Forceful Evictions of Pastoralists in Kilosa District, Morogoro Region, Tanzania

IWGIA has recently been informed by local partners in Tanzania that a government operation aimed at forcefully removing pastoralists from the Kilosa district in the Morogoro Region in southern Tanzania started on the 29.1.2009. The Tanzanian government wants to remove all pastoralists from Kilosa district and, according to some sources, the whole of Morogoro Region, and force them to other areas of Tanzania. Such areas have though, according to IWGIA local partners as yet not been specified, and the affected families do not know where to go to. The targeted pastoralists are mainly Parakuiyo Maasai but also Barbaig and Sukuma pastoralists. The forceful evictions take place in a context of overall anti-pastoralist government policies where permanent settlement of nomadic pastoralists is emphasized. The anti-pastoralist attitude of the government is for instance reflected in recent statements made by President Kikwete in November 2008 where he visited seed farms in Kilosa and warned that if the conflicts between farmers and pastoralists were not resolved the government would “make decisions that could be bitter to one party”(Daily News, November 27, 2008). Based on the evictions the government has now demonstrated that the bitter decisions were targeting only the pastoralists.