Brief Background of the Loliondo Hunting Block and Long-Lobbied for Crime

 

This is a summary to refer to in an attempt to avoid far too long blog posts and it’s help for anyone writing about Loliondo. By necessity this means that important aspects may have been left out. I’ve tried to include what’s most important to understand the current situation. Please contact me for further details, or if you think I’ve left out anything essential.

 

Notice that this summary is about the illegal and brutal land alienation for a “game reserve” in Loliondo and Sale divisions of Ngorongoro District. Ngorongoro Division/Ngorongoro Conservation Area (NCA) where the Tanzanian government use cruel restrictions and illegal defunding of social services to make the Maasai relocate to other people’s land far away is ANOTHER ISSUE, even if closely related in many ways. The cruel and stupid Msomera publicity stunt is NOT about the Maasai of Loliondo. I must soon write another blog post about NCA.

 

The criminal is the Tanzanian government that´s aided and abetted by investors, donors, and conservation organisations. Notably, OBC from Dubai have lobbied for the brutal and lawless creation of an illegal “game reserve”in Loliondo. The Germans and Frankfurt Zoological Society have a long history of working against Maasai land rights and recently very openly and shamelessly funded and facilitated a now rejected draft district land use plan to legitimize and extend the crime. Though the brutal land alienation drive is not restricted to Loliondo, or Ngorongoro District, or to the Maasai, but all rural Tanzanians with land that’s of interest to tourism are under serious threat, while the Germans boast about being the biggest bilateral donors to the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism. The land alienation drive has been going on for decades, but with the current government of Samia Suluhu Hassan, that’s running amok with a greedy and violent tourism cult, it’s worse than ever. Everyone considering spending tourism money in Tanzania seriously needs to consider what they are encouraging.

 

I’ve got almost all information about the early days from Navaya ole Ndaskoi and that from later years from hundreds of different people, most of whom would sadly not like to be mentioned at all.

 

“The minister” refers to the Minister of Natural Resources and Tourism.

Contents:

Mwinyi

Mkapa

Kikwete

Magufuli

Samia

 

Mwinyi

Otterlo Business Corporation (OBC), 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 (first contract signed in 1992). OBC got the hunting block in the Loliondogate scandal covered by the reporter Stan Katabalo in the Mfanyakazi newspaper in 1993, until he passed away under suspect circumstances in September the same year. Katabalo was tipped off by the legendary Moringe Parkipuny who, too, suffered an assassination attempt in 1993.

 

The hunting block includes two towns – Wasso and Loliondo - district headquarters, agricultural areas, and a terrible land grab by the American Thomson Safaris. 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 signifies a huge land loss to the local Maasai, with lost lives and livelihoods.

 

Besides the 10-year frame (unlawful at the time), the block was leased over the heads of the legally registered villages, there were reports that Al Ali and Sheikh Mohammed had already breached every hunting regulation before being granted the hunting block and then a parliamentary committee found more evidence of such misbehaviour (the Marmo report that I’ve been trying to get someone to send me for over a decade, but maybe it was only presented to parliament orally), while the parastatal TAWICO already held the hunting block. Further, there were allegations that President Mwinyi was close to OBC. Mary Ndosi represented OBC in Tanzania, signing as Senior State Attorney and using the P.O box address of the Attorney General. OBC’s first illegal10-year contract was revoked already in the corruption scandal in the 1990s, in which Minister Abubakar Mgumia was axed, and since then the hunting block has been renewed like any other hunting block. The press at the time reported that Abdulraham Kinana was escorting the hunters at Kilimanjaro Airport already in 1993.

 

The now stolen 1,500 km² was owned and used by the Maasai before and during colonial times under customary ownership, which was recognized by the Land Act of 1923. After being evicted from Serengeti in 1959, the affected Maasai moved to both NCA and Loliondo. In the 1970s the villages in Loliondo and Sale were registered under the Village and Ujamaa Villages Act, then in 1982 under the Local Government (District Authorities) Act – and could enter legally binding contracts on their own behalf - and got further protection as village land belonging to the village assembly (all adult villagers) managed by the village council under Village Land Act No.5 of 1999. Eviction from this land is in contravention and violation of the Constitution of the United Republic of Tanzania, Village Land Act 1999, Wildlife Conservation Act No.5 of 2009, and the Treaty for the Establishment of the EAC.

 

Mkapa

In 1995, President Benjamin William Mkapa appointed a Presidential Commission of Enquiry into Corruption in Tanzania. Justice Joseph Warioba chaired the Commission. OBC was mentioned as one of the most corrupt companies.

