Bangladesh's Juma communities

Anurupa Chakma will never forget the night the soldiers came to her village and took her husband away. For the past three years her 16 year old son Amar has been a pupil at a Karuna-funded orphanage school for tribal children in Khagarachari.

Khagarachari is at the heart of the Chittagong Hill Tracts; an area that was once set aside as a protected homeland for the country’s 500,000 minority tribal people. The tribal people are ethnically distinct from the Bangladeshi Muslims and most are practising Buddhists.

Since Independence, the area has witnessed a systematic campaign of persecution of tribal people, as their traditional lands have been annexed to make homes for Bangladeshi Muslim settlers.

The school is a tranquil place; a simple circle of buildings on the edge of the forest. It was founded by a Buddhist monk to provide a safe refuge for tribal children whose parents have been killed.

Shortly after Independence the Bangladeshi Government began to resettle Bengali Muslims into areas which had previously belonged to the tribal communities. When tribal people protested at the seizure of the villages, the army was sent in to protect the settlers. An armed uprising followed, and was met with brutal reprisals from the army, who burned and looted any village suspected of providing support to the tribal guerrilla fighters. A long and bloody war ensued. It went on for over ten years during which time thousands of people were killed, hundreds of tribal villages were burned down, and more than 150,000 tribal people fled to India as refugees. In 1997 a peace accord was signed, but so far it has brought little respite for the tribal people.

There have been shocking atrocities committed against Chakma people. A Buddhist monk tells us how his father, a village doctor was imprisoned for five years without trial after he had been accused of giving treatment to a wounded tribal guerrilla fighter. A twelve year old girl describes how her father was killed by a group of Bangladeshis after a dispute in a local market. His body was never recovered and no charges were ever brought against his murderers.

Nearly every child has a similar story to tell; most have lost one or both parents; many have seen their homes burnt down or family members raped or beaten by the soldiers.

Sumanalankar (the Buddhist monk who set up the Karuna-funded school):

“My own brother was killed by Bangladeshi soldiers. So of course there is a lot of anger and grief. But because of my practice I don’t hate the Bangladeshis or think of Muslims as enemies. You see, this is a political problem. We need a solution that will safeguard the rights of our people. Only then will the people here be able to live in peace.”

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