Tanzania: Tanzania Reiterates On Land and Ethnic Rights At UN

What the report says

Tanzania used its appearance at the 53rd session of the United Nations Universal Periodic Review in Geneva to restate its official position on land rights and ethnic identity. Speaking for the government, Professor Hamisi Masanja Malebo, executive secretary of Tanzania’s UNESCO National Commission, said the country’s population includes more than 120 ethnic groups and that Tanzania does not legally define a separate category of indigenous peoples or ancestral land in its constitution and land laws.

According to the Daily News report carried by AllAfrica, Malebo outlined a historical account of how different communities are said to have arrived in what is now Tanzania, including early hunter-gatherer groups, Cushitic speakers, Bantu communities and later Nilotic pastoralists. He also addressed long-running disputes tied to land in areas such as Ngorongoro, arguing that claims to exclusive historic ownership are more complicated than some critics suggest because multiple groups have lived in or moved through the same regions over time.

The government’s message at the UPR was that all Tanzanians are equal citizens and that the state does not formally distinguish some groups as more indigenous than others. Malebo said Tanzania remains committed to human rights, rule of law and good governance, and urged the Human Rights Council to apply universal and non-selective standards. The statement comes against a broader background of international debate over land use, pastoralist rights and the treatment of ethnic communities in Tanzania.