian journalist and Executive Director of Civic and Legal Aid Organization (CILAO) Odero Charles Odero was at one side event on 19^th October and spoke about human rights violations in Loliondo and Ngorongoro. He was next day, at the inauguration of the 77^th session, picked up, detained and questioned by five Immigration officials, under the lead of Ali Fikirini, who had orders from above. They wanted to see his passport, for which he could provide a soft copy, and they had all kinds of stupid questions about his grandparents. Questioning Tanzanians' citizenship is one of the most classic tools for the Tanzanian government's stupid-evil harassment. Fortunately, Odero was accompanied by advocate Paul Kisabo who had been at the inauguration with him.

Odero

Odero again spoke up on 24^th October, in a side event called The Coercive Conservation Model is broken, organized by Amnesty International, Minority Rights Group, Human Rights Watch and Protection International Africa. This event had the focus totally on Loliondo and Ngorongoro, with a few voices from other areas. ACHPR Commissioner Litha Musyimi-Ogana who was part of the ridiculously government commandeered promotional visit in late January-early February attended the event. Odero spoke briefly, but strongly, informing the commissioner that at this moment livestock were seized and people were being arrested and harassed, while the commission could still not present their report. It was a good meeting where also Edward Porokwa from PINGO’s, lawyer Joseph Oleshangay, Noorkishili Naing’isa from Ololosokwn and others spoke in an impressive way. The commissioner was aware that the commission had been prevented from visiting directly affected villages in Loliondo, but said that they had understood that thanks to social media, and had “strategies” for understanding what was going on. She also said that preparing a report normally takes two years, but that this one will be done quicker. Then she added some quite stupid defence of President Samia as a woman, saying that women have just arrived in state house and have a lot of injustices, created by men, to undo. Noorkishili had asked her to intervene as a woman and that the president was worse than any male president before her, which is a fact. Noorkishili also wondered how you can tell seized livestock to wait for the report.

Noorkishili

There had initially been some problems for attendants dressed in Maasai attire to pass the gate, but otherwise I haven’t heard of any problems from this meeting.

 

Present at the meeting, but without saying anything, was one of the currently worst traitors in Loliondo – Rose Njilo of the NGO Mimutie. Already in early 2022 had I been informed that Rose Njilo and Joseph Parsambei (who has been heavily used by the government and the Germans in the legitimization efforts for the brutal and massive land theft) had been seriously compromised. I had also earlier seen some signs of this. While leaders and activists were being badly harassed in 2022, before the military demarcation attack in Loliondo, Rose thought it was a good idea to report Loserian Maoi and Robert Kamakia for cybercrime, since they had called her a “sellout” in a Loita Maasai group on WhatsApp. Fortunately, she did this in Arusha and not Loliondo, so the police officers mostly laughed, even if Loserian and Robert for some time had to attend the police station almost every day. I’ve heard Rose speak up in Clubhouse against the massive land theft in Loliondo, but very clear evidence that she indeed is a traitor of the nastier kind was made public on 22^nd October, somewhat dampening the celebration of the summons presented to the Ngorongoro DC and other criminals. Rose had issued a press release agreeing with the government’s “interpretation” of the ruling in the High Court, which means that cattle should still be seized with extortion fines, and people arrested, and saying that there’s only a small group receiving money from abroad that’s opposing this, while everyone else want to work in harmony with the government, respecting boundaries, and that this brings development and work opportunities with the investors. Nobody thinks that Rose herself wrote this, but may she be cursed. 

Rose Njilo in early 2022 showing off having reported people for cybercrime.

 

Rose Njilo at the event

Continued pressure for German-funded crime legitimization

The government keep pressuring the Ngorongoro councillors to pass the German-funded and facilitated crime legitimization called the Ngorongoro District Land Use Framework Plan 2023-2043. While they are all members of the ruling CCM party and more or less compromised, the Maasai councillors can’t agree to such a genocidal plan. The crime legitimization was initiated by team of 40 state security and surveyors that in late October/November 2022, while many village chairpersons were still in exile in Kenya or hiding, and the councillors were locked up in remand prison - were sent to re-survey the villages in Loliondo and Sale using illegitimate or compromised village leaders, while the DC talked about Wildlife Management Areas, which is still more land alienation and the last thing anyone would “need” … This was done in a very threatening way, and signs were put up, at least in Ololosokwan, setting aside zones - outside the stolen land – for exclusive grazing and tourism use. After the legitimate village chairman returned from exile on Kenya, most of those signs were thrown away.

 

On 29^th February and 30^th March 2023 meetings were held at the Ngorongoro District Council Hall in Wasso to pressure all local leaders to agree with the Ngorongoro District Land Use Framework Plan 2023-2043. This was totally openly and shamelessly funded and facilitated by the Germans via Frankfurt Zoological Society. The DC openly threatened the councillors for, even as CCM leaders, being obstacles to the exercise. The councillors stood firm and on 19^th May they rejected in unison the genocidal proposal that was not just meant to legitimize the massive, brutal and lawless land theft, but extending to same kind of dispossession to an area next to Lake Natron. The only leaders speaking in support of the government’s plan – pretending that it was only about village land use plans (also a danger) – was the years ago somewhat serious NGO personality Joseph Parsambei and the stupid and “investor-friendly” chairman of Soitsambu village, Marko Lorru. As reported in earlier blog posts, the Germans of course then used Parsambei as a “human rights expert” to “explain” to diplomats.

 

On 10^th September the councillors were to vote again on the same genocidal plan, after having been given a Swahili version, as if that would change anything. Reportedly, security forces were seen all around the meeting. The councillors again refused to approve the proposed Ngorongoro District Land Use Framework Plan 2023-2043. They also refused the Director of the National Land Use Commission the right to address the council since they had no prior information about his visit and that his addressing the full council is against the regulations. 24 councillors again signed to reject the proposed district land-use plan. I have not been able to find out if these were all of those present, as was the case in May when also the most unlikely non-pastoralists councillors, including the chairman who’s been working as OBC’s community liaison for years, and isn’t an ally in any way, rejected the plan. Anyway, the Maasai councillors are majority.

