Tanzania denies plans to evict Maasai

UPDATE: The Tanzanian government has issued an emphatic denial of claims it plans to sell Maasai land and evict the tribe.

“The information circulated through the media outlets globally was misleading, malicious, and meant to tarnish the image of our country and her international standing,” government officials said in a press release.

They offered no explanation for why the international media would want to tarnish the country's image but said members of the Tanzanian parliament are scheduled to visit the Maasai in the next few days to explain the government's position.

OUR EARLIER REPORT (Nov. 28): In little more than one month, 40,000 Maasai tribe members in northern Tanzania will be forced to leave the lands on which they and their ancestors have herded for centuries. The reason: the Dubai royal family wants a new hunting reserve.

One online activism site, Avaaz.org, is trying to pressure the Tanzanian government to halt the eviction by collecting 2.25 million petition signatures. The activists’ goal is to prevent the sale of a 1,500-square kilometer “wildlife corridor” bordering on the Serengeti National Park that would become the playground of a commercial hunting and safari company based in Qatar.

In 2013, the government attempted a similar sale, but a petition that gathered more than 1.7 million signatures stopped the government’s project. That year, officials proposed as compensation 1 billion shillings (about $578,000) to be invested in socio-economic development projects in the area. The Maasai rejected this proposal. One leader, Samwel Nangiria, told London newspaper The Guardian, “One billion 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.”

For 55 years, Maasai nomadic shepherds have been driven from their land. The process in recent years has turned violent. In 2009, police burned to the ground eight Maasai villages, exiled 3,000 Maasai, and dispersed their cattle. The Maasai, a source of inspiration to Westerners like novelist Ernest Hemingway and photographer Peter Beard, now live as refugees in their own country.