State Sponsored Land Grabbing In Cht

[kaur_khalistani_lioness]

Bangladeshi military forcing Muslim settlers to occupy

indigenous lands in CHT

23 Feb 2008

Bangladeshi policy of demographic invasion i.e. settlement

of Muslim Bengali outsiders in the lands of Jumma

indigenous people in the CHT has taken a new dimension in

which Bangladeshi military is allegedly forcing Muslim

Bengali outsiders to occupy lands traditionally belonging

to Jumma indigenous people, according to reports received

from a many Jumma villagers in Dighinala. Unfortunately, no

detail information is available on the issue due to the

State of Emergency and de facto military rule placed in the

country since the mid January of this year forcing all

indigenous human rights defenders to close their

activities.

The Jumma indigenous peoples led by the Parbatya Chattagram

Jana Samhati Samiti (PCJSS=United People’s Party) have been

fighting with the Bangladeshi authorities for recognition

and protection of their distinct identity and culture and

for self-determination since 1972. In response, the

authorities have adopted a policy of demographic invasion

or ‘Islamization’, the term as the local people prefer to

use for it, under which hundreds of thousands of

Bangladeshi Muslim Bengalis are transferred to and settled

in the land of the indigenous peoples with government funds

and active involvement of state-actors, military in

particular. It goes without saying that the policy is aimed

at cleansing the indigenous peoples ethnically and

culturally. It resulted in killing of over 10,000 Jummas in

the 13 major genocides (Jumma Committee for International

Campaign, 1999, http://www.angelfire.com/ab/jumma; PCJSS,

An Account of Genocides and Atrocities committed by

Bangladeshi Forces and Illegal Muslim Bengali Infiltrators

in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, November 1986-19 January

1987, 1987, p. 1) and other forms of human rights violation

as well as in an influx of about 70,000 Jummas into the

Indian State of Tripura in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

It brought about a dramatic change in the demographic

composition (of the total population of the CHT, Muslim

Bengalis constituted 1.5% in 1941, 6.29% in 1951, 11.77% in

1961, 41% in 1981, 49% in 1991 and 65% in 2001: Census

reports, 1941, 1951, 1961, 1981, 2001. Indigenous sources

believe that the figure shown in 1991 and afterwards is

highly manipulated and politically motivated. Muslim

Bengalis constituted more than 65% of the total population

of the CHT in 2001, and the figure was increasing

alarmingly everyday) and social fabric of the CHT.

PCG Team

* * *

Peace Campaign Group (PCG)

RZ-I-91/211, West Sagarpur, New Delhi-110046, India

Tel: + 91-11-2 539 8383

Telefax: + 91-11-2 539 4277

E-mail: pcgoffice@yahoo.co.in, pcgonline@gmail.com

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