Twenty Masai shepherds in northern Tanzania have been charged with the murder of a police officer during protests over government plans to use their ancestral lands for conservation and a luxury hunting reserve.
The officer allegedly received an arrow shot on June 10 while trying to demarcate land in Loliondo, bordering the Serengeti National Park.
Tanzanian Human Rights Coalition lawyers say a group of Masai leaders were arrested on June 9 when they were called for talks with the district’s district commissioner on the government’s decision to remove them. of the earth. The men were charged with inciting the community, detained and taken to an Arusha prison, where they were detained for a week without access to a lawyer.
On June 16, the men were taken to court and charged with murder, along with 10 other men arrested last week.
The men’s lawyer, Paul Kisabo, said the charges were “politically motivated” and were designed to intimidate the Masai, as half of their clients were arrested before the police officer was killed. “It doesn’t add up,” he said. He believed the government would drop the charges.
More than 70,000 Masai are facing land evictions in Loliondo. They have been under threat of eviction since 2012, but previous efforts to force them out of their homeland have been thwarted.
Community members say they learned in January that renewed efforts were being made to remove 1,500 square miles (540 square miles) of land to make way for a hunting reserve, which will be operated by a U.S.-owned company. United Arabs. In early June, military and paramilitary forces arrived in the area to raise concrete boundaries.
An East African court ruling was expected on Wednesday to determine the ownership of the disputed land, but it has been postponed until September. The case was filed in 2017 by people from four of the 14 villages in Loliondo. In 2018, the court issued interim orders preventing the government from taking any action on the ground until it has ruled on the case.
“The government was moving fast to anticipate any trial in our favor,” said Samuel Nangiria, a pastor and grassroots activist in Loliondo, who fled Kenya after the eviction protests.
The government says it is only reusing 1,500km of land for conservation, while the rest is left to the Masai.
Donald Dey, a lawyer for the Masai community, said that while the Tanzanian government can compulsorily acquire land when it is needed for a public purpose, it has not followed the right legal process.
“In principle, all governments in the world must acquire land in the public interest. But to do that, there are established procedures and laws, including Tanzania’s national law, around free, prior and informed consent that have not been done. “
Members of the Maasai community in Nairobi, Kenya, march in solidarity with the Maasai expelled from their ancestral land in Tanzania on June 17, 2022. Photo: Monicah Mwangi / Reuters
Nangiria said the latest eviction efforts were “extremely violent.” He said some 2,100 Masai had fled to Kenya, fearing for their lives. They receive support from other Masai communities along the Narok border, with some Kenyan families hosting up to nine people from Tanzania.
Thirty-one people received medical care in Kenya, as hospitals in Tanzania often seek police clearance to treat people arriving with gunshot wounds.
“It simply came to our notice then. Some people do not have food or a place to stay. Many women have very young children with them, and the area has hardly any public health facilities, “said Nangiria.” My grandparents and their parents lived in Loliondo. Where should we go? “
Last Friday, a Kenyan Masai marched peacefully to Tanzania’s high commission in Nairobi, which was halted after organizers were arrested for lacking permission.
A leader of the Maa Unity Agenda, who called for anonymity, said the march was to show solidarity with the Tanzanian community. “As for the Maa community, we have no border between Kenya and Tanzania. We cross when there are greener pastures there and they cross when the rains are heavier here, so we interact a lot and we’ve been very affected to hear what’s going on in Loliondo. ”