The Ministry of Chittagong Hill Tracts Affairs of Bangladesh: An Agency for Discrimination
Article 19, Part 4 of the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHTs) Accord of 1997 provided for the establishment of a Ministry of Chittagong Hill Tracts Affairs headed by a tribal Minister. Pursuant to the Peace Accord, the Ministry of Chittagong Hill Tracts Affairs was established on 15 July 1998. The Ministry of CHT Affairs is mandated to supervise and coordinate the overall development and administrative activities of the CHT region. An Advisory Committee has also been formed to assist the Ministry.
The CHT Affairs Ministry: Implementing racist policies against indigenous peoples
The Ministry of Chittagong Hill Tracts Affairs for all practical purposes has been reduced to a Ministry for illegal Bengali Muslim plain settlers to discriminate against indigenous Jumma peoples because of their ethnic, religious and linguistic origin.
a. Tribal Minister not heard, Regional Council ignored
The Ministry of CHTs Affairs is headed by a Minister belonging to indigenous groups to oversee and coordinate the work of the various ministries and departments concerning the CHTs. However, the Minister is seldom heard.
According to former Deputy Minister Moni Swapan Dewan, he was allegedly never called in any policy meeting of the government on CHT during his five years term. At least 15 policy meetings were held during his tenure. Budgets involving crores of Taka were approved from the CHTs Affairs Ministry for various development projects allegedly without his signature!
The government has not framed any rules or issued the necessary directives to the Ministries. As a result, the directives of the Ministry of CHTs Affairs were not complied with by the district and local level administrations.
Further, there is lack of clarification of mandates, responsibilities and authorities of the Ministry of CHTs Affairs vis-à-vis other CHTs institutions. There are no clear operational rules and administrative frameworks for most of the CHTs institutions. For example, the supplementary rules and regulations as well as the administrative orders essential to make the government institutions such as the Regional Council operational, are still to be elaborated/approved by the Government. As a consequence, the mandates and authorities of the respective CHT institutions tend to overlap considerably. This in turn leads to inter-institutional confusion and differences which greatly undermine the delivery of relevant services to the people. The Parliamentary Standing Committee on the Chittagong Hill Tracts Affairs Ministry observed that the ministry was performing poorly because of lack of coordination among its top officials.
There is also lack of coordination between the MoCHTA and other affiliated institutions such as CHT Regional Councils (CHTRC) and Hill District Councils (HDC). This seriously undermines the functioning of the respective institutions. The CHTRC can not perform its functions properly because of lack of proper support from the Ministry of CHT Affairs. On the other hand, the three HDCs and Chittagong Hill Tracts Development Board (CHTBD) which are directly under the Ministry of CHT Affairs are ignoring the supervisory and coordinating authority of CHTRC over them in violations of the CHT Accord. This tends to create frustrations among the officebearers and limit their effectiveness in facilitating and supporting development. Consequently, the CHTs Regional Council which were established to resolve the problems of the indigenous peoples have been rendered useless.
The CHTs Illegal Settlers’ Development Board!
The military government of Ziaur Rahman sought to pacify the political demands of the Jana Samhati Samiti (JSS) by recognizing the CHT crisis as “economic problem”, and set up Chittagong Hill Tracts Development Board in January 1976. But it was rejected by the Jumma peoples. As anticipated, the CHT Development Board failed to bring economic development in the region as it implemented counter-insurgency development projects.
The CHTs Accord stipulates that, “The Chittagong Hill Tracts Development Board shall discharge the assigned duties under the general and overall supervision of the Council. The Government shall give preference to the eligible tribal candidates in appointing the Chairman of the Development Board” (Clause 10 of Part C).
But Prime Minister Khaleda Zia appointed BNP Member of Parliament from Khagrachari, Wadud Buiyan, an illegal settler, as the Chairman of the CHT Development Board on 11 February 2002. On 20 February 2002, the Jana Samhati Samiti made an appeal to the government against the appointment of Wadud Buiyan but the appeal fell on deaf ears.
Under Buiyan’s chairmanship, the CHTDB has been undertaking settleroriented development programmes instead of tribal welfare programmes. Thousands of illegal settlers were settled into the CHT and provided free rations. The illegal settlers are so indebted to MP Wadud Buiyan that now many villages where they have been settled have been re-named as “Wadud Palli” (“Wadud villages”). When the Deputy Minister for the CHTs Affairs, Mani Swapan Dewan refused to toe the line on the issue of providing rations, he was divested of his portfolio although he remained minister.
b. Implanting the illegal plain settlers
The CHTs Accord did not help to resolve the illegal settlers’ issue. Rather, the CHTs Affairs Ministry became the lead agency for implantation of tens of thousands of illegal plain settlers on the lands of indigenous Jumma peoples. They are considered illegal as the Chittagong Hill Tracts 1900 Regulation restricts the entry of non-hill people into the CHTs. Moreover, Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention also prohibits such population transfers.
