Loliondo Bogus Murder Case Dropped after Over Five Months, While the Horror Worsens with Fake and Forced Land Use Plans

 

I needed to write a briefer, clearer blog post about the brutal and lawless land demarcation – robbing the Maasai of Loliondo of vitally important grazing land - committed by the entire blood-soaked and illegitimate Tanzanian government, and about the terrible (but not as terrible as reported in parts of the press) and partly inexplicable ruling by the EACJ on the 2017 mass arson. But the horrors just keep accumulating and I’m overwhelmed. State security and surveyors have been to Loliondo to redraw village boundaries and impose land use plans with heavy intimidation, and reportedly corrupted some people. On 1^st November it was announced that President Samia Suluhu Hassan on 14^th October had declared the 1,500 km² a fake and illegal “Pololeti Game Reserve”. Then the DC and an individual calling himself conservator of the illegal protected area have been threatening with further land theft, outside the 1,500 km², via WMAs.

 

Meanwhile, in Ngorongoro Conservation Area (NCAA, NOT to be mixed up with Loliondo), the restrictions to squeeze out the Maasai keep tightening.

 

I miss the days when I was told that they Maasai of today aren’t the Maasai of 1958, meaning that they are educated, organized, and there’s no need to worry since they will stop evil government plans. It’s such a long time ago. Help is needed. People who can target President Samia in ways that will be very acutely felt, must help stopping the cruel crimes against the Maasai. Open letters are much appreciated (see below for new ones) but words are just not enough. “Words are not enough” applies to me as a blogger as well, but I don’t know what to do.

 

When I was about to publish this blog post there was good news that the Director of Public Prosecution has dropped the obviously bogus “murder case” against 24 people – including all councillors from affected wards, except one who fled - who have been locked up in remand prison for over five months. I hope there isn’t a price for the release, but that hope is getting fainter by the hour.

 

Meanwhile, pastoralists all over Tanzania are under attack. Seven villages around Kilimanjaro International Airport have suffered illegal planting of beacons, in Mbarali there are evictions and terrible seizure of cattle, evictions and killed pastoralists in Kilombero, and violence ordered by an anti-pastoralist councillor in Morogoro has led to one death and several injuries.

 

I’ll soon write a briefer blog, hopefully with answers to some of the questions that remain.  

 

Where is mzee Oriais Oleng'iyo?

 

The horror

Fake and forced land use plans

Dismissed immigration cases

Bogus murder case dropped

The old lie

Court cases and the government’s brutal and wildly shifting lies

Ruthless hypocrites Thomson Safaris

The not at all less threatened Ngorongoro Conservation Area

Updates at the end of the blog post.

Amidst Government Terror and Lawlessness, the East African Court Fails to Deliver Justice to the Maasai of Loliondo

 

Update: On 1st November, Miscellaneous Cause No.09 of 2022 – a parallel case to the one filed in the EACJ to stop the fake and illegal Pololeti GCA - was mentioned in the high court and met with the information that the evil Samia Suluhu Hassan had on 14^th October declared the land as a “Pololeti Game Reserve”.

On 22nd November the DPP dropped the bogus murder case, and the new blog post is basically finished, except for some terrible uncertainties. 

More updates at the end of this blog post, and a new post will be ready as soon as possible. 

NEW BLOG POST

On 30^th September 2022 in Arusha, the East African Court of Justice delivered its ruling in Reference No. 10 of 2017 Ololosokwan Village Council & 3 Others versus the Attorney General of the United Republic of Tanzania. The case was so very clear that it seemed impossible that the Maasai would not win, and the judges seemed to have understood. Still, the ruling was “dismissed for lack of merits”. The court argued that the applicant villages failed to prove that the mass arson operation in 2017 was carried out on village land and not in Serengeti National Park, as was the lie by the government (respondent) witnesses in 2018, after the attorney general in the initial response from November 2017 had lied that the 1,500 km² would have been declared a protected area, which is what Minister Pindi Chana – illegally – did on 17^th June this year. The court seems not to have noticed this glaring discrepancy between the attorney general (respondent) and the respondent’s witnesses.

 

TANAPA's map from the 2017 operation clearly shows that an overwhelming majority of bomas were illegally burned on village land.

The lawyer Joseph Moses Oleshangay tweeted, “The case has been dismissed. I believe the three months’ time delay was meant to rewrite the decision. No other means can explain more than 90 days delay.”

 

In this blog post:

The ruling

Reference No. 10 of 2017

Illegal annexation to Ngorongoro Conservation Area and recent violence there

 

Anti-Maasai Genocidal Frenzy in the Tanzanian Parliament when Discussing Ngorongoro

 

Genocidal anti-Maasai frenzy has been exhibited in parliament, almost without pushback. The plan is now to review the Ngorongoro Conservation Area Act, and to receive more lecturing from the biggest enemies of the Maasai.

 

Remember that Loliondo and Ngorongoro Conservation Area are two different, but closely related issues.

 

In this blog post:

Loathsome spectacle in parliament

Statements

Adulterated saltlicks

Permanent Secretaries have arrived in Loliondo

Ngorongoro Conservation Area and the MLUM review proposal

Ndumbaro