Rights group calls for UN intervention over “Genocide of Bangladeshi Buddhists by Muslim settlers”

Source: Blogosphere

url: http://creepingsharia.wordpress.com/2010/03/16/rights-group-calls-for-un-intervention-over-genocide-of-bangladeshi-buddhists-by-muslim-settlers/

The U.S. media pretty much ignored the mass killings of women and babies by Muslims in Nigeria last week, so it’s no surprise to find out the same thing is happening in Bangladesh, and it is never reported in the media. From the Hindi weekly, Organiser, A call for UN intervention Genocide of Bangladeshi Buddhists by Muslim settlers:

KOLKATA: Brutal killings of hapless Chakma Buddhists living for centuries in Chittagong hill tract and burning of of their houses and pagodas by powerful gangs of Muslim land mafias in Bangladesh on February 19-20 have evoked sharp reactions from Kolkata’s Bengali intelligentsia. It is these intellectuals who are the main source of inspirations of the general people in West Bengal who are now determined to vote out the present Left government in the next Assembly elections slated for May, 2011. The same intellectuals lent their full support to the Campaign Against Atrocities on Minorities in Bangladesh (CAAMB), a human rights organization, at a meeting in Kolkata Press Club on March 3 and asked the Indian government to intervene. They unequivocally condemned unprovoked killings of 10 Buddhists Chakma villagers attempt to grab their land and houses. The intellectuals have described the ghastly incident as an attempt to sabotage the friendship treaty signed between Bangladesh and Indian governments recently.

According to intellectuals like Tarun Sanyal, Debabrata Bandopadhyaya and Sujat Bhadra, who were present at the press meet, apart from killings of 10 poor Chakmas, at least 200 houses in 11 Chakma villages were burnt to ashes by marauding goons on the night of February 19. At one point during the clash, the military personnel started firing indiscriminately on fleeing Chakma villagers only to help encourage attacking Muslim settlers. Chittagong is Bangladesh’s only district having a significant Buddhist population. Army was called in after a pagoda and an office of a UN-funded project were set on fire. A statue of Lord Buddha installed at the Banani Buddhist Monastery was damaged and another statue was looted. Enraged Chakma villagers prevented Dipankar Talukdar, the minister for Chittagong Hill Tracts and other senior administration officials from visiting the remote Gangaram Mukhi area of Bagaichhari upazila on February 21. Chakmas demanded immediate withdrawal of 400 army camps from Chitagong hills alleging that Bangladesh army personnel are actually helping outsiders to settle in Chakma villages by grabbing their land and premises.

The Asian Centre for Human Rights (ACHR) has demanded the intervention of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR) Navi Pillay to ask Bangladesh government to take appropriate action on the burning of tribal Buddhist villages and indiscriminate killing of tribals by the Bangladesh Army and illegal settlers. “This attack on the indigenous Buddhist people shows that the government of Bangladesh has failed to change its policy of indiscriminate killings of tribal and minorities win order to occupy their lands and implant more illegal plains settlers instead of implementing the Chittagong Hill Tracts Accord of 1997,” stated a Chakma tribal representative present at Kolkata Press Club. There have been many attacks on Buddhist and Hindu villages since 1997 in Bangladesh which have now become occupied by Muslim villagers and landowners. Many critics call this a genocide of non-Muslim minorities by neighboring Muslim villages.

Just like in the Nigerian slaughter, accusations of the local Army actually helping Muslim attackers. All the more interesting as the Oregon (USA) National Guard and Bangladesh military leaders recently participated together in a State Partnership Program.

