Memo to the UN

By-The International Campaign for Peace and Human Rights in Chittagong Hill Tracts (an organization based in Thailand )


Mr. Homayoun Alizadeh
Head of the Regional Representative for South - East Asia of the UN office of the High Commission for Human Rights.

Date: 24 January 2008

Sir
We are deeply concerned about continue human rights violation in Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh. These violations can be traced to the long – standing policies of the successive government which have eventually led to the outbreak of armed conflict for two decades.

The armed conflict which went on for two decades in Chttagong Hill Tract came into an end in 1997 through a Peace – Agreement between Jana Sanhati Samiti and government. However, the situation of Chgittagong Hill Tracts has not been developed at all. Rather the situation has been worse and human rights violations in the form of forcibly land grabbing, arson, extra –judicial killing, arrest, rape and demolition temple have been epidemic and going on with impunity.

Taking the advantage of the state emergency, both the civil administration and security forces have directly and indirectly been inducing Bengali settlers to grab the lands belonging to the indigenous Jumma people. Even, there is no yet to grab the land of the temples. The settlers already grabbed thousand of acres lands evicting thousands of Jumma families from their homesteads.

The recent sinister move of civil administration is arrest of Ven. Araya Joti Bhikkhu, the abbot of the Saranath Aranya Kutir, a Buddhist meditation centre in Mahalchari upazilla under Khagrachari district and also a fictitious case has been filed against 500 devotees including the abbot and even a dead person. Before this move, the settlers made several attempts to grab the land of the meditation centre and security forces illegally ordered Jumma devotees to stop the uplift activities of the meditation centre and began to seize it. They army are frequently carrying out raid on the houses of the Jumma villages and the monks and novices of the Saranath Aranya Kutir were barred from collecting alms.

In this circumstance, the meditation centre and its lands are now in the lap of the gods as well as 300 acres land of Sadhana Tila Bana Vihara in Dighinala also in the same tragedy as the lands of Saranath Aranya Kutir.

The another move of land grabbing of security forces is in Bandarban district which would affect 1, 569.06 acres of land of private ownership as well as 4,000 acres belonging to the Forest Department and displace 4,315 persons of 644 Jumma families.
No doubt, the move of land grabbing and expansion of Bengali settlement is being carried out under the policy of ethnic cleansing to further marginalize the indigenous Jumma people. As a result of this policy already the Jumma people have been minority in their tradition homeland.

Therefore, we appeal to you to urge the caretaker government of Bangladesh to take the following measures:

a. To immediately stop illegal land grabbing in Chittagong Hill Tracts and return the illegally occupied lands to the rightful owners;

b. To stop using the settlers as a tool of national oppression against indigenous Jumma people and to agree in principle to rehabilitate them in plain districts with means of livelihood;

c. To take legal actions against those officers of civil administration, personal of security forces and settlers who would be found guilty of land grabbing and inciting communal tension;
d. To recognise the traditional land rights of the indigenous people for permanent solution of land problems in CHT.
e. to stop all kinds of repression and human rights violations in CHT; and to start a dialogue process with the Jumma political parties to find durable peace in the area;

f. To stop religious persecution in Chittagong Hill Tracts and

g. To lift the state of emergency and to restore all political and civil rights of the citizen of Bangladesh .

Sincerely Yours,

President:
International Campaign for Peace and Human Rights in Chittagong Hill Tracts

General Secretary
International Campaign for Peace and Human Rights in Chittagong Hill Tracts