CLASHES between the Masai and WaArusha tribes are a constant problem in Tanzania.
The Masai are pastoralists, while the WaArusha are farmers.
From Tanzania’s Coast Region to Kilimanjaro, violent and sometimes deadly clashes have been raging for decades as the farmers who are about 75 percent of the population and pastoralists who are about 10 percent scramble for land.
Tanzania’s worst conflict occurred in December 2000 in Kilosa district, Morogoro region where 38 farmers were killed.
Hostilities reignited in 2008 and 2014 where eight and 10 people were killed respectively, several houses set alight and livestock stolen.
Farmer-herder conflicts in Africa are often presented as being driven by environmental scarcity, but this is not so.
Tanzania has approximately 21 million head of cattle, the largest in Africa after Ethiopia and Sudan.
According to the Ministry of livestock and fisheries development, livestock contributes at least 30 percent of agricultural Gross Domestic Product.
Of the country’s 94, 5 million hectares, only half, 44 million is arable land.
The colonial government’s policies and programmes are the cause of Tanzania’s land question.
Colonial governments (Germans 1885-1914 and Britain 1914-1961) perceived pastoralists as unproductive and unorganised (they roam around).
The pastoralists reached the peak of their land holding in 1880 before the arrival of European colonists who seized all the land and restricted the Masai and WaArusha to semi-arid reserves.
This forced the pastoralists to encroach into the farmers lands.
Prior to colonisation, land was held under customary regime and it belonged to the whole society either a clan, family or tribe.
Pastoralists and farmers enjoyed the fruits of the land without clashing.
However, during colonisation all lands were placed in the hands of the state leaving the local people with no right to land ownership.
In November 1895, the Germans issued the Imperial decree which declared that all land in German East Africa whether occupied or not, was to be regarded as ‘not owned.’
African lands were subject to expropriation for freeholds purposely for the Settlers.
The decree introduced the concept of a right of occupancy or a lease arrangement from Government.
One of the major implications of this to pastoralists was the fact that occupancy of the land became narrowly defined as tilling whereas pasturage and fallow were not seen as occupancy.
The German colonial rule established plantations and new crops such as sisal and cotton were grown, but the African tribes resented the harsh methods of forced labour used in the cultivation of the new and alien crops.
The result was the popular rebellion which came to be known as the Maji Maji uprising in 1905 to 1907.
The uprising was incited by Prophet Kinjikitile Ngwale, who claimed to be possessed by Hongo, a snake-spirit of their African religion.
The Prophet believed that magic portion of water would turn German bullets to water.
The Germans realised that military force would not crush the Maji Maji because of the strength of their convictions and their absolute willingness to keep fighting.
Instead, they began seizing food and destroying crops as their major tactic from the end of 1905 and in to 1906.
The rebellion increasingly took the form of guerrilla warfare and about 450 German troops were killed.
Gradually however, hunger and exhaustion compelled people to surrender.
About 250 000 people died; 30 percent of the population.
In certain tribes, entire generations were wiped out completely.
By the end of German occupation in 1914, about 1, 3 million acres of fertile lands in the northern highlands and the coast districts had been alienated from customary ownership and use to settler interests and ownership.
Following German’s defeat in the First World War, German East Africa became British’s colony and was renamed Tanganyika.
Initially the British used the governing structures established by the Germans to exercise rule over Tanganyika, but under the Governorship of Sir Donald Cameron they attempted to implement the system of indirect rule that the Germans had failed to achieve.
The British ‘favoured’ farmers over pastoralists.
Continuing the disregard for the interests of the African people in Tanganyika, as were the Germans, British Land tenure policy was developed so that Tanganyika was to be a source of raw materials for industries in Britain.
The legacy of the Land Ordinance enacted under British Land policies in 1923 had serious effects on the way the people of Tanganyika had access to land including the following dispensations:
i. All lands whether occupied or unoccupied, were declared to be public lands
ii. All public lands were vested in the Governor to be held for use and common benefits of the ‘natives’
iii. No title to the occupation and use of any public lands would be valid without the consent of the Governor
Under this Ordinance, 3, 5 million acres of fertile were alienated from Africans towards settler interests and ownership.
This decree that declared all land as ‘not owned’ left many Africans labelled as trespassers on their ancestral lands.
The land tenure system side-lined pastoral communities as their grazing lands became vulnerable to land invasions in favour of establishment or expansion of commercial farming, wildlife reserves or conservation schemes.
Tanganyika was transformed into plantations, under this rule; peasants were forced into cheap labour to produce raw materials for overseas marketing.
This was particularly so in the period of the Great Depression as Britain attempted to maximise commercial returns from the colonies.
The British reaped the commercial and financial benefits of the expanding trade, while Africans were relegated to small scale commercial farming which also bore the brunt of heavy taxation.
Colonial legislation and programmes viewed pastoral land as reserves awaiting proper allocation and exploitation.
In 1959, the British evicted all pastoralists from vast Serengeti for the purpose of establishing a national park.
However, when Tanzania gained its independence two years later, it inherited the colonial laws and policies that had been in force on the land question, hence presenting today’s conflicts.