Thanks for the tweet, Mr President, but the Maasai of Loliondo aren’t celebrating yet

President Kikwete tweet: “There has never been, nor will there ever be any plan by the Government of #Tanzania to evict the #Maasai people from their ancestral land.” ILLUSTRATION | JOHN NYAGAH |   NATION MEDIA GROUP

In Summary

• If our government now follows up the president’s tweet with a legal document detailing our permanent rights over Loliondo, then we will all rejoice and toast all those who made it possible

I can still remember the smell of the fires. It was July 4, 2009 and the government had descended on our villages and set our homes ablaze.

Our grandparents had suffered under the fist of colonialism. Now, my people, the Maasai of Tanzania, were victims of our own government — and its burning desire to kick us off our lands.

The story of the fight for our land is a long one, starting 20 years ago when our government gave the UAE royal family a concession to hunt on our land.

Although the real estate was ours, we were not consulted. The company who manages the concession for the royal family, the Ortello Business Corporation (OBC), paid the government handsomely for it and quickly set up shop.

They built an airstrip without any apparent permission and have built luxury camps in the middle of our traditional grazing lands, cutting off our access to water.

Although the government justified the concession by claiming OBC would help with “wildlife conservation and management,” rich Arab princes fly in to shoot whatever moves, blasting trees full of birds from helicopters, killing lions or leopards for a few thousand dollars a head. Heavily armed policemen guard their camp, threatening and abusing us if we come near.

Apparently, however, even this was not enough and five years ago, to give OBC even more unimpeded access to the migratory route for the spectacular herds of wildebeest that pour through the valley, the Tanzanian government moved in to move us out. The government’s forces set fire to many of our traditional homes.

Dozens of our women were raped; we were pushed from our grazing lands in the middle of a drought, hundreds of our cattle died.

The authorities returned in 2012 with another plan to evict us from our homeland alongside the Serengeti only to back down in the face of global condemnation. But our leaders simply waited for the furore to die down and then tried again.

Last September, Prime Minister Mizengo Pinda himself promised us that our land was safe. Yet this month, the vultures were circling once again.

Noises coming out of the Ministry of Tourism were that the deal was back on. But this time to soften the eviction, a derisory offer of $570,000 was to be made for the land so that it could become a Game Controlled Area, where hunters — mainly kings and princes from the UAE — could hunt at will.

Tanzania’s elephant population is crashing, this is the last thing that is needed and the Maasai are the protectors, not poachers of our wildlife.

But now, suddenly, the skies are clear again. After yet another international outcry, we seem to be safe — according to a momentous tweet from President Kikwete.

After decades of struggle, the president needed just 139 characters to apparently put all our fears to rest. “There has never been, nor will there ever be any plan by the Government of #Tanzania to evict the #Maasai people from their ancestral land.”

It is a remarkable statement in many ways — the first time the president has publicly weighed in on the issue, the most definitive statement by any president for 20 years. And that he chose to use Twitter to say something so important — and set the record straight. And that’s why we are not celebrating yet.