'Life Is Not Ours'
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
‘LIFE IS NOT OURS’ LAND AND HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE CHITTAGONG HILL TRACTS BANGLADESH UPDATE 4 THE CHITTAGONG HILL TRACTS COMMISSION 2000 3 ‘LIFE IS NOT OURS” LAND AND HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE CHITTAGONG HILL TRACTS, BANGLADESH Copyright © The Chittagong Hill Tracts Commission - 2000 All parts of this report may be freely reproduced provided the source is quoted. Cover photo The Chittagong Hill Tracts Commission Distribution: ORGANISING COMMITTEE CHITTAGONG HILL TRACTS CAMPAIGN P.O.Box 11699 1001 GR Amsterdam, The Netherlands Fax : (31) 20 6645584 - E-mail: [email protected] and INTERNATIONAL WORK GROUP FOR INDIGENOUS AFFAIRS Classensgade 11 E, DK 2100 - Copenhagen, Denmark Tel: (45) 35 27 05 00 - Fax: (45) 35 27 05 07 E-mail: [email protected] - Web: www.iwgia.org 4 In Memoriam This update is dedicated to all those who lost their lives in the struggle for Jumma self-determination. To Andrew Gray, one of the initiators and resource persons of the CHT Commission who died in a plane crash off the coast of Vanuatu in the Pacific on 8 May 1999. 5 THE CHITTAGONG HILL TRACTS BANGLADESH 6 INDIGENOUS ETHNIC GROUPS BA Bawm CH Chakma KH Khumi KY Khyang LU Lushai MA Marma UC Uchay MR Mru PA Pankho SA Sak TA Tanchangya TI Tripura Reserved Forest Kaptai Lake Source: CHT Conference 1986 INDIA 7 CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................ 12 2. THE PEACE ACCORD .......................................................................................................... 16 2.1 Regional Autonomy ......................................................................................................... 16 2.2 Withdrawal of the Security Forces ..................................................................................... 19 2.3 Removal of the settlers and restoration of lands to the original owners ........................................................................................... 20 2.4 General amnesty and proper rehabilitation of members of the JSS/Shanti Bahini ................................................................................. 23 2.5 Repatriation and proper rehabilitation of the refugees ................................................. 24 2.6 Implementation of the Peace Accord .................................................................................. 25 2.7 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................ 25 2.8 Summary of JSS demands, provisions and omissions in the Peace Accord and their implementation ................................................................ 26 3. DEVELOPMENTS SINCE THE SIGNING OF THE PEACE ACCORD ............................................................ 30 3.1 Jumma opposition to the Accord ....................................................................................... 30 3.2 The formation of the United Peoples Democratic Front (UPDF) ................................ 30 3.3 Repression of ‘full autonomy‘ Jummas .............................................................................. 32 3.4 Conflict between JSS and UPDF ....................................................................................... 34 3.5 Attempts at mediation between the two groups ............................................................ 38 3.6 The Mru Bahini ...................................................................................................................... 38 3.7 The National Parliament and the Peace Accord .............................................................. 39 3.8 Bangladeshi civil society and the Peace Accord .............................................................. 40 3.9 Communal riots ...................................................................................................................... 41 4. THE JUMMA REFUGEES ........................................................................................... 44 4.1 Repatriation ............................................................................................................................. 44 4.2 Rehabilitation ........................................................................................................................... 45 4.3 Internally displaced refugees ...............................................................................................48 4.4 The security situation............................................................................................................. 48 5. LAND ISSUES ............................................................................................................... 54 6. STATUS OF JUMMA WOMEN ................................................................................... 60 6.1 The Hill Women’s Federation ............................................................................................ 61 7. OTHER HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS SINCE THE ACCORD ..................... 64 8. ‘DEVELOPMENT’ IN THE CHT ......................................................................................... 68 8.1 Government development plans for the CHT and foreign aid ................................... 68 8.2 The UNDP Mission ................................................................................................................ 71 8.3 Development and the Regional Council according to the Peace Accord .............................................................................................................. 71 8.4 The Rangamati Declaration .................................................................................................. 72 8.5 The Chittagong Hill Tracts Development Board (CHTDB) .......................................... 73 8.6 ‘Development’ and the Environment ................................................................................. 73 8.7 New Jumma NGOs ................................................................................................................ 74 8.8 Development activities by national NGOs ........................................................................ 75 8 9. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS ...................................................... 78 9.1 Conclusions ............................................................................................................................. 78 9.2 Recommendations .................................................................................................................. 79 APPENDIX 1 Brief history of the Chittagong Hill Tracts ........................................................................... 84 APPENDIX 2 The establishment of the Chittagong Hill Tracts Commission ........................................ 85 APPENDIX 3 Full Text of CHT Peace Accord ................................................................................................. 86 APPENDIX 4 The Rangamati Declaration ......................................................................................................... 93 NOTES ................................................................................................................................. 100 9 PREAMBLE The Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) are located in the south-eastern corner of Bangladesh, bordering Burma and the north-eastern Indian states of Mizoram and Tripura. They are the homeland of 12 ethnic groups, numbering about 600,000 people. Covering 5,093 square miles (10 percent of the country) and rising as high as 3,000 feet in places, the hill ranges contain limited cultivable land, most of it of low quality, in contrast to the fertile multi-cropped alluvial plains of Bangladesh. The hill people differ markedly from the Muslim Bengali majority in Bangladesh in language, culture, religion and farming methods. They practise mixed farming: plough cultivation in the fertile valleys and swidden agriculture (known as jhum) on the hill slopes. From jhum cultivation they have derived their collective name ‚Jumma‘. After the Bangladesh war of liberation, the Jumma people had hoped for political recognition and some form of autonomy within the state of Bangladesh. How- ever, this was denied them. In 1972, the Parbattya Chattogram Jana Samhati Samiti (Chittagong Hill Tracts People’s United Party - PCJSS, or JSS for short) was formed and in 1976 its armed wing, the Shanti Bahini, started guerrilla attacks against the Bangladesh army. Between 1979 and 1984 a secret government transmigration policy brought more than 400,000 Bengali settlers into the Chittagong Hill Tracts, an area in which there was already a scarcity of land following the construction of the Kaptai dam. This was completed in 1963, inundating 40 percent of the arable land in the CHT and displacing more than 100,000 people. Together with the transmigration policy, a huge militarisation of the area took place. The military used counter- insurgency against the guerrillas as an excuse to oppress the Jumma people. Since the early 1980s, reports of near genocidal human rights violations by the Bang- ladesh security forces started seeping out of the area, despite a total black-out of information from the area and a ban on foreign visitors to the area by the government of Bangladesh. Slowly the severe repression of the Jumma people started to become an issue of international concern. 10 1. INTRODUCTION 11 1. INTRODUCTION Since the international Chittagong Hill Tracts Commission brought out its third Update to its original report “Life Is Not Ours”: