05 Sep 2005
JUMMA PEOPLES NETWORK UNITED KINGDOM (JPNUK)
(STRONGER WITH
YOUR SUPPORT)
(Human Rights Organisation: Working for the Indigenous
Jumma People)
PO BOX
38348
London E13 OWL
Tel:+44 (0)
07985938121 / 07876271546 / 07951333941
Email:jpn_uk@hotmail.com
Website:www.jpnuk.org.uk
JPN UK
Demands Bangladesh
Parliamentary Standing Committee must withdraw it’s summon of
Indigenous
Peoples (IP) leaders in Bangladesh
Jumma
Peoples Network United Kingdom (JPN UK), a Human Rights Organisation
condemn
the summon of the IP leaders by the Bangladesh Parliamentary Standing
Committee
for telling the truth on the present situation of the Chittagong Hill
Tracts (CHT)
at the 4th Session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on
Indigenous Issues, United Nations Headquarters, New York on 17-25 May
2005.
According
to the Bengali newspaper ‘Shamakal’ the following persons have been
summoned: Barrister Raja
Devasish Roy (Chakma Raja), Mr Mangal Kumar Chakma, Mr Mrinal Kanti
Tripura, Ms
Ina Hume, Mr Albert Mankin and Ven. Prajnalankar
Bhikkhu (Buddhist monk). In another newspaper
‘Sangbad’ report Raja Devasish Roy and Ven. Prajnalankar
Bhikkhu were not included.
Newspaper reports
(in
Bengali) and English translation can be found in JPN UK’s
web site at www.jpnuk.org.uk
under News 01 Sep 05. (Web update Sep 06) and the statements of the IP
leaders
can be found under the following links:
Barrister
Raja Devasish Roy’s
statement
Mr
Mangal Kumar Chakma’s
statement
Mr
Mrinal Kanti Tripura’s
statement
Ms
Ina Hume’s statement
Mr
Albert Mankin’s statement
All the IP leaders were just
telling the real story of the way indigenous people of the CHT are
suffering. As an example; Mr
Mrinal Kanti Tripura raised his
voice in the PF meeting against the
militarization and their atrocity
activities in the CHT region with an paradigm of 26 th
August, Mahalchari Jumma indigenous village attack
by Bengalee settlers with the support of the army. Mahalchari
incident is
well documented and widely published by Amnesty international (AI
Index: ASA 13/003/2004)
and other
international organisations. Amnesty International’s report can be
found in the
following JPN UK’s
web link: http://www.jpnuk.org.uk/docs/amnesty2004.pdf
These
kind of discriminatory
act by the Bangladesh Parliamentary Standing Committee shows the real
picture of
the way IP’s voices are stopped in so called democratic Bangladesh (!).
JPN UK
condemns these kind of discriminatory practice by the Government of
Bangladesh
(GOB) to suffocate the voices of the minority community.
JPN UK
demands the withdrawal
of the summon on the IP leaders by the parliamentary standing committee
of Bangladesh and asks the
committee and GOB to come forward to accept the truth of what the
Indigenous People
and International Human Rights organisations are claiming for many
years, that
HR violations are at the genocidal lavel and are still happening
against the
indigenous people of the CHT, even after the so called CHT Peace
Accord, 1997. GOB
should come forward to solve the CHT problem politically rather then
militarily by force; killing innocent indigenous people, burning their
houses,
raping indigenous women and even minors, evicting them from their
ancestral
lands and so on. It is so unfortunate to note that how the GOB has
forgotten the way
the then East Pakistan (now Bangladesh)
was discriminated and it’s citizens suffered killings and HR
violations, as a
result of which
Bangladesh
has been created. Now GOB is killing
it’s own indigenous citizens by completely ignoring the democratic
values of a civilised world and by violating international human rights
laws.
