Friday 29 August 2014

My Reply to Lies About Loliondo in UNWTO Handbook

I’ve come across an “International Handbook onTourism and Peace” that’s published by the Centre for Peace Research and Peace Education of the Klagenfurt University in Austria in cooperation with the United Nations World Tourism Organization. There’s a chapter in this handbook that deals with the conflict between the people of Loliondo and the government working in the interest of the “investor” OBC, but unfortunately this chapter gets some basic facts totally wrong presenting last year’s land grabbing attempt by the Ministry for Natural Resources and Tourism led by the then Minister Khamis Kagasheki as “entirely based on wisdom”! I sent an email - copied and pasted below – to the writer of the chapter and to the two editors of the handbook. This handbook was launched already in January this year with the support of the Ministry of Economy, Family and Youth and the Ministry of European and International Affairs of Austria. I’d kindly ask everyone reading this blog post to if possible share it with anyone who has read the disinformation of the handbook. I have so far only read the chapter about Loliondo and hope that the rest is not in the same vein. (Though I wouldn’t know since I only have detailed information about Loliondo…)

Email sent on Thursday 28th August 2014 22:47 “Misleading information in Handbook on Tourism and Peace‏”.

Dear Emmanuel, Cordula and Werner (writer and editors),