Begum Khaleda Zia

Honorable Prime Minister

Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh

Office of the Prime Minister

Old Parliament Building

Tejgaon, Dhaka

Bangladesh

Fax: + 880 2 811 3244/ 3243/ 1015 / 1490
Email: pm@pmobd.org or psecretary@pmobd.org 

The Forest Peoples Programme was very concerned to learn of the atrocious attack on the Jumma peoples of Mohalchari Upazila under Khagrachari Hill District in the Chittagong Hill Tracts on August 26, 2003. 

According to the information available to us, on 26 August 2003, Bengali settlers launched a communal attack on the indigenous Jumma people of Mohalchari Upazila under Khagrachari Hill District of Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) Region. As a result, more than 350 indigenous Jumma households in 14 villages under five Moujas were looted and burnt to ashes. Moreover, more than 100 Jumma houses including four Buddhist temples, one UNICEF run primary school, a good number of shops and statues of Lord Buddha were destroyed, ransacked and looted and valuables worth over Taka 30 millions were destroyed. Two Jummas including one eight-month-old child have been murdered. Ten Jumma women have been gang-raped by the Bengali settlers. Furthermore, more than fifty innocent Jummas were injured, nine of them seriously, as a result of the attack.

This brutal attack was immediately condemned by many organizations including Parbatya Chattagram Jana Samhati Samiti (PCJSS), Chittagong Hill Tracts Jumma Refugee Welfare Association, Parbatya Chattagram Mohila Samiti, Hill Women’s Federation (HWF), Hill Students’ Council (PCP). On 1^st of September 2003, the PCJSS submitted a memorandum to you, Honourable Prime Minister, making the following demands:

1.             To conduct judicial inquiry into the communal attack

2.             To take necessary, speedy and statutory action against the perpetrators of crime.

3.             To provide full security with a compensation of at least Taka 100,000 (One hundred thousand) to each of the affected family.

4.             To supply free ration for six months to each of the affected family and immediate supply of books to the affected students.

5.             To take necessary steps to stop repetition of this kind of atrocious and violent incident in the Chittagong Hill Tracts.    
 

It has also been brought to the Forest Peoples Programme’s attention that underlying this horrific attack is the current lack of appropriate mechanisms to deal with the illegal settlement of Bengali incomers on the ancestral land of the indigenous Jumma peoples. The representative organisations of the Jumma peoples in the CHT as well as local human rights organisations have called upon the government time and again to implement the 1997 CHT Accord which provides for the settlement of lands confiscated from the indigenous Jumma peoples and for the rehabilitation of the Bengali settlers to their original home districts (the plains of Bangladesh), and which also ensures the withdrawal of the army from the CHT. According to these organisations, lasting peace in the CHT will only be achieved by taking the measures enshrined in this Accord. In light of the recent atrocities, the immediate demands of the Jumma peoples are:

1. To appoint an international commission headed by  theEuropean Commission or by the UN or by any other credible and independent organisation or collectively to investigate the Mohalchari Incident.
2. To demilitarize administration in CHT and to lift, with this end, the military deployment under the " Operation Uttoran" from CHT.
3. To delegate the local police authority to the 3 Hill District Councils as per the HDC Acts immediately.
4. To amend the "Land Dispute Settlement Law – 2001" and to activate the Land Commission for resolution of land disputes among the Bengali settlers and the Jumma (Indigenous people) Refugee Returnees and Internally Displaced Jumma Persons.

Honourable Prime Minister, the Forest Peoples Programme urges you to implement these demands as soon as possible and to ensure that the internationally recognised human rights of the indigenous Jumma peoples are respected; these include the right to freely possess the lands traditionally owned and occupied by them as well as other fundamental civil and political and economic, social and cultural rights relating to their safety, security and cultural integrity.

We look forward to learning how you plan to address this urgent situation.

Yours sincerely

Emily Caruso

Campaigns Assistant

cc:

• Mr Mosaraf Hossain MP

Hon’ble Chairman

Parliamentary Standing Committee on CHT Affairs Ministry

Bangladesh Secretariat, Dhaka

Bangladesh

• Mr Moni Swapan Dewan MP

Hon’ble Deputy Minister

Ministry of CHT Affairs

Government of the People's Republic of Bangladesh

Bangladesh Secretariat, Dhaka

Bangladesh

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