 

While local leaders apparently have behaved in an exemplary way regarding the horrible German-funded district land use plan, their behaviour trying to stop people from attending the political rally by opposition politician and long-term Maasai ally Tundu Lissu was reportedly ugly, and even the somewhat exemplary Ololosokwan village chairman was involved. Anyway, as reported in the previous blog post, the local leaders failed in the most spectacular way. Against the orders of the Officer Commanding District, who said political activities, especially public rallies, are not permitted in Loliondo, on 8^th September Lissu arrived in Ololosokwan and was received by a long caravan of motorcycles while people ran next to the CHADEMA vehicles for kilometres. Attendance was massive by people who for so long had been left alone with their tormentors.

 

On 11^th September social media accounts of the Ngorongoro DC, and of the district council shared a most disturbing picture with a text saying that Ololosokwan village council members, community development experts and conservationists from NCAA and the district council had done training on development projects and conservation “benefitting from Pololeti Game Reserve". The councillor Moloimet Saing'eu, who 2015-2021 worked for OBC, but since 2022 has been on the side of the people, is in the picture. It’s reported that the village council members strongly deny having agreed to anything at all, but they haven’t issued any public statement. I have not been able to find out what the supposed “benefits” from the crime called “Pololeti game Reserve” were described as. Development projects are done with German donor funds, so I suppose that’s what’s meant. The following day, a similar photo appeared from Oloirien.

 

I think the councillors by now must have understood that they should long ago have got rid of the big green snake, CCM. As seen again, by the RC’s behaviour when they sought assistance to release livestock seized in contempt of court, political leverage within the party to stop land alienation may have worked in the past, but those days are definitely gone after intra party dissent was crushed under Magufuli, and with Samia there’s a president with obvious personal hatred against the Maasai, and who has turned a sick tourism cult into state religion.

 

The Germans MUST be sued for their relentless facilitation of violent dispossession

Social media accounts of the DC’s office, and of the district office, keep reporting about projects by the German development bank (KfW) and Tanzania National Parks Authority, TANAPA, and local leaders show nothing but gratitude. However, if ever there was one, there’s no longer any shadow of a doubt that such German charity is used as a weapon in the war to finish off pastoralist livelihoods and culture for the benefit of tourism and conservation.

 

Remember that in March 2017, then Minister for Natural Resources and Tourism Jumanne Maghembe and Serengeti chief park warden William Mwakilema (later head of Tanzania National Parks Authority, TANAPA, until he recently was demoted to DC for Korogwe district) told a parliamentary committee (and very much the press) that German funds would only be released on condition of turning the 1,500 km² into a protected area. In Loliondo 600 women demonstrated against accepting the German money and the district council decided to follow their advice. The conditions for releasing funds were not denied by the Germans until two years later by representatives of the development bank in an interview with Chris Lang, and we didn’t know who was telling the truth. Now we know.

 

While Loliondo was attacked by mass arson implemented by Serengeti rangers – FZS’s partners - in August 2017, a most revolting picture was published of the German ambassador at that time, Detlef Wächter. The picture showed Wächter smilingly handing over buildings for park staff in Fort Ikoma, in Serengeti National Park, to Minister Maghembe, while commenting on the long and successful partnership between Germany and Tanzania in protecting the Serengeti.

 

After the 2017 illegal mass arson operation had been stopped, the then Ngorongoro MP and the District Council Chairman at the time said that there wasn't any risk with accepting German funds, since they were meant for the whole of Loliondo and Sale, not excluding the 1,500km².  However there haven’t been any projects at all in the now brutally and illegally demarcated area, while projects outside it are being heavily used in government rhetoric for land alienation.

 

Reporting from a meeting with diplomats on 25^th March 2022, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism wrote that the then German ambassador Regine Hess, supported the government’s “efforts” in Ngorongoro. Publicly, the ambassador never denied it in any way. The Germans should be judged by what they say, and do, in public, and they must be sued in any possible court in the world.

 

In June 2022, FZS, that never has said anything about violence for conservation in the Serengeti ecosystem, or elsewhere, seriously rattled by Survival International, expressed “shock” about the violence in Loliondo and distanced itself from any involvement in the land demarcation, but still claiming that the land status would be “uncertain”. However, in an interview in the hunters’ newsletter African Indaba back in June 2013 the late Markus Borner, FZS’s then recently retired long-term head of Africa programme and resident of Serengeti NP had declared his support for then Minister Kagasheki’s vociferous threats and lies about the 1,500km² saying, “the present proposal seems a good way forward”. Besides showing a surprising ignorance about almost all basic facts, Borner said that the Maasai should have accepted a WMA – which FZS together with the Tanzanian government for years had tried to impose on the Loliondo Maasai who wisely rejected it - and that FZS after the land alienation would act as “mediator between communities and the central government”.

 

On 6^th July 2022, during the military attack on Loliondo, Ambassador Hess met with Arusha RC John Mongella, the main implementor of the massive crime, and talked about the “cooperation” between the two countries, and the Germans kept showering the brutal and lawless Tanzanian government with money, in August 2022, Bärbel Kofler, German Deputy Minister of Economic Cooperation and Development visited Tanzania for more of the same.

 

On 20^th December 2022, in a ceremony with the worst perpetrators of the crimes in Loliondo, PM Kassim Majaliwa and then Minister of Natural Resources and Tourism Pindi Chana, Ambassador Regine Hess handed over 51 vehicles, part of emergency funding and recovery for biodiversity in response of COVID-19, facilitated by the German development bank, KfW and FZS. The vehicles were to be distributed into Serengeti and Nyerere National Parks and Selous Game Reserve and would have a great impact on supporting “operations”. In the ceremony Majaliwa mentionedpoachers and “encroaching livestock” as the objectives of those “operations”.

 

On 3^rd August 2023, Katrin Bornemann the Head of Cooperation at the German Embassy together with the Permanent Secretary Dr. Hassan Abbas from the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism co-chaired the steering committee. While boasting about being the biggest bilateral donor in the sector, the Germans showered the criminals with 120 million euros to keep making people cry in “mainly the regions Serengeti, Ngorongoro, Selous and Nyerere as well as Katavi Mahale National Parks and Corridor and Ruvuma Region.”

 

And as mentioned, the Germans have openly and shamelessly funded and facilitated the very threatening crime legitimization that’s known as the draft Ngorongoro District Land Use Framework Plan 2023-2043, with money from the German development bank KfW via Frankfurt Zoological Society which implements the Serengeti Ecosystem Development and Conservation Program (SEDCP). The plan was rejected by the Ngorongoro councillors in May, and again in September since:
-It was brought by the central government together with conservation organizations like NCAA, FZS and KfW (the German development bank) to legitimize the alienation of the 1,500 km².

