Unheard Voices

BREAKING NEWS: As a result of hr campaign & press reports, all 4 members of UPDF were released from custody on the night of June 24th. Kudos to all activists who worked on this case.

On 12th anniversary of disappearance of Kalpana Chakma, new “events” in CHT. Where are Alakesh Chakma and 3 other Jumma activists, picked up by “plainclothes security forces”?
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[An edited version of this article was published in STAR magazine.]

Twelve years after the abduction of Adibashi human rights activist Kalpana Chakma, the mystery of her disappearance remains unsolved. (more…)

[Two months] after the April 20 arson attack in Sajek, Rangamati, the affected villagers remain homeless. Some are staying with relatives, others in the nearby Buddhist Bihar, many, under the open sky. Their possessions burnt to ashes, many of them have nothing to wear but the clothes on them, nothing to earn a living from, from which to feed themselves and their families. The relief goods (5 kg rice, 2 kg potatoes and 1 kg lentils) distributed some weeks ago by the Army Chief was far from enough. The Tk. 10,000 per family which was promised is yet to be paid. (more…)

On June 12, 1996, Jumma rights activist, Feminist, and leader of Hill Women’s Federation of Chittagong Hill Tracts, Kalpana Chakma was kidnapped in middle of night. Jumma activists charged that the operation was led by Lieutenant Ferdous, commander of Kojoichari Army camp, (currently Major Ferdous, commander of Laxmichari Army camp, Baghaichari Thana). An international hue & cry ensued, with appeals by Amnesty International and many others. The Army attempted a cover-up.

Jumma activists called strikes in the hills, and Bengali settlers attacked Jumma rallies. Four Jumma were killed by Bengalis in ensuing clashes, but even after a manhunt her body was never found. On the 12th anniversary of her disappearance, Jumma & Bengali activists are holding a series of events, discussions, publications, newspaper articles to bring attention to the case. They vow to use this anniversary to continue the campaign for full rights of the Jumma people of CHT

1. Mithun Chakma: Make Inquiry Report Public
2. New Age/12th Anniversary Report: Read Online or Download
3. Samari Chakma: Word Doc or PDF (Bangla)
4. Kabita Chakma: Word Doc or PDF(Bangla)
5. Jummonet: Kalpana Chakma
6. Drishtipat: CHT History Archive
7. Shaher Zaidi: The Vanishing
8. Audity Falguni: A Decade since Kalpana Chakma’s Abduction

[an edited version of this op-ed appeared in DAILY STAR, June 13, 2008. Here we present the original article]
The Vanishing
by Shaher Zaidi

Headlines from our tragic past and grim future: The Daily Star, 1 July, 1996: DU students urge govt. to rescue Kalpana Chakma; 5 July: Abduction of Kalpana Chakma: Home Ministry probe demanded; The Independent, 15 July: 12 human rights bodies call to rescue Kalpana Chakma; Bhorer Kagoj: 6 July: It is a mystery that there is no govt. effort to rescue Kalpana; Janakantha: 21 July: Rescue Kalpana; Bhorer Kagoj: 23 July: Demands for discussion on Kalpana in Parliament; Sangbad: 19 August: Kalpana’s mother: HR Commission lying, I want my daughter back.

June 12, 1996. I want my daughter back. This many years later, I still wonder why Kalpana’s widowed mother opened the door. Did she have a choice? Is it ever an option for a Jumma in Chittagong Hill Tracts to refuse to open the door when guns, voices, and search lights are on the other side. (more…)

From Rahnuma Ahmed op-ed:
“Between 1979 and 1983, Bangladesh’s military rulers sponsored migration of Bengali settlers into the Chittagong Hill Tracts. An estimated 500,000 plains settlers were provided land grants, cash and rations.”

“Things are very different now. Now you may find some Bengalis going to CHT, they are following their family members. That is not settlement. How can one stop that? It sounds nice, the only problem is that it isn’t true.”

“The army has affirmed that such incidents will not be tolerated, that peace and communal harmony must be maintained at all costs. Such affirmations ignore history. It makes nothing of tales of killings perpetrated by Bengali settlers and security forces.” (more…)

[Pahari Students Defy Emergency To Protest On DU Campus]

DOWNLOAD: Fact Finding Team 2 (Sara Hossain led)
DOWNLOAD: Fact Finding Team 1 (Moshrafe Mishu led)
REPORT: Ain Salish Kendra 2007 Annual Report
REPORT: Hana Shams in Star
REPORT: Shamima Binte Rahman in Shamokal (Bengali, Scroll down to 3d item)
OP-ED: Zubeida Nasreen on Region Unrest
LAW: Peace Treaty Challenged in Court, Court Rules Against Treaty
REPORT: Life Is Not Ours
REPORT: Bangladesh Watchdog
ALERT: Jumma People’s Network
OP-ED: Sachalatayan (Bengali)
HISTORY: 390,000 Bengali Settlers (2005)

[Korea Protests] (more…)

On March 25th, Ain Salish Kendra (ASK) released the 2007 Annual Human Rights Report. In the Chapter on CHT Paharis and Flatland Adivasis, following 7 topics were covered. On March 27th, the CTG announced a removal of the ban on mobile phones (item # 4).

