Bangladesh:
Brutal attack on the indigenous peoples by the illegal settlers at Sajek areas
On 20 April 2008, hundreds of
illegal plain settlers attacked seven
indigenous Jumma villages of
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 Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHTs) of
Bangladesh. The attack lasted from
9.30 pm to 1.30 am.
I. Details about the attack on 20th
April 2008
One of the victims picking up the remaining after burning of
their villages by illegal plain settlers
The Bangladesh army had started
fresh settlement of Bengali families
along the roadsides of Sajek road
from Baghaichari to Gangaram Mukh
after forcibly occupying the land
owned by the indigenous Jumma
peoples. The indigenous Jummas
have been resisting the illegal
settlement programme. Tension
has been mounting in the area since
March 2008 when the Army began
illegally settling new settlers from
plain districts onto the lands of
the indigenous Jumma peoples at
Baghaihat, Gangaram, Massalong
areas under Sajek Union.
But with the direct help from the
military, the Bengali settlers have
been able to construct some houses
at Gangaram village after capturing
lands of the Jumma villagers.
On 19 April 2008, a dozen of houses
of Jumma villagers of Bhanga Karbari
Para were destroyed by the Bengali
settlers.
On 20 April 2008, having heard
rumours of an impending attack,
around 50 - 60 Jummas gathered at
Gangaram Mukh village to discuss how to defend themselves. This
information somehow leaked to the
army who approached the villagers
and told them not to worry. As army
personnel led by a Habilder, Harun
kept the indigenous Jumma men
talking, a group of Bengali settlers
began the attack.
The attack continued for four hours
from 9.30 pm of 20 April 2008 to 1.30
am of 21 April 2008 during which
hundreds of Bengali settlers equipped
with sharp weapons attacked seven
Jumma villages namely Nursery
Para, Dane Baibachara, Purba Para,
Nangal Mura, Retkaba, Simana
Para and Gangaram Mukh of Sajek
union under Baghaichari upazila
(sub-district) in Rangamati district.
During the attack, the Bengali
settlers beat up the Jumma villagers
including women and children and
looted valuables from their houses.
The army did nothing to prevent the
attacks.
According to the reports of four
journalists from Khagrachari who
visited the area on 21 April 2008 with
local government officials, at least 500
houses in the 4 kilometer stretch from
Baghaihat to Gangaram were burnt
down. Several indigenous Jummas
were wounded and an unknown
number of women were raped by the
perpetrators.
However, till date the government
failed to come up with official figures
on the number of houses burnt,
persons injured and raped.
Hundreds of people have been
displaced and indigenous Jummas
took shelter into the deep forest
fearing further attack.
The Jumma villagers alleged
that Selim Bahari, President of
Baghaichari branch and Golam Molla,
President of Baghaihat branch of
Equal Rights Movement, an extreme
nationalist and fanatic organisation of Bengali settlers led the attack on
the indigenous Jumma peoples with
the direct support from the army
personnel of Baghaihat army zone
led by Lt. Col. Sajid Md. Imtiaz.
An independent investigation by a
citizens’ group comprising human
rights activists, university teachers,
lawyers and journalists also found
that the attack on the indigenous
peoples was “pre-planned”. The
investigation report stated that the
main motive of the attack was to drive
away the indigenous peoples from
the area to make way for new Bengali
settlements.[1] Yet, the government
failed to arrest any of the accused.
II. Aftermath of the Attack:
indigenous peoples live under
threats and insecurity
The conditions of the Jumma
villagers who have been attacked
had already been precarious. There
is a serious humanitarian crisis
with many indigenous peoples in
these villages starving as a result of
bamboo flowering. The flowering of
the bamboo has been accompanied
by an unusual increase in rodent
population which ate up all sources
of food, including crops and stored
food items leading to acute food
shortage in the affected area. There
has been no assistance from the
government of Bangladesh to assist
the affected indigenous peoples and
with the burning down of the villages
–everything has been destroyed.
The Jumma villagers continued to
hide in the forests due to fear of further
attacks from the settlers or arrest
by the Bangladesh security forces.
Taking advantage of this situation,
the Bangladesh security forces have
been helping the illegal settlers to
build houses on the Jummas’ land.
On 23 April 2008, the commander
of Baghaihat army zone, Lt. Col.
Sajid Md. Imtiaz reportedly took a group of Bengali settlers to the Bana
Vihar (Buddhist temple) area lying
between Dane Baibachara village and
Retkaba village and ordered them to
construct houses on burned land of
the Jummas.
On 24 April 2008, Mr Imtiaz held a
meeting at his zonal headquarters at
Baghaihat in which representatives
from both the indigenous peoples
and the illegal settlers were invited.
At the meeting Mr Imtiaz warned the
Jummas that “if anything happens to
the Bengalis in the future, I will kill
all of you in brushfire. You have no
need to live in this country”.[2]
On 29 April 2008, the Army Chief Gen
Moeen U Ahmed while distributing
relief materials to the victims of
the arson attack at Gangaram Muk
village blamed the “terrorists” for
attack which he said was pre-planned
and orchestrated to bring instability
in CHTs.[3]
The innocent indigenous villagers
have been illegally arrested by the
army in connection with the attacks.