 

Protests by local leaders against OBC’s construction near water sources, oversized airstrip and hostile attitudes towards the Maasai and their livestock were in April 2000 taken to Dar es Salaam by a Maasai delegation led by Sandet ole Reiya in a failed attempt to meet President Mkapa, but the Maasai got some media coverage. These protests, but with a focus on new allegations of hunting abuse, led to some international press coverage in 2001-2002, primarily in Kenya.

 

Sandet ole Reiya some 16 years later. Now he's sadly no longer among us. Photo: MRG

The first years of the new millennium and a couple of years before that, the Tanzanian government and Frankfurt Zoological Society were working hard to impose Wildlife Management Areas (WMA) on the Maasai of Loliondo. A WMA is so-called “community-based natural resource management” whereby while staying nominally as village land, areas are set aside for tourism and conservation, and the influence of investors, conservation organisations, and central government is increased. The Maasai of Loliondo managed to reject it.

 

Kikwete

By 2008, relations with OBC had deteriorated further and the then Ngorongoro DC Jowika Kasunga coerced local leaders into signing a Memorandum of Understanding with the hunters. 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 crown prince of Dubai, in Loliondo in 2009. The kori bustard is not in the quotas. 

 

In a statement in September 2009 the Minister Shamsa Mwangunga warned that with the new Wildlife Conservation Act village land and game controlled area would be separated.

 

In November 2009, Isaack Mollel, director of OBC, was boasting to the press that the company had donated TSh.156 million to Arusha Region for land use planning in Loliondo Game Controlled Area. In February 2010, Minister for Lands, Housing and Human Settlements Developments, John Chiligati, declared that the government had set aside TShs.157 million for land use planning in Loliondo.

 

The government stopped a report (the Ndugai report), answering 14 points raised by Ngorongoro MP Telele, from being tabled in parliament. In April 2010 there were mass protests by women in Loliondo turning in or burning their CCM cards. Their demands were to have the Ndugai report tabled in parliament and for the government to stop any plans for a “wildlife corridor”. The government continued issuing threats about a corridor and Chiligati was particularly loud.

 

In December 2010 several CSOs filed a constitutional suit against the government and OBC to petition the 2009 evictions in the High Court of Tanzania. This case kept being postponed for years before it was dismissed.

 

In February 2011, the Ngorongoro District Land Use Framework Plan 2010–2030 that proposed turning the village land that had been invaded into a protected area, was revealed. The Maasai were united, and the draft land use plan was rejected by Ngorongoro District Council. Local leaders thought that the government had been defeated, and they became passive. Some of them reconciled with OBC.

 

In November 2012, TANAPA attempted to place beacons onto Ololosokwan village land, extending the national park boundary contrary to Government Notice No.235 of 1968. In an admirable way, the beacons, stored at Klein’s gate, were destroyed by the villagers.

 

In January 2013, then Minister of Natural Resources and Tourism Khamis Kagasheki started issuing his threats about the land and 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, all of it village land) was a protected area and that alienating the important 1,500 km² meant generously giving the remaining land to the Maasai. Kagasheki did this in meetings with the press and with diplomats, and in wildly misleading written statements from his ministry. This huge lie and ugly trick did not work, since the Maasai were more serious and united than ever (except for MP Telele who showed signs of having been compromised), garnered support from both the opposition CHADEMA and from the ruling CCM.

 

Thousands of people met in Oloipiri on 25^th March 2013 and decided to stay united, end any involvement with OBC and, soon after the government had announced the land to be taken away from them, initiate a court case with an injunction plus a reclaim of Serengeti National Park. Also, all political leaders, including the MP, would resign from their posts. This was the highest point of seriousness by Loliondo leader, but unfortunately, they didn’t keep it up.

 

On 6^th April 2013, a CCM mission led by the deputy secretary general of the party, Mwigulu Nchemba, met with women who had been camping out for days in protest in Oloirien. Nchemba’s conclusion was that the government’s decision was contrary to the laws of the land and would adversely affect the local community, and that he would refer the issue to the PM. Tundu Lissu and Peter Msigwa of the opposition party CHADEMA were addressing the public at a meeting in Soitsambu. They told villagers to support the opposition party in opposing the government decision. The opposition support for the Maasai has deepened with the crimes of 2022, with the nasty exception of precisely Msigwa who for some time was engaging in the most terrible government lies. Lissu, since before 2013, continues as the strongest ally. Meanwhile, by 2022, the ruling CCM has entered full genocidal mode and engages in terrible repression of its own party representatives that speak up for land rights.

 

PM Mizengo Kayanza Peter Pinda stopped Kagasheki’s threats, first vaguely via a letter to the RC in May 2013, and then loudly and strongly in a speech in Wasso on 23^rd September the same year.

