Tanzania orders 40,000 Maasai tribesmen to leave their homeland after going back on their promise no

Started by Rebound, November 20, 2014, 02:28:40 PM

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Rebound

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2837533/Tanzania-orders-40-000-Maasai-tribesmen-leave-homeland-going-promise-not-turn-land-hunting-ground-Dubai-royal-family

An interesting side story about Dubai royals. What a shame, Tanzania! Evicting the Massai from their traditional land and sacred burial grounds sounds a lot like what happened to the Native Americans.

Limabeany

"You don't have to be pretty. You don't owe prettiness to anyone. Not to your boyfriend/spouse/partner, not to your co-workers, especially not to random men on the street. You don't owe it to your mother, you don't owe it to your children, you don't owe it to civilization in general. Prettiness is not a rent you pay for occupying a space marked 'female'." Diana Vreeland.

Lady Adams

I read about this last week and was surprised by the DM's headline. If you read this article, it explains that this is not being done for the Dubai royal family. It's for a Dubai-based luxury safari company. They cater to anyone who wants to pay. The  article goes on to explain that one of the customers was Prince Andrew.
"To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing." --Elbert Hubbard, American writer

Rebound

Yes, I read the whole thing. Another article in the Christian Science Monitor says the firm wanting the land is owned by the Dubai royal family...."and allow exclusive access to the Ortello Business Corporation (OBC), a big-game hunting firm owned by the royal family of Dubai, United Arab Emirates."

Masai herders appear victims of land deal with Dubai hunting firm - CSMonitor.com

I just hate to see such a magnificent cultural treasure, the Masai and their burial grounds, along with their environmental management of their herds and land, scatter to the winds. It does remind me of US native americans forced on a Trail of Tears, which I consider one of the most shameful acts of the US.

Limabeany


Rich Gulf Arabs using Tanzania as a playground? Someone opened the gate | Nesrine Malik | Comment is free | The Guardian

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You only hear stories of Saudi hunters camped out in the wilderness, having brought the entire infrastructure and staff of the hunt with them, including cooks, food, beaters and handlers. They shoot desert species of gazelle, oryx and Nubian ibex, and take them home as trophies. There are reports that sometimes they don't even bother to fly through Khartoum airport, choosing instead to construct makeshift landing strips in the middle of the wilderness that are dismantled after they depart, sometimes apparently in massive military C-130 planes. Quietly, under the radar, they get their game, and someone gets paid.

How these expeditions are set up, who arranges them and exactly who gets paid is a mystery – but it couldn't happen without Sudanese government involvement.

In one of the most dramatic cases of large-scale hunting in Africa by Gulf tourists, the Tanzanian government has reneged on a promise not to dedicate 1,500 sq km of Masai land to a Dubai company that arranges hunting trips for members of the Dubai royal family. The government offered the Masai the paltry sum of £370,000 to relocate – money they have no intention of taking. As a result of the ensuing media attention, Gulf hunting culture in Africa has been exposed in its starkest, ugliest form. Arabs in their Ray Bans with their new money and shotguns on the one side, and the exploited Masai on the other.

It would be easy to dismiss this as an example of the filthy rich doing what they do best – trampling over the rights of others in order to have a good time. It's a little bit more complicated than that, however. None of these expeditions would happen without government sanction and, indeed, encouragement. It's easy money for cash-strapped African treasuries. And if the hunters seem to have no respect for the traditions of those whose property and way of life they know will be sacrificed, that is only because of the eagerness of Tanzanian politicians to strike a deal; for them, the relocation of a few people (40,000, in this case) is deemed a price worth paying.

There is without doubt a "cheque-cutting" relationship between some African countries, specifically those in the east and north of the continent and in the Gulf, where random amounts of money are handed over in dodgy transactions that are neither aid nor debt. And the deals made are usually at the expense of the citizens these governments are supposed to represent.

As far as local intermediaries are concerned, these hunters are simply the latest bunch of rich eccentrics, coming to or travelling through Africa either to hunt like the white explorers and colonialists, or go on safaris like honeymooners.

Will Tanzania sell Masai homelands to a Dubai corporation? - CSMonitor.com

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The development proposal, which would allow access of the area exclusively to the Ortello Business Corporation, requested that the land be used to build a 600-square-mile corridor through the Loliondo region. In order to do so, the government would have to evict 30,000 Masai from the land before handing it over to the corporation that has close connections to the Dubai royal family. Members of the Masai tribe argue that the eviction would impact the lives of closer to 80,000 people.

In June of 2013, before the proposal was first dismissed, the Monitor reported:

About 90 percent of Loliondo Masai raise animals for sale in neighboring Kenya to pay for food, clothes, and school fees. At one sit-in this spring, Singa Sandeya, a Masai grandmother who owns about 40 cattle, said, "It's the only livelihood we have. Everything we get from cattle."

The Tanzanian government first leased land in Loliondo, which was used for commercial hunting camps, to OBC more than two decades ago. And while government officials have argued that the Masai's pastoralist behavior threatens endangered wildlife, members of the ethnic group and researchers alike claim that government interests lie elsewhere.

Tanzania evicting 40,000 people from homeland to make room for Dubai royal family - Salon.com

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40,000 Masai people will be evicted from their homeland in Tanzania, because the Dubai royal family has bought it with the intention of using it as a reserve to hunt big game. Last year, the Tanzanian government had resisted the purchase, proposing instead a "wildlife corridor" dedicated to hunting near the Serengeti national park. However, the deal will still reportedly go through, and the Masai will have to leave by the end of the year.

The deal was brokered by the Ortelo Business Corporation (OBC), a luxury safari company with a number of elite clients.

Samwel Nangiria, the coordinator for the local Ngonett civil society group told Smith that he never thought the government had considered canceling the deal, rather, they just wanted to fool the international press into believing they might.

"I will fight for my community. I'm more energetic than I was," said Nangiria. "The Masai would like to ask the prime minister about the promise. What happened to the promise? Was it a one-year promise or forever? Perhaps he should put the promise in writing."

A petition on Avaaz.org entitled, "Stop the Serengeti Sell-off" has received over 1,765,000 signatures as of Monday morning. The petition reads: "The last time this same corporation pushed the Maasai [alternate spelling] off their land to make way for rich hunters, people were beaten by the police, their homes were burnt to a cinder and their livestock died of starvation."

Masai evicted to make way for Dubai's royal hunt | News | The Week UK

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Samwel Nangiria, co-ordinator of the local Ngonett campaign group, said: "One billion [shillings] is very little and you cannot compare that with land. It's inherited. Their mothers and grandmothers are buried in that land. There's nothing you can compare with it."

Last year the Tanzanian government agreed to scrap the deal after international activists led by Avaaz.org organised a petition that attracted more than 1.7 million signatures.

Alex Wilks, campaign director for Avaaz, criticised the government's reversal. "Treating the Masai as the great unwanted would be a disaster for Tanzania's reputation," he said
"You don't have to be pretty. You don't owe prettiness to anyone. Not to your boyfriend/spouse/partner, not to your co-workers, especially not to random men on the street. You don't owe it to your mother, you don't owe it to your children, you don't owe it to civilization in general. Prettiness is not a rent you pay for occupying a space marked 'female'." Diana Vreeland.