Peace - but in what shape?
On 2 December 1997 representatives of the United Peoples Party of Chittagong Hill Tracts signed a peace agreement with the Bangladesh government. After 25 years of armed struggle, the Jumma people of the Chittagong Hill Tracts accepted a promise of peace from the state, which occupies their land with a military presence unimaginable in any other part of the country. Joyoti Grech* The signing of the agreement, and the amnestied return on 6 February of the Shanti Bahini (Peace Force) guerrillas, received full media coverage throughout Bangladesh. The BBC World Service has carried extensive reports on the situation since December - one of the rare events other than a flood or a famine to bring Bangladesh into the BBC spotlight.
But it remains unclear what this peace agreement means. Right-wing nationalists and fundamentalists of the BNP and Jamaati Islamis have taken to the streets of Dhaka protesting what it calls a government sell-out to "secessionists".
At the same time, there has been vocal and organised criticism of the agreement by Jumma groups within Bangladesh, who point out that the three major demands of the movement for self-determination are left unaddressed.
• There are no provision for military withdrawal from the CHT
•There is no promise to reverse the illegal settlement of Jumma lands
• There is no commitment to constitutional guarantee of any of the terms of the agreement. In other words, even this limitted accord could be blown away like so much dust by a future administration.
Basically, the agreement provides for the three districts of the CHT to be administered by a Hill Council, under advice of a new government "Tribal Affairs Ministry" . The problem is that more than 50% of the CHT ("the reserved forest, Kaptai Hydroelectric Project area, Betbunia Satellite Station area, state-owned enterprises and lands recorded in the name of the government") will be beyond the jurisdiction of the Council.
The agreement also promises a process of containment of military personnel within cantonments in the CHT rather than being scattered throughout the region, and the return of the estimated 50,000 Jumma refugees currently living in camps in the 12 International Viewpoint #300
Indian state of Tripura.
There is a promise to ensure the basic livelihood of returning refugees, but it is difficult to imagine how they will be able to survive. The vast majority will never be able to return to their rightful homes and livelihoods, as these are now occupied by settlers from the plains, historically sponsored and protected by the Bangladesh
There is an amnesty for members of the United Peoples Party of Chittagong Hill Tracts (JSS) and the Shanti Bahini guerilla movement. But the ban on the JSS has not been lifted. The Bangladesh government has signed an agreement with an still-outlawed political party!
The signing of the agreement does mark a crucial stage in the history of Bangladesh and of the Jumma people'S struggle for self-determination. There can surely be no more accusations of secessionism directed at a movement which has always upheld the basic democratic rights of the people of the CHT. What moves the government?
But maybe the very notion of national sovereignty needs re-examining in the context of capitalist globalisation. Moves towards the signing of the peace agreement have accelerated rapidly since India agreed to release water from the Farrakha Dam for use by Bangladesh, nor that the World Bank is keen to push ahead with its development of Chittagong Port and the building of a a trans-Asian highway stretching from India to points east of Bangladesh. Over the last two years the Bangladesh government has agreed contracts for mineral exploration in the CHT with more than one multinational corporation, including United Meridian.
Bangladesh may be living through the closing of one era, but the shape of things to come remains to be seen. * * Joyoti Grech is a CHT solidarity activist, playwright and poet, living in Britain.
Mrinal Chakma's soft spoken ways and calm exterior contrast with the horrors he has witnessed and endured, and his tireless activism on behalf of the Jumma people, the indigenous inhabitants of the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh
"Since my childhood I have seen the atrocities and repression of the Bangladesh military," remembers Mrinal. "I have seen my friends killed in front of me, I have seen my uncles dragged into military vans and later killed... In the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) there are human rights abuses of every kind, from arbitrary arrest, killing, arson, rape to forcible displacement of population and forcible occupation of indigenous peoples lands."
Mrinal, who now lives in exile in India, spoke to B. Skanthakumar about the historical background to the twenty five year old conflict between the Shanti Bahini rebels and the Bangladesh military, and the conditions and experiences of state oppression which fuel resistance to it.
The interview took place in early November 1997, before the latest peace accord was signed. Under the British...
Before British colonisation the region was independent. There are ten communities traditionally resident there. The largest single group are the Chakma. Each group had its chieftan structure and land was communally owned though managed by village elders and chiefs. The people are known as the Jumma from the jum or *slash and burn' cultivation that they carry out. Between 1772 and 1787 there were wars between the British and the local rulers. These ended in a peace treaty guaranteeing the people of the Hill Tracts a quasi-independent status in return for
their recognition of the BANGLADESH authority of the East AND ITS
MNEIGHBOURS India Company.
In 1900 the administrative system changed slightly when the British legislated the Chittagong Hill Tracts Rules Act. This "Hill Tracts Manual", is considered to this day to be the legal INDIA foundation of the Jumma claim for autonomy and WEST
BENGAL self-government.
However on the Bangladeshi side, the (Muslim majority) Bengalis consider it as symbolic of colonial domination and therefore do not feel bound to honour it. ...East Pakistan...