 

After Kagasheki’s open threats and lies, his successor Lazaro Nyalandu focused on closed meetings with local leaders, in which there reportedly were always offers of money. Some found it convenient to benefit from openly praising the “investors” and attacking the defenders of the land, while apparently thinking that there wasn’t any real risk with benefitting personally from such behaviour, since land alienation was unlikely. A group of traitors crystallized, led by the then councillor for Oloipiri, William Alais, and the director of the NGO Kidupo, Gabriel Killel. Though nobody signed any MoU with OBC.

 

The global web movement Avaaz that had been a strong but confusing supporter of the Maasai in 2012-2013, in 2014, with apparently only one source, told British press that there was an eviction notice for November the same year, which to date nobody from Loliondo has seen. This led President Kikwete – a terrible anti-pastoralist, especially during his first term – to have some fun tweeting a huge lie about the past and about the future: “There has never been, nor will there ever be any plan by the Government of #Tanzania to evict the #Maasai people from their ancestral land.” In later years people with short memories have interpreted this as if Kikwete would be some kind of defender of land rights.

 

Nyalandu welcoming Sheikh Mohammed in January 2015.

In March 2015, the EU parliament adopted a resolution condemning land grabbing in Tanzania. Unfortunately, the mentions of events in Loliondo were based on articles that had misreported content, to put it mildly.

 

In April 2015, security forces and DC Hashim Mgandilwa joined up with OBC rangers and the “investor-friendly” group for a violent “anti-Kenyan” operation. Five actual Kenyans (citizens of the Republic of Kenya) were jailed for six months and fined TShs. 100,000. Even though almost all victims of the violent “anti-Kenyan” team were Tanzanian, several meetings were held across the border in Kenya and decisions were made to close the border in response to the mistreatment. The vicious anti-Loliondo journalist Manyerere Jackton in the Jamhuri magazine contributed by publishing a list of 280 private individuals that he – or his sources -considered to be “Kenyan”, including Kundai Parmwat who was councillor for Soitsambu 2000-2010 (Wakenya wavamia Tanzania, 22.4.2015). After many meetings, the actual cross border issues cooled down, but not the already established habit of accusing non-compliant Tanzanians of being “Kenyan”. In May the same year, Mgandilwa used a conflict between corrupt policemen and villagers to arrest local leaders suspected of not being friendly to OBC, and have them paraded barefoot form Wasso to Loliondo. Then this DC went on to further stir up the conflict between Kirtalo, the village where OBC’s camp is situated, and Oloipiri where OBC had “befriended” all leaders.

 

When I visited in June 2015, I was arrested, or more exactly abducted, for three nights, not allowed to contact anyone, and then declared a prohibited immigrant and dumped in Kenya where I discovered that the hard drive had been removed from my laptop.

 

Magufuli

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.

 

In July 2016, two secondary school teachers and two NGO people were arrested, two of them tortured, and then the four were charged with espionage and sabotage for having communicated with me. The charges were dismissed after several months of inaction by the prosecution that obviously only wanted to increase fear and silence. Several other local leaders were arrested for a day or so and not charged.

 

By December 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 in April 2017 was seen as a victory, even though it was a sad compromise (reportedly a WMA, which would never have been approved by the village assemblies, and that had earlier been successfully rejected for many years of better unity and less acute fear).

 

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

A week earlier, 5^th - 7^th 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 in Gambo’s committee.

 

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.

While Loliondo was burning, 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.

 

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, and complained that OBC´s Mollel had tried to bribe him more cheaply than he bribed his predecessors, 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), then explaining that only some of OBC’s staff were a problem, 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, Don Deya.

 

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 Lopolun tortured people, seized cattle, and burned bomas in Kirtalo and Ololosokwan villages. This was the lowest point ever in the land rights struggle (until the brutal and lawless demarcation 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 Ngorongoro Conservation Area (NCA) was presented by chief conservator Freddy Manongi. It included the proposal to annex the 1,500 km² (but in the form of two areas: an elongated area bordering Serengeti in the entire north to south of Loliondo and Sale divisions, and an area further east in Malambo, like was done 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 many leaders were pretending that the threat had been averted.

 

Samia

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 (then successfully appealed). 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.

 

President Samia Suluhu Hassan started inciting against the Maasai of Ngorongoro very shortly after being sworn in, already in a speech on 6^th April 2021, and has continued doing so in a way previously not seen in any Tanzanian president, but the focus of her outburst has been Ngorongoro Conservation Area. Her participation in a travel tv show called “The Royal Tour”, in which heads of state function as tour guides – described as “authoritarian image management” by the researcher Alex Dukalskis - and the “5 million tourists by 2025” has almost been turned into state religion and rural people’s land is under attack all over Tanzania for “protected areas”.