1.Death in Custody: Eco-Park activist Cholesh Richil
2.Racial Profiling: Army Operations, Ranglai Mro, DANIDA kidnapping
3.Right to Property: Bengali settlers and land grabbing
4.Right to Information: Continuing ban on mobile phones, limited reporting on CHT
5.1997 Peace Accord: Continuing Non-implementation
6.Legal Challenge to Peace Accord
7.Voter List implementation in violation of Peace Accord (more…)

A much awaited welcome move by the government.

CA announces mobile connectivity for CHT

Thu, Mar 27th, 2008 5:14 pm BdST
Rangamati, March 27 (bdnews24.com)—Chief adviser Fakhruddin Ahmed
Thursday announced a government decision to introduce mobile
connectivity to municipal areas of the three CHT districts.

“Establishing mobile networks in the hill areas is a long-running
demand by people. The government has decided to introduce mobile
networks to the municipal areas of the three hills districts,”
Fakhruddin told a discussion meeting with government officials and
local civil-society representatives, at the Tribal Cultural Institute
in Rangamati.

The CA also said: “The CHT peace agreement was signed in 1997 to
uphold the educational, cultural, social and political rights in the
hill areas like other areas of the country. The present government has
taken different steps in continuation of the agreement.”

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I saw this article on the CHT on the BBC website today:

“According to the UN’s development programme, about 125,000 people have been affected by food shortages and the rats.
Some have started to receive aid, but unless more arrives soon these people will be cut off from the outside world, without any food to eat for months.”

AFP beat them to the punch though last month:
“Thousands of people in remote southeast Bangladesh are facing famine after a plague of rats destroyed their crops, forcing families to rely on dwindling food stocks, officials said.

Flowering of bamboo forests for the first time in 50 years in areas along the border with India has led to a so-called “rat-flood” — rodents who have multiplied in number by feeding on bamboo blossoms, rice stalks and vegetables.”

A plague of rats, of all things! It was as if we didn’t have enough to contend with, after going through last summer’s flooding and Sidr, on top of the political-economic storms that have continued unabated for what seems like forever. Bangladesh is always recovering from one disaster or another. If we spend all our time getting back up after getting knocked, when are we expected to get on with the business of development?

This brings us to the first point of this post: we need to reorient our strategic planning from being adaptive (reactive) to be more forward-looking (proactive). From what I gather, the warning systems and shelters that we have on the coast saved countless lives this past cyclone. But those measures all came into being after several brutally hard lessons. If past governments had made those strategic investments in early warning systems and damage control infrastructure earlier, would the human cost of Sidr have been as high as they are now? Could equivalent warning and mitigation strategies been developed for last summer’s flood, or for the floods that are sure to come this summer?

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High Court Judgment to Set up Civil and Criminal Courts and Suppression of Violence against Women Tribunals in the Chittagong Hill Tracts

The High Court on 24th Februart 2008 directed the Government to set up three separate civil and criminal courts and Nari o Shishu Nirjatan Domon (Suppression of Violence against Women and Children) Tribunals in Rangamati, Khagrachari and Bandarban Districts in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, as soon as possible, and no later than one year from the date of judgment.1

The judgment was given in a writ petition filed in 2006 by the Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust (BLAST) and others, on behalf of the peoples of three hill districts, seeking directions upon the Government to give immediate effect to existing laws which provide for the establishment of such courts in the CHT and to implement the constitutional mandate for separation of the judiciary .2

It is hoped that implementation of this judgment will address the acute crisis regarding access to justice in the CHT. Reportedly over 3,500 cases from the three districts have been lying unresolved before the Chittagong Session Judge’s Court for many years. Hundreds of people in the Bandarban district alone have been languishing in prisons without facing any trial due to the existing backlogs and the lack of any accessible forum to hear their cases.