BD Army raped two Jumma women: Blogosphere allegation

Source: CHT News Update Blog
Url: http://chtnewsupdate.blogspot.com/2010/03/two-jumma-women-raped-by-army.html

Two Jumma women are alleged to have been raped by army in Matiranga in Khagrachari district. The victims have been identified as Barun Bala Tripura (30) wife of late Jala Kumar Tripura and Kalpana Tripura (30) wife of late Shashindra Tripura. Both of them hail from Shonkhola Para village in Matiranga.
The rape of the two women comes one day after the whole world celebrated 100th International Women’s Day on 8 March.
According to sources, on the day of incident, 9 March, the victims went to a jungle near Toikatang army camp under Matiranga zone to collect sun grass.
Around 9AM six army personnel led by Sepoy Habib (known as dariwala or bearded one) from the camp caught and raped them for 4 hours in the jungle.
Around 1pm some Jumma villagers, who were passing by the same jungle, saw the army personnel dragging and pulling the two women.
The women screamed for help and the army men were forced to let them go when they saw the villagers.
The camp commander Mehedi was not present in the camp when the incident took place. He went out on a duty to Matiranga bazaar, putting Kamal in charge of the camp.
Following the incident, the Matiranga zone commander visited Toikatang camp and called the local village elders to a meeting where he threatened them not to publicize the rape.
Ms Renu Bala Tripura, a member of Guimara Union Council, confirmed the incident and accused the army of a cover-up.
“The army is putting pressure on the village elders not to publicize the incident.” she said.
HWF Vice President Nirupa Chakma strongly condemned the rape of the two Tripura women and urged the government to bring the culprits to justice.
“As long as the army and the settlers are there in the CHT, there will be a perennial threat to the security of the Jumma women.” she said.

Respect indigenous rights

Source: The Daily Star News

Fakhruddin Ahmed

Photo: Wahid Adnan/ Drik news

IN Bangladesh, a nation with limited land and unlimited population, land grabbing by the mighty has assumed alarming proportions. Every village has stories of the powerful enlisting the assistance of goons to grab lands from the poor and the hapless -- lands that the poor had owned for generations.

Laws in Bangladesh tend to favour the criminal and the powerful, and penalise the law-abiding and the weak. An innocent person can be cast into jail in Bangladesh only on a criminal complaint, whereas a criminal convicted on several counts of murder, but with powerful political connections, can be free on bail ad infinitum. No nation can prosper unless laws apply equally to every citizen.

Utter lawlessness has descended on the Chittagong Hill Tracts since the third week of February. By all accounts, and according to reports published in The Daily Star, violence and death have been triggered by the illegal land grab by the Bengali settlers, sometimes aided and abetted by local army personnel.

Many Jumma indigenous people have been killed, several more injured, and many of their dwellings have been set on fire by the Bengali settlers. Bengali settlers, too, have suffered deaths, injuries and arson in retaliation, although much fewer in number. The 1997 Chittagong Hill Tracts Accords delineates certain areas as indigenous land; Bengalis have absolutely no legal right to settle on or grab those lands.

Of all the districts allotted to "East Pakistan" during the partition of India in 1947, the Chittagong Hill Tracts had the fewest number of Muslims -- less than 2 percent of the population. Buddhists constituted 85 percent of the population, followed by the Hindus (10 percent) and animists (3 percent). While the rest of the "East Pakistanis" were ethnically homogenous (Bengalis), the Jumma, or the indigenous people, were different -- they belonged to the mongoloid race.

The writer was fortunate enough to attend Faujderhat Cadet College, which had a few Jumma students. It was a revelation! The Jumma students looked different, spoke in a different tongue, ate different food, and their songs, religion and culture were totally different.

As a part of Faujderhat Cadet College's Outward Bound and Adventure Camp, the writer made his first trip to Rangamati as a seventh grader in 1959. We swam in the Karnaphuli river, were feted to a sumptuous lunch by Raja Tridiv Roy, and we all fell in love with a gorgeous Chakma girl named Jayasree, after her beautiful rendition of Lata Mangeshkar's immortal Bengali song: "Banshi Keno Gai, Amare Kadai…"

Underneath all the fun and festivities, there was an undercurrent of sadness. We were repeatedly told that the "old" Rangamati was going to be under water soon, and that our subsequent camps would be in "new" Rangamati. Being young and naïve, we were wondering: how could the natives be happy if their town was going to go under water soon?

Sure enough, catastrophe hit the natives in 1961 when the Kaptai dam was opened! Vast areas of the pristine forest and native households went under water forever. The natives lost their ancestral homes of generations. It is doubtful that they were consulted or compensated by the Pakistani government who constructed the dam.