JPN UK
urges the international
community to give pressure to GOB to solve the CHT issue politically
and resettle
the illegal state sponsored migrant Bengali setters (one of the main
reason of HR
violations in the CHT) out of the CHT. JPN UK's view is the same as
that of the European Union(EU),
which states in it’s committee Budget in Oct 1996 that
“One of the main human rights violations concerning the Chittagong
Hill Tracts (CHT) people is population transfer (of Bengali settlers
coming from
the plains into the Hill Tracts), which is a main cause of conflict in
the
region”.
“European
parliament adopted an amendment of
the Committee on Budgets in October 1996, which states that part of the
aid to Bangladesh
is ‘for the repatriation of Bengali
settlers in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) back to the plains’.
It is
note worthy that The Bangladesh Government
claimed it
was willing to repatriate the Bengali settlers if funds are provided.
(Draft
amendment 0873, tabled by Mr. Brinkhorst, rapporteur on behalf of the
Committee
on Budgets).
JPN
UK
also demands the withdrawal the recent
ban on the CHT documentary “Teardrops of Karnaphuli”(Bengali-
‘Karnaphulir
Kanna’). The documentary shows the fact of the brief history of the CHT
and the
interviews of the people with their views of the present situation of
the CHT.
Banning of the film reveals that GOB doesn’t want national and
international
community to know the real picture and the situation of the CHT. Is
this the kind
of democracy practiced in Bangladesh,
(?) which claimed to be a democratic country.
One of the influential member
in the Parliamentary
standing Committee is Wadud Bhuiyan’s (MP),
who is well known as being anti Indigenous Jumma People and who himself
is an illegal immigrant to the CHT. JPN UK has
doubt over Mr Wadud Bhuiyan’s role in the
CHT and his position in the standing committee and committee’s decision
regarding summon of IP leaders. He is alleged to have been
illegally allocating indigenous
Jumma peoples legal lands to illegal state sponsored Bengali settlers.
Survival
International’s letter to PM of Begum Khaleda zia in Feb 2005, in which
it
states “Survival
is extremely concerned that since
February this year Mr. Abdul Wadud
Bhuiyan MP has been allocating land within his constituency to new
Bengali
settlers. Survival has learnt that the settlers are being assisted to
acquire
lands and build houses and mosques in the area. This movement of new
settlers
into the CHT goes against the promise of the government of Bangladesh
to end the programme of
moving settlers into the region and is against the spirit of the 1997
Peace
Accord”.
** So it is
easily
understandable having people like Mr Bhuiyan as the chairman of the CHT development board and a member of Parliamentary
Committee what
the Indigenous People and it’s leaders can expect *
HR
violations against the IP
in the CHT have been well-documented in the reports from Amnesty
International, Survival
International, International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA)
so on.
The UK Parliamentary
debate at House of Lords on 23 June (Parliamentary debates (HANDARD),
vol. 672
no.21) states on CHT that “The people
are steadily being deprived of the ancestral lands, which have belonged
to the
Jumma people from time immemorial. The very demography of the CHT is
being
changed under military occupation. The commission set up to resolve
land
disputes has never been activated. The attacks on tribal people in
2003, which
involved killings, rapes and the burning of hundreds of homes, have not
been
properly investigated, like all of the preceding atrocities over many
years”.
Organising
Committee of CHT
Commission (OCCHTC), the Netherlands,
an independent body established to investigate allegations of human
rights
violation in the hill region of southeast Bangladesh. It’s report
states “Bangladesh
military and the
Bangladeshi settlers had committed 13 major massacres against the
indigenous
Jumma people of CHT”. Brief report of the massacres can be found in
the JPN
UK’s web site at the following web link: http://www.jpnuk.org.uk/massacare.html
Does
the GOB still want to
deny the massacres ?
How
the GOB still trying to
deny the fact that HR violations in the CHT are not committing by it’s
own
security forces and it’s states sponsored illegal Bengali settlers with
the
support of discriminatory administrative policy against the indigenous
people
of the CHT.
