DOCUMENT: CHAKMA.TXT R E F U G E E S T U D I E S P R O G R A M M E Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford Seminar: HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE CHITTAGONG HILL TRACTS 13 February, 1991 Mr. Chairman and Friends, May I take this opportunity to introduce myself -- my name is Ramendu Shekhar Dewan and I am a Chakma from the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT), the south-eastern region of Bangladesh. The CHT is the traditional homeland of ten ethnic groups -- Chakma, Marma, Tripura, Chak, Khyang, Khumi, Murung, Lushai, Bawm and Pankho. All these indigenous people are also popularly known as Jumma people or Jumma Nation. They are totally different from the majority community of Bangladesh in race, religion and culture. The British recognised their distinct identity by creating the CHT as an Excluded Area and administered it under a separate edict called the Chittagong Hill Tracts Regulation of 1900 in order to protect constitutionally their political, economic and cultural rights. This Regulation prevented non-Jumma people from buying land or settling in the CHT area. According to Rule 51, any outsiders found guilty of doing anything prejudicial to the interest of the Jumma people could be arrested, punished and expelled from the CHT within 24 hours. In fact, the Jummas enjoyed a high degree of self-rule under the CHT Regulation. Except a few top British Officers almost all the officials of the CHT Administration were indigenous people. The CHT even had an indigenous Police Force. Except the Superintendent of Police, who was usually British, almost all the Members of the Police Force were recruited from the local people. The British Officers were impartial, honest and they maintained rule of law and justice. Under the British the people of the CHT enjoyed Police and Official protection and the full economic benefit of all resources in their homeland. All successive Governments of Bangladesh violated the CHT Regulation of 1900. They opened up the CHT to the Bengali immigration, disbanded the CHT Police Force, replaced the Jumma Officers by Bengali Officers and deployed the Bangladesh Security Forces to annihilate the Jumma people systematically. The Bangladesh Armed Forces in league with the Bangladeshi infiltrators have been using all kinds of genocidal tactics such as wholesale burning of Jumma villages, forcible eviction, herding of Jumma people into concentration camps, robbery, desecration and destruction of non-Muslim places of worship, forcible conversion to Islam, abduction, raping and forcible marriage of Jumma women, detention without charge or trial, torture and mass-killings with a view of depopulating the Jumma villages. After depopulating the area, the Bangladesh Government resettled its co-religionists there. The Jumma people have appealed to all Governments of Bangladesh to solve the crisis in the CHT by constitutional means. In response, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the Bangladeshi leader, told a Jumma delegation - "Forget about your ethnic identity and demand for autonomy. Go home and become Bengalis". Similarly the military leaders of Bangladesh including Brigadier Hannan and Lt. Col. Salam declared the policy of the Government in public meetings - "We want the land only and not the people of Chittagong Hill Tracts". Mr. Ali Haider Khan, the Deputy Commissioner of the CHT, and Mr. Abdul Awal, the Commissioner of the Chittagong Division, threatened the Jumma leaders by saying that they would be extinct in the next five years. To exterminate systematically the Jumma people, the Bangladesh Government closed the CHT to human rights groups and foreign journalists and then unleashed a reign of terror in the area. The Bangladesh Armed Forces and the Bangladeshi infiltrators combinedly massacred the Jumma villagers to make room for over half-a-million Bangladeshi settlers. As a result of the State terrorism, tens of thousands of Jummas had to flee to India for their lives many times. At present some 70,000 Jumma Refugees are living in the Tripura State of India. About 50,000 of them sought refuge in Tripura in May and June, 1986, as the Bangladesh Security Forces in conjunction with the Bangladeshi infiltrators attacked hundreds of Jumma villages in Matiranga, Lakshmichari, Panchari, Khagrachari (in April & May) and Dighinala (June) Upazillas (Sup-Districts. During the attacks, several thousand Jummas were killed and many more thousands died due to starvation, diseases and bullet-wounds in the forests in which they took shelter. Most of the victims were old men, women and children. Even the Jummas who were fleeing to India were chased and murdered. A victim told Amnesty International - "Last Sunday (18 May) we were approaching the border when a large group of soldiers caught us. The officer said