Further, in the CHTs Accord, the government of Bangladesh agreed to protect the “special character” of the CHT region as “Tribal inhabited Region”. Clause 1 of Part A: General of the CHTs Accord states, “Both the parties, having considered the Chittagong Hill Tracts region as a tribe-inhabited region, recognized the need of preserving the characteristics of this region and attaining the overall development thereof”.
However, the indigenous peoples are increasingly being reduced to minority.
One of the first steps taken by the government of Bangladesh was to legalise the illegal settlers who grabbed the lands of indigenous Jumma peoples. In November 1999, after instructions from the Prime Minister’s Office, illegal plain settlers who displaced the indigenous Jumma peoples were included in the category of IDPs. Consequently, in 2000, the Task Force under the chairmanship of Dipankar Talukder prepared the list of 1,28,364 IDP families, including 90,208 tribal and 38,156 non-tribal families. It is strange that the illegal plain settlers who have displaced the Jummas in the CHT were included in the lists of IDPs.
On 21 December 2000, the Ministry of CHT Affairs served a notification No. 62/99-587 empowering the Deputy Commissioners of the three hill districts in the CHTs to issue “permanent resident certificate” to the illegal plain settlers.
In September 2003, the government announced a plan to give permanent resident status to 26,000 families of Bangalee settlers living in cluster villages in the CHTs. In line with the directive of the Prime Minister, CHT Affairs Ministry started the process of forming a committee to finalise the proposed plan. The settlers who were relocated from the northern and southern regions of Bangladesh in 1982-83 were promised government lands as incentive to settle in the trouble-torn CHTs. They were promised free ration of 28,000 tonnes of food grains worth Taka 28 crore a year. The ration was to be withdrawn only upon becoming permanent residents.
In June 2005, it was reported that the government of Bangladesh was planning to sponsor transfer of about 65,000 illegal plain settlers’ families from the plains to settle them in Sajek Union under Rangamati district. Following the exposure, Member of Parliament from Khagrachari district, Wadud Bhuiyan, who is himself an illegal plain settler, confirmed that the plain settlers’ families had started building houses beside the Sajek road but the army did not allow them on safety ground. A road from Baghaihat to Sajek has been constructed through dense Kassalong reserve forest violating the Forest Act of 1927 and Bangladesh Forest (Amendment) Act 2000 to facilitate the transport of the plain settlers.
The government of Bangladesh also proposed to provide free ration to 28,000 more illegal plain settler families in CHTs in addition to 27,000 illegal plain settler families who have been provided free ration since 1978.
On 23 April 2006, the Parliamentary Committee on the CHTs Affairs confirmed that number of people living in the cluster-villages in the three hill districts - Rangamati, Bandarban and Khagrachari - became double and rose to 50,000.
In a letter dated 19 November 2007 Md. Sulut Zaman, Deputy Secretary of the Ministry of Chittagong Hill Tracts Affairs (MoCHTA) directed the Deputy Commissioner of Khagrachari district to illegally settle 812 families into the lands of the indigenous Jummas at Babuchara area, Baghaichari mouza under Dighinala upazila (sub- district) in Khagrachari district.
The implantation of illegal settlers continues unabated and indigenous Jumma peoples continue to be victimised. On 20 April 2008, hundreds of illegal plain settlers backed by Bangladesh army launched pre-planned attacks on seven indigenous Jumma villages namely Nursery Para, Baibachara, Purba Para, Nangal Mura, Retkaba, Simana para and Gangaram Mukh under Sajek Union under Baghaichari upazila (sub-district) in Rangamati district in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHTs) of Bangladesh from 9.30 pm to 1.30 am. Besides a church and two UNICEF run schools, an estimated 77 houses of indigenous Jumma peoples were burnt while four indigenous villagers were wounded and hundreds of indigenous Jummas were internally displaced.
c. Supporting land grabbing
The Ministry of CHT Affairs acknowledge that land dispute between Bangalee settlers and indigenous people remains one of the main reasons for communal tensions in CHTs.
The CHTs Accord provides for constitution of a Land Commission headed by a retired Justice to “resolve the [land] disputes in consonance with the law, custom and practice in force in the Chittagong Hill Tracts”. The Land Commission with tenure of minimum of three years has been bestowed full authority to cancel the ownership of those hills and lands which have been illegally occupied by the plain settlers. The decisions of the Commission are final and no appeal can be made against such decisions.
To term systematic land grabbing by illegal settlers as “[land] disputes” is a misnomer and an attempt to justify the legality of land grabbing. In the CHTs, it was a clear case of land grabbing and there were no questions of disputes as the land belong to indigenous peoples as per “the law, custom and practice in force in the Chittagong Hill Tracts”.
