Oral intervention of Mr Sanchay Chakma of United Peoples Democratic Front on 8 April 2004

Thank you Mr Chairman,

United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan has proposed Action Plan to Prevent Genocide including the appointment of a Special Rapporteur on Genocide to directly report to the Security Council to address the crimes against humanity. The genocide in Rwanda provides instructive lessons.

Mr Chair, yet there are many situations where government carries out genocidal and ethnic cleansing policies that may not qualify the formal definition of genocide.

In the Chittagong Hill Tracts, the government of Bangladesh has implanted over half a million illegal 1 Bengali settlers from 1979 to 1983 with a view to make indigenous Jumma peoples minority in their own lands and destroy their distinct identities. After two decades, according to the Joint Risk Assessment Study of the government of Bangladesh and UNDP, the government continues to “provide free rations to 28,200 families or almost 140,000 persons or over 10% of the current population of the CHTs” 2. The UNDP and Government of Bangladesh identified such free rations only to the illegal settlers to be “unsustainable”. Mr Chair, such free rations are given to sustains the conflict so that government can find an excuse to annihilate indigenous Jumma peoples. In comparison, indigenous Jumma peoples are not provided any such free rations even if they were displaced by these illegal plain settlers in the first place. This is a case of extreme form of racism and racial discrimination.

Bangladesh government has signed socalled Chittagong Hill Tracts Peace Accord with Jana Samhati Samiti in 1997. Instead of implementing the Accord, the government of Bangladesh started a policy of annihilating the indigenous Jumma peoples by using the authorities in the CHTs Regional Council – a policy of killing the Jummas by Jummas. Not a single army has not been withdrawn; and they continue to unleash State terrorism. In an organised attack on 26 August 2003, Bangladesh army and illegal settlers burnt down nine Jumma villages under Mahalchari Upazilla, raped 10 Jumma women including four girls. While nine months old baby, Kiriton Chakma was strangulated after being snatched from his grandmother, Mrs Kala Sona Chakma who was then raped; 57 years old Mr Binod Bihari Khisa was tortured to death on the spot. No one has ever been prosecuted for such gross human rights violations in the Chittagong Hill Tracts.
In addition, the government of Bangladesh has been intensified its Islamisation policy of the indigenous Jumma peoples under the current Jammat-I-Islami and Bangladesh Nationalist Party government.

In conclusion, it is worthwhile to mention noted Bengali intellectual Dr Amina Mohsin who commented on the situation of indigenous Jumma women: "In the construction of a nationalist cause rape has always played a central role for women as child bearers are considered important for the biological continuation of a nation; rape therefore is used systematically as a deliberate tactic to destroy or damage the enemy. In the CHTs too, rape has been inflicted upon the Hill women by Bengali security personnel and Bengali settlers."3

Thank you Mr Chairperson.

A more elaborate, written, statement can be found by following the link below:
Seminar Presentation.doc (56kb)

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1 The Bengali plain settlers who are transplanted into the CHTs are termed as “illegal” as they were brought in clear violation of the Chittagong Hill Tracts 1900 Regulation which restricts the entry of non-hill people into the CHTs. Moreover, article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits such population transfer.
2 Page 46 of the Joint Risk Assessment Mission Report
3 Militarization and Human Rights Violations in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, by Amena Mohsin, International Peace Conference on the CHTs, Bangkok, February 1997.