In 1947 the partition of the Indian subcontinent led to controversy whether the CHT was to become part of India or East Pakistan as it then was. "Since 97% of the people are non-Muslim (mainly Buddhist, Hindu and Christian as well as animists), says Mrinal, "the majority wished to join India, but this didn't happen. Our preference being well known, the loyalty of the Jumma to the new state of Pakistan was considered suspect right from the start. Discriminatory policies against us began and there was a steady erosion of our political, economic and social rights.
One of the main grievances was the construction of the Kaptai hydro-electric dam in 1960. This project flooded fiftyfour thousand acres: one tenth of the CHT and 40% of its arable land. Over 100,000 people were displaced. Forty thousand crossed over to India and settled in Arunachal Pradesh. Tens of thousands also fled to Mizoram in India and more recently fifty thousand fled to the Indian state of Tripura, where they are still living in make-shift refugee camps.
Each intensification of the military's activities in the CHT provokes a fresh exodus of Jumma across the border. In India too they face discrimination and hostility from local communities who fear diversion of scarce resources to the newcomers and competition for jobs. ...and Bangladesh
"During the 1971 war of liberation in which the Bengalis fought and won their freedom from West Pakistan the CHT supported and participated in the struggle. We believed that in an independent Bangladesh we would recover our identity and regain our lost autonomy. However our hopes were misplaced." Initially the political process and non-violent methods were used without success. Meanwhile, the oppressive policies of the previous governments were continued and intensified.
A new generation of youth emerged after 1973 forming a resistance movement
BHUTAN ASSAM INDIA MEGHALAYA MANIPUR BURMA BAT OF BENGAL called the Shanti Bahini (Peace Force) and committed to armed struggle for the self-determination of the CHT. The Bangladeshi government responded with counterinsurgency operations and flooded the area with military forces. "For every ten noncombatant Jumma people there is one military cadre in the CHT making it perhaps the most militarised region in the world!
"The military intervene in all aspects of civil administration. The CHT Development Board is headed by the General Commanding Officer of the Chittagong
Development funds channelled for military infrastructure. The military controls logging permits. Even when our people want to move around the CHT or to gain admission for their children in university, the the army must be obtained Permission of Transmigration and assimilation
Since 1975 there has been a state sponsored scheme to resettle landless and poor peasant Muslim Bengalis from the densely populated and land scarce delta region, in the Hill Tracts. The objective has been to change the demographic composition of the CHT and it has worked. In 1971 Bengalis comprised 11.6% of the CHT population but by 1991 they were 48.5%. The birth rate among the non-indigenous people is twice as high as that among the indigenous and higher than the national average too. The settlers are grouped in cluster villages which are protected by army camps. This has not prevented reprisal attacks between the migrant communities and the Jumma who have been dispossessed of their lands or whose remaining communal and protected lands are being encroached upon.
According to Mrinal this trans-migration programme is intimately connected with the militarisation of the Hill Tracts. "The military use the helpless settlers as pawns and as a justification for their presence and activities in the region. They divert development funds to the settlers to provide them with shelter and with ration provisions because these settlers are not self-sufficient.
"Meanwhile money is solicited from
Middle Eastern countries in the name of
Islamisation for the support of the new communities. The Jumma people feel that we are being made into objects for forcible cultural assimilation"
Land shortage The Bangladesh government argues that the Chittagong Hill Tracts are 10% of the total land area and scarcely populated in comparison to the rest of the country and that there is enough land for all. This is a misconception among the Bengalis and false propaganda from the government, responds Mrinal. "Only 3.2% of the CHT is cultivable. According to government statistics the ratio per person to cultivable land in the rest of Bangladesh is 0.2 whereas in the CHT its 0.14. In other words, its much lower than in the flatlands of Bangladesh." The hilly terrain, the soil composition, the Kaptai dam and the protected lands for environmental conservation account for the low figure. Solidarity
"There is very little awareness in the rest of the country as to the real situation in the CHT. The media doesn't publicise or investigate the human rights violations and the roots of the conflict.
The Left parties are sympathetic but they haven't been very active on this issue and have yet to integrate an analysis of the CHT question and indigenous rights into their theoretical framework. They could be doing more to inform the Bengali people about the atrocities of the state and the plight of the Jumma.
What can done outside of Bangladesh? "There are already support groups in a number of Western European countries and in Japan but they are small and working in isolation from each other. There needs to be better co-ordination among them and the development of an integrated campaigning strategy to force concessions out of the Bangladeshi government.
"We need more awareness abroad about our struggle through the media and other forums to raise the consciousness of the general public.
"There should also be greater unity and common action among indigenous movements throughout the world in Asia, Australia, Africa and Latin America and a concerted campaign for our rights.
"The pre-conditions for peace in the region include the demilitarisation of the CHT; constitutional protection of our land rights, laws and customs, with genuine autonomy for the CHT; an end to state settlement schemes and return of Jumma lands; and voluntary return of refugees with a satisfactory rehabilitation package." *
13