Bangladesh and India work together to counter armed Kuki infiltration into Mizoram

Kuki-Chin National Army (KNA) new recruits in unknown location in the hills forests of CHT

SALEEM SAMAD

Bangladesh and India are worried about the disturbing news of armed insurgents infiltrating into restive Mizoram state of northeast India as refugees.

Both Delhi and Dhaka are sharing intelligence reports, browsing local newspapers, and getting updates from local sources in a bid to counter new security challenges in the region. The development has raised the eyebrows of the top brass of both countries.

Recently the spate of insurgency, the Kuki-Chin National Army (KNA) was engaged in several bouts of skirmishes with the Bangladesh Army and the elite anti-crime force Rapid Action Battalion (RAB).

During the raid, several soldiers including an officer of the Bangladesh Army where dead others were grievously injured. The troops inflicted heavy causalities on KNA combatants.

Several sources in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) confirmed that armed Kuki guerrillas have scattered and shifted to remote hill-forest terrain, where it is difficult for anti-insurgency operations.

Last year, the KNA ‘s headquarters (HQ) and secret training location were smashed in a joint operation of the security forces.

Security forces officials declined to be identified, but privy to the operation to flush out, capture and destroy KNF hideouts said, the militants have taken refuge in no-man’s-land, bordering CHT and Mizoram, along the international border of Bangladesh and India.

Hundreds of Kukis and other communities living in hill tracts have fled their hamlets after the military pounded hundreds of mortar shells to drive the KNF militants from their hideouts.

Amid conflicts, the neighbouring state of Mizoram is hosting hundreds of Kuki and other ethnic communities as displaced refugees due to anti-terror operations carried out by security forces in the southeast CHT.

Meanwhile, both the Assam Rifles and the Border Security Force (BSF) – which guards India’s border with Myanmar and Bangladesh have issued red alerts after two alarming incidents.

The Times of India newspaper on July 29 writes that KNA militants in disguise as ‘refugees’ have entered Mizoram and were apprehended.

The refugees from Myanmar and Bangladesh currently staying in Mizoram were issued temporary identification cards, which include details like name, place of origin and current address.

The Mizoram-based NGO, the Central Young Lai Association (CYLA) has issued a statement highlighting the incident that took place on June 26. It also expressed fear that militants possibly entered Mizoram in the guise of refugees and were indulging in gunrunning and arms training in Indian territory.

The second incident was an improvised explosive device (IED) blast in a forest in Lawngtlai district last month.

A few months ago, two KNA functionaries were apprehended by the Assam Rifles and handed over to the Mizoram Police.

Islamic outfit’s name surfaced after RAB held a press conference on 6 October 2022 raiding secret hideouts of the Islamic militants and netting fresh recruits from their safe house.

The apprehension has been caused after getting confirmation that KNA has joined hands with a little-known Islamist terror outfit, the Jamaa’tul Ansar Fil Hindal Sharqiya, to help establish an operational base in CHT.

The Assam Rifles has also confirmed the link between the KNA and the Islamist terror group. It is believed that the KNA had tested the IED for use against the Bangladeshi security forces.

Indian security agencies are worried because Mizoram could be used as a base to launch attacks on the Bangladesh security forces.

Earlier on 24 March 2022, six members of KNA were detained by the Indian Border Security Force (BSF) at the Mizoram border. All of them have disclosed that they were residents of the Bandarban district of Ruma Upazila.

They were detained while entering India through the Longtalai district of Mizoram on the Indo-Bangladesh-Myanmar tri-border.

The names of the arrested persons have been mentioned in the news of the Mizoram-based daily ‘Rauthla’ published on 28 March 2022.

Former military officers of the Bangladesh Army who were deployed in restive CHT and have experience in military operations in the hill-forests, said the terrain becomes extremely difficult for patrolling and raiding hide-outs in monsoon season.

Once the monsoon is over, the military is preparing for another military campaign if the KNF does not surrender in three months, sources said.

Brigadier General Bayezid Sarwar and Major Nasim Hossain who have recently written thought-provoking articles in leading national newspapers on the Kuki-Chin insurgency have shared their opinion with this journalist.

They opined that the security issue in CHT has been described as a fresh ‘headache’ for the security forces in containing the militancy.

Unfortunately, the politicians and the government, while the civil bureaucrats in the secretariat are unperturbed, said retired Major Khandakar Badrul Ahsan, who was once at the helms of affairs during the peak of anti-insurgency “Headmasters Operation” against the autonomy-seeking guerrillas during 1980s.

KNF is headed by a young sculptor Nathan Loncheu Bawn, from the ethnic Bawn community. He was formerly in a leading role with the pro-peace deal CHT Students Council (Pahari Chattra Parishad).

He quit politics and founded Kuki-Chin National Development Organisation (KNDO), a non-governmental organisation (NGO) in 2008 and is reportedly backed by Brigade Headquarters at Ruma Cantonment of Bangladesh Army.

The leaders of the organisation claim that the organisation considers Bawm, Lusai, Pangkho, Khyang, Khumi and Mro ethnic groups of the CHT as Zo people and has emerged as a formal political organisation to assert the rights of the Zo people.

The KNDO in 2015 demanded the government take steps for the development of the living standards of the Zo people in the CHT and allocate a separate budget for the Zo people.

The organisation also demanded that the government recognise Zo people inhabitants of 9 upazilas (sub-districts) of the three hill districts as Kuki-Chin states.

The Bawm in Bandarban is one of the 11 ethnic communities in Bangladesh with a population of nearly 12,000 people. The majority of the Bawn have converted to Christianity from animist, and speak in their local dialect.