-It isn’t in the interest of Ngorongoro residents, since its aim is to legitimize the theft of 70% of their land.

-Passing the plan is to legitimize the end of life in Ngorongoro via the loss of housing, cultivation and grazing areas.

-It’s contempt of court, since there are four cases in the High Court and three in the East African Court of Justice, concerning the land.

-It violates several laws, since it didn’t involve the village assemblies.

 

We also have the cases in the East African Court of Justice

In the East African Court of Justice, the ongoing case against the Tanzanian government’s fake and illegal “Pololeti Game Reserve” is Reference No.37 of 2022. In late September 2022, the government side responded with some wildly lying objections, but then I haven’t seen anything scheduled. I almost wonder if the EACJ is operational. Even the website is down and I get a virus warning when I try to access it.

 

Appeal No.13 of 2022 East Africa Court of Justice of the strange ruling in the case about the 2017 mass arson operation (Reference No.10 of 2017) was heard on 15^th May and the date for ruling was to be communicated. I really don’t know what is happening with this case. The ruling in Reference No.10 of 2017 Ololosokwan Village Council & 3 Others versus the Attorney General of the United Republic of Tanzania was to – after five years and a last-minute postponement right when massive contempt of court, violating an injunction issued in 2018, was taking place - dismiss the case since the Maasai has failed to prove that the 2017 operation took place on village land and not in Serengeti National Park! This when the government’s own documents clearly show that a huge majority of the bomas were burned on village land. The ruling also shows that the judges just didn’t understand what the witnesses said. For example, it mentions that one of the Maasai witnesses said he was acting chairperson of “Kilolo” village and was informed that homesteads had been destroyed in “Olototokum” village. Such villages don’t exist but refer to “Oloirien” and “Ololosokwan” respectively, and those were two of the applicant villages … After the ruling, Kenyan Maasai shared the information that one of the judges, Charles Nyachae, was the son of an infamous grabber of Maasai land in Kenya. Was the ruling a result of sloppiness – maybe on all sides – or were the judges compromised? At least the ruling established that there’s national park and then there’s village land, nothing else.

 

Application No.2 of 2022, a contempt of court application, filed in January 2022, when RC Mongella started making threats of alienating the 1,500 km², against which the East African Court of Justice had issued an injunction in September 2018. An affidavit was filed after every court order, law, and human right, had been violated. This important case was heard in November 2022 in Kampala, and I was told that it was probably scheduled for delivery of ruling on the Preliminary Objection in June, but still nothing has been heard.

 

Reference No.29 of 2022 in the East African Court of Justice is not about the brutal Loliondo land theft but challenges the coordinated and suffocating policies in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. Apparently, there’s still nothing scheduled for this case.

 

Brief Loliondo hunting block background

Otterlo Business Corporation, owned by Mohammed Abdul Rahim Al Ali, that organize hunting for Sheikh Mohammed of Dubai, has had the 4,000 km² Loliondo hunting block (permit to hunt) since 1993 (contract signed in 1992). They got the hunting block in the Loliondogate scandal covered by the reporter Stan Katabalo in 1993 until he passed away under suspect circumstances the same year. This area includes two towns – Wasso and Loliondo - district headquarters, agricultural areas, and Thomson Safaris’ land grab. So OBC have lobbied to have it reduced to their core hunting area bordering Serengeti National Park, and to make it a protected area (brutally and illegally done in 2022) which would signify a huge land loss to the local Maasai, leading to lost lives and livelihoods. OBC’s first irregular 10-year contract was revoked already in the corruption scandal in the 1990s and since then the hunting blocked has been renewed like any other hunting block.

 

Protests by local leaders against OBC’s construction near water sources, oversized airstrip and bad attitudes towards the Maasai and their livestock, led to some international press coverage in 2001-2002.

 

In 2008, the then Ngorongoro DC Jowika Kasunga coerced local leaders into signing a Memorandum of Understanding with OBC. There were supposed to be talks to coordinate grazing and hunting, but when the 2009 drought turned catastrophic, OBC went to the government to complain. As a result, the village land in the 1,500 km² was illegally invaded by the Field Force Unit working with OBC’s rangers, with mass arson, dispersal of cattle, and abuse of every kind. 7-year-old Nashipai Gume was lost in the chaos and never found, ever since.

 

The Maasai moved back, and some leaders reconciled with OBC that went on to funding a Ngorongoro District Land Use Framework Plan 2010–2030 that proposed turning the village land that had been invaded into a protected area. The Maasai were united, and the draft land use plan was rejected by Ngorongoro District Council in 2011.

 

In 2013, then Minister of Natural Resources and Tourism Khamis Kagasheki lied to the world saying that the whole 4,000 km² Loliondo Game Controlled Area (Loliondo Division and part of Sale Division of Ngorongoro District) was a protected area and that alienating the important 1,500 km² meant generously giving the remaining land to the Maasai. This huge lie and ugly trick did not work, since the Maasai were more serious and united than ever, garnered support from both the opposition CHADEMA and from CCM, and then PM Mizengo Kayanza Peter Pinda stopped Kagasheki’s threats.

 

After the unity, efforts to buy off local leaders started creating serious divisions and weakening. Some found it convenient to benefit from openly praising the “investors” and attacking people who they at the same time expected to take risks to defend the land. Though nobody signed any MoU.

 

The investors (OBC and Thomson Safaris) had for years used the local police state that through the successive DCs, security committee, and most every government employee will threaten anyone who could speak up about them and engage in defamation and illegal arrests. The repression and fear of this police state became worse with Magufuli in office. There were lengthy illegal arrests, torture, and malicious prosecution, by 2016 – after OBC had written a report complaining about the Maasai and engaged the press - it was so bad that PM Majaliwa could enter the stage with a select non-participatory committee, set up by then Arusha RC Mrisho Gambo. Some of the members were local leaders and other representatives, serious NGOs included, that found themselves at the opposite side of the people when marking “critical areas” under spontaneous protests in each village. A much misused photo of a confrontation between police and Maasai is from these protests and not any other time. The proposal handed over to the PM was seen as a victory, even though it was a sad compromise (a WMA) that had earlier been successfully rejected for many years of better unity and less acute fear.

 

This picture is from 17th-19th March 2017 when villagers were protesting marking of "critical areas" that their own weakened leders were participating in. Do NOT use it for anything else.