On 28 April 2008, the army arrested
four innocent Jummas identified as
as Sushil Chakma (26) (son of Asomi
Chandra Chakma), Ratna Bikash
Chakma (22) (son of Gunodhar
Chakma), Sangram Chakma (22)
(son of Ashok Kumar Chakma) and
Rabindra Chakma (23) (son of Shashi
Mohan Chakma) from Simanachara
village on the charge of setting fire
to the house of one Nasir, an illegal
settler. AITPN has learnt that Nasir
had set fire to his own house at Bame
Baibachara village at around 10
pm on 28 April 2008 and these four
Jumma villagers had gone at the spot
to see whether another attack was
taking place when army personnel
arrested them. AITPN has also been
informed that the burned house
of the settler was built with barely
four small wooden poles, thatch and
bamboo splits and it would not cost more than Taka 400 (or US $ 6). But
he would receive a few thousand
Taka as compensation from the
government.[4]
III. The issue of compensation:
Discrimination against the Jummas
On 29 April 2008, the Army Chief Gen
Moeen U Ahmed visited Gangaram
Mukh village and distributed relief
materials such as rice, potato, dal
and Tk 500 to each of the victimised
families. He also announced that he
would contribute Tk 10,000 and some
clothes to the compensation fund.[5]
While some Bengali settler families
were also affected in the conflict,
the damaged suffered by them was
very minimal in comparison to the
damages suffered by the indigenous
peoples during the attack by the
settlers. It was the Bengali settlers who
razed the houses of the indigenous
peoples to the ground and hence, the
indigenous peoples lost everything.
The grant of equal compensation
to both the settlers (who are the
perpetrators) and the indigenous
villagers (the victims who lost
everything in the attacks) is
discriminatory.
Many of the victims belonging to the
indigenous peoples could not receive
compensation provided by the
Commanding Officer of Baghaihat
Zone Lt. Col. Sajid Imtiaz. It has
been reported that two members
of the Rangamati Hill District
Council, Deputy Commissioner
of Rangamati Mohammad Nurul
Amin, Police Superintendent of
the district Abdul Baten visited the
spot and provided Taka 100,000 (US
1600) to the Commanding Officer of
Baghaihat Zone Lt. Col. Sajid Imtiaz
to be distributed to the victims. But
only 10 indigenous victims including
two women came to Baghaihat bazar
to receive the compensation money
while others refused to come fearing retaliation from the settlers and
harassment from the army.
IV. The pattern of attacks against
indigenous jumma peoples
There is a systematic pattern in the
attacks against the indigenous jumma
peoples of Bangladesh, in particular
in the CHTs. Asian Indigenous and
Tribal Peoples has been highlighting
the systematic action of the
Bangladesh army to forcibly evict
indigenous Jumma people from their
lands and the deliberate and illegal
implantation of the plain settlers on
their lands. Since the imposition of
the State of Emergency on 11 January
2007, the army has renewed its efforts
to settle Muslim plain settlers on
the lands of the indigenous people
in the CHTs. In March 2007, two
hundred families of Bengali settlers
were settled down on the lands of
the indigenous people at Dantkupya
mouza under Khagrachari sadar
upazila. A new army camp was also
set up there to provide security to the
settlers.[6]
A survey conducted by the Jatiya
Adivasi Parishad which was released
in Dhaka on 10 May 2008 stated that
around 1,983 indigenous families in
10 districts of Bangladesh have so
far lost 1,748 acres of their ancestral
land. Of the 1,983 indigenous
families, 521 lost their land through
forged documents whereas the forest
department acquired over 1,185 acres
of land belonging to 466 indigenous
families in the name of social
forestry.[7]
In the CHTs, the illegal settlers and the
army attack the indigenous peoples
primarily to capture their land and
re-settlement of the illegal settlers
from plain districts. In August 2007,
illegal settlers and the Bangladesh
army personnel tried to take over the
lands of the Sadhana Tila Buddhist
temple at Babuchara under Dighinala upazila in Khagrachari district. An
impending riot between the Jummas
and the illegal settler was narrowly
prevented after the Army Chief
General Moeen U Ahmed visited
Dighinala on 28 August 2007. The
motivation for taking land of the
Sadhana Tila Buddhist temple and
its surrounding areas is simple:
further illegal settlement. The army
has been directly involved in the
forcible acquisition of the lands
belonging to the indigenous peoples.
AITPN is in possession of a letter
dated 19 November 2007 issued by
Md. Sulut Zaman, Deputy Secretary
of the Ministry of Chittagong
Hill Tracts Affairs (MoCHTA). It
orders 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.
Again on 7 February 2008, Dui Tila
army camp commander Subedar
Mohammad Malek reportedly called
a meeting with five Jumma elders
and three Bengali setters at his camp.
In the meeting, Subedar Malek told
the Jumma elders that they must
allow settlement of about 50 illegal
Bengali settler families at Tin Tila
area under Baghaichari Upazilla of
Rangamati district, and warned the
Jummas with dire consequences if
they did not allow settlement of the
illegal settlers.
During March -November 2007, a
total of 399.22 acres of land belonging
to 133 Jumma individuals and a
primary school in 14 villages under
four Unions of Mahalchari police
station and Khagrachari Sadar police
station under Kagrachari district have
been illegally and forcibly grabbed
by the illegal plain settlers with direct
help from the army.[8]
At a press conference in Dhaka on
19 January 2008, representatives
of the Committee for Protection of
Land in Bandarban called upon the
government to cancel the ongoing
process of acquiring 9,560 acres of
land for the purpose of expansion of
Ruma Garrison. The government is
presently at the final stage of acquiring
9,560 acres of land for the purpose
of expansion of Ruma Garrison in
three Mouzas of Galenga, Pantola
and Sengum under Ruma Upazilla in
Bandarban. Out of the total land to be
acquired, 1,569.06 acres belong to the
indigenous peoples and 4,000 acres
belong to the Forest Department. The
project will lead to displacement of
4,315 indigenous persons from 644
families. Way back in 1988, a joint
study team of Bandarban District
Administration and the Bangladesh
Military stated that the project would
be disastrous for the local indigenous
peoples.[9]