During Nathan Bawn’s stint with the NGO, the KNDO has been transformed into a political organisation called the Kuki-Chin National Front (KNF) in 2019. He began recruiting youths to join the KNA, also popularly known as Bawm Party.

KNF aims to establish a separate autonomous state for the Bawm people with nine upazilas (sub-districts) of Rangamati and Bandarban districts.

Nathan Bawn, chairman of KNA has no experience in guerrilla warfare. Many are curious to know how he organised an insurgent force with recruits from the smaller ethnic communities.

According to Bangladeshi law enforcement agencies, KNF received weapons from the Kachin State of Myanmar and also has ties with Karen rebels.

His greed for cash was after he met his old Dhaka University friend Shamim Mahfuz, founder of the Islamic militant outfit Jamaa’tul Ansar Fil Hindal Sharqiya. Mahfuz studied at Rangpur Cadet College and while studying at Dhaka University he was radicalised.

Mahfuz was twice arrested on charges of Islamic militancy in 2011 and 2014. After he was released on bail in 2017, he decided to launch a new militant outfit with its headquarters in remote Bandarban hills.

In a secret collaborative dialogue at Cox’s Bazar sea resort town in 2019, where Mahfuz assured Bawn that their outfit would provide money for training their militants, supply weapons and provide a safe area for establishing his HQ. An agreement was signed in 2021 between the radical Islamic outfit and KNA.

Anti-terror unit of police and security experts know very little about the jihadist outfit Jamaa’tul Ansar Fil Hindal Sharqiya’s hierarchy, leadership structure, and fundraising sources.

Additional Commissioner Mohammad Asaduzzaman, the Chief of Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) does not know much about both outfits.

However, a former member of Parbatya Chattagram Jana Samhati Samiti (PCJSS) high command believes that Jamaa’tul Ansar Fil Hindal Sharqiya by its nomenclature does not exist. The name was given by security forces, he argues.

The member of the PCJSS high command which signed a peace accord with the Bangladesh government in 1997 said his source claimed that KNF has relocated to Mizoram after a massive combing operation by the military and para-military forces after an IED blast by the KNF killing and wounding several government soldiers.

With the best of the best security cooperation, Delhi does not want to see Islamic militants prowling in the northeast. Simultaneously India will not allow KNA to use Mizoram for launching attacks on Bangladesh security forces.

First published in the India Narrative, 1 August 2023

(Saleem Samad is an award-winning independent journalist based in Bangladesh. Views expressed are personal. Twitter: @saleemsamad)

Indigenous People in Bangladesh Suffer as Government Drags Feet

SALEEM SAMAD

25 years ago, ethnic militias fighting in Bangladesh’s southeastern forest hills agreed to lay down their arms against the state in exchange for concessions of self-governance and land rights. To date, the government has not made good on its promises, leaving many ethnic minority farmers stranded, unable to reclaim the farmland on which they once made their livelihoods.

In the hill forest districts of Bangladesh, known collectively as the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT), the inhabitants continue to suffer in agony. Many of these indigenous peoples speak Sino-Tibetan languages and practice Buddhist, Hindu, or other local religions, traits which set them apart as a minority in largely Indo-Aryan-speaking and Muslim Bangladesh. They are suffering because the government has not complied with the peace accord, celebrated at the time, which it signed 25 years ago with armed militias seeking autonomy in the region.

The United People’s Party of the Chittagong Hill Tracts (PCJSS), the political high command of the mainly Chakma, Marma, and Tripura guerillas called the Shanti Bahini (“Peace Force”), signed a peace accord with the government of Sheikh Hasina on 2 December 1997. The historic CHT Peace Accord brought to an end a protracted insurgency of more than two decades, a bush war that had cost many lives and livelihoods in southeast Bangladesh.

Parliament quickly ratified the accord, and the surrender of the combatants and their ordinance quickly followed. Finally, thousands of ethnic refugees, until then languishing in squalid camps in the neighboring Indian state of Tripura, were able to come home.

Implementation is taking forever

However, PCJSS leader Jyotirindra Bodhipriya Larma, known as Shantu Larma, lamented that this silver jubilee is nothing to celebrate. The government has not been willing to implement it. Unfortunately, a quarter of a century after the signing of the accord, a peace audit claims that only 25 provisions and 18 clauses have been partially implemented, out of 72 provisions.

While the government celebrates the anniversary of the proclaimed peace, full-fledged governing councils have not been formed through direct elections, as promised by the peace accord, in any of the CHT’s three districts. The interim councils were formed with hand-picked ruling party members, mostly ethnic Bengalis from outside of the region and a few ethnic minority members. The government remains conspicuously silent when the implementation of the fundamental provisions of the accord is raised.

In spite of these headwinds, Shantu Larma is hopeful that the accord will see the light of day by its golden jubilee, if not earlier. And so it must, for unless the peace accord, signed during the first term of Sheikh Hasina’s government, is put into reality, peace will remain elusive for the indigenous peoples of these beautiful hills.

In the last 25 years, the CHT Peace Accord Implementation Committee has held only six meetings. This is a reflection of the government’s lack of seriousness.

Larma remains loyal to the Prime Minister, who is now in her fourth term. He argues that as she made a sincere political commitment to getting the peace deal inked and ratified, so will she surely strive to make progress in implementing the accord.