Nonetheless, the Land Commission was formed on 3 June 1999 under the Chairmanship of retired High Court justice AM Mahmudur Rahman. By May 2003, over 35,000 cases had reportedly been lodged with the Commission. But the Commission could not function and its tenure had to be extended up to 1 November 2004. It received second extension for another three years “as the commission failed to finish its task”. Justice AM Mahmudur Rahman complained that the government did not provide adequate staff. On 8 June 2005, the Commission convened its first meeting at Khagrachari. The ineffectiveness of the Commission is evident from the views expressed by its Chairman Justice AM Mahmudur Rahman that he favoured a “tribunal” instead of a commission to settle the land disputes in CHTs.
The government of Bangladesh does not have political will to settle the land grabbing issue in the CHT. In 2001, the Awami League government passed the CHT Land (Disputes Settlement) Commission Act, 2001. The indigenous peoples rejected the Act primarily because of the arbitrary powers of the Chairperson to provide final judgement in the event of lack of consensus among other members; the exclusion of Jumma refugees who returned to the CHTs under the 1992 repatriation agreement from the ambit of the Land Commission; and the exclusion of the internally displaced Jummas from the scope of the Act.
In December 2003, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on the CHT Affairs Ministry asked the Ministry of CHT Affairs to settle land dispute through the Land Commission.
In 2007, the Advisory Committtee in its meeting, among the decisions made was the reactivation of the Land Commission. Besides, the position of chairman remained vacant since its last chairman AM Mahmudur Rahman passed away on 1 December 2007.
On 31 March 2008, Raja Devashish Roy, Special Assistant of Chief Adviser on Ministry of CHT Affairs stated that the government has initiated the process to amend few provisions of the Land (Disputes Settlement) Commission Act and reconstitute the commission for speedy disposal of disputes.
Systematic attacks on indigenous Jummas especially of those villages in whose vicinity the cluster villages of the illegal settlers have increased further since the signing of the CHTs Accord. Further the Bangladesh military has been responsible for forcible seizure of lands of the Jummas in the name of construction of military bases. The government of Bangladesh has undertaken programmes to acquire a total of at least 66,774 acres of land for military purposes respectively 9,650 acres of land in Bandarban for the expansion of Ruma military cantonment which will affect about 1,000 indigenous Jumma families; 11,446.24 acres of land in Sualok Union of Bandarban for establishing an Artillery Training Centre which will uproot 400 indigenous families (each family was provided only a paltry sum of Taka 3,000 to 8,000 as compensation); 450 acres of land in Pujgang under Panchari Thana of Khagrachari district for construction of an army cantonment; 45 acres of land in Babuchara under Dighinala Thana in Khagrachari district which will affect at least 74 Jumma families in three villages; about 183 acres of land in Balaghata in Bandarban district; 19,000 acres of land in Bandarban for the expansion of an Artillery Training centre and 26,000 acres of land in Bandarban for establishing Air Force Training Centre. These are in addition to the notices to acquire a total of 5,600 acres of land in Chimbuk area of Bandarban district in the name of constructing an Eco Park and 5,500 acres of land in Sangu Mouza of Bandarban district in the name of creating an “Abhoyarannyo” (animal sanctuary). The government officials have also been forcing indigenous Jumma peoples to lease away 40,071 acres of land in Lama, Nikkyong Chari, Alikadam and Bandarban Sadar to private individuals for rubber and tea plantation.
d. Repression on NGOs activities in the CHTs
The Ministry of CHT Affairs controls NGOs activities in the CHTs. In fact, this is the only functions it has been doing efficiently!
The non-government organizations in CHTs were established after the Peace Accord. These NGOs have been implementing development projects in adherence of the government rules and regulations for NGO activities in CHT. NGOs operating with foreign funds need a No Objection Certificate (NOC) from the Ministry of CHT Affairs.
There was no problem in getting NOC from the Ministry of CHT Affairs for CHT based NGOs to operate project activities with foreign funds as of 2005. However, since January 2006, the Ministry of CHT Affairs blocked NOCs to NGOs for operating in CHT due to use of the words “Indigenous People” in the project documents. According to the Ministry of CHT Affairs, there are no “Indigenous People” or “Minority People” in CHT or other parts of Bangladesh and such words are not mentioned in the constitution of Bangladesh. While local, national, regional and international NGOs planning to operate or implement project activities with foreign funds in other parts of Bangladesh (excluding CHT regions), were reportedly not required NOCs either from Ministry of CHT Affairs or other Ministries. Moreover, NGOs operating outside of the CHT have been able to use the words “Indigenous People” in their project titles and project documents. On 19 April 2006, the Secretary to the Foreign Affairs Ministry wrote a letter to the Secretary to the CHT Affairs Ministry mentioning that from now people can not identify themselves as “indigenous people.” They should be called “tribal people” not “indigenous people.”
The Ministry of CHTs Affairs has managed to silence critical NGO activities in the CHTs.