By Chris Lang
Since 8 June 2022, security forces have been violently evicting Indigenous Maasai people from a 1,500 square kilometre area in the Loliondo division of Ngorongoro district. Dozens of people have been injured, one Maasai man and a police office have died.
The government of Tanzania intends to turn the 1,500 km2 area of land into a game reserve. The game reserve would be handed over to the United Arab Emirates royal family for trophy hunting. The Maasai living in legally registered villages in the area would be evicted and the game reserve would be run by the Otterlo Business Corporation.
Civil society organisations and the United Nations have strongly condemned the horrific abuses taking place in Loliondo.
The demarcation of the 1,500 km2 of land started on 8 June 2022. Maasai community members protested by removing the demarcation beacons that the security forces set up. Amnesty International writes that, “Protesters were met with massive use of force by security officers, and over the next two days dozens of people sustained injuries, including bullet wounds, according to media reports.”
The violence and use of live bullets by security forces left at least 31 people injured, according to a press statement by the Forest Peoples Programme.
Arrests
Police forces have also raided Maasai homes, arresting an unknown number of people. Amnesty International states that “dozens” of people have been detained without charge, including nine councilors, a lawyer for the community, and the chairman of the district’s ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi Party”.
According to a lawyer representing the community, when their families witnessed the arrests and came looking for them, the police denied holding them. Amnesty International writes that,
Dozens more people are believed to be detained at Loliondo Police Station, where they have been denied legal representation and family access. Many other people from the Maasai community are also reported to be missing, while many others have fled to the nearby forest in fear of police reprisals.
Forest Peoples Programme reports that more than 700 children, women, and men have fled to Kenya. Wounded Maasai have been taken to Kenya for treatment. “One man bled to death on the way,” Forest Peoples Programme states and quotes a local Maasai leader as saying,
“Imagine your home is burned in front of you to clear your land for foreigners to hunt. Imagine not being able to graze our cows as we have done for millennia- because of the restrictions imposed by the government to protect a foreign company that is only hunting the wildlife, with whom we have been together for time immemorial!”
Anuradha Mittal, Oakland Institute Executive Director, says,
“The Tanzanian government is using violence to forcibly displace the Maasai, grab their land and hand it over to the royal family of the UAE for their hunting pleasures, indicating its ruthless disregard for its citizens, international law, and due process.”
And Deprose Muchena, Amnesty International’s Director for East and Southern Africa, states that,
“This unlawful forced eviction is shocking in both its scale and brutality. The Tanzanian authorities should never have allocated this area to a private business without first consulting the Maasai community, whose livelihoods depend on their ancestral land.”
UPDATE – 17 June 2020: As I was writing this post, Survival International’s Fiore Longo put out a tweet stating that “Maasai leaders arrested have now been charged with murder (!).” I’ve updated the headline.
Widespread condemnation
On 13 June 2022, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights “strongly condemned” the violence The African Commission urged the government to stop the evictions and to open and independent investigation.
The African Commission writes that,
The African Commission is gravely concerned that the forcibly uprooting of the affected communities entails grave danger to various rights of the members of the communities, including their rights to: life, bodily integrity, freedom of association, property, culture, family, existence and natural resources.
The African Commission requests the Government of Tanzania “To reinstate and provide the necessary support for the rehabilitation of the communities forcibly evicted.”
On 14 June 2022, the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues put out a statement expressing “profound concern” about the evictions.
The Permanent Forum calls on the government of Tanzania to comply with the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and other relevant international human rights instruments, and “ensure the right of the Maasai to participate in decision-making, considering that their land in Loliondo for safari tourism, trophy hunting and “conservation” will affect their lives and territory”.
Article 10 of UNDRIP states that,
Indigenous peoples shall not be forcibly removed from their lands or territories. No relocation shall take place without the free, prior and informed consent of the indigenous peoples concerned and after agreement on just and fair compensation and, where possible with the option to return.
The Permanent Forum urges the government of Tanzania to:
- withdraw all armed forces;
- stop human rights violations, harassment and violence, bring perpetrators to justice; and
- allow journalists, lawyers, human rights observers and civil society organizations to enter Loliondo, speak with the affected Maasai and report on the situation without intimidation.
On 15 June 2022, nine UN Special Rapporteurs issued a press release that states,
We call on the Tanzanian Government to immediately halt plans for relocation of the people living in Loliondo and the Ngorongoro Conservation Area and begin consultations with the Maasai Indigenous Peoples, including direct contact with the Ngorongoro Pastoral Council, to jointly define current challenges to environmental conservation and best avenues to resolve them, while maintaining a human rights-based approach to conservation.
The government of Tanzania’s response
The government denies the violence (apart from the killing of a police officer). Gerson Msigwa, a government spokesperson, told a news conference that, “The public must be informed that LGCA [Loliondo Game Controlled Area] is calm not as being stated in social media.”
Msigwa told the BBC that the evictions were “voluntary” and that, “No soldier, government or government leader has been sent to evict a citizen or a Masai from their homes.”
Oakland Institute’s Mittal responds by asking,
“Why would the operation of demarcation be led by the Special Forces of the Tanzanian Police Force if people were to move voluntarily? These statements by the government responding to the growing worldwide attention are misleading. The fact is that demarcation intends to change the status of the Game Controlled Area where the Maasai are living to a Game Reserve to be used for tourism and trophy hunting.”
And a Maasai activist and community representative says that,
“We Maasai Indigenous community are appealing for international support so that our land and our rights are respected. The myth of ‘Protected areas’ takes away not only our rights as people, but our ability to exercise our responsibilities related to land. Our symbiosis that connects us with spirits, animals, plants, water and land will be disrupted if this land is taken away from us. Tanzania is a signatory to the United Nations Declaration for the Rights of Indigenous People (UNDRIP) that underpins the principle of Free, Prior and Informed Consent. We want the Tanzanian government to immediately stop the plan of evicting us from our ancestral land and wait for the court case to be determined.”
PHOTO Credit: Forest Peoples Programme.