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UN PERMANENT FORUM ON INDIGENOUS ISSUES2nd Session Agenda Item 4 (b): Environment Statement by Rev. Prajnalankar Bhikkhu, PEACE CAMPAIGN GROUP, RZ-I-91/211, West Sagarpur, New Delhi-110046, India Telefax: + 91-11-2 539 4277, E-mail: chtpeacecamp@hotmail.com Thank you, Mr. Chairman, distinguished delegates Peace Campaign Group would like to make the following intervention on the agenda item with special reference to the environmental issues in the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh. Mr. Chairman, MANY INDIGENOUS PEOPLES OF OUR PLANET live on forest resources. Their ways of livelihood, culture, traditions and belief-system are mostly forest-centric. This is, perhaps, the reason why some indigenous peoples dotting in various parts of the world identify themselves with their ancestral lands and land resources while trying to justify their rights. They claim that land is their life. While attending a United Nations meeting on “Indigenous Populations” in 2002 in Geneva, I saw an indigenous people representative from the Philippines wearing a T-shirt with a slogan--“Land is Life”. The slogan fairly represents the world indigenous peoples’ common demand for sovereignty over their ancestral lands and territories. The indigenous people in the Chittagong Hill Tracts have derived their ethnic name Jumma from the term jum or shifting agriculture, the main traditional pattern of their livelihood. They even raised their demand with the Bangladesh authorities for renaming the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) as “Jummaland” in the 1980s. It indicates the importance of jum and forest in relationship with their identity. It would not be out of place to note here that the authorities brushed their demand aside with heavy hands and denied the existence of any indigenous peoples in their country. So the indigenous people’s demand for recognition of their identity and right to autonomy in the constitution of Bangladesh is still an unresolved political issue in the country. It is a challenge to the identity of the Jumma indigenous people. And it forms the fundamentals of the decade-long ethnic conflict between the indigenous (Jumma) and non-indigenous (Bengali Muslims) populations in the CHT. Until the early 1970s, the CHT was one of the most ideal tropical rainforests in the world. It was replete with a diverse species of flora and fauna. It was unhurt by problems like “climate change” and its catastrophic consequences. The indigenous people had been living a peaceful, if not a prosperous, life in the lap of the CHT nature practicing jum over centuries. In the passage of time they have developed a unique and vibrant culture in their homeland which is found manifested in their traditional foods and drinks, dresses, customs, manners, belief-system, dance and music, crafts, games, arts and literature, writing system, traditional medical knowledge and social and political institutions. Today, the environment in CHT has been made hostile to the indigenous people, and many indigenous people are losing their traditional livelihood-patterns and becoming increasingly dependent on formal ones in which they find themselves grossly marginalized. Its reasons, among others, are:
1. Demographic invasion against the indigenous people In between 1979 and 1983-84, the government of Bangladesh executed a systematic population transfer program in the CHT. Under this program more than 400,000 Bengali Muslim settlers were moved from various plain districts to the CHT to convert the region into a Muslim majority area and suppress the indigenous people’s demand for autonomy. Each of the settler families was provided with 5 acre of high land, 4 acre mixed land and 2.5 acre of low cultivatable land in the region. In addition, the settlers forcibly occupied lands from indigenous people with the help of military and police. This program led to displacement of hundred of thousands of indigenous people from their ancestral lands and immense pressure on lands and forests. 2. Anti-indigenous development programs In the name of so-called “socio-economic development” of the indigenous peoples, the then military government of Bangladesh established the Chittagong Hill Tracts Development Board (CHTDB) in 1976 with funds from the Asian Development Bank, UNDP and WHO. Elaborate development projects were undertaken for development of the indigenous people. In reality, these were meant for integration of the indigenous people with the majority Bengali Muslims. Examples of such so-called development programs: 1. Rehabilitation: Under this project, the government, in fact, implemented the Bengali Muslim population transfer program as stated above, and brought the indigenous people living in remote areas to concentration camps known as “Guccha Gram” (cluster village). These villages were usually built in areas close to military camps to de-link all kinds of relations between the Shanti Bahini guerrillas and common indigenous people. Yenneke Arens compares these cluster villages to the so-called “strategic helmets” set up by US military in Vietnam to isolate the Vietcong from the support of the people. 2. Road-construction: Under this project, the government built a road network connecting all strategic positions in the CHT. It was crucial for mobility of military vehicles in the hills to counter the Shanti Bahini fighters and for moving the Bengali Muslim settlers from plain districts into the CHT. 3.Education: Under this project, the government used funds mostly for establishment of masques and Madrassas (Islamic schools) in the CHT. 4. “Afforestation”: Under this project, the government introduced the rubber and teak plantation in the CHT with funding from the World Bank as part of its “afforestation” program. The project turned out to be very environment-unfriendly in the CHT, as these plants, according to some indigenous people, resulted in infertility of lands and extinction of some species of birds and animals in the region. In fact, the government used this project as another way of evicting the indigenous people from their ancestral lands. 3. Militarization In order to liquidate the movement of the indigenous people the government built up massive military infrastructure in the CHT that resulted in dispossession of lands by many indigenous people and destruction of forests. Besides, the military destroyed a large area of forest along the two sides of roads in the entire CHT as part of their so-called “counter-insurgency” measures. 4. Commercial use of forest resources Forest resources in the CHT have been a lucrative business to many outsider Bengali Muslims. They are, in association with some corrupt Forest Department officials, indiscriminately exploiting trees, bamboos and other forest resources for commercial purposes. The Chandraghona Paper Mill, the largest of its kind in Asia, established in 1953 with foreign funds including a loan of US$ 4.2 from the World Bank, is run with millions of tons of bamboo and wood that come from the CHT forest. The mill created 10,000 jobs but 95% employees are Bengalis. In 1960, in the name of so-called industrial developments the Pakistani regime built the Kaptai Dam on the major river of the CHT the Karnaphuli at Kaptai without any consultation with the then indigenous people leadership. The dam inundated 54.06% (54,000 acre) of the total agricultural lowlands of the region and displaced about 100,000 Chakmas (about 30%) from their homes and hearths for good. This led to major environmental disaster and an immense pressure on the land. 5. Acquisition of land for military purpose and so-called “Reserved Forest” The government has acquired a vast area of land for military purpose and it resulted in displacement of thousands of indigenous families and destruction of forest and environment. The total area of the CHT is 13,189 sq. km. Out of it about 7,046 sq. km. is forest-cover. This includes two categories of forest: “reserved forest” and un-classed forest that cover 1,601.6 sq. km. and 5,440 sq. km. respectively. In the name of creation of “reserved forest” the government acquired land and it resulted in significant reduction of land area and deprivation of the indigenous people of their access to land and land forest resources. Mr. Chairman, With the destruction of forest and environment in the CHT, the traditional livelihood of the indigenous people is destroyed and the ecology of the region has been put in danger. The evergreen tropical rainforest of the previous CHT has been reduced to mere hills with bushes. Some rare species of birth like rhangrang and animal like rhino already got extinct, and some are on the way to extinction. Injustice with the nature has started taking revenge on us with its ferocious forms such as, drought, flood and other irregular climatic conditions in the CHT. Recommendation: Permanent Forum should recommend for sustainable environment and forest management programs at local, national, regional and international level taking into consideration of the indigenous people sovereignty over their lands and territories. Thank you, Mr. Chair for your kind attention! |
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