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The Bangladesh Army, which had terrorized the Jumma people of the
Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) during the lawless days right after
the end of the Independence War of 1971, had remained in the CHT ever since.
Increasingly it acted as a protector of the Bangladeshi settlers.
With the rise of military power in Bangladesh during the 1970's
the armed forces deployed in the CHT started
acting independently of the civil administration. The result
was outright oppression of the Jumma people. By then it was
not only the indigenous interests which had to be defended, but lives.
Numerous incidents of killings, destruction of
villages, plunders, rapes and tortures had taken place. In the face
of this organized torment, the Jumma people were able to organize
themselves into a resistance movement, known as the
Shanti Bahini (Peace force), this movement aims to resist
oppression and to fight for self determination. The Shanti
Bahini, organized by the Jumma people who had to flee to the
forests to escape persecution after 1971, developed into an
active guerilla force in the 1970's. By the beginning of the
1980's the situation in the chittagong Hill Tracts had become
characterized by army atrocities, popular rebellion, and
continued government-supported immigration of the poor Bangladeshi
peasants.
Throughout the 1970's the immigration issue worsened and
Bangladeshi-Jumma relations hit an unprecedented low. In 1979, the
Bangladesh government decided to launch a
secret scheme to organize and subsidize the settlement of tens
of thousands of new Bangladeshi immigrant families each year.
Between 1978 and 1984 the government of Bangladesh
transferred half a
million poor Bangaldeshi settlers to CHT for political purpose.
They were allotted free
ration, housing and other facilities including agricultural land.
The provisions of the 1900 CHT
Regulation related to land settlement and transfer were amended
for providing land rights to the settlers.
The Army and other law enforcing authorities and these settlers committed
massacres, genocide, riots, arsons, religious persecutions, rapes etc. to
drive out the indigenous Jumma
people from their lands and homesteads and to make room for the settlers.
The Jumma people could not but respond with open hostility. The
"undeclared war" in the chittagong Hill Tracts was a fact.
Since 1971 the Bangladesh military and the settlers perpetrated
13 major massacres in which 6,009 (10% of population) indigenous Jumma people
were killed. From December
1971 to December 1997
about l0,000(l2%) houses of the Jumma people were burnt down, 1,000 women were raped,
72,090 (12%) indigenous Jumma people had to seek assylum as refugees in India,
250,090 (42%) Jumma people
were internlly displaced and approximately 24,000 (4%) Jumma people lost their lives
due to extra judicial executions, massacres, tortures, illnesses, starvations etc.
The government of Bangladesh accelerated the policy of military solution.
Side by side publicly
identified the CHT conflict as economic problem, with an aim to mislead the
international community as well
as to have fund for implementation of the plans and programs against the
Shanti Bahini and the Jumma people. In the name of development
of livelihood of the
Jumma people and the CHT, in
1976 the CHT Development Board was established, in reality the CHT
Development Board formulated and implemented anti-insurgency
plans and programs,
such as, construction of road networks to facilitate military deployment
in the remote part of the CHT, deforestation to deprive the Shanti Bahini
guerillas hideout etc. In 1982 the G.O.C
(General Officer in Command) of 24 Infantry
Division of Bangladesh Army who was empowered to launch military
operation in CHT was made
Chainrnan of the CHT Development Board. He utilized the fund provided by
various international organizations like
Asian Development Bank, World Bank etc. for implementation of
development projects in the
CHT
for military purposes and resettlement of the Bangladeshi settlers from the
mainland Bangladesh.
By the mid 1970s the the Bangladesh Government abandoned secular Bengali
nationalism in favour of religious (Islamic) oriented Bangladeshi nationalism,
to appease the majority community of Bangladesh. The Bangladesh Nationalist
Party (BNP, the political party floated by Major General Ziaur Rahman) defines
Bangladeshi nationalism as - i) one race (Bengali),
ii) one religion (Islam), iii) War of Independence, iv) Bengali Language,
v) territory vi) culture and vii) economy. Bangladeshi nationalism as it evolved
in 1975 was in
essence assertion of the Muslim identity of the Bangladeshis. Now culture
as well as religion were being used to dominate the Jummas and the Hindu community
of Bangladesh. The Bengali Hindu population who bore the brunt of persecutions
during the Pakisntani military's
excesses in 1971 were also victimized. The Hindu population in Bangladesh is
on the decline due to emigration to India. In 1974 they constituted 13.5%, in
1981 it came down to 12.1%.
In the 1980s Major General Ershad further Islamised
the Bangladeshi nationhood. On 7 June 1988, through the eight amendment to the
Constitution of Bangladesh, General Ershad declared Islam as the state religion of
Bangladesh. Islamic fundamentalism grew rapidly among the members of the Bangladesh
military and the civil administration. In the CHT the number of mosques increased
from 200 in 1974 to 592 in 1981, the number had increased further since 1982,
while hundreds of Buddhist and Hindu temples were destroyed in the CHT. The pro-Islamic
government
of General Ershad sought financial assistance from Saudi Arabia to Islamise the Jumma
people of the CHT. Al Rabita, a Saudi funded NGO had set up Islamic Preaching Centers
and Islamic hospital in the CHT with the aim of converting the Jummas to Islam. The
Bangladesh government's policy of Islamisation is deeply resented by the Jummas
and the Bengali Hindus alike. There has been no change in the Islamic orientation
of Bangladeshi nationalism with the change of regime in Bangladesh in 1991 and
again in 1996.
Sources:
- The Charge of Genocide: Organizing Committee CHT Campaign, The Netherlands, 1986
- Jana Samhati Samiti Report
- The Politics of Nationalism: by Amena Mohsin
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