However, he reminded the national government that the responsibility to implement the peace accord lies with them and with no one else, not PCJSS or the former insurgents. He fears that the delay will cause frustration and anger among the hill people, creating a political divide in the community, especially among young people and students. In the years since the accord, young people have from time to time acted out violently in the hopes of putting pressure on the government to realize the accord’s implementation.

A roadmap to implement the accord to achieve peace was also agreed with the government. Those affected do not understand what is causing the delay in the implementation of the accord.

A history of discrimination

The PCJSS argues that, like previous regimes, the ruling Awami League party has been implementing a policy of Islamization, and, coupled with the crisis, it has intensified militarization in the CHT to completely eradicate the national identity of the hill people. In this, they see the continuation of a long and painful history.

The military dictator General Ziaur Rahman (1977-1981) attempted to Islamize the hill forest and pushed tens of thousands of landless Muslim Bengali settlers from the plains districts to outnumber the local ethnic population.

Parleys with the government’s liaison committee were initiated during the military junta of General Hussain Muhammad Ershad (1982-1990) when he offered an olive branch to the guerillas to surrender. The peace process was entrusted to a small group of immature military officers, who forced the community leaders to sign a halfhearted peace treaty. This treaty was rejected by the Shanti Bahini commanders.

Subsequently, when Khaleda Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party came to power in 1991, she unilaterally declared a ceasefire in the hills and initiated peace talks with members of parliament. Her regime experienced hiccups as the liaison committee could not spell out a political solution to the crisis. The end result was zero. The dialogue was abruptly abandoned in 1996.

When Sheikh Hasina came to power a year later in 1997, a flurry of peace talks resulted in the CHT Peace Accord after the government recognized the crisis in the hill forest as the political problem it was. The Peace Accord was written with the supreme sacrifice of the blood of the hill peoples and the political vision of the Awami League government, but the effects of Bengali ethnic imperialism still continue.

Thousands of people in Bangladesh, especially those visiting the hill forests as tourists are not aware that de facto military rule continues and that the so-called Operation Uttaran, the government’s offensive, has not been withdrawn, despite what was agreed in the accord.

Rights groups complain that appalling human rights abuses, including illegal detention, extrajudicial deaths, enforced disappearances, legal harassment, and attacks against the hill people by Bengali settlers continued without any respite. The members of the CHT Citizens’ Council, an outfit of the Bengali settlers, have gained notoriety for forced conversion of native girls to Islam, kidnapping for ransom, looting of produce from native farmers, land grabbing, and other crimes. Human rights organizations have recorded evidence from parents and guardians that indigenous children have been taken away by force and admitted to madrasas (Islamic schools) in other areas of the country and converted to Islam without the knowledge of their parents.

Native administrations disempowered

The authorities are presently making systematic efforts at forced demographic transformation of the region—further marginalizing the natives who have protected the hill forest, the flora and fauna for centuries.

Law and order, police, land and land management, forest and environment conservation, communication infrastructure development, and other competencies stipulated by the accord have not been handed over to the district councils. Alas, district police forces have not been formed. And despite the decision of the Accord Implementation Committee, the jurisdiction to issue “Permanent Resident Certificates,” vital for the recognition of indigenous identity and of the incumbent rights to vote and to receive restitution according to the peace agreement, has not been turned over to the native administrations as promised.

It is an ongoing tragedy that the refugees who have returned from India have not yet gotten their land back, in violation of the accord. Internally displaced refugees have regained their land either, Mangal Kumar Chakma recently wrote in The Daily Star.

The list of permanent residents of the three hill districts, who are the ones eligible to vote there, has not yet been prepared, again despite the accord’s mandate. Even the electoral rules and election rules for the hill district councils have not been formulated.

This undemocratic and partisan path sends the wrong message to the hill people, demonstrating the government’s dearth of political commitment. The land occupation and eviction of ethnic minorities remain an apple of discord between the Bengalis settled and protected by the military and the ethnic nationalities of the hill forests. The hill people are constantly losing their lands and being evicted from their homesteads in the absence of a functional CHT Land Commission and with the sluggish progress of the implementation of the peace accord.

The Land Commission mandated under the CHT Peace Accord has not progressed at all. The commission was supposed to demarcate the ancestral lands of the minorities to establish their legal rights against encroachers. So far, the light at the end of the tunnel still appears distant.

First published in the FairObserver.com @myfairobserver, 9 June 2023

Saleem Samad is an award-winning independent columnist and media rights defender based in Bangladesh. He became an Ashoka Fellow in 1991, and won the Hellman-Hammett Award in 2005

“Adivasis Drowning In Abject Poverty”

SALEEM SAMAD

A rosy picture of national ethnic people dancing and singing adorned in traditional ethnic dress in most national events, cultural programmes on state-run television, Pahari (hill people) ethnic food festivals and recruitment in government jobs is not the true story of the life, livelihood and visibility of the Adivasis in Bangladesh.

Bangladesh has 50 different national minorities. They have distinctive languages, cultures and practices which they inherited from their ancestors. The Adivasis are inhabitants in forests in the plainland and the hill forests in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT).

Left-leaning lawmaker Fazle Hossain Badsha agreed to disagree with leading development economist Prof Abul Barakat on his policy research on the status of Adivasi. He remarked that they should not be bracketed as a disadvantaged or vulnerable population, which does not reflect the real status of the national minorities.

Badsha without hesitation said, the Adivasis are drowning in abject poverty and pushed toward vulnerability by the majoritarian but stopped short of mentioning ‘Bangalee Muslims’ as the devil.

They have adopted several “survival strategies” to combat hunger and poverty from environmentally friendly exploitation of nature, the lawmaker observed.