A week earlier 5th - 7th March 2017, a Standing Parliamentary Committee - co-opted by Minister Maghembe who in January was making declarations that the 1,500km2 must be alienated - toured Loliondo and the members were told that German funds would only be released on condition of turning the 1,500 km² into a protected area. In Loliondo 600 women demonstrated against accepting the German money and the district council decided to follow their advice. Local leaders saw RC Gambo as their "only friend", or that's the sole and weak excuse for their behaviour. 

Maybe since the Maasai showed such weakness, the government went on with the unthinkable and while everyone was still waiting to hear Majaliwa’s decision, on 13^th August 2017 an illegal mass arson operation, like the one in 2009, was initiated and continued, on and off, well into October. Hundreds of bomas were razed to the ground by Serengeti rangers, assisted by NCAA rangers and those from OBC, TAWA, local police and others. People were beaten and raped, illegally arrested, and cattle seized. Some leaders were frightfully silent while others protested loudly. Minister Maghembe pretended that OBC’s land use plan would have been implemented and the operation was taking place on some protected land. Meanwhile the DC and Maghembe’s own ministry, said it was not about the 1,500 km², since Majaliwa was to announce a decision about that, but that village land was invaded because people were entering Serengeti National Park “too easily”.

 

Oloosek 13th August 2017

The illegal operation wasn’t stopped until late October 2017, a couple of weeks after Hamisi Kigwangalla came into office. The new minister also made grand promises, like saying that OBC would have left Tanzania before 2018, but it was very soon clear that OBC weren’t going anywhere. On 6^th December 2017, Majaliwa delivered his vague but terrifying decision that was about, through a legal bill, creating a “special authority” to manage the land. He also said that OBC were staying. The decision was celebrated in the anti-Maasai press (Manyerere Jackton in the Jamhuri). Implementation was delayed, still no legal bill has been seen, and it would of course have been contempt of court.

 

In March 2018, Kigwangalla welcomed OBC’s hunters to Tanzania (directing himself to a fake account that he thought was the Twitter account of the Dubai crown prince), and in April the same year, OBC - once again - gifted the Ministry of Natural Resources of Tourism with 15 vehicles. 

In March 2018, a military camp was set up in Lopolun, near Wasso in Loliondo, first temporary, but eventually made permanent with donations from the NCAA, and the soldiers started attacking and beating apparently random people.

 

In June 2018, the OCCID and local police tried to derail the case in the East African Court of Justice (EACJ) – filed during the illegal operation in 2017 - by summoning local leaders and villagers. Nobody dared to speak up about this, except for the applicants' main counsel.

 

On 25^th September 2018 – a year after the illegal operation - the court finally issued an injunction restraining the government from evictions, destruction and harassment of the applicants, but this injunction was soon brutally violated.

 

In November and December 2018, soldiers from the camp in Olopolun tortured people, seized cattle, and burned bomas in Kirtalo and Ololosokwan. This was the lowest point ever in the land rights struggle (until theland theft of 2022) and I have still not understood how it could happen without anyone at all speaking up. Local leaders claimed to fear for their lives and thought that the brutality was directly ordered by President Magufuli. When RC Gambo in January 2019 condemned the crimes in a very vague way, they changed to thinking that OBC’s director had contracted the soldiers.

 

There were finally some promising developments in 2019 when OBC’s director Isaack Mollel was arrested on economic sabotage charges and OBC toned down (they never left and Mollel was never fired) their activities on the ground. However, the local police state was not dealt with and following a lengthy stay in remand prison Mollel was out, through plea bargaining, and after a while he went back to work. Speculations about Mollel’s misfortune include his clashes of egos with Kigwangalla and Gambo, and Magufuli wanting to send a message to OBC’s old friend Abdulrahman Kinana (and to Bernard Membe) that nobody is untouchable.

 

In September 2019, a genocidal zoning proposal for NCA was presented by chief conservator Manongi. It included the proposal to annex the 1,500 km² (but in the form of two areas: a corridor bordering Serengeti and an area in Malambo, like in the illegal demarcation in 2022) and turn it into a protected area allowing hunting. This Multiple Land Use Model review proposal was met with countless protests from every kind of group of people from NCA, but near silence from Loliondo where leaders were pretending that the threat had been averted.

 

2021 brought Jumaa Mhina as new District Executive Director and he started working to kill the court cases against land grabbing “investors”. Though the village chairmen stood their ground and Reference No. 10 of 2017, Ololosokwan, Kirtalo, Oloirien, and Arash v the Attorney General of the United Republic of Tanzania continued before the EACJ until it was dismissed in September 2022. The case against Thomson Safaris in the Tanzanian court of appeal, however, was in 2022 killed using a law that was introduced after the case was filed.

 

Briefly about the 2022 threats leading up to the brutal illegal demarcation

On 11^th January 2022, Arusha RC John Mongella summoned village and ward leaders from villages with land in the 1,500 km² to inform them that the government would make "a painful decision for the broader interest of the nation". The leaders, even those who for years had worked for OBC and against the people, refused to accompany the RC for a tour of the 1,500 km², or to sign the attendance list. On 13^th-14^th January in Oloirien there was a public protest meeting and a statement by village, ward, and traditional leaders.

A contempt of court application was filed in the East African Court of Justice, since the RC’s threats were in clear violation of the injunction issued in September 2018.

 

On 14^th February 2022, Majaliwa came and was not much better than Mongella, but too well-received, since something worse was expected, because of the crazy anti-Maasai hate campaign, and parliamentarians calling for tanks to be sent to Ngorongoro. It wasn’t very clear what the PM had actually said.

 

Three days later, on 17^th February 2022, in NCA, not Loliondo, Majaliwa ordered the disputed land to be marked by beacons, “so that we may know the boundaries” – while claiming that this was NOT a trick! Now we know what the intention was.

 

In late February 2022, President Samia visited the Expo Dubai 2020 and met with Sheikh Mohammed. “I would like to take this opportunity to welcome you all to Tanzania, where the business and investment environment are more than conducive. Come one, come all to Tanzania.”, the president said, according to the Tanzanian embassy, and the invitation has been taken up (see DP World, carbon scams etc.)

