So far missing from the raging
international controversy on the relocation of Maasai families from Loliondo,
in Tanzania’s Ngorongoro area, is Msomera village, about 50 kilometres from
Handeni township in Tanga region, 600 kilometres away from Loliondo.
This vast and sparsely
populated rural landscape bordering Kibindi district and Manyara region is the
government’s final destination of choice for the Maasai families relocated from
Loliondo.
Tanzanian authorities have in
the past two weeks aggressively pushed ahead with the relocation of the
pastoral Maasai community from Loliondo, despite criticism by civil society and
anthropologists around the world.
The government has been at
pains to dismiss widespread claims from critics both at home and abroad that
Loliondo, a designated 4,000-square kilometre game-controlled area in Arusha
Region's Ngorongoro district, is Maasai ancestral land which would render their
relocation more of an eviction.
But by Thursday last week, 40
households in Loliondo, among them 237 people of both Maasai and Hadzabe
communities had been moved, with their livestock, to Msomera, at government
cost, according to the Tanga Regional Commissioner.
The relocation is a closely
co-ordinated effort between at least five line ministries working under the
direct supervision of Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa, an indication of how much
President Samia Suluhu’s administration wants it to happen despite the negative
international attention.
The first batch of 20
households arrived a week ago and the second batch, also comprising 20
households, arrived on Thursday night. Another 60 or more households, said to
have agreed to the ‘‘voluntary’’ move from Loliondo, will be arriving here in
phases as the government hastens the infrastructure construction and upgrade in
this 162,000-hectare area dedicated to the relocation.
The plan is to give each household up to 10 acres of land for grazing their herds, subsistence agriculture and other needs as comfortably as possible, government officials told The EastAfrican on our visit this week. "The objective of this operation from the outset was to ensure that those being settled here will find better standards of social services from day one," said a government official who sought anonymity.
The current Loliondo land saga
goes back to 1992 when a Dubai-based hunting company, Otterlo Business
Corporation, acquired an exclusive hunting permit for 4,000 square kilometres
in Loliondo, by way of a permit obtained through a controversial 25-year deal
with the government. Critics of this deal say the Dubai firm has since been
lobbying to have 1,500 square kilometres of the land cleared of human
settlement for uninterrupted trophy hunting.
This led to a confrontation
between the Maasai pastoralists on the land and local police, which culminated
in a court case at the East African Court of Justice (EACJ), with the court
granting an injunction to prevent "eviction" of Maasai from Loliondo.
The injunction is still in place.
The International Union for
Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in a June 19 statement called on Tanzanian
authorities to respect the EACJ injunction and "ensure appropriate
peaceful measures are undertaken towards recognising, respecting and protecting
the rights of the Maasai communities." "Intimidations of community
members be stopped," the IUCN said.
"What is required is a
fair, just and equitably governed consultative process to identify long-term
solutions, and to investigate and address human rights violations related to
nature conservation, including any establishment, amendment or expansion of
protected or conserved areas."
It is therefore curious, why
the government has decided now to disregard it and go ahead with the evictions,
and in the process spending billions of shillings on the actual relocation and
to ‘’develop’’ Msomera.
Priority infrastructure listed
by the government includes water supplies for both domestic and animal, health
and education facilities, upgraded roads and communication infrastructure. But
even more, money is being spent on the logistics of transporting families in
minibuses, and trucks for the herds, probably running into billions of
shillings. Government sources say an official budget for the exercise has not
been shared even internally, pointing to how controlled the entire operation
is.
A quick spot check by The
EastAfrican confirmed official government updates on the relocation
operation, such as the ongoing construction of a Tsh1.99 billion ($8.5 million)
dam, 167,000-litre storage tank and pump house, and laying of pipes to cover an
initial six kilometres of the 20-kilometre distribution network mapped out in
the project blueprint.
There are ongoing upgrades on
the road links to Handeni and Korogwe - the closest urban centre. Government
officials say the roads component of the project alone will cost Tsh2.53
billion ($1.1 million).
At least 100 of the 500
planned new houses for the resettled families have already been built, a
project being undertaken by Tanzanian army conscripts. Private contractors —
including one Chinese — are working round the clock to complete connecting the
village to the power grid. Currently, only a few houses have electricity,
including 20 of the newly built homes for the new families.
Back in Loliondo, no one knows
what will happen to the families who have refused the voluntary relocation.
On Wednesday the government
appeared to further tighten the screw on those opposed to the relocation and
Commissioner General of Immigration Anna Makakala announced a 10-day special
operation to weed out all "illegal immigrants" in the Loliondo area.
“I am warning people who have
entered the country illegally to officially get proper documentation to
legitimise their stay and operate within the confines of the laws of the
country,” she said in Loliondo, where she was inspecting progress of
demarcation and beacon placing for the planned game reserve.
The announcement came on the
back of reports of violent clashes between police and Maasai out to stop the
beacon demarcation.
According to Tourism and
Natural Resources Minister Pindi Chana, the intention is to turn 1,500 sq km of
the Loliondo Game Controlled Area into a full-fledged Game Reserve to strike a
balance between conservation and livelihoods and "protect the area for the
best interests of the nation at large."
The Loliondo Game Controlled
Area was established in 1951 as a strategic area for the protection of
Serengeti and Maasai Mara cross-border ecosystems in Tanzania and Kenya.
The new Game Reserve will be
named Pololeti, said Ms Chana saying 400 beacons have already been placed to
demarcate the area for the new reserve.
The government has cited the
rapid growth of human and livestock population in the area since 1959, from
8,000 to 110,000 people, and from 260,000 to over one million heads of cattle,
too much to warrant their removal to prevent human wildlife conflict.
In Msomera, the relocation has
a silver lining. Long-time Handeni resident Jackson Kagonji, says Msomera was a
backward place, and not even public teachers wanted to be posted there because
there was no electricity, water and the roads were hell. “Now it's slowly
turning into a kind of paradise before our very eyes," he said.
According to Handeni district
administrative secretary Mashaka Mgeta, before the project began Msomera was
listed as a government Reserve Area with a population not exceeding 6,000 and
made up of local Zigua livestock keepers with a few Maasai pastoralists who
wandered through and some settled.
Mr Mgeta said the idea of
having Maa community here was therefore not strange, only that the earlier
Maasai settlers here were not from Loliondo but Maasai lands.
Richard Tobiko, a
father-of-two who was among the first batch to relocate to Msomera from
Loliondo with his young family a week ago, says so far, the experience was good
and "not only did we receive a generous compensation package but they also
provided the transport to bring us and our livestock here plus a real brick
house and all basic amenities including grazing land, water and electricity. We
can hardly believe this kind of generosity from the government," Mr Tobiko
said.
The family runs a little
grocery shop from their house. He said "Back in Loliondo we lived in mud
huts with no electricity, no good hospitals, and we were forbidden to do any
kind of business. So it's like a dream come true." "And even though I
have relatives in Loliondo still calling us sell-outs, my advice to all the
doubters back there is that they should come see for themselves what is on
offer, then make a decision whether to join us or not." - The
EastAfrican
No comments:
Post a Comment