It is now generally acknowledged that such hydroelectric dams are of marginal benefit, but are ecological disasters. After fifty years, it is now time to rethink the wisdom of keeping the Kaptai dam functioning. If the dam could be dismantled, Bangladesh would be able to recover about 1 percent of its land, and restore some of the lands to its rightful Jumma owners.

Over the years, as population pressure built all over Bangladesh, more and more Bengalis started settling in the Hill Tracts. Many of us who saw the injustice of it remained silent. With no political solution in sight the indigenous population resisted, and the Shanti Bahini led an insurgency for twenty years until the Peace accord of 1997. One thought that the matter had a happy ending there, but it did not. Many of the terms of the Accord have not been implemented, leading to frustration, which has triggered the current explosive environment.

The eleven tribes of the Chittagong Hill Tracts that constitute the Jummas deserve the sympathy and generosity of their fellow Bangladeshis. Land may be in short supply in Bangladesh, but that is no reason for Bengali settlers to illegally grab land that belong to the Jummas. The Awami League government had signed the CHT Accord in 1997. Now that they are back in power, it is their duty to ensure that every facet of the Accord is implemented.

Bangladeshis and the Bangladesh government must honour the agreements they sign. Because, if we do not, the likes of Amnesty International and the European Union will lecture us forever about how naughty we are! I have always been amazed at how much patta or importance we offer to personnel from Amnesty International in Bangladesh. They are treated like celebrities, featured on the front pages of the newspapers, are feted and interviewed like superstars. Yet, all they ever do is criticise us. And we grovel to, and worship them for it! How about some self-respect and backbone for a change?

Whenever the Amnesty International criticises US policies, they are dismissed with utter contempt. Amnesty International personnel are not featured in, or interviewed by The New York Times. Amnesty International is treated as a pariah in Israel, which, in case anyone has not noticed, has been stealing lands from the Palestinians for the last 62 years! If the Israelis ever allowed Amnesty International into their country, believe me they would not be treated like heroes/heroines like we treat them in Bangladesh; they would be castigated for their "bias" towards the Palestinians!

A wrong has been committed against our Jumma brothers and sisters. Let us correct it ourselves. Let us restore their lands to them, compensate them for their losses, and punish those responsible for their suffering. Let us not let foreigners tell us what we should do; let us do what is right ourselves.

Women Vow to Remove Gender Discrimination in Bangladesh

Source: The Daily Star News



ON 100TH ANNIVERSARY OF INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY: 1) Rural women bring out a long procession at remote Sathibari village of Durgapur union under Aditmari upazila in Lalmonirhat district yesterday demanding end to wage discrimination against women workers, 2) A colourful procession jointly arranged by the district administration and different organisations parades the main roads of Dinajpur town, 3) Acid Survivors Foundation in association with Prothom Alo arranges a procession as part of their campaign against acid violence at Gopalganj, and 4) Rajshahi University chapter of Bangladesh Mohila Parishad brings out a procession on the campus.Photo: STAR

Criminals brutally torture minority women while evicting family

Source: The Daily Star News

Victim of brutality yesterday morning, pregnant Shoma Ghosh lying at Dinajpur Medical College Hospital.Photo: STAROur Correspondent, Dinajpur

An eight-month pregnant woman living at a Dinajpur suburb is battling for life at Dinajpur Medical College and Hospital (DJMCH) as criminals brutally tortured her while evicting her family from a disputed land yesterday morning.

The woman, Shoma Ghosh, 19, was admitted to gynaecology department in a critical condition at 9:30am, DJMCH sources said.

Child in her womb got displaced as criminals dragged her out from the house after kicking her indiscriminately at the abdomen, said sources quoting the doctors who visited her.

Visiting the spot yesterday, this correspondent learnt that families of Narayan Chandra Ghosh and Naresh Chandra Ghosh have been living on a 2.5 decimal land at Pak-Paharpur in Dinajpur town for about 35 years as land owner Bimal Chowdhury had let them live on the land.