that we would be treated nicely and settled back. He asked us to walk back. The soldiers were around us. They took us to a narrow valley between Taidong and Comillatilla and there suddenly we heard thousands of bullets and shrieks and screams of our people. At least 200 of our people mainly Tripuris, died. I do not even have any trace of my family. I do not know whether my family members are still in hiding somewhere or if they got killed. As bullets rained from all sides the Muslims too descended on the valley, raping women and killing people with swords, spears and knives; we all ran for our lives in the direction of India." The massacres in Baghaichari area (8-10 August, 1988) and in Longadu area (4- 6 May, 1989) sent another 20,000 Refugees to Tripura. Initially the Bangladesh Government denied that these Refugees were from Bangladesh. However, under the tremendous pressure from the international community the Bangladeshi Regime very reluctantly admitted that only 29,920 Refugees fled to Tripura. At the same time it claimed that 10,000 out of 29,920 Refugees had returned to Bangladesh. The Bangladesh Government is dragging its feet on the repatriation of the Jumma Refugees. Our past experience shows that the Government of Bangladesh has no intention to repatriate them at all. For example, some 18,000 Jumma Refugees took refuge in Tripura in 1981 as a result of the Bonraibari-Beltali-Belchari and Asalong-Gorangapara-Barnala-Kalanal massacres in the Feni Valley. These Refugees agreed to return to Bangladesh on condition that the Bangladesh Government would return their ancestral villages and farm lands to them and that it would ensure the security of their lives and property. After their repatriation was over, the Government gave them money equivalent to U.S. $8 per family and then abandoned them at the border. They were neither rehabilitated nor allowed to go back to their native villages because the Government refused to remove the Bangladeshi settlers from their ancestral villages and agricultural lands. On the other hand, the Government did not take any steps to protect them from the oppression of the Bangladesh Security Forces and the Bangladeshi infiltrators. These helpless Refugees were beaten, women and girls were raped and then they were asked to return to India. Nobody knows what happened to them. As a consequence of the Bhusanchara massacres in 1984, about 4,000 Jumma Refugees sought refuge at Tagalak Bak and Tibira Ghat in the Mizoram State of India. These Refugees were also repatriated in 1986 on the Bangladesh Government assurance that they would be rehabilitated in their native villages and that their lives would be safe in Bangladesh. The Bangladeshi Regime sent motor launches to bring the Refugees. As soon as the Refugees boarded the motor launches, the Bangladeshi soldiers started to beat the men and to gang-rape the women and girls in front of the Indian Officers. The Refugees were not rehabilitated. Even they could not go back to their ancestral villages. In short, the Government did not keep its promises. The fate of these 4,000 Refugees is still unknown. Under intense pressure from the international community, the Bangladesh Government sent a 16-member delegation led by Mr. Faruque Ahmed Chowdhurry, the Bangladesh High Commissioner to India, on 11-12 July, 1988, to Tripura in order to persuade the Jumma Refugees to return to Bangladesh. The Jumma Refugees agreed to go back to the CHT provided the Bangladesh Government would meet their 11-point demands. Their main five demands were: 1) the removal of the Bangladeshi infiltrators from the CHT in order to vacate the occupied Jumma villages; 2) the withdrawal of all Bangladesh Armed Forces including the non-Jumma Police Force from the CHT in order to ensure the security of the Jumma peoples' lives and property; 3) a meaningful talk between the Bangladesh Government, the Indian Government and the Jana Samhati Samiti to find a political solution to the crisis in the CHT; 4) adequate financial help for the proper rehabilitation of the Jumma Refugees; and 5) the implementation of all demands under the supervision of the U.N.O., international human rights groups, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and so on. These measures are absolutely necessary for creating the climate congenial to the safe return of the Jumma Refugees to their homes. Needless to say, the Bangladesh delegation rejected all the 11 demands of the Jumma Refugees and thus it has proved once again that the Government of Bangladesh is not sincere in dealing with the Jumma people. Again the world community pressurized the Bangladeshi military Regime to repatriate the Jumma Refugees. So the Government of Bangladesh had to send another delegation headed by Mr. Abdul Mayeed Chowdhurry, the Director General of the Bangladesh President's Secretariat, to