Thursday 28 November 2013

Good News, Strange News, Worrying Developments, Idiotic Comments and Inexplicable Silences about Loliondo Land Threats

After some months of silence central government reappeared and disappeared in Loliondo. Then the Prime Minister appeared and declared that the 1.500km2 belong to the Maasai and their coming generations thereby reversing the threats and lies by the Minister of Natural Resources and Tourism.
Long term FZS head comes out in support of the Government and OBC.
The court case against Thomson Safaris is ongoing, there’s still unity, but sinister old manager is back.
This dry season turned bad and grazing in Serengeti NP was needed. Cows and people were arrested with strange charge sheets.

After the Minister for Natural Resources and Tourism, Khamis Kagasheki, had spent the first part of 2013 issuing threatening and bizarre statements about the Government’s intention of taking 1,500km2 of important grazing land for a “wildlife corridor” and several protest delegations from Loliondo had visited Dar es Salaam and Dodoma, the Prime Minister wrote a letter to the Arusha Regional Commissioner on 30th May and everything went quiet. Kagasheki had gone as far as calling the Maasai “landless” invaders of their own land, and saying that they were being “given” land since the Government would not take the whole of Loliondo Game Controlled Area (that in its totality is village land). The Prime Minister, in contrast, did recognise that the land does belong to the villages, but otherwise his letter wasn’t very promising since the PM did not show an understanding of the importance of this land for pastoralism. Nothing was ever heard from the Regional Commissioner about the Prime Minister’s letter.