Well, the lawmaker agreed with Prof Barakat that Adivasis are losing their forest rights, are traditionally conservators of forests, access to farm in khas (public) lands, and clumsy land acquisition formalities have pushed the Adivasis further into vulnerability to survive on a bare minimum.

Dr Barakat shared his findings from a policy study on the ‘Study of Budget Allocation and Budget Spent for Development of Ethnic People (CHT and Plainland) in Bangladesh’, a research conducted by the Human Development Research Centre (HDRC) and funded by Manusher Jonno Foundation on 15 January at CIRDAP Auditorium.

The economist said two-thirds of the Adivasis are caught in a functionally landless category. The poverty index argues that 60 per cent of the national minorities are very poor.

The national budget is more than a statement of allocation for the development of economic and social sectors. But the ethnic people have been deprived and discriminated against historically, admitted the study.

The budget allocations for the Adivasi people are too little and too inadequate. A large part of the allocations are not spent for them and they get an insignificant amount from a large pie.

Adivasi people do not get adequate allocations from the national budget. Like all other ordinary and marginalised people, the participation of Adivasis in the budget planning process is absent.

Even their community and national leaders are not approached for any meaningful discussion to assess the real needs and demands.

Some allocations seem to be “not so needful”, while some other priority needs are ignored, most likely due to the absence of consultation with the communities.

The lack of effective monitoring is another stark reality. A portion of the insufficient allocation to the Adivasi is not fully spent due to a lack of accountability. The quality of spending is questionable due to leakage misappropriation by the rent-seekers, mistargeting and other misgovernance issues.

Reviewing the national budget allocation for the Adivasi it is found that an estimated Taka 2,508 crore (1.22 per cent of the Annual Development Plan-ADP) in financial year (FY) 2020-21; and Tk 2,400 crore in FY 21-22.

It could be understood that the allocations decreased in FY 21-22 by Tk 108 crore or 4.34 per cent in nominal terms.

There are some critical but missing allocation line items for the ethnic people for plainland Adivasi people, those include food assistance in ‘monga’ (absence of farm work) months, legal aids for ownership of grabbed land, education in their language, equitable health services, enhancing livelihood endowment, promotion and protection of Adivasi culture and knowledge management,

The critical missing allocation line items for the CHT Adivasi include adequate budget provisions for the land commission, CHT regional council, perspective plan, biodiversity and environmental protection.

Lawmaker Badsha echoed with Dr Barakat that a separate ministry for the plainland Adivasis was recommended. The present Ministry for CHT Affairs could be revamped and made into one ministry for the national minorities, which may have a CHT Division in the newly formed ministry.

An effective Land Commission is very vital for the Adivasi against organised land grabbers, having political clouts. The land grabbers are actively functioning all over the communes of Adivasi regions with impunity.

The land litigations in district courts are another frustration for the Adivasis who lost their ancestral lands to the land grabbers. The worst case scenario is when the state acquires a large portion of lands which belonged to the Adivasis in a bid to develop so-called eco-parks or lease the land to private corporations for the construction of resorts and plantation gardens.

Finally, the study recommends emphasising food security, inclusive development, widen the social net to trap the Adivasis slipping into abject poverty and hunger.

First published in The News Times,January 16, 2023

Saleem Samad, is an award-winning independent journalist, media rights defender, recipient of Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He could be reached at <saleemsamad@hotmail.com>; Twitter @saleemsamad

Peace on silver jubilee remains elusive for hill people

SALEEM SAMAD

People of the hill forest, an abode of the Mongoloid ethnic Adivasis refuse to celebrate the historic signing of the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) Peace Accord on December 2, which brought to an end a protracted autonomy-seeking insurgency for more than two decades.
However, the government is officially celebrating the silver jubilee of the Peace Accord. The government-sponsored supplements in mainstream newspapers failed to mention the implementation of the accord and instead runs a list of physical developments including how many solar-panel sets were distributed, roads and bridges were built and blah, blah.
On the other hand, the Parbatya Chattagram Jana Samhati Samiti (PCJSS) in a paid supplement in Dainik Samakal stated that in 25 years the peace accord has not been fully implemented, which remains a bone of contention among the ethnic communities in the hills.
Out of 72 provisions of the accord, only 25 provisions and 18 clauses have been partially implemented, said PCJSS supremo Jyotirindra Bodhipriya Larma a.k.a. Shantu Larma on the occasion of the 25th anniversary at Liberation War Museum auditorium which was not a surprise for many.
On the eve of the accord’s silver jubilee, a full-fledged Hill District Council in Rangamati, Khagrachari and Bandarban has not been formed through direct elections. The interim Hill District Councils were formed with hand-picked ruling party members, mostly Bangalee and a few Adivasis. This undemocratic and partisan path gives a wrong message to the hill people of a lack of political commitment.
The government remains silent when the implementation of the fundamental provisions of the accord was raised, which caused further complications.
Despite all odds, Shantu Larma seems hopeful that the accord will surely see the light of day before the ‘golden jubilee’ celebration. Then only the hill people will be able to celebrate the accord, he quipped.
Unless the peace accord, signed on 2 December 1997 during the first tenure of Sheikh Hasina’s government (1996-2001), peace will remain elusive for the Adivasis of the picturesque hills.
In the last quarter century, the CHT Peace Accord Implementation Committee has held its 6th meeting recently. This also gives an impression of the seriousness of the government’s will.
On the other side, the CHT Land Commission formed under the provision of the CHT Accord has not progressed at all.
Nevertheless, Shantu Larma seems to have faith in Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who he said has the sincere political will to get the peace deal signed and a bill passed in the parliament.
He argued that the responsibility to implement the peace accord lies with the state and nobody else, not PCJSS.
A road map to implement the accord to achieve peace was also agreed upon with the government. It was not understood what hindered the delay in the implementation of the accord.
The peace process for a solution with the government’s liaison committee had been initiated during the military junta of General H M Ershad. Later when Khaleda Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) came to power, the dialogue with the government continued and the end result was zero.
Both regimes experienced hiccups as the liaison committees could not envisage a political solution to the crisis.
When Sheikh Hasina came to power in 1996, a year later a rapid series of dialogues resulted in the CHT Peace Accord after the government recognised the crisis as a political problem.
The CHT Peace Accord was written with the supreme sacrifice of the blood of the Adivasis and the political vision of the Awami League government.
“We are continuing the dialogue to achieve peace,” PCJSS supremo said.
In frustration, Shantu Larma remarked that: “It does not take 25 years to implement a peace accord.”
Most people in Bangladesh, especially those visiting the hill forests as a tourist are not aware that martial law has long gone away with the fall of a dictator in 1990, a de facto military rule continues, and ‘Operation Uttaran’ has not been withdrawn, even though it was agreed in the accord to stop targeting the hill people.
The military dictator General Ziaur Rahman deliberately wanted to Islamise CHT and pushed tens of thousands of landless Bangalee Muslim settlers from the floodplains.
Presently, the authorities are systematically making efforts to “Bangalise” the region – further marginalising the Adivasis.
For the last 25 years, the Adivasi youths and student leaders launched a violent movement to pressure the government to realise the accord’s implementation but were frustrated.
The Adivasis will continue to suffer in pain and agony for non-compliance with the much talked about peace accord with the autonomy-seeking armed ethnic minorities of the CHT.