 

Then Minister for Natural Resources and Tourism Damas Ndumbaro on 8^th March 2022 re-introduced Kagasheki’s lies in an interview with DW Kiswahili, and on the 11^th Majaliwa again mentioned beacons and water projects for Loliondo when informing parliamentarians about a fake spectacle that he had set up in Arusha, without people from Ngorongoro, the previous day.

At a huge protest meeting in Arash on 19^th March, several leaders spoke up in defence of the land, among them the Arash ward councillor Mathew Siloma spoke up very clearly and strongly. The message from this meeting was:

-PM Majaliwa is a liar.

-The Maasai are not renouncing one square inch of land.

-They request to meet with the president, since Majaliwa cannot be trusted.

 

On 31^st March 2022, Abdulrahman Kinana was brought in from the cold, after having fallen out with Magufuli, and is now Vice-Chairman of CCM mainland. Kinana is one of OBC’s and Sheikh Mohammed’s best and oldest friends since at least 1993.

 

This video is from 24th March 2018, so don't pretend anything else.

CCM councillors that had spoken up against plans of robbing the Maasai of the 1,500 km² were being intimidated, arrested, and summoned to be “interrogated” in Arusha. The councillors of Arash and Malambo had to keep reporting to the police.

 

On 25^th May 2022, a committee handed over their reports of “community recommendations” on both NCA and the 1,500 km² in Loliondo to PM Majaliwa who said that he was going to work on the recommendations. The Loliondo/Sale report recommended a stop to any plans of alienating the 1,500 km², investigations into human rights violations, and the removal of OBC. That was what Majaliwa had to work with, but instead he stole the land, committed atrocities, and OBC is still there.

 

On 3^rd June 2022, Minister of Natural Resources and Tourism Pindi Chana in her budget speech announced that her ministry expected to upgrade Loliondo to a Game Reserve, but she did this while listing huge areas of Tanzania for the same expectation. That did not sound believable or realistic in any way, and there was hardly any reaction, except for an intervention by Ngorongoro MP Emmanuel Oleshangai. At least I could not imagine that anything so brutal and unlawful could happen so soon, but it did.

 

Briefly about the brutal and illegal demarcation of a fake game reserve

On 8^th June 2022, Wasso town was overflowing with security forces that went on to set up camps on the 90 km stretch from Ololosokwan to Piyaya, and in Malambo. Almost every Tanzania Regional Police Commissioner vehicle was seen in Loliondo on the day. The Maasai held prayers and deliberations, and in Kirtalo on the 9^th a video clip with the message that they were ready to die for their land was prepared for Majaliwa. A coordinated threat with vicious propaganda, and the old lie from 2013, was issued primarily by Arusha RC John Mongella, who had recorded a message in connection with closed meeting the previous days, and PM Kassim Majaliwa, assisted by speaker of parliament Tulia Ackson, in parliament. They were soon joined by many government representatives repeating the same lie.

 

All councillors from affected wards – except the Soitsambu councillor who managed to flee - were on 9^th June 2022, lured to a meeting by DC Raymond Mwangwala, they were abducted, bundled in two cars and driven to Arusha overnight. 

The following day illegal land demarcation - which is what Otterlo Business Corporation (OBC), that organizes hunting for Sheikh Mohammed of Dubai, for years has lobbied for - began in a rain of teargas and bullets. Many Maasai were beaten, slashed by bayonets, hit by teargas canisters, raped and thousands fled across the border where many of them continued as refugees for several months, with their cattle. The then 84-years-old Oriais Oleng'iyo was last seen on 10^th June with bullet wounds and detained by the Field Force Unit few metres away from his home where security forces were firing fireworks. A police officer was killed by arrowshot, which the government used to charge – with murder - the councillors who had been abducted the previous day, obviously without a thought on investigating the killing. Motorbikes and telephones were destroyed or stolen by the security forces.

 

There was a hunt for anyone who could have shared pictures of the crimes (which effectively has been done by everyone with a smartphone) and ten people, later joined by seven more, were illegally arrested, eventually, together with the councillors, charged with a bogus “murder”. The trial kept being postponed for inexistent “investigation”, there was never any hearing, only postponements, and they continued locked up in remand prison for well over five months. Three were released for reasons of health and studies. The flow of information was almost completely cut after the initial arrests.

 

On 15^th June 2022, Deputy Permanent Representative to the Tanzanian Mission to the UN in Geneva, Hoyce Temu, in a widely shared clip, denied any state violence, parroting the malicious and obvious government lie about a “protected area” that had been “encroached” and about “peaceful talks” with local residents. Meanwhile, the councillors from affected wards were still abducted at unknown location, and their whereabouts were only known the following day when they were charged with “murder”.

 

Government representatives made multiple military style visits landing in helicopter to pose with beacons, tell lies, and issue threats.

On 13th June 2022, then Inspector General of Police threatened anyone who'd stir things up, and he particularly mentioned politicians that are using the Maasai for their own benefit.

The Minister of Home Affairs, Hamad Masauni, on 15th June 2022, directed Immigration to strengthen border security and ordered NGOs to be investigated. 

Immigration Commissioner for Border Control and Administration, Samwel Mahirane on 18^th June 2022, threatened those that had fled, saying that they are known and will be dealt with.  

Commissioner General of Immigration, Anna Makakala, on 22^nd June announced that there would be 10 days of flushing out illegal immigrants.

 

Minster Pindi Chana without following any law or procedure declared the illegally demarcated land as “Pololeti Game Controlled Area” (GN No.421, 2022) on 17^th June, which was announced in a zoom meeting on the 22^nd.

 

On 21st June 2022, spineless diplomats applauded Minister Ndumbaro’s obvious lies about what was happening. Also present and lying were then Deputy Minister Mary Masanja, Director of Wildlife Maurus Msuha and Minister of Foreign Affairs Liberata Mulamula. Though many international organisations condemned the government’s actions.

Mary Masanja greeting the UAE ambassador at the meeting in which diplomats were happy to be told lies. 

 

The much-expected court ruling in the case filed during the mass arson in 2017, and scheduled for 22^nd June 2022, was the last minute shockingly postponed to September.

On 23rd June 2022, PM Majaliwa led a military celebration of the brutal attack on the Maasai.

 

On 24th June 2022, people were told to leave within 24 hours or all their livestock would be confiscated. Houses were demolished or razed. TAWA illegally seized livestock and demanded extortionate “fines”. The dry season deepened without access to the most important grazing area. In Ormanie, Arash ward, on 27^th June, cows, donkeys, calves, and other livestock were shot by the security forces. 

