The Government of Tanzania, the UAE Royal Family, and the Hadzabe Nationality

Africa’s contemporary reputation as a continent where impunity reigns is playing out once again, this time in Tanzania where the government of President Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete is about to sacrifice the Hadzabe, an indigenous nationality that inhabits the country's Yaeda Valley for a few dollars more simply because they are vulnerable people. The Hadzabe, who still retain their simple hunting and gathering life style which they evolved over the past 50,000 years are being forced to vacate their homeland to make way for the United Arab Emirate, UAE royal family which has leased 2,500 square miles of their land from the Tanzania government for safari and other pleasures that its members feel that they must enjoy elsewhere other than their own land. Some members of the UAE royal family are not content with the chunk of the Hadzabe land they already have and share with other members of their family. They want some more of the Hadzabe land to themselves even at the expense of the indigenous owners who must be driven out to make room to accommodate their greed, simply because they have the money to pervert the Tanzania officials involved.

Elsewhere the Hadzabe would be a protected national treasure. But Tanzania prefers to force off their land, even though it is clear that driving them off their land and a life style that they have been used to will amount to driving them into extinction. It has already been established that the Hadzabe cannot cope with a sudden thrust into the so-called modern life style. Some of them who were carted to prison by the Tanzania government for simply raising their voice to disagree with the quest to force them out never returned alive.

The most unconscionable aspect of this episode of impunity is that the Tanzania government cared so less about the Hadzabe that it found absolutely no needs to consult or include them in the processes that made the deal with the money-bag UAE royal family. This petty act which could not have taken place in Tanzania while the late Julius Nyerere was alive and in office as president in Tanzania must not only be condemned by all decent people and groups the world over, but must also be stopped. Referring to an indigenous people who do not constitute a threat to the government as “backward” and primitive simply because their homeland has been sold for money is raw and uncivilized. There is no need recommending that the Hadzabe who number less than 2,000 should take their case to the courts in Tanzania because they will not get a fair hearing.

The Hadzabe situation is a perfect challenge to the civilized world. The UN and its relevant agencies must rise up to the challenge to save a vulnerable people from a government that lacks morality and decency. This case is the type that the International Court of Justice at The Hague was made for. Some justice-loving group or individuals must act on behalf of the Hadzabe and take the case to The Hague to help them secure some arrangement that will protect them and their culture from extinction by the government and the royal family in the UAE.