Background

The judicial system of the three districts which formerly comprised the Chittagong Hill Tracts — Rangamati, Khagrachari and Bandarban – was earlier governed by the Chittagong Hill Tracts Regulation 1900, leaving the executive in control of all judicial functions. Further, no District or Sessions Judges’ Courts were ever been established in the three Hill Districts, the Chittagong-based Additional Divisional Commissioner, being an executive official, dispensing judicial functions in the cases.

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Message from the organizer Dr. Farida Khan:

First Conference on Indigenous People and Bangladesh Environment (Adibashi Jonogoshti o Bangladesher Poribesh) is to be held on 17-18 December, 2007 in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The conference is being jointly organized by Bangladesh Poribesh Andolon (BAPA) and Bangladesh Environment Network (BEN) in collaboration with six public major universities located in Bangladesh.

Early this year, the events surrounding Choles Ritchil’s death caught the attention of some members of BEN. Both BEN and BAPA realized that concern about the environment is in no way disconnected from concern about adibashis in Bangladesh. Adibashis can be seen as the stewards of our environment; they have long traditions and communities that are intimately connected to the particular region that they inhabit. This in no way precludes the idea that villagers in any particular area may also play that role in their native region. However, we realized that there has been gradual displacement of adibashis over the decades in Bangladesh and that displacement is intimately connected with a degradation of the natural environment.

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While everyone is busy with other drama, on 27th August, 2007, Bangladesh High Court issued writ petition declaring 1997 CHT Peace Treaty Unconstitutional. If this challenge is not met, the historic treaty that ended a 30 year guerilla war in CHT (although CHT Paharis still wait for Treaty implementation) will be canceled. Shabash Bangladesh! (more…)

The issue of stranded Pakistanis and their sorry state of living is a sad chapter of our country. With the government’s decision to give them voting rights, a welcome move, we hope we are close to permanent solution to the problem.

Details

Of the 3,00,000 Urdu speaking people living in Bangladesh, 1,60,000 live in 116 camps set up by the International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC) in different parts of the country. Many of them were born after 1971 or were minor in that year, said Huda in the letter.

“As far as the EC is concerned, there is no problem with regard to the Urdu speaking people living all over the country outside the ICRC camps. They are citizens of Bangladesh and have been listed in the electoral rolls by following the criteria set for the purpose. However, the commission is unable to register the Urdu speaking people living inside the camps as voters due to complications relating to their citizenship,” sources said quoting Huda’s letter.

The CEC said the commission has pondered over the issue and feels that time has now come to look at the issue objectively and with compassion. “The case of Urdu speaking people need to be separated from the ’stranded Pakistanis’ and a decision of their citizenship may be taken expeditiously,” CEC Huda said.

More background here

Also read Citizens of Nowhere

Asian Centre for Human Rights reports on the spiralling crisis in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, including the new High Court Ruling that seeks to dismantle the 1997 CHT Peace Treaty that brought an end to the 30 year guerilla war for autonomy in that region.

The direction of the High Court on 27 August 2007 to the government of Bangladesh to explain as to why the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) Accord of 1997 signed with the Parbatya Chattagram Jana Sanghati Samity (PCJSS) should not be declared “illegal” has come as a shot in the arms of the military. The two-judge bench comprising Justice Shah Abu Nayeem Mominur Rahman and Justice Zubayer Rahman Chowdhury has already set aside certain provision of the Accord by directing the authorities to allow the illegal plain settlers who were implanted into the Chittagong Hill Tracts to register themselves in the voters’ list.

Full report here:
http://www.achrweb.org/Review/2007/182-07.htm

By
Zubeida Nasreen

Translated by
Tazreena Sajjad

[ Drishtipat Writer's Collective has been successfully publishing op-eds in two major English dailies in Bangladesh almost on a weekly basis. A second front of this collectives work is to translate important Bangla columns into English and make it available for a wider global audience. Here is one such effort by collective member Tazreena Sajjad. Tazreena translated a Daily Shamokal article on recent Hill Tract Kidnapping and have permission from the author to publish it here. ]

Information about incidents in the Chittagong Hill Tracts is not easily accessible. Many things taking place there remain unknown to the majority of the Bangladeshi population, or remains impossible to be made public despite existing discourses that we have access to. Thus far, we have used the Chittagong Hill Tracts as a “punishment transfer zone” for government officials, an act paralleling banishment of those disapproved of by the British Empire to the Andaman Islands.

This was the case with the police superintendent Kohinoor Mia, who was directly associated with heinous acts during the last days of the coalition government. He was transferred to Rangamati, but the local population refused to accept his office. Why should this region be
used only for the transfer of individuals guilty of criminal acts? Why should the people of this region suffer the so-called services of those with corrupt records?
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