Bimal Chowdhury now lives in Manikganj district, said members of the two families.

Claiming ownership of the land, about 200 people backed by Swapan and his brother Tapan Kundu attacked the two families with wooden sticks and flattened their thatched houses when they were preparing breakfast in the morning, said villagers.

The miscreants kicked Shoma at the abdomen and attacked her mother-in-law as she came forward to save the pregnant woman, said witnesses, adding that the criminals looted the houses and evicted the two families from there.

Process was on to file a case as of filing this report.

The two families alleged that land owner Bimal Chowdhury took Tk 2 lakh 2 thousand from them in July last year to sell the 2.5 decimal land to them.

But the land was again sold out to Swapan Kundu.

Swapan and his brother along with about 200 men made the attack to take the land into their possession although there is a case over the land, said the victim families.

Dalit miseries told in drama

Source: The Daily Star News

A group of Dalit girls described their tales of suffering in their everyday lives by staging a drama at Sarak Deep at Dhaka University campus yesterday.

The girls used the occasion of International Women's Day to highlight how Dalit girls and women are being deprived of opportunities in various sectors, including education and work.

After the play concluded, the Dalits made an eight-point demand to have their economic, civil, and human rights recognised.

The play was arranged by the Horitri Foundation, which is run by members of Dalit community.

The foundation also hosted a fair with hand-made products on display, including eye-catching clay ornaments.

Former adviser to caretaker government Rokia Afzal Rahman formally inaugurated the programme.

Chief guest Rokia said she was delighted to attend the function and promised to work with the community to strengthen their rights-based movement.

Rokia placed emphasis on ensuring access to technology to working women.

Executive Director of the Foundation Adan Islam said women of Dalit community are the most vulnerable in society as they are deprived of many basic human rights.

Dalits speak different languages as they are a mixed population of various caste groups across South Asia.

They are traditionally regarded as the lowest caste.

Hundreds of Dalit women also assembled at DU campus to voice their social, economical and human rights.

JS body pledges action against CHT arsonists

Source: The Daily star News

The Jatiya Sangsad body on Chittagong Hill Tracts affairs ministry yesterday assured the arson victims in Rangamati and Khagrachhari of proper probe and exemplary punishment of the culprits.

The parliamentary standing committee on CHT affairs ministry yesterday visited the areas that were rocked by violence between settlers and indigenous people recently.

Head of the committee legislator Mohammad Shah Alam, who led the five-member parliamentary team in the daylong CHT visit, told newsmen, "We have come here to collect information on the recent violence. The culprits involved in arson will be identified as soon as possible and exemplary punishment will be delivered."

The team visited Baghaihat of Rangamati's Baghaichhari upazila in the morning and affected areas of Khagrachhari town and its adjoining neighbourhoods in the afternoon. They had separate meetings with indigenous people and Bangalee settlers in the arson-affected areas where riots and arsons cost three lives in February.

The committee told the press that they would meet Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on March 9 and finalise the next course of action on the issue.

Other four members of the team were lawmakers ABM Fazle Karim Chowdhury, Ethin Rakhain, Gias Uddin Ahmad and Jatindra Lal Tripura.

Later on while briefing newsmen at Satbaiyapara, an affected area in Khagrachhari town, Fazle Karim claimed that the local administration has identified the criminals behind the violence and tough action would be taken against them.

He, however, refused to disclose their identities and said the violence was planed ahead to create unrest in the hills.

Earlier when the lawmakers visited various affected areas, Bangalee settlers and indigenous people expressed their dismay. They gave their accounts on how things went wrong between February 19 and 23.

Victims at Gongaram Mukh of Baghaihat blamed the Bangalee settlers for the killings and arson. They also demanded withdrawal of the army from Baghaihat area.

In Khagrachhari town, Hasina Akhter 34, a Bangalee settler, said the area turned into a war zone after fire burned everything the indigenous people owned at Mohazonpara. The indigenous people torched 10 houses in revenge.

Khagrachhari Government High School assistant teacher Milon Chakma said her home was set ablaze by youth who attacked wearing helmets.