Sometimes in Khartoum, you see long convoys of blacked-out 4x4s, full of game hunters from the Gulf, drive through the centre of the city and disappear into the countryside, returning only to snake their way back to the airport. You’ll never catch their passengers in town, socialising or hanging out.

You only hear stories of Saudi hunters camped out in the wilderness, having brought the entire infrastructure and staff of the hunt with them, including cooks, food, beaters and handlers. They shoot desert species of gazelle, oryx and Nubian ibex, and take them home as trophies. There are reports that sometimes they don’t even bother to fly through Khartoum airport, choosing instead to construct makeshift landing strips in the middle of the wilderness that are dismantled after they depart, sometimes apparently in massive military C-130 planes. Quietly, under the radar, they get their game, and someone gets paid.

How these expeditions are set up, who arranges them and exactly who gets paid is a mystery — but it couldn’t happen without Sudanese government involvement.

While some of the more outlandish stories of playground hunting might be apocryphal, the latest reports from Tanzania are not. In one of the most dramatic cases of large-scale hunting in Africa by Gulf tourists, the Tanzanian government has reneged on a promise not to dedicate 1,500 sq km of Masai land to a Dubai company that arranges hunting trips for members of the Dubai royal family. The government offered the Masai the paltry sum of (pounds sterling) 370,000 to relocate — money they have no intention of taking. As a result of the ensuing media attention, Gulf hunting culture in Africa has been exposed in its starkest, ugliest form. Arabs in their Ray Bans with their new money and shotguns on the one side, and the exploited Masai on the other.

The hunters may not care about sacrificing Masai rights — but Tanzania’s government should

It would be easy to dismiss this as an example of the filthy rich doing what they do best — trampling over the rights of others in order to have a good time. It’s a little bit more complicated than that, however. None of these expeditions would happen without government sanction and, indeed, encouragement. It’s easy money for cash-strapped African treasuries. And if the hunters seem to have no respect for the traditions of those whose property and way of life they know will be sacrificed, that is only because of the eagerness of Tanzanian politicians to strike a deal; for them, the relocation of a few people (40,000, in this case) is deemed a price worth paying.

There is without doubt a “cheque-cutting” relationship between some African countries, specifically those in the east and north of the continent and in the Gulf, where random amounts of money are handed over in dodgy transactions that are neither aid nor debt. And the deals made are usually at the expense of the citizens these governments are supposed to represent.

When Osama bin Laden — incidentally also fond of hunting in Sudan — sought refuge in Khartoum , it was mistakenly seen as an indication of the Sudanese government’s sympathy with his ideology. In fact, his money was the main attraction. At one point it was reported that bin Laden was the single largest landowner in the country. When he was forced out, the land reverted to the government and he was never compensated. There is a view — and perhaps this acts as an incentive, who knows? — that those from the Gulf who choose to do business in Africa are, shall we say, easily parted from their money.

As far as local intermediaries are concerned, these hunters are simply the latest bunch of rich eccentrics, coming to or travelling through Africa either to hunt like the white explorers and colonialists, or go on safaris like honeymooners.

In countries with few other resources, the land’s natural gifts are one means of earning money. And the Arabian peninsula has a long history of trade with east Africa, just across the Red Sea. The Arabic language as well as Islam travelled with traders to and from the region. Even the word Swahili is derived from the Arabic for coastal. This relationship has always had an exploitive edge, particularly when slaves and material resources have been concerned. There is arguably still a certain sense of entitlement among the Gulf Arabs, not unrelated to racial disdain. But in this case it is as much the greed of the Tanzanian government that perpetuates the anguish of the Masai as it is the desire of Arabs to make a playground out of Africa.

—By arrangement with the Guardian

Published in Dawn, November 19th, 2014