Reference:
Beverly Longid
Co-Convenor
Int’l Indigenous Peoples Movement for Self-Determination & Liberation
Last August 18, Maasai Indigenous Peoples blocked the busy highway, Ngorongoro-Serengeti Road in Tanzania as an act of valiant assertion of their right to land and self-determination. This comes as threats of land dispossession behind the guise of “conservation” continue to threaten the Maasai. The action has since swelled up, with Indigenous Peoples numbering at over 20,000 as of recent updates. Police have since blocked access to food and water.
The International Indigenous Peoples Movement for Self-Determination and Liberation commends the militant effort and dedication of our Maasai brothers and sisters in fighting for land, life, culture, and self-determination. We strongly condemn the forcible eviction being imposed by the Tanzanian government, and now they’re efforts to repress the peace protests of Indigenous Peoples.
Since 2021, the Tanzanian government has already devised a plan to relocate 82,000 Maasai people away from their ancestral homelands, into Msomera village– a relocation site chosen and developed by the government, and is 600 kilometers away from their ancestral domain.
According to government officials, the evictions of Maasai communities are necessary in order to protect wildlife and biodiversity in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, which was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
We at the IPMSDL find this claim appalling and downright absurd. Political elites and corrupt bureaucrats are acting as experts on matters of biodiversity and ecological conservation while not only ignoring, but silencing the voices of communities who have inhabited these forests for hundreds of years, while living in harmony with the vastness and richness of its biodiversity.
To further add insult to injury, the government has already pulled out funding on basic services in Ngorongoro, and has since shifted it to Msomera. On top of this, Ngorongoro residents have reported that the National Electoral Commission has already transferred the names of local voters from Ngorongoro to Msomera– 110, 000 voters have been transferred when in reality, only two percent (2%) of them have actually relocated to Msomera– a place some locals have never ever been to in their lives. A far cry from the government’s claim that relocation is voluntary.
IPMSDL enjoins our Maasai brothers and sisters in condemning and resisting these actions from the Tanzanian government. These supposed “conservation” efforts are in fact the opposite of what it claims to be. Conservation built on colonialism, and ethnocide is not conservation, rather an effort to wholly erase the identity and culture of Indigenous Peoples by uprooting us from our ancestral lands, and ultimately to exploit the riches of our homes in the forests in the name of profit.