First published in The News Times, December 3, 2022
Saleem Samad, is an independent journalist, media rights defender, recipient of Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He could be reached at <saleemsamad@hotmail.com>; Twitter @saleemsamad

Peace remains elusive for hill people in the CHT

SALEEM SAMAD

The Adivasis continue to suffer in pain and agony for non-compliance of the much talked about peace accord signed 23 years ago with the autonomy seeking armed ethnic minorities of the Chittagong Hill Tracts.

For the hill people, peace continues to remain a far cry as the Bangalee settlers from the floodplains, on the behest of the Bangladesh Army, continue to enjoy blessings of the military, civil administration and ruling party politicians.

When the peace accord was signed on 2 December 1997, the BBC Bangla radio and Dainik Ajker Kagoj interviewed me for my long experience reporting on the insurgency and peace process since 1980. I said the treaty will not be implemented even after 25 years, because of the nonchalant military and civil bureaucracy.

However, my comment was taken seriously neither by the government nor by the Shantu Larma led Parbatiya Chattragram Jana Sangati Samity (PCJSS). Both parties dismissed my concerns and claimed they would start implementing the accord soon enough.

That soon never came into the life of Shantu Larma — the supremo of Shanti Bahini. His party created a paramilitary force waging a bush war across one-tenth of Bangladesh.

It was understood that after the surrender of Shanti Bahini combatants along with their weapons, who once reigned unchallenged in the hill forest, that the accord would see the light of the day.

After several years, the accord was only implemented through the piecemeal measure of ‘pick and choose’ which frustrated several groups, mostly youths, leaders and former combatants.

The youths and student leaders launched a violent movement to pressure the government to realise the accord’s implementation, which reached a critical stage.

Eminent citizens of the country at various events, marking the 23rd anniversary of the CHT Accord in 2020, commented that the expectations created in 1997 through the signing of the CHT Accord have turned into frustration and anger as it has not been implemented even after 23 years and the Jumma people are being ruled, exploited, deprived and oppressed.

Bangladesh authority did not take much initiative to implement the CHT Accord. Not a single meeting of the CHT Accord Implementation Committee, the CHT Land Commission and the Task Force, formed under the CHT Accord, was convened.

Nonetheless, only a few clauses and sub-clauses of the accord have been implemented in the last 23 years since the Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh and the PCJSS signed the historic CHT Agreement. Two-thirds of the clauses remain in grey section.

The fundamental provisions of the accord are either ultimately unrealised or have been partially implemented.

A formal meeting of the CHT Land Commission was scheduled to be held at Bandarban on 3 February 2020. However, the event was cancelled when the Bangalee settlers backed by local administration blocked the entrance.

Nevertheless, countrywide coronavirus outbreak, extended official holidays and lockdown overshadowed the government’s activities in 2020.

There is no respite from the operations of the military, paramilitary border guards and other law enforcement forces in the CHT even as the pandemic rages.

Thus in 23 years, the expected resolution to the CHT conflict remains elusive. Instead, according to the PCJSS annual statement released in the first week of January, the problem has become more complicated.

The PCJSS laments that, following the previous governments, the current government has been implementing Islamisation policy and intensified the CHT’s militarisation —threatening the Jumma people’s national, religious and cultural identity.

It has been alleged that all matters of general administration, law and order, development of the CHT, have been handed over to the army and security services deployed in the region.

The annual report also said that the army has undertaken initiatives to revive the camps once withdrawn after the CHT Accord. Many camps had been reconstructed on the same site in the last few years, including seven new camps in 2020.

In CHT, apparently, a de facto military rule continues, and ‘Operation Uttaran’ has not been withdrawn, even though it was agreed in the accord to stop targeting the hill people. The authorities are engaged in anti-accord activities with the settlers as an excuse to provide security and protection.