As announced, there were mass arrests of people accused of being “Kenyan”. Nursing mothers were locked up, some children had both their parents arrested, and by November every one of the bogus immigration cases - only meant to terrorize and paralyze - had been dismissed. 

Loliondo refugees in Kenya

On 28^th September 2022, Minister Chana announced that the illegally demarcated 1,500 km² in Loliondo had been placed under the management of the NCAA.

 

On 30^th September the East African Court of Justice dismissed Reference No.10 of 2017 on the grounds that the Maasai had failed to prove that the mass arson of 2017 was committed on village land and not in Serengeti National Park. This ruling was quite inexplicable when even the government’s own map show that the crime was committed on village land. Some confused and very unhelpful journalists confused this with the 2022 operation and reported that the court had approved “cordoning off” of the land. 

 

TAWA, at the height of the dry season, continued illegal seizures of livestock and extortion of huge fines, 100,000 shillings per cow and 25,000 per sheep or goat. NCAA rangers were reportedly trained and set up camp. In Malambo, on 8^th November, the head of the NCAA camp announced that TAWA had left, and the boundaries were being guarded by the Field Force Unit.

 

On 31^st October, or 1^st November 2022, it was announced that President Samia had on 14^th October declared a Pololeti Game Reserve (GN No.604, 2022). It came as a nasty surprise for the lawyers that on 1^st November were in court for the mention of Miscellaneous Cause No.09 of 2022, even if it seems like it was also on Tanzania Broadcasting Corporation the previous evening.

 

Several court cases were filed to stop the brutal, fake and illegal protected area: two in the High Court and one in the East African Court of Justice, the ruling in the case filed in 2017 has been appealed, and there’s a contempt of court application.

 

On 1^st November, in an NCA advertorial in the extreme anti-Maasai newspaper the Jamhuri, a “conservator” for the fake and illegal game reserve – Pius Rwiza - spoke of how calm and wonderful everything is after the demarcation. He says that the Maasai understand the demarcation but must keep a further 500 metres away from it! And he wanted them to create WMAs, outside the illegally demarcated 1,500 km², which is another kind of land alienation that also was included in the OBC-funded draft district land use plan that was rejected by Ngorongoro District Council in 2011.

 

Towards the end of October 2022, there were reports of a notice issued by the DC about redrawing of village boundaries with new village land use plans, and some 40 state security and surveyors on the ground. Through intimidation and government installed traitors, it was said that the land use plan had been passed, but that would of course not be legal in any way.

 

Between 14^th-17^th November 2022, nine immigration cases against 62 people who still had such cases pending after the mass arrests in June and July were discharged for want of prosecution.

 

On 22^nd November 2022, it was announced that the Director of Public Prosecution had no intention to continue with the ridiculous “murder” case against 24 people, including ten CCM councillors and the CCM district chairman. The leaders were, directly after being released, whisked off to CCM internal elections to vote for candidates close to RC Mongella.

 

On 20^th December 2022, in a ceremony with PM Kassim Majaliwa and Minister of Natural Resources and Tourism Pindi Chana, the German Ambassador to Tanzania Regina Hess handed over 51 vehicles, part of 20 million euros committed funds by Germany for emergency funding and recovery for biodiversity in response of COVID19 facilitated by the German development bank, KfW, and Frankfurt Zoological Society, FZS. The vehicles will be distributed into Serengeti and Nyerere National Parks and Selous Game Reserve and will have a great impact on supporting “operations”. In the ceremony Majaliwa mentioned poachers and “encroaching livestock” as the objectives of those “operations”.

 

The Tanzanians online – who since early 2022 had become very sympathetic to the Maasai - toward the end of 2022, unfortunately, again became busy with wildlife trafficking from Loliondo, without presenting evidence in any form. Even OBC’s Mollel participated in a zoom seminar organized to deny this – instead of talking about the insanely brutal and illegal land alienation.

 

Livestock keep being seized, destroying everyone’s livelihood and mental health. 

23^rd – 28^th January, the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights visited, specifically to have a look at Loliondo and Ngorongoro, but the visit was co-opted by the government and the Commission did not see a single victim from Loliondo. Salangat Mako from Ololosokwan recorded a message for the Commission and then had to flee to Kenya for a while after threats.

 

Rangers from Bologonja in Serengeti National Park joined NCAA rangers/FFU in seizing cattle on village land in Ololosokwan, illegally declared a game reserve, and taking them to Mugumu for auctioning. They continued with this until they almost lost a court case and one of them suffered a fatal motorcycle accident.

 

On 29^th February and 30^th March 2023 meetings meant to legitimize the 1,500 km² land theft via a Ngorongoro District Land Use Framework Plan for the next 20 years was held at the Ngorongoro District Council Hall in Wasso. This was openly and shamelessly funded and facilitated by the Germans via FZS. The DC openly threatened the councillors for being obstacles to the exercise and the years ago somewhat serious NGO personality Joseph Parsambei openly came out as a traitor, as did the chairman of Soitsambu village.

On 5^th May 2023, a NCAA ranger was lightly injured by an arrowshot from an unknown hero archer and there were reports that the rangers stopped patrolling at nighttime.

 

On 19^th May 2023 the councillors at Ngorongoro District Council voted in unison to reject in total the government’s German-facilitated draft 2023-2043 Ngorongoro District Land Use Framework Plan.

 

A Maasai delegation visited Europe and on 31^st May 2023, they attended a public event at the EU Parliament in which they, there at the same venue, could respond to the usual demented government lies spewed by Jestas Abouk Nyamanga, Tanzanian ambassador to Belgium, Luxembourg, and European Union Commission and Prof. Malebo, Tanzanian UNESCO secretary. Lawyer Joseph Oleshangay from Endulen, Nengai Kilusu Laizer from Oloirobi, and Noorkishili Nakero Naing’isa from Ololosokwan were there and spoke the truth.

 

On the anniversary of the brutal and lawless land theft, several local leaders and other victims gave their testimony of the crimes at a meeting in Mto Wa Mbu, and others had already been recorded by a fact-finding mission.

 

On 22^nd August 2023, the high court ruled that Miscellaneous Civil Cause No. 178 of 2022, the case dealing with the president’s GN No.604 of 2022, declaring a “game reserve” can proceed and prohibited operation of the GN until determination of the case.

