Amnesty calls for investigation into Bangladesh Army’s role in CHT violence

Amnesty International has raised awareness by calling for an immediate investigation into the human rights violations and state-sponsored violence in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) in Bangladesh.

Amnesty International calls on the government of Bangladesh to:

Carry out prompt, impartial, and independent investigation into these attacks and killings to identify individuals who set houses on fire and army personnel who may have used excessive force, and bring those responsible to justice in a fair trial without resort to the death penalty;
Ensure that the detainees have access to lawyers of their own choice, can challenge the legality of their detention, have access to family visits and medical treatment, and are not at risk of torture;
Compensate the victims and survivors of the attacks, rehabilitate the people who have lost their homes and belonging and provide them with medical treatment for their injuries;
Allow independent observers to visit the sites of the violence, and ensure the security of the Jumma indigenous people in the Chittagong Hill Tracts.

This is the nature of the brutality that has been unleashed on the Paharis since last Friday:

Given the allegations that state officials including army personnel may have acted in support of the Bengalee settlers, there is a risk that incriminating evidence could be destroyed before independent observers including journalists can visit the sites of the violence.

More than 100 Jumma indigenous people are believed to be in detention, with dozens more missing. Relatives are afraid to go to the police stations or army posts to inquire about their missing members, so they have little information about their whereabouts. According to reports, some of these detainees are people who went to hospital for treatment after the attack but were taken into custody. Police have also reportedly arrested about 30 Bengalee settlers.

More than 1500 Jumma indigenous people have fled their homes and are living under open skies in deep forest, with no shelter and little access to food. The injured are reportedly afraid to go to hospitals as they run the risk of being arrested.

The government has dispatched an official delegation to prepare a report. The authorities have promised to compensate those who have been affected by the violence.

And this is the background of the ethnic conflict:

For decades tension has been high in the Chittagong Hill Tracts where the Jumma indigenous communities are at risk of being outnumbered by Bengalee settlers who continue to take over their land. More than two decades of insurgency by the indigenous people came to an end when the previous Awami League government signed a peace accord with their representatives in December 1997. Two of the most important provisions of the accord remain unfulfilled. One is the formation of a land commission to identify land taken away from the indigenous people during the insurgency, which should be returned to them. This commission has just been set up after a delay of more than 12 years, but has not begun its work yet. Another provision of the accord relates to the withdrawal of temporary army camps, of which some 400 remain in the area. The government began to withdraw some of the major temporary camps last year, but the process has reportedly been halted again

Bengalee settlers have continued to take over indigenous land and drive indigenous people out of their homes, but the army which is in control of law and order in the area has allegedly not stopped them. Indigenous people say the army has in this way condoned human rights abuses committed by Bengalee settlers against them.

Now if only the western media would pick up on this story. There are some undeniable parallels here with the displacement of Palestinians by Israeli settlers in the West Bank. But media coverage of the brutal repression and land grab of the Pahari community in Bangladesh receives a fraction of a fraction of the space given to the Israeli/Palestinian issue. News of the recent atrocities against the Jumma peoples of Bangladesh has not justified a single report in the British press.