On the eve of the accord’s silver jubilee, not a single full-fledged Hill District Council has been formed by direct votes. The interim Hill District Councils were formed with hand-picked ruling party members last December. This undemocratic and partisan path demonstrates the lack of political commitment on the part of the government.

The PCJSS blames the ruling Awami League government, which deserves credit for getting the rebels to sit for peace talks, signing the accord, and organising a surrender ceremony at Khagrachari. However, it has not taken enough measures to implement the CHT Agreement.

In recent years, it has been alleged by PCJSS that, with knowledge of the security forces, government agencies are sheltering the JSS (MN Larma) known as Reformist, the UPDF (Democratic) and the Mog Party.

Widespread human rights abuses, including illegal detention, extrajudicial deaths, enforced disappearances, legal harassments and assaults against the hill people continues unabated.

The Bangalee settlers were responsible for inciting sectarian tensions in the region and remains upbeat with the moral support of the military and the civil administration.

Parbatya Chattagram Nagorik Parishad (CHT Citizens’ Council) has gained notoriety for forced conversion of Adivasi girls into Muslims, kidnapping for ransom, looting farm produces from the hills, grabbing of lands of the ancestors and the list goes on and on.

The refusal to register cases against the settlers is an everyday norm, especially when the Adivasis go to a police station. When the hill people approach the military with complaints, they are asked to back off and are treated as a potential threat to the military.

Instead of a political and peaceful solution to the CHT crisis by implementing the CHT Accord, the government has taken the initiative to solve the problem through repression like the previous regimes. So far, there are no signs of the government opting for an alternative, peaceful path in the foreseeable future.

First published in the Shuddhasha portal, Norway on 11 January 2021

Saleem Samad is an independent journalist and media rights defender. Recipient of Ashoka Fellow and Hellman-Hammett Award. He could be reached at saleemsamad@hotmail.com; Twitter @saleemsamad

Did anybody protest scrapping of CHT special status?

Picturesque hill forest of Chittagong Hill Tracts - Photo: Online

SALEEM SAMAD

Moments after India scrapped the historic Special Status of Jammu & Kashmir, sporadic protests were held in some educational campuses in Bangladesh, many created storm over cups of tea, and others took to social media to criticize the decision of Narendra Modi.

Those who protested in social media in Bangladesh did not hesitate to circulate photos and videos, which were discovered to be fake. Photos and videos of atrocities in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan, even from Balochistan and Waziristan in Pakistan surfaced in cyberspace and sought to be passed off as pictures of incidents occurring in Indian Administered Kashmir.

Bangladesh media reacted responsibly to the Revocation of Article 370 for J&K, keeping in mind its responsibility not to jeopardize nearly five decade long warm bilateral relations between two neighboring countries.

Like most members of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and other countries in the North, Bangladesh stated that the J&K is an internal matter of India.

Political scientists found three primary reasons why tens of thousands of social media enthusiasts used this opportunity to ventilate their frustration over the Kashmir crisis.

Firstly, it was nothing but Sunni Muslim jingoism to express solidarity with Muslim brethren in Kashmir (similar support, it needs stating, was also shown for Palestine). Secondly, there was obviously an element of religious intolerance also involved and third, their overt reservation about Bangladesh-India relationship, which they argue is lopsided, stood exposed.

The issue of discussion here is whether any “Bir Bangalee” in the eastern province of Pakistan (now Bangladesh) protested the annulment of the Special Status stated in Chittagong Hill Tracts Manual 1900.

Promptly those hyper-critics of Kashmir issue will argue that the news media in those days were not vibrant and social media did not exist. There was little concern then among the citizens in this province, and the situation is not very different even today, regarding the cancellation of Special Status of CHT.

The concept of Special Status for a specially administered area was also recognized in the British colonial system under Government of India Acts of 1919 and 1935. The constitutions of Pakistan of 1956 and 1962 made no change in the Special Status announced earlier for some areas.

This regulation laid down specific rules on rights of entry and residence in the CHT and made it difficult for people from outside to acquire rights to land in the region.

From the inception of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, the Pakistan government dubbed indigenous leadership as pro-Indian.

Suddenly the Special Status was abolished in 1963 through a constitutional amendment, instigated by Chittagong-born politician Fazlul Quader Chaudhury (detained in 1972 for committing ‘crimes against humanity’ during brutal birth of Bangladesh) he was the Speaker of Pakistan National Assembly (1963 – 1965) during military dictator General Ayub Khan.

Furthermore, Pakistan changed the status of the CHT from “excluded area” to “tribal area”. It also repealed the Chittagong Hill Tracts Frontier Police Regulations of 1881.

The impact of the amendment was visible by mid-1960s, all Pahari (indigenous people) employees in the administration were transferred to other districts of the province, running the local administration entirely by Bangalees only, as Dr Ameena Mohsin of Dhaka University described in her book.

CHT, the home of Mongoloid indigenous communities was ruled by the Mughal from 1666 until 1760. In 1760, it was ceded to the British East India Company. The Mughal rulers did not interfere in the region’s governance system in exchange for revenues. The region preserved the culture, heritage, land rights and special lifestyle of the indigenous communities. The British also followed the Mughal policy.

Several academics and Adivasi leaders of Hill Tracts claimed that soon after the termination of Special Status or Excluded Area, the United States- the funded hydro-electric project was built in Kaptai, inundating 40 percent of the rice bowl. The dam on Karnaphuli River was built depriving the hill people of any compensation or rehabilitation after forced displacement.

