The Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) warns of an impending deterioration in the situation of the Maasai in Tanzania ahead of the elections on October 29. According to the human rights organization, reports of forced resettlements, repression, and political exclusion of the indigenous community have been mounting for months. “Following the exclusion of leading opposition candidates and parties from the elections, it is expected that President Samia Suluhu Hassan will remain in office. The government's increasing control over the opposition and civil society threatens to further worsen the situation of the Maasai,” warns Laura Mahler, STP researcher for Sub-Saharan Africa.

“The Tanzanian government is using state violence and economic coercion to drive an entire indigenous community from their land. Germany must not stand idly by and watch this happen,” Mahler explains. The Maasai have lived for centuries as semi-nomadic cattle herders in the Loliondo, Serengeti, and Ngorongoro regions. Now they are being driven out of their ancestral lands through what the government describes as “voluntary” resettlement through economic pressure and a social service blockade that has been ongoing since four years. “Our people are forced out of their land so that other people can establish tourism businesses. And all of this is happening under the guise of conservation”, criticizes Oleshangay. “To conserve this land without including the Maasai is to preserve injustice in a greener shade”, Oleshangay added.

Schools and health care have been shut down, grazing lands made inaccessible, and livestock confiscated. “Livestock confiscations aim to drive people off ancestral lands”, says Joseph Oleshangay. In August 2024, the Maasai community protested for six days in Ngorongoro and blocked a tourist road to attract the government's attention. As demonstrations threaten the tourism business, President Samia Suluhu Hassan then promised two commissions of inquiry to investigate the situation. However, the findings of the two commissions will remain under wraps until after the elections. "There are currently increasing reports of state violence against the Maasai: rangers are driving away cattle herders, destroying dwellings, and denying access to water sources. Fires are being deliberately set to render grazing land unusable. This has catastrophic consequences for the people in the region and the wildlife,“ reports Mahler. The situation has led to an increase in poverty among the Maasai.

”The confiscation of our cattle has taken away our peace of mind, destroyed our way of life and our future. Our cattle are our life and our pride. They feed us, enable our children to get an education, and provide for our families. Without them, we are left empty-handed and broken-hearted," says Naipanoi Ntutu, a Maasai activist from Loliondo.

At the same time, the government is severely restricting political freedoms: The livestream of the high treason trial against opposition leader Tundu Lissu was banned, and the CHADEMA party reports kidnappings of its members. “For us Maasai, life under the government's measures is becoming more difficult every day. Our traditions and our cohesion are coming under increasing pressure. More and more people are being forced to leave their homes – many will not return,” said Ntutu. “We expect the situation to deteriorate further after the elections.”

Maasai displacement happens through the complicity of local and international collaborators. “The government that deploys the army to displace people, the conservation organization that provide morality to the eviction of indigenous communities and international donors who call the displacement biodiversity efforts”, says Oleshangay. “If conservation projects need guns to succeed, this is already a failure”, Oleshangay added. The STP calls on the German government to take decisive action to protect the Maasai and to subject its development cooperation with Tanzania to an independent human rights review. “Funding must not be used to support projects that promote displacement or land grabbing,” said Mahler. “Germany must base its foreign policy on human rights, not economic interests.” “When money flows without morality, conservation becomes another form of colonialism”, says Oleshangay.

At the same time, the STP is once again calling on German actors such as the Frankfurt Zoological Society and Volkswagen to review their activities in Tanzania and suspend them as long as human rights violations continue. “Those who work there must not look away when Maasai are displaced for tourism or carbon projects,” said Mahler.