 

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.

 

Village leaders at court.

On 9^th February 2022, in the one-party parliament, parliamentarians competed in being wilfully or genuinely ignorant, mouth-frothingly hateful, and calling for evictions from Ngorongoro (Loliondo was mentioned, but mostly NCA). The Mtwara MP screamed that tanks were needed, there was much laughter and table banging, while only three MPs (all Maasai) spoke up for the Maasai.

 

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 a crazy anti-Maasai hate campaign in parliament and media.

 

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 11th 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.

 

Video from 24th March 2018.

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 didn’t attend and managed to flee – two special seats councillors and the CCM district chairman were on 9th 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 OBC 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 2022 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.

 

Loliondo refugees in Kenya.

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 13^th June 2022, then Inspector General of Police Simon Sirro 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 15^th 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 22nd 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 21^st June 2022, diplomats (in the best case just unaware) 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 appearesd 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.

Also on 22^nd June, Ngorongoro MP Emmanuel Oleshangai spoke up telling the national assembly in no uncertain terms that land in Loliondo is village land, that when we talk about land we talk about people’s lives, and that what's being done in Loliondo is a land grab that no person or village government has agreed to.  

 

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

 

On 24^th 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.

 

On 29^th June RC Mongella thanked Chief of Defence Forces Venance Mabeyo, who was being celebrated on the day of his retirement, for the help by the army in the Loliondo operation. The following day, President Sania appointed Mabeyo the board chairperson of Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority.

 

On 6^th July 2022, German Ambassador Regine Hess met with Arusha RC John Mongella, to talk about the “cooperation” between the two countries, and the Germans kept showering the brutal and lawless Tanzanian government with money.

 

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

On 28^th September 2022, Minister Chana officially announced that the illegally demarcated 1,500 km² in Loliondo had been placed under the management of the NCAA on 23^rd August 2022.

 

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 TANAPA's own map from the illegal operation 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. The ruling was appealed.

 

The ongoing crime

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 2022, 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 1st 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.

 

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 was after the demarcation. He said 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. However, almost all opposition-minded Tanzanians continue supportive of the Maasai, which was not the case before 2022.

 

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

 

23^rd – 28^th January 2023, 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 21^st April 2023, Tanzanian government lies were presented by Tanzanian UNESCO secretary Prof. Hamisi Malebo, together with Zuleikha Tambwe of the Tanzania Permanent Mission to the United Nations. Among other malicious lying there was a demented terra nullius story that Loliondo had been unoccupied since time immemorial, made a protected area during colonial times, and “encroached” by the Maasai after independence. Malebo had already been lying about Loliondo to the African Commission for Human and People’s Rights and has continued doing so on various occasions, not least at the UN. Even earlier, he had engaged in stupid/evil lies about NCA, which he of course also keeps up.  

 

On 5^th May 2023, a NCAA ranger was slightly 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, even the district council chairman, Marekani Bayo, who’s a non-pastoralist and for many years has worked as OBC’s community liaison. However, this individual lied to the press that the reason for the rejection was that the land use plan wasn’t written in Swahili!

 

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. Hamisi 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.

 

Noorkishili

Nyamanga and Malebo lying their heads off.

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. The following day he was stopped from accessing NCA where there were ongoing arrests following peaceful protests and then arrested, later charged with holding meetings without a permit in Ololosokwan and Wasso.

 

Even when under heavy pressure, the councillors again, on 10^th September, rejected the draft 2023-2043 Ngorongoro District Land Use Framework Plan. This time they had a Swahili version.

 

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. The ruling is that  the “Pololeti Game Controlled Area” is null and void for two reasons: mandatory consultation was lacking, and the president's decision to on 14^th October 2022 (when court cases against the minister’s GCA had already been filed) declare a “Pololeti Game Reserve” on the same land automatically repealed its status.

 

The ruling staying the operation of the game reserve until determination of the case regarding the president’s GN, together with the ruling declaring minister’s GN null and void make the seizures of cattle in the illegal “game reserve” also illegal in the eyes of the High Court, but the Tanzanian government decided to ignore this and continues with its crimes, and issued its own illogical and very malicious interpretation of the ruling, saying that the land had reverted back to Loliondo GCA, which of course never has been a protected area restricting human activities.

 

A contempt of court case - Miscellaneous Civil Application No. 106 of 2023 - was filed against:

-Ngorongoro DC Raymond Mwangwala (since then transferred to Rombo).

