Jumma Insurgency in Bangladesh 1973-1997

In the 1960s thousands of Jumma people were displaced when the Kaptai hydroelectric dam flooded one-tenth of the Chittagong Hill Tracts and forty percent of its arable land. Thousands fled to India's eastern states of Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, and Tripura, where they faced discrimination. More contentious was the state-sponsored settlement in the 1970s of hundreds of thousands of Bengali Muslims from the crowded delta region into the Chittagong Hill Tracts -- often, on Jumma-owned land. As intended, this radically altered its demography, further alienated the tribes, and led to attacks between the two groups.

In 1973, the indigenous, mainly Buddhist tribes (called Jumma) of the Chittagong Hill Tracts region bordering India and Burma (Myanmar), long marginalized by the discriminatory policies of successive governments of Bangladesh, established the Shanti Bahini (Peace Force), a predominantly Chakma guerrilla resistance movement aimed at securing autonomy. In the late 1980s the rebels were still seeking autonomous status for the Chittagong Hills, the expulsion of Bengali settlers from traditional tribal lands, the restoration of tribal rights and privileges enjoyed under British and Pakistani rule and subsequently repealed by the Mujib government, and the withdrawal of the army from the Chittagong Hills. With an estimated strength of 2,000 lightly armed guerrillas, the Shanti Bahini carried out attacks against Bengali settlers, government facilities, and army convoys.

Bangladesh's government responded with counterinsurgency measures and a military occupation that perpetrated human rights abuses, including arbitrary arrests and murders, arson, rape, forced evictions, and occupation of tribal lands. Through the late 1980s, military pacification efforts had been ineffective and often brutal. The Twenty-fourth Infantry Division, headquartered in Chittagong, was the army's largest formation with four infantry brigades and a specialized counterinsurgency unit based at Khagrachari. It mounted reprisal raids against civilian tribes people as warnings against further attacks. Observers through 1986 estimated that about 400 security personnel had lost their lives in the Chittagong Hills; the civilian death toll was estimated at around 2,000. According to a September 1986 report by Amnesty International, the army regularly engaged in "unlawful killings and torture," acts that are specifically prohibited under the Constitution and various international accords to which Bangladesh is a party. Another human rights organization termed the army's Chittagong Hills campaign "genocide." Some commentators allege that the army has been overly zealous in stamping out the insurgency because the tribes people are not Muslims.

In the late 1980s, the Chittagong Hills remained off-limits to all outsiders without a special permit. Ershad, like his predecessors, denied reports of human rights violations and maintained that tribal rights would be safeguarded if the Shanti Bahini laid down their arms, accepted government offers of amnesty and rehabilitation, and participated in elections. Aside from the domestic implications of widespread violence in the Chittagong Hills, the fighting also had serious regional consequences. Bangladesh has frequently asserted that India has aided the Shanti Bahini by offering arms to the insurgents, providing military training and bases. India has denied the charges and has countered that Bangladesh Army operations in the Chittagong Hills have precipitated a massive exodus of Chakma refugees into the Indian state of Tripura.

Bangladesh's government signed a peace accord with the Jana Samhati Samiti (JSS) -- the People's United Party in the Chittagong Hill Tracts -- on December 2, 1997, but it was not constitutionally guaranteed and did not include the withdrawal of the military, reverse the illegal settlement of tribal lands, or investigate the human rights abuses. It did, however, allow for the return of 50,000 refugees from Tripura. It provided for the three districts of the Chittagong Hill Tracts to be administered by a Hill Council under a Tribal Affairs Ministry and for a Land Commission to resolve land ownership disputes. JSS and Shanti Bahini members were granted amnesty, but the ban on the JSS remained. Although a major step toward peace, the accord did not address the core issues of the conflict and continued negotiations are necessary.

References

Dictionary of Wars, 51-2; Bangladesh - A Country Study.

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