Firms complicit in Maasai evictions – Amnesty

Since 2009, private businesses have been complicit in forced evictions of Maasai Indigenous communities from their ancestral lands in Loliondo by Tanzanian authorities, Amnesty International has noted in a new report. Business as usual in bloodied land? The role of businesses in forced evictions in Loliondo, Tanzania details how Ortello Business Corporation (OBC), a trophy hunting company linked to Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the Prime Minister of the UAE, has participated in forcibly evicting Maasai Indigenous communities by accompanying Tanzanian security forces and allowing the authorities to set up camps on OBC property during forced evictions. ‘Since 2009, the Tanzanian authorities have resorted to ill-treatment, excessive use of force, arbitrary arrests and detentions to forcibly evict the Maasai while leasing their land to private companies. It is particularly disturbing that they have carried out these evictions under the pretext of 'conservation', while in reality, they have allowed OBC to do improper or illegal trophy hunting activities, in clear violation of Tanzania's Wildlife Conservation laws,’ said Tigere Chagutah, Amnesty International's Regional Director for East and Southern Africa. Amnesty said the Tanzanian authorities must conduct a prompt, impartial, independent, effective and transparent investigation into corporate complicity in the forced evictions of Maasai communities in Loliondo – and the suspected perpetrators of these human rights violations must be brought to justice.