 

EU parliamentarians who were to visit Ngorongoro and Loliondo were 24 hours before their departure on 4^th September 2023, stopped by the Tanzanian government that had invited them.

 

On 8^th September 2023, against orders by the Officer Commanding District, Tundu Lissu, held meetings in Ololosokwan and Wasso, with an overwhelming reception. 

 

NCA, bye bye Manongi, and the government again denies well-documented adulterated salt

This blog post is getting far too long, but for some quick updates about Ngorongoro Conservation Area where the government with restrictions on every aspect of life, and illegal blocking of social services is attempting to make the Maasai “voluntarily” relocate to other people’s land, with heavy media propaganda about Msomera in Handeni.

 

As detailed in previous blog posts, there was a manhunt and mass arrests in Endulen ward after a week of protests to demand a permit to renovate the badly cracked Nasipooriong’ Primary School, and by extension the blocking of all such permits since 2021, and the government provocateur and genocidal inciter, Habib Mchange, was chased away from Endulen market. Those arrested were held incommunicado for several days, many were tortured, and all were questioned about why they were refusing to relocate to Msomera. Even the MP, Emmanuel Oleshangai, was arrested/abducted and held incommunicado for two nights. Later, when Tundu Lissu was blocked from visiting Ngorongoro division on 9^th September there were huge protests led by women and the presence of the Field Force Unit was heavily increased. Glory Julius was arrested and badly beaten. Currently, those who were arrested must report at Karatu Police Station every four days as a means of harassment and sabotage to make them lose time and money.

 

Also mentioned in the previous blog post, Flying Medical Service, after 16 months of being grounded for reasons not made known to them, got a temporary clearance to fly again. Infuriatingly, in NCA they are only allowed to attend to urgencies, but not provide vaccines or maternal and child care. Their long grounding added to the life-threatening situation with defunded dispensaries and the downgraded Endulen Hospital. “During those 16 empty months, we had to totally unnecessarily refuse to fly 146 emergency flight requests, not treat more than 9,294 patients, not vaccinate more than 31,628 children, not examine 7,192 pregnant women, not treat 231 TB patients, and not treat 102 HIV patients.” tweeted FMS.

 

The heavy propaganda for “voluntary” relocation to Msomera in Handeni continues, ignoring protests by displaced Msomera villagers and complaints about unfulfilled promises and the unsuitability for pastoralism by some Ngorongoro migrants, including the government’s poster boy, former MP Telele. On 18^th September the deputy minister of Lands, Housing and Human Settlement Development, Geophrey Pinda, declared that the Ngorongoro immigrants do not have the right to sell their land and houses in Msomera, while landownership has been a main argument in the government propaganda. Otherwise, a very often heard government “argument” is that nobody owns land in Tanzania … On 25^th September, Manongi signed a MoU with the army, or more exactly the national service, Jeshi la Kujenga Taifa (JKT), about building 5,000 houses in Msomera, Kitwai and Saunyi villages, half of them in Msomera. The construction was initiated in a very militaristic way on 6^th October by what is supposed to be a 6,000-man JKT workforce. If 2,500 households can be made to relocate to Msomera, the village will be crowded indeed. On 15^th October Minister of Defence and National Service Stergomena Tax visited Msomera to keep on praising President Samia.

 

On 7^th October, the NCAA issued a statement again denying the already in December 2021 laboratory tested adulterated and hazardous replacement salt that the authority offered to the villages of Misigiyo, Kayapus, Mokilal, Oloirobi, and Irkeepus after they lost all saltlicks when access to Ngorongoro Crater was restricted in 2017. This was because the issue had again surfaced in social media when an article was published. On 15^th October a press conference was held by Ngorongoro people setting the record straight. Only many months after his release did I understand that the reason that the councillor of Ngorongoro ward, Simon Saitoti, was arrested on 1^st July 2022 and joined to the murder charges against the Loliondo councillors that were abducted on 9^th June 2022 (for a killing that took place on the 10^th) was that he has been speaking up about this dangerous salt that killed many cows. At least it was what he was interrogated about.

 

On 3^rd October it was announced that the NCAA assistant conservator Elibariki Bajuta was being transferred to become DC of Urambo. Bajuta has in different capacities, I first heard about him as district tourism officer, exercised his personal hatred against the Maasai. The same announcement said that the head of TANAPA, William Mwakilema, was transferred to become DC for Korogwe. In Mwakilema’s case this was definitely a demotion, and I’m told this is obvious in Bajuta’s case too. Mwakilema is another criminal who was Serengeti chief park warden when the park management was the main implementor of the mass arson operation 2017. Nobody seems to know the reason why Bajuta and Mwakilema were transferred.

 

On 12^th October, quite surprising, it was announced that the horrible NCA Chief Conservator Freddy Manongi has been replaced. It was indeed two years since President Samia renewed his appointment for two more years, when he was about to retire, but finally this very dangerous enemy of the Ngorongoro Maasai, who’s been chief conservator since 2013, will retire. The new chief conservator is Richard Rwanyakatoo Kiiza who comes from TANAPA.

 

Good riddance! 

15-year-old Joshua Olepatorro whose upper front teeth the NCA ranger Elibariki Israel Namungu on 13^th August smashed out beating him with the butt of his gun is having some problems getting justice, since a criminal case requires cooperation from the police. His case was one mentioned in the song “Mnatuona nyani” (You see us as baboons) by the artist Sifa Bujune who was arrested for incitement and then charged with specifically the lines about Joshua as “false, deceptive, misleading, or inaccurate”, violating the Cybercrimes Act. Those lines of the song about the Tanzanian government’s attitude are very well documented though.

 

As been detailed in several blog posts, UNESCO World Heritage Centre – with its many reports with “grave concerns” about “increase in the number of people residing in the property” is the main instigator of the Tanzanian government’s human rights violations in NCA. I must write more about this in a blog post about NCA, but for the first time in its State of conservation of properties inscribed on the of World Heritage List (Extended forty-fifth session Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia 10-25 September 2023) UNESCO is addressing these “alleged” violations – that it claims to have received numerous letters about in 2021 and 2022 - urging the State Party to demonstrate, ensure and rebut, while stubbornly denying any own responsibility and putting a lot of faith in a not yet released report by the ACPHR that in January 2023 made government commandeered visit to NCA, Msomera and Loliondo.

