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In Solidarity “until the last Maasai leaves”: Catholic Bishops in Tanzania on Evictions

The Secretary General of Tanzania Episcopal Conference (TEC), Fr. Charles Kitima. Credit: TEC

Catholic Bishops in Tanzania have vowed to support members of the Maasai community amid controversies around their eviction from what Tanzanian community considers its ancestral land, but which is in Wildlife Conservancy Areas in the Northern part of the country.

Thousands of Maasai pastoralists have been asked to move out of Loliondo and Ngorongoro Conservation Area to pave the way for the government to lease the land to Otterlo Business Corporation (OBC), a company based in the United Arab Emirates, to reportedly create elite tourism.

In a Monday, December 11 video message, the Secretary General of Tanzania Episcopal Conference (TEC), Fr. Charles Kitima, says, “Our Bishops have said that until the last Maasai leaves, we will continue to suffer with the Maasais there.” 

Fr. Kitima underscores the presence of the Church in the affected areas through educational and health facilities, as well as pastoral agents, including Catholic Priests and women Religious.

“Our hospital in Endulen shall not be closed. The Priests are in the Parish there; the hospitals are there, the schools are there, the Sisters are there … The plane that we send to the park with humanitarian aid will not be stopped,” the Secretary General of TEC says.

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He continues, “We do not reject investment nor do we refuse the government to change the region for wider use, but those human beings must be treated according to human rights. That's what the Bishops have said.”

Fr. Kitima cautions the Tanzanian government against downplaying the value of human life, saying, “We do not need to persecute the Maasai of Loliondo and Ngorongoro if we want Ngorongoro as income. Humans are more valuable than animals.”

The Tanzanian Catholic Priest urges President Samia Suluhu-led government to make the people understand why they have to vacate the conservation areas.

“These people are traditional. They believe their God wants them to stay in the wild. When you tell them to leave, they don't understand why. We have to make them understand slowly, through education,” he says.

In February, religious missionaries decried the forceful evictions, saying the move has made the Maasai, a pastoralist community, an “endangered” community in Africa. 

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“With this forceful eviction plan of the Tanzanian government, the Massai stands out as one of the endangered tribes in Africa, as their communities face the same eviction threats in Kenya over government development projects,” members of the Africa Europe Faith and Justice Network (AEFJN) said.

They added that the evictions put members of the Massai community “at risk of losing their identity and culture.” 

In their In a February 13 statementAEFJN members urged the government “to comply with the provisions of the UN Declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples and the regulations in place in the Ngorongoro Conservation area that state that ‘no decision can be made without proper involvement, consultation, and the consent of Maasai communities.’”

Magdalene Kahiu is a Kenyan journalist with passion in Church communication. She holds a Degree in Social Communications from the Catholic University of Eastern Africa (CUEA). Currently, she works as a journalist for ACI Africa.