Chittagong Hill Tracts

For most Bangladeshi people, December 16th is a day of celebrations, a national holiday marking the anniversary of the founding of their nation. They call it “Victory Day”. But for the people who belong to the country’s minority tribal groups there is precious little to celebrate.

Anurupa Chakma will never forget the night the soldiers came to her village and took her husband away.

Today I am with her son, Amar, an energetic boy of sixteen with bright eyes and a warm smile. For the past three years he has been a pupil at a Karuna-funded orphanage school for tribal children.

It’s a sunny morning. We are in the Athletics stadium in Khagarachari, watching a small army of schoolchildren marching up and down the field with wooden toy guns and brightly coloured banners. The pageantry is to commemorate the victory of the Bangladeshi army over Pakistan in 1971. Similar parades are going on all over Bangladesh to mark the nation’s independence. But here the jingoism has an edge of cruelty.

For 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.

We stay at the school for about a week. It 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. We spend a few days talking to the teachers and children about their lives. Gradually we piece together a picture of what has been happening here.

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.

We are continually shocked by accounts of the atrocities. 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.

One day we go out to the village of Dighinila to visit Amar’s home. We are accompanied by three policemen with rifles .They seem awkward and unsure of themselves.

The house is in a beautiful spot, at the bend in a broad river, surrounded by green hillsides rich with palm and eucalyptus trees. It could be a scene from one of the brochures put out by the Bangladesh ministry of Tourism.

We are greeted warmly by Amar’s mother Anurupa who ushers us into her hut. Amar’s father was a village headman, who had been involved in political protests against the Bangladeshi occupation. One night in 1990 the soldiers came in the night and took him away. They held him overnight in a camp where he was beaten and tortured; they released him with severe injuries to his spine and skull. Two days later the soldiers came back and burnt down the entire village. The family fled across the border to a refugee camp in Tripura ;within a few months she gave birth to Amar –shortly after that her husband died from the injuries he had received. Then, a year later her youngest daughter died, from malnutrition.

After the ceasefire Anurupa returned to Bangladesh; but when she got back she discovered that the site of her village had been annexed and turned into a military cantonment. She now lives in a rented hut nearby and scrapes together a living working as an agricultural labourer.

As she tells her story I can see the years of grief and anxiety written into the lines on her face. “Of course it makes me sad to tell this story. But I want people to know what has happened here.” As she is talking Amar is sitting next to us on the bed; he is crying quietly, but as we get ready to go he wipes away the tears and reverts to his usual cheerful demeanor. He is a bright, articulate boy, who loves playing volleyball. His mother is proud of him, and grateful that he is getting the chance of a good education .She hopes that one day he will be able to support the whole family.

As we are leaving the sun is setting behind the hills and the village is filled with a soft golden light; it is hard to believe such a beautiful place could have witnessed such brutality.

The future for these people looks bleak. In spite of the peace accord the Bengali Government has made no moves to withdraw its soldiers from the area; or to allow the tribal people to return to their homes. It continues to move settlers into the area; and Bengali Muslims now make up the majority of the population.

On our last day in Kagarachari we meet with Sumanalankar, the monk who set up the Karuna- funded school. We are sitting in a small Buddhist temple and behind us a golden statue of the Buddha looks on benignly. I ask him if he ever feels overwhelmed at all the violence and injustice he has witnessed . He pauses a moment before replying. “Yes of course” He pauses takes a breath. “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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