 

On 13^th October in social media the Tanzanian government’s favourite liar and inciter against the Maasai of Loliondo, UNESCO’s general secretary in Tanzania Hamisi Malebo again boasted of his spewing of disinformation at the UN. According to the Tanzanian government’s own “information”, which Malebo linked to, the occasion was a letter by Special Rapporteur Francisco Calí Tzay about Thomson Safaris, a tourism investor involved in a very ugly land grab in Loliondo, about which all information has been almost totally suppressed for years, even by those who should know better. However, Malebo did not seem to understand this, but parroted the government’s usual very deranged lies (see above) about Loliondo and NCA. Malebo is appointed by Tanzania and not UNESCO, but the organization has never distanced itself from this individual in any way.

 

At the World Travel Awards on 16^th October at the Atlantis Royal Hotel in Dubai, Ngorongoro Conservation Area received the award as Best Tourism Attraction in Africa. Please boycott Tanzania! Total tourism boycott!

 

Apologies and reflexions on very long and horribly delayed blog posts

The reason for the length and delay of this blog post is that too much is happening and I’m having problem keeping up and keeping focus. As soon as I’m about to publish there’s new important information that’s unconfirmed, or not yet suitable for the public (this can cause very long delays). I’m trying to keep the writing brief, so that at least someone will read it, but fear misunderstandings if I don’t provide enough context, and this fear is well-founded through experience. I feel a terrible unease about missing some important aspect, or that some information could be withheld from me. Reporting about Loliondo has become better since the days when it was just atrociously misleading, and I don’t mean the obvious government/investor disinformation, but well-meaning reporters and researchers that didn’t seem to care about facts. Still, almost every article gets something significant very wrong. So, please get in touch with me if you’re writing about Loliondo. I’m one of very few people who remembers what has happened the past decade, and I want you to get everything right. Follow me on Twitter for speedier, but maybe unconfirmed information.

Where is Oriais Oleng’iyo?

 

Susanna Nordlund is a working-class person based in Sweden who since 2010 has been blogging about Loliondo (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

Updates

27th October

The cattle owners were not allowed to pass Klein's Gate to got to their cattle held by the TANAPA cattle rustlers at Lobo in Serengeti.

The 48 cows belonging to Mzee Siloma and illegally held by NCAA rangers at Lengijape in Arash were released for a "reduced "extortion of  fee of 1,300,000. The other livestock are still being held and many sheep have "disappeared".

28th October

At dawn very high numbers of cattle have been seized in Malambo, Irkarian and Sanjan by the criminal NCAA rangers, some taken to their camp and some released after the rangers have been paid big bribes.

30th October

The criminals are testing a lie that would mean that the district court, the DC, the district council, and everyone else in the old Loliondo GCA (all village land) are trespassing. Application by the DPP for auctioning seized cattle.

31st October

The court in Musoma (Mara region) ordered the auctioning of the livestock held at Lobo, with the pretext of non-appearance - when the owners have been stopped from entering Serengeti. The owners got a stop order, but the auctioning has not been stopped!

1st November

The Arash auctioning case was withdrawn.

The councillor of Ololosokwan was arrested for some hours, apparently because of an interference by Taasa Lodge. 

In Ndutu, NCA, rangers attempted to drive cattle into Serengeti. Herders that first were hiding when they saw the NCAA vehicle approaching got out to stop the crime and the rangers instead arrested five warriors that were released after paying 300,000.

The 806 cows, 420 sheep and 100 sheep illegally seized on stolen village land and driven into Lobo in Serengeti NP were auctioned off as "unclaimed property" - leaving families destitute - despite of that the owners sought and GOT a stop order from the high court in Musoma. 

6th November

The NCAA cattle rustling rangers have again seized cattle in Ololosokwan and Arash. Some 1000 cows that are being illegally held at Klein's and Lengijape.

7th November

MP Emmanuel Oleshangay spoke up in parliament about the ongoing crimes against pastoralists in Loliondo/Sale and NCA.

8th November

Several human rights and indigenous rights organizations issued a statement against the violations of pastoralists' rights and violations of court orders. 

9th November

MP Olehangai told the press about his questions to the government. 

10th November

Rangers seized some 100 cows in Arash ward, but released them after being given a bribe of 2 million TShs.

11th November

Tundu Lissu reported at Arusha Police Station for questioning about having held "illegal meetings" in Ololosokwan and Wasso in September.

People of Mondorosi village donated 95 cows and 339 goats/sheep to villagers whose livestock have been stolen. 26/10, 260 cattle belonging to Mondorosi families were seized in Kirtalo and driven to Lobo (Serengeti) by TANAPA criminals, then they were illegally auctioned.

13th November

In the case regarding the president's GN 604, the respondents had failed to make submissions in 14 days and asked for 7 more days.

The case about the contempt of court committed by the DC and four others was postponed to next day.

14th November

The contempt of court case, High Court, was postponed to 24th November.

15th November

Never has contempt of court been more obvious than when the interim orders issued by the East African Court of Justice on 25th September 2018 were violated. Still, today the judges – in one minute – dismissed the application. The “reasoning” will be delivered in two weeks, but there isn’t any kind of possible “reason”. One of the judges was again the son of a land grabber Nyachae. Were the judges compromised or just too lazy and stupid to care? The contempt is even documented in two lawless GNs and 424 illegal beacons …

19th November

The MP held a meeting in Oloipiri.

21st November

Since OBC still has complaints, their own private journalist is back with an "article". 

22nd November

Court?

Postponement to 22nd January.

28th November

New article by Manyerere Jackton and terrible and swift reply bt NCAA.

29th November     

Reports of seizures of cattle in Ololosokwan, but without any details. 

Good news from the East African Court of Justice!

The Appellate Division has ruled against Tanzania government in Appeal Case No 12 of 2022.

It has ordered that, Reference No 10 of 2017 was badly tried in first instance division. And this is the biggest understatement ever.

Court ordered retrial of the case with cost against government.

30th November

The "reasoned" version of the demented dismissal of the contempt of court case in the EACJ was delivered, but I can't get hold of it.

(I eventually did).

8th December

At the Tanzania Episcopal Conference, TEC, meeting on human rights, Denis Moses Oleshangay talked about Ngorongoro, Msomera and Loliondo. 

10th December

The lawyer Joseph Moses Oleshangay from Endulen – one of those more likely to call a spade a spade about Loliondo and Ngorongoro received the Weimar Human Rights Award on place in the town of the same name in Germany.