JPN UK
urges civil society and
international
community to set up a fact finding mission to investigate the massacres
in the
CHT and bring the perpetrators to the International Criminal Crime
court under
crime against humanity. How long indigenous people of the CHT have to
suffer
and have to wait for justice ? How long the International Community
turn a
blind eye ?
JPN
UK further urges all
civil society and national and international community to come forward
to
resist GOB’s discriminatory practice against IP and it’s leaders and
support
our demand to withdraw parliamentary standing committee’s decision to
summon IP
leaders as well as withdraw ban on documentary film ‘Teardrops of
Karnaphuli’.
For more information on CHT
please visit JPN UK’s
website: WWW.jpnuk.org.uk
Jumma
Peoples Network
UK
PO BOX :
38348
London E13 0WL
Tel: 07985938121 / 07876271546 / 07951333941
Email: jpn_uk@hotmail.com
Web:www.jpnuk.org.uk
WHAT YOU CAN DO:
Please write to the
following persons and organizations (and other
relevant persons and organisation you think appropriate) about the
above
issues:
Begum
Khaleda Zia
Honorable Prime
Minister,
Government of the People's Republic of Bangladesh
Office of the
Prime Minister
Old Airport Road, Tejgaon
Dhaka-1000, BangladeshFax: +
880-2-811 3244, 811 3243
E-mail: pm@pmobd.org, pstopsecy@pmobd.org, psecretary@pmobd.org
Mohammad
Mosharaf Hossain, MP
Honorable
Chairman
Parliamentary
Standing Committee on the Ministry for Chittagong Hill Tracts Affairs
Bangladesh National Assembly,
Sher-e-Banglanagar
Dhaka, Bangladesh
Telephone:
+880-2-9894752-3
Fax:
+880-2-8823702
E-mail: bayeasternmd@yahoo.com,
bayeasternlimited@hotmail.com
Mr. Mani
Swapan Dewan
Honorable Deputy
Minister,
Ministry of
Chittagong Hill Tracts Affairs,
Building No. 4,
6th Floor, Bangladesh Secretariat,
Dhaka-1000, Bangladesh
Tel: + 880-2-861
3214
Fax: + 880-2-956
5300
E-mail: mochtadh@bttb.net
The Permanent Mission of Bangladesh
to the United Nations
821 United Nations
Plaza,
8th Floor, New York,
NY 10017
Tel: 212- 867-3434 Fax: 212- 972-4038
E-Mail: bangladesh@un.int
UNITED NATIONS
His Excellency, Mr. Kofi Annan
The Secretary General United Nations
New York, NY
10017 Tel: 1-212-963-1234 Fax:
1-212-963-4879 E-mail: ecu@un.org
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
E-Mail: amnestyis@amnesty.org
BANGLADESH
100 Kalabagan (1st Floor)
2nd Lane,
Dhaka –1205, Bangladesh
Tel: +880 2 818 938, +880 2 868 002 Fax: +880 2 818 938, +880 2 866 977
E-mail: admin-bd@ai-bd.mhs.compuserve.com
UK
99-119 Rosebery Ave
London EC1R
4RE, UK Tel: +44 171 814 6200 Fax: +44
171 833
1510
E-mail: info@amnesty.org.uk
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
admin-us@aiusa.org
Amnesty International USA
Section,
322 8th Avenue,
New York, NY
10001, Tel: +1 212 807 8400 Fax: +1
212 463 9193, +1 212 627
1451
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH
350 Fifth Avenue,
34th Floor New York,
NY 10118-3299 USA
Tel: 1-(212) 290-4700 Fax: 1-(212) 736-1300
E-mail: hrwnyc@hrw.org
33 Islington High Street, N1 9LH
London, UK Tel: (171) 713-1995 Fax: (171)
713-1800
E-mail: hrwatchuk@gn.apc.org
Rue Van Campenhout, 1000 Brussels,
Belgium Tel: 32 (2) 732-2009 Fax: 32
(2) 732-0471
E-mail: hrwatcheu@gn.apc.org