Similarly, a paper mill and other small-medium commercial enterprises were established to exploit the natural resources of the hill forests.

Bangladesh’s much talked about 1972 Constitution failed to recognize the Special Status of the hill people, despite demands of recognition by the Adivasi leaders. This led to political discontent in the hills, which developed into a crisis and plunged the region into armed conflict. There arose a demand for regional autonomy until a peace accord was signed in 1997.

Another amendment in Section 34 of the CHT Regulation in 1979 during General Ziaur Rahman’s authoritarian regime, paved the way for planned settlement of Bangalees from the floodplains in the CHT. The mass influx from the plain-land significantly changed the demographic composition of the region, laments Dr Shapan Adnan.

First published in the Bangla Tribune, 17 September 2019

Saleem Samad, is a journalist, recipient of Ashoka Fellow (USA) and Hellman-Hammett Award. Twitter @saleemsamad; Email: saleemsamad@hotmail.com

Repair of roads to Rangamati would take weeks

Candle light vigil for those dead in massive landslides - Photo: Facebook

SALEEM SAMAD

Rangamati is cut off from rest of the Bangladesh. The unprecedented landslides in Rangamati which damaged the vital road infrastructures to and from the picturesque hill town.

Two roads which connect Rangamati have been devoured in the landslides during torrential rains in advent of monsoon.

Already, Barrister Anisul Islam Mahmud, Minister, Ministry of Water Resources, Ministry of Chittagong Hill Tracts Affairs (MoCHTA) Bir Bahadhur, State Minister, Secretary of MoCHTA, Naba Bikram Kishore Tripura, Additional Secretary Kamal Talukder, Joint Secretary, MoCHTA, Sudatta Chakma, are in Rangamati to assess the situation.

The Ministers and senior officials in Rangamati held coordination meetings with officials of the district administration officials and Bangladesh Army and that the crucial road communication “will take a long time to repair”, wrote Bikram Kishore Tripura in Facebook on Saturday.

A crucial meeting of Relief and Rehabilitation Coordination was held on Friday at Deputy Commissioner, Rangamati's Conference Room. The meeting was attended by Tarun Ghosh, Vice Chairman, Chittagong Hill Tracts Development Board (CHTDB), Brig Gen Faruk, Region Commander, Rangamati, Ushaton Talukdar MP, Chakma Circle Chief Barrister Debashish Roy, Riaz Ahmad, Director General, Disaster Management, Rangamati Police Chief Syed Tariqul.

The Secretary also wrote that at “the moment Rangamati is [only] accessible through waterways from Kaptai.”

The death tolls of the massive landslides have killed more than 100 people and nearly 40 are still missing. Rescue operation is going round the clock to find any survivors.

Meanwhile, Rangamati District Administration has banned procession and rallies in the Hill district for a month.

Some has also posted in Naba Bikram Kishore Tripura’s Facebook that the nature has taken its revenge for man-made deforestation, hill-cutting to build houses and agriculture farms.

Former Conservator of Forest, Mihir Kiran, writes: “Very sad and heart breaking. Demographic balance is must for the soil condition of the region. Otherwise we have to face the same unbearable fate every year.”

Tripura in a response said: Ideal but difficult to implement. You (Mihir Kiran) were one of the longest serving CCF of FD. You had the experience of failure in plantation in CHT, of course it was our collective failure, not at all personal. Nature has given us a grim signal. We must act without further delay. Time is running out fast.

However, Kirti Nishan Chakma writes in Facebook that “We can and must dissect the causes that has led to this tragedy. But this can wait a little later.”

“Urgent help is needed at the moment. There is a real risk of crisis of the essentials (rice, dal, salt, medicines, etc.) as that the two roads that connects Rangamati to the rest of the country are now completely cut off and repairing them is likely to take a long time given the hilly terrain,” opines writes Kirti Nishan Chakma, General Secretary at Moanoghar a home for distressed children in the Hills.

“A real scarcity of the essentials, maybe it is panic buying or hoarding by the people that is exhausting the available stocks, maybe it the typical dishonest traders who are trying to make quick bucks on the back of this catastrophe. Whatever are reasons, immediate interventions by the government is needed,” writes General Secretary at Moanoghar.

Already the price of the essentials is rising. It is not only Rangamati town, the entire or most of the Rangamati district could be affected.

However, the MoCHTA Secretary affirms that the government will do the needful for the relief, rehabilitation of the distressed people and repairs and reconstruction of the infrastructures. We have to have some patience.

First published in The Asian Age, July 19, 2017

Saleem Samad, an Ashoka Fellow (USA), is an award winning investigating journalist and is Special Correspondent, The Asian Age, Dhaka, Bangladesh

Why Bangladesh Should Not Be Audited By International Bodies

SALEEM SAMAD

Bangladesh for obvious reasons is under renewed scrutiny by global watchdogs, think tanks, and the international press. This is not just because of more than a year of emergency rule, but also due to recent dramatic political developments toward democratic transitions in several countries, including Thailand, Nepal, and Pakistan. Expectations have risen for Bangladesh.

Around Bangladesh, political observers see optimistic developments, perhaps light at the end of the tunnel. The Nepalese are preparing to change their century-old kingdom into a republic. Thai military generals have vowed to not interfere in the polity and have returned to the barracks, though they’ve left behind institutions for influencing internal security. In Pakistan, after decades of military subjugation, there is a change of heart—forced in no small part by a change of heart in the US administration—among the Generals, who have conceded their failure to manage the country.