Tripura on 10-11 May, 1990, to negotiate with the Jumma Refugees for their repatriation. The Jumma Refugees submitted their 11-point demands to the Bangladesh delegation and the latter as usual refused to accept any of the formers demands. Clearly, the Bangladesh Government has no genuine intention to take back the Jumma Refugees at all. The compassionate Governments of India and Tripura are sacrificing their limited resources to save the lives of the Jumma Refugees. But India cannot afford to feed so many thousands of Refugees for so many years. So the survival of these Refugees now very much depends on the help and kindness of the international community. The Jumma Refugees desperately need relief supplies, medical facilities, drinking water facilities, housing facilities and educational facilities. The Bangladeshi Regime has imposed the so-called District Council Law in the CHT against the will of the Jumma people in order to 1) repeal the CHT Regulation of 1900 which protected the political, economic, social and cultural rights of the Jumma people and to 2) legitimize the resettlement of the Bangladeshi infiltrators in the CHT. It also forced the Jumma people to contest and to vote in the District Council Elections against their will. The District Council has almost no power and the District Council Law has almost nothing for the Jumma people. The Care-taker Government of Bangladesh has restored democratic political rights to the Bangladeshi people by removing the military officers from the State of Affairs and by dissolving all elected bodies which were unfairly and undemocratically elected during the recently ousted military regime. But it has neither removed the military from power nor dissolved the unfairly and undemocratically elected District Councils in the CHT. It means that the Interim Government of Bangladesh has not restored democratic political rights to the Jumma people. As a result, the military will decide who will contest and who will vote in the coming elections in the CHT. This is the reason why the Jana Samhati Samiti appealed to the Acting President of Bangladesh to postpone the ensuing Parliamentary Elections in the CHT. There cannot be free and fair elections in the CHT so long as the military is not withdraw from the CHT and the District Council Law is not repealed. The previous military regime enacted the said Law through the undemocratically elected Parliament. Moreover, this Law was vehemently opposed by the Jumma people. So the District Council Law is invalid and it should be done away with immediately. The military rulers starting from the President to ordinary soldiers are corrupt, undemocratic, trigger-happy and extremely hostile to the Jumma people. They have no regards for human rights and they do not know what is rule of law or justice. Under their tyrannical rule, the Jumma people live in constant fear and terror. In brief, the relentless persecution of the helpless Jumma people by the Bangladesh Government has pushed them on the verge of extinction. If the international community does not intervene in Bangladesh immediately, then it may be too late to save these seriously threatened indigenous people from being exterminated by the Government of Bangladesh. The following measures are absolutely necessary to ensure their survival: 1) the removal of non-Jumma settlers from the CHT; 2) the withdrawal of all Bangladesh Armed Forces including the non-Jumma Police Force from the CHT; 3) autonomy for the CHT with a separate legislature; 4) adequate financial help for the proper rehabilitation of the Jumma Refugees and the return of their ancestral villages and farmland to them; and 5) the deployment of the U.N. Peace Keeping Force in the CHT and the implementation of these measures under the auspices of the U.N.O. The Bangladeshi Regime is heavily dependent on foreign aid. So the donor countries are able to change its genocidal policy by using their economic levers and to pressure it to implement the above-mentioned just demands of the Jumma people. I fervently appeal to you to take all necessary actions against the Bangladesh Government in order to protect the Jumma people and their traditional homeland from the Bangladeshi invasion. I am most grateful to you for giving me this great opportunity to present the plight of the Jumma people to you for your sympathetic consideration. You have honoured me and the Jumma Nation by inviting me to address such an important gathering at such a great Centre of Learning. Thank you ladies and gentlemen for kindly listening to my prayer for help. R.S. Dewan [Dr. Ramendu S. Dewan is the official spokesperson for the Jana Samhati Samiti -- The United Peoples Party - Chittagong Hill Tracts.] He may be contacted at the following address: Dr. R.S. Dewan c/o Dr. H.D. 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