[ad_1]
Dhaka, Bangladesh – On the night of May 31, Agrojyoti Bhante was brutally attacked by two men wielding a machete at a monastery in Khagrachari, 270 kilometers (168 miles) south of the capital Dhaka in the Chittagong Mountains (CHT).
The attackers were later identified as two Bangladeshi construction workers working in the monastery. They also robbed about 60,000 taka (700 US dollars) from the monastery and killed the 47-year-old monk, who belonged to one of the indigenous communities in Bangladesh. .
Although there is no accurate data on the number of indigenous people in Bangladesh, a census conducted by the government in 2011 found that there were approximately 1.6 million of them.
But indigenous and militant organizations claim that in this Muslim-majority country, their population is at least 3 million, or 2% of the 160 million-plus people.
There are approximately 54 different indigenous communities in the country, most of which live in the northern and southeastern plains. The rest, about 20%, are in CHT-most of them are Buddhists. On the plains, most of them are Christians.
Three attacks occurred in a week
Indigenous groups and activists say these communities suffer from serious human rights violations and inequality.
On May 30, the day before the Khagrachari incident, it was reported that an arson case occurred in Baralekha in the Moulvibazar district, 278 kilometers (170 miles) away from CHT.
Unknown gangsters cut down thousands of betel leaf trees on an indigenous farm that is the main source of income for at least 48 families in the area. According to sources, these families have suffered at least $8,000 in losses.
Panorama of Chittagong Mountains, Bangladesh [Zarif Faiaz/Al Jazeera]According to local media reports at the time, unidentified settlers were busy illegally occupying three other indigenous betel nut farms in different areas of the town, sparking anger in the Kasi community.
On June 6, the “Daily Star” reported that in Dinajpur, about 350 kilometers (217 miles) from Murvi’s Bazar on the other side of the country, a lawsuit was filed against 22 members of the indigenous Santar community.
The local plaintiff in Bangladesh, Mahbubur Rahman claimed that the people led by Rabindranath Soren, the chairman of the local indigenous rights organization, allegedly looted his crops worth $530.
Leaders of the Santar community protested the lawsuit, calling it a false accusation of harassing the indigenous people who had land disputes with Rahman.
Although the monks of Khagrachari survived the attack, the local government eventually expelled the illegal occupiers of Moulvibazar, and the local law enforcement agency promised to investigate the land dispute in Dinajpur.
However, three attacks against indigenous people occurred within a week, creating an atmosphere of fear in marginalized communities.
Bengal settlers plundering land
Locals believe that these attacks are part of a larger strategy aimed at plundering land belonging to indigenous peoples-a problem that is too common in a country facing a decades-long rift between indigenous communities and Bengal settlers .
The conflict between settlers and indigenous communities has a long and complex history, dating back to 1980, when landless Bangladeshi families first began to migrate to CHT on a large scale.
In the following years, the number of settlers in Bangladesh exceeded the indigenous population in the southern region.
Zobaida Nasreen and Masahiko Togawa’s 2002 paper entitled “Development Politics: “Pahari-Bengali” Discourse in Chittagong Mountains” showed that in 1959, the indigenous population of CHT was 91%, and the rest were settlers.
In the next 30 years, by 1991, the settled population in the area had risen to 48%, replacing most of the indigenous people, causing them to drop to 51%.
The Daily Star quoted a 2016 book by Devasish Roy, the circle leader of Chakmas, the country’s largest aboriginal group, and reported that between 1979 and 1985, approximately 200,000 to 450,000 Bangladeshis recovered in the region.
During this period, more than 100,000 indigenous people migrated to neighboring India, but many of them returned in the 1990s.
As Bangladeshi settlers continue to move into indigenous territories-hills and plains-to accommodate the booming Bangladeshi population, this trend has picked up in other parts of Bangladesh.
Settlement caused land disputes and violent conflicts between settlers and local communities, which continue to this day.
An indigenous child in the Chittagong Mountains, Bangladesh [Zarif Faiaz/Al Jazeera]Phillip Gain, researcher and director of the Society for the Environment and Human Development (SEHD), outlined how land disputes have been at the center of disputes between settlers and indigenous communities.
According to his book Survival in the Marginal Zone: Bangladesh’s Recommendations, 85% of the indigenous people in the northwest of the country now have no land at all, even though they owned most of the area before the arrival of the Bangladeshi settlers.
Khokon Suiten Murmu, the project coordinator of the Kapaeeng Foundation, an indigenous rights monitoring agency and son-in-law of the indigenous leader Soren who was prosecuted in Dinajpur, said land grabbing is a common strategy used by Bangladeshi settlers.
“In the case of Dinajpur, 22 indigenous men were prosecuted along with my father-in-law. This is a typical example of how land grabbers manipulated the system to harass the unfortunate indigenous groups,” Khokon told Al Jazeera, stating the case against them “False and fabricated.”
“Land predators like (Rahman) even have a record of hiring armed assassins to attack local indigenous people to intimidate them. This is nothing new. We just want to fight another day,” he added.
Activists say that the COVID-19 pandemic has worsened the crisis, and land grabs have continued “with all their strength” in the absence of active media.
A report by the non-profit Kapaeeng Foundation shows that between March and June 2020, at least 6,504 acres of Aboriginal land were completely occupied or being occupied.
“Most members of the local indigenous communities are uneducated farmers who have historically enjoyed rights to ancestral land,” Khokon said.
“Settlers often think that these lands are uninhabited because there is no paperwork and they use the system for their own benefit through deception or force.”
Khokon said that Bangladeshi settlers have close relationships with local influential people, “which makes it more difficult for indigenous communities to take legal action against them.”
This is why it does not help to file a formal complaint with the police.
“There is still a lot of work to be done”
A 2019 report by the Daily Star revealed that since its establishment in 1999, about 22,000 complaints filed with the Chittagong Land Dispute Resolution Committee have not been resolved because the government has not been able to formulate the committee’s business rules for many years.
Kyaw Shwe Hla, chairman of the CHT Bandarban Mountain Council and member of the committee, said that no progress has been made in formulating business rules.
“We should have waited for instructions from the Ministry of Lands at the meeting, but due to COVID-19, everything is now suspended. We hope to resume operations when things calm down. But as of now, no progress has been made.”
In 1997, the Chittagong Mountain Area Peace Agreement promised to “maintain the political, social, cultural, educational and economic rights of all people in the Chittagong Mountain area.”
Even the government’s seventh five-year plan for 2016-2020 outlines several commitments to solve the problems faced by the indigenous peoples of the country, both in the CHT and in the plains, the government has shown commendable goodwill.
However, issues such as the inefficiency of the Land Dispute Resolution Committee make the government’s actions contrary to rhetoric.
Pallab Chakma, an indigenous rights activist and executive director of the Kapaeeng Foundation, said the government urgently needs to fulfill its promise.
“In the past few years, the government and its agencies have given some positive comments. Even in the betel nut farm attack, we have seen the authorities act quickly, thank goodness. But there is still a lot of work to be done, and progress is slow. ,” Parab told Al Jazeera.
At the same time, attacks on vulnerable groups and socially excluded groups continue.
On June 15, unidentified perpetrators raped and attacked an indigenous woman in Tanger, northwest of the capital Dhaka. On June 19, an indigenous man was killed in Bandarban, CHT, allegedly because he converted to Islam and was killed by hardline indigenous activists.
With the increase in attacks, members of the indigenous community said that equality and justice are still out of reach for them in Bangladesh.
[ad_2]
Source link