An overall estimate

Global watchdogs are keenly observing the reforms agenda in Bangladesh toward a transition to democracy. And none of them seems happy. Despite a year of anti-corruption and anti-crime drives by the interim government, Bangladesh is still placed toward the bottom on the list of world’s most corrupt nations. The Global Integrity Report 2007 stated that Bangladesh’s caretaker government had failed to deliver the wishful target it had set about reducing corruption and increasing accountability. Accountability at all levels—executive, legislative, judicial—was rated as very weak, even though laws were strong. The Global Integrity Report pointed out that the military is routinely involved in government affairs.

Similarly, Washington based Freedom House in its Freedom In The World 2008 report says that Bangladesh experienced a reversal due to the introduction of emergency rule in January, the suspension of scheduled elections, and the curtailment of civil liberties and press freedom were identified as a severe blow on good governance and democracy.

Religious freedom has never improved since previous military rulers declared Islam the state religion two decades ago. Persecution of religious minorities like the Hindus, Ahmadiyya Muslim, Buddhists, Christians and cultural minorities (animists) in Modhupur, Sylhet and Chittagong Hill Tracts have continued unabated. It was expected that after the military returned to power in early 2007, the status of religious freedom may improve. But the predators remain loose, and even in 2008, Bangladesh remains in the watch list of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom.

So far, no notable initiative has been taken by the quasi-military government to ensure transparency in governance. With no real improvement in weak institutions, the Failed States Index, published by Foreign Policy / Fund for Peace, placed Bangladesh among the 20 most unstable and highest risk countries, next to Burma, Uganda, Nigeria, and Ethiopia.

The slide in human rights

More troubling are the problems regarding human rights and democracy. In its “Human Rights Report 2007,” local watchdog Odhikar has written flatly: “Human rights situation deteriorated sharply in Bangladesh in 2007.” This not just because fundamental rights remain suspended, but also because the anti-corruption and anti-crime drives are being used “as nothing more than a tool to reform the political parties to its [i.e., the government’s] liking.”

Amnesty International made a high profile visit to Bangladesh in January. The delegation, headed by Amnesty’s Secretary General, made similar observations about “new patterns of manipulating due process.” It also noted with concern the “creeping role of the armed forces in a range of functions, with no clear rules of accountability.”

In February, a group of British and European parliamentarians visited Bangladesh in order to encourage the return to democracy through holding free and fair elections. They also expressed “deep concern over the human rights abuses.”

The same month, Human Rights Watch published a scathing criticism of severe abuses by “Bangladesh’s notorious military intelligence agency.” It pointed out that “the government has routinely used torture to extract confessions,” and that it has protected abusers. Its Asia director asked, “Are they reformers, or do they just say they are reformers?”

In March, the US Department of State submitted to Congress its annual report on human rights in different countries. It gave similar conclusions about Bangladesh’s record in 2007: “The government's human rights record worsened, in part due to the state of emergency and postponement of elections.” It noted how the government has restricted freedom of press, freedom of association, the right to bail, and due process, with political discrimination and “serious abuses, including custodial deaths, arbitrary arrest and detention, and harassment of journalists.”

Law, order, justice

It will be incorrect to think that all of these are new. DGFI, the dreaded security service at the center of many waves of abuse, operated unhindered during the elected governments of Khaleda Zia (1991-1996, 2001-2007) and Shiekh Hasina (1996-2001). Like in Pakistan, interference by state security agency jeopardised the transition of democracy, even after last military dictator General Ershad quit power in 1990 in the face of violent street protests.

The last elected government headed by BNP gave unprecedented powers to elite law-and-order agencies, using them politically and frequently. The current government also uses the same techniques. “Joint Forces,” a combination of uniformed military officers, the anti-crime squads and elite police are given the responsibility in implement the government’s anti-crime campaign, in which hundreds of suspects have been tortured and killed in custody. The differences between then and now are twofold: whatever rights people had before have all been extinguished, and there is no accountability whatsoever for the government’s actions.

The judiciary is yet to demonstrate that it is independent of government influence, or that the security agencies are not intimidating the magistrates and judges. Most of the District Magistracy and Speedy Trial Court judgements are glaring examples of government interference. The judgements are arbitrary, illogical and mysterious, based often on forced confessions and fictitious estimates—and each and every one of the 61 verdicts given in the high profile cases so far has gone in favour of the government. As a dismayed newspaper editorial observed recently: “the prosecution, i.e. the present regime, has been able to ensure a near-perfect conviction success rate … Even the best prosecution lawyers around the world cannot boast such a conviction success rate" (New Age, 25 February 2008).

To conclude, Bangladesh’s present military-driven government has made many promises and taken many initiatives but failed to perform neutrally and satisfactorily, with good governance, transparency, and accountability.

Supporters of the government usually respond to this allegation in two ways. First, they accuse all critics of “tarnishing the image of the country,” as if performance is nothing and image is everything. Second, they say that it is too early to judge them: they have not been given a fair chance or enough time to clean up all the mess that Bangladesh was in. The first accusation has no substance. To the second accusation we say, the job of the caretaker government, by Constitution, is to hold elections toward a return to democracy. Their job is not to fix everything in the country, and claiming to fix everything an ominous excuse to hold on to power.

First Published in CounterCurrents.org 10 July 2008

Saleem Samad, an Ashoka Fellow is a Bangladesh born journalist presently living in exile in Canada. He edits www.DurDesh.net streaming from Toronto and specialises in conflict, terrorism, security and intelligence issues in South Asia. He could be reached by email saleemsamad@hotmail.com