-“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.

 

Serengeti National Park rangers again joined the crime, on 26^th October 2023, seizing cattle on village land and driving them to Lobo inside Serengeti, rushing to have them auctioned off as “unclaimed property” while the owners and local leaders were working hard to have them released. The magistrate court authorized the selling on 31^st October, and it went ahead, even after the high court in Musoma issued a stop order against it on 1^st November. The auctioning order was reversed on 10^th November and Judge Komba ordered the matter to be heard interparty. There were no receipts from the auctioning that apparently had started already on 27^th October. On 7^th November, MP Shangai spoke up in parliament.

 

On 15^th November 2023, in just one minute and promising a “reasoned” version for two weeks later, the judges in the first instance division in the East African Court of Justice dismissed Application No.2 of 2022, a contempt of court application arising from Application No. 15 of 2017, filed in September 2017, during the brutal and illegal mass arson operation on village land that started in August 2017. This inexplicable ruling was issued even when the applicants’ lawyers were NEVER given a chance to argue the application in court!

 

On 29^th November, the Appellate Division of the East African Court of Justice allowed Appeal No.13 of 2022 and remitted Reference No.10 of 2017 - inexplicably dismissed on 22nd September 2022 - back to the trial court. The court also awarded costs to the applicants. 

 

In the 21^st – 27^th November and 28^th November – 4^th December issues of the viciously anti-Maasai Jamhuri newspaper, the journalist Manyerere Jackton was back complaining on behalf of OBC, as he had earlier done in over 60 articles. After every law and every human right was violated to accommodate OBC’s long-term wish for a 1,500km² game reserve, the hunters apparently don’t feel appreciated enough by NCAA and complain that two other investors are still allowed in the game reserve, that it’s full of livestock, and basically that it’s not properly managed by NCAA.

 

Already on 28^th November NCAA issued a reply to the Jamhuri. Among other issues, NCAA literally boast about between January and November 2023 having seized 6,165 goats and sheep, 13,217 heads of cattle, and extorted 785,475,000 TShs in “fines”. An admission of crime indeed.

 

On 7^th-11^th December, hundreds of women in Ololosokwan held protests about the theft of land and livestock, and some 1000 cattle that had been detained for over a week. According to a clip that was later shared, the women had been struggling for three days to convey their problem to the public. In large number they had even blocked the road. Though this was during one of many strange silences and infuriatingly none of the many young men from this village who are active in social media even shared the video clip. Some tell me that the women themselves could have made sure the video was shared. Someone even added English subtitles, so I don't know what happened. 

 

On 14th December 2023, the EU parliament passed a resolution on the Maasai communities in Tanzania, brought by six groups of EU parliamentarians. The wording was brief, but very relevant and factual (unlike a writing almost a decade ago). They urge the Tanzanian government to halt evictions, allow safe return, respect land right, rule of law and human rights, allow observation visits etc. 

The last days of 2023, Mwanzo TV aired interviews with former Ngorongoro CCM chairman Ndirango Laizer, Megweri Mako from Ololosokwan who’s one of the court applicants against the criminal government, and the activist Norkirropil Moko Kurtut. The wonderful Noorkishili Naing'isa was also interviewed, but that’s still not online. Everyone else was silent.

 

The strange Loliondo silence continues. This is very demoralizing and terribly hurtful when done by some individuals who’ve kept it up for a long time now. Earlier silences have been explained by anything between that all was too terrible, and nobody knew what to say, or that (like sometimes last year) cattle entered the stolen land with smaller payments to the rangers. In January 2024 there have been undetailed reports of cattle seizures in Malambo, but I hope that the temporary stay of operation of the “game reserve” by the High Court has had some effect. Apparently, meetings about community strategy have been held. Currently the problem is flooding and not access to dry season grazing. On 22^nd January, in the High Court there was the contempt of court case and the Substantive Application for Judicial Review, but both were rescheduled for April. Whatever is happening and however demoralizing it may be, I will continue reporting about the brutal Loliondo crime until the land is returned and after that I will for the rest of my life keep reminding of what happened so that it’s never repeated. Now when I have this summary to refer to, I hope I can publish briefer and more frequent blog posts.

 

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

 

Please contact me with any questions about Loliondo. Never guess and never copy hurriedly written newspaper articles, or even reports by serious organizations, without double checking. Also, please contact me with any information you may have. Don’t assume that I’m getting it automatically. I must chase people 24-7 for information. While anyone with good intentions is allowed to use anything written in my blog, and I’ve long ago understood that many fear being associated with me, I appreciate being given credit or at least having my blog linked to.