<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>India mute witness to BDR's slaughter of BSF officer </b>
Daily Pioneer
2004/04/18
Kanchan Gupta / New Delhi
On Saturday night, an Assistant Commandant and a constable of the Border Security Force, on duty at Lankamura outpost on the India-Bangladesh border a mere 8 km from Tripura's capital, Agartala, were dragged into Bangladeshi territory.
By the time the BSF got them back, Assistant Commandant Jeevan Kumar was dead. He had been shot at point blank range. Injuries on his body indicate he was brutally knifed before being killed. Constable KK Surendran, seriously injured, is battling for his life.
Reports suggest that the two were dragged across the border by a group of Bangladeshis in civilian clothes and then set upon by Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) personnel. All the while, the BDR kept firing on the Lankamura outpost. The firing stopped around midnight, followed by a hastily arranged flag meeting during which Kumar's lifeless body and a barely alive Surendran were handed over to the BSF.
The incident revives memories of the slaughter of 16 jawans of the BSF by the BDR on April 18, 2001. Then, Bangladeshi civilians had trapped the BSF jawans into crossing the India-Bangladesh border in Meghalaya. BDR personnel then killed them in cold blood.
The UPA Government is yet to take note of Saturday's incident; even if cursory note, apart from the routine protest lodged by the Indian High Commission in Dhaka, has been taken by the Ministry of External Affairs, it has been drowned by the sound and din of Gen Pervez Musharraf's visit. In 2001, the NDA Government had let the slaughter pass because it did not want to "upset a friendly Government" - then headed by Sheikh Hasina Wajed.
Truce along the India-Bangladeshi border is extremely uneasy at the best of times, with the BDR often resorting to unprovoked firing with the purpose of either stalling work on border fencing or distracting BSF personnel so that illegal immigrants, at times scores of families, can sneak across.
In the past couple of months, the BDR has resorted to heavy firing on five occasions along the 856-km stretch in Tripura of India's 4,095 km border with Bangladesh. Tripura is one of the major entry points of Bangladeshi immigrants.
Ironically, Saturday's incident occurred while BSF Director General RS Mooshahary was in Dhaka, attending a high-level meeting with BDR Chief Maj. Gen Jehangir Alam Chowdhury to work out the modalities of better border management and coordinated patrolling.
Although Prime Minister Manmohan Singh refused to attend the 13th SAARC summit in Dhaka, scheduled for early February this year, citing Bangladesh's deteriorating law and order problem as one of the reasons, the UPA Government has been extremely lethargic in confronting the problems India faces from its increasingly belligerent eastern neighbour: illegal immigration, sanctuary for separatists and export of Islamists.
This despite the Supreme Court repeatedly issuing notices to the Union Government on steps being taken to tackle the burgeoning problem of illegal immigration from Bangladesh. Last week, seven non-BJP Chief Ministers, including those from North-Eastern states, Left Front-ruled West Bengal and Congress-ruled Maharashtra, voiced concern over illegal immigration at the Chief Ministers' conference on internal security.
With all attention focused on Pakistan, the silence on Bangladesh maintained by successive Union Governments has only emboldened Dhaka. Begum Khaleda Zia's regime knows that India will not protest, not even with a rap on the knuckles. Therefore, BDR can kill BSF personnel with impunity, secure in the knowledge there shall be no punishment for their crime.
The widow and three-year-old daughter of Assistant Commandant Jeevan Kumar in distant Ranchi are of little concern in imperial Delhi.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
BSF officer dragged into Bangla, killed<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Kumar went to the zero line to secure Palâs release but was encircled by BDR men who dragged him away. Recalling the incident, one of Kumarâs colleagues said: ââHe was stripped and brutally beaten. They even struck him with an axe before shooting him. You could make it out from the injuries on his back. The body was later thrown near the border.ââ
Kumarâs father Shashi Bushan Sinha, who retired as a professor from Ranchi universityâs economics department, was inconsolable: ââMy son is gone, now I will have to take care of Aditi, his daughter. She was born just three months ago. When he last came home, he wouldnât let go of her.ââ<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<b>BDR killed our man for bottle of syrup: BSF</b><!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->BSF sources are now saying that a cheap cough syrup that is widely abused by drug addicts in Bangladesh could have led to the brutal killing of the young BSF officer.
Sources on condition of anonymity have told Indiatimes News Network that local smugglers and the BDR were angered by the efforts of the BSF officer to curb the smuggling of the syrup across the border.
The BSF alleges that local BDR officers actively support local gangs who smuggle a wide spectrum of narctoics and drugs, including bottles of Phensidyl, into Bangladesh.
Phensidyl contains codeine, an opium extraction. Under the Drug Ordinance of 1982, the Bangladesh Government had banned the product from the import list, but is smuggled into Bangladesh as an alternative to more expensive narcotics.
A powerful smuggling lobby along the Indo-Bangladesh border<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<img src='http://www.telegraphindia.com/1050419/images/19Arjun.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' />
Chief minister Arjun Munda pays his respects to slain BSF official Jeevan Sinha in Ranchi.
I guess our leadership will wait for few decades before the situation goes out of hand just like Kashmir and then start negotiating with bangaldesh for the sake of peace.
<b>Meanwhile, In The East </b>
Bangladesh conducts mock exercises...a new flank? Updates
SAIKAT DATTA
On April 24, Assam Governor Lt General Ajai Singh wrote to the PMO about a fresh wave of reports emanating out of Bangladesh indicating a security threat to India's Northeast region. In his letter, Ajai Singh noted that "there is cause for concern" and that it needed to be looked at closely and action taken at the earliest. In fact, he was reiterating concerns expressed by his predecessor Lieutenant General S.K. Sinha (retd) before he moved to Jammu and Kashmir.
Singh also pointed at fresh reports indicating that new fundamentalist groups were emerging which could pose a serious threat to the Northeast, particularly the sensitive Siliguri corridor which links the region to mainland India.
Assam Governor Ajai Singh has warned the PMO of the security threat to India's Northeast region.
In fact, Singh's letter corroborates inputs provided by security agencies and an army assessment. It is not as if Bangladesh is preparing to wage war with India. But the army has it that Bangladesh army is preparing for low-intensity conflicts in which it would lend a covert hand to insurgent groups in the region.
What has caused concern among Indian security agencies is a document showing the Bangladesh army (BA) conducting an exercise called Ex-Destranor-17, a mock unconventional warfare "behind enemy lines" supported by conventional logistic support. Conducted under the 66 Infantry Division of the BA, it happened "2.5 km inside enemy territory with conventional logistic support" and with "support from local population assuming that not all of them are friendly". The exercise was conducted from April 15 to 23 last year and troops were drawn from the 16th, 72nd and 222nd infantry brigades. The lessons from it have now been factored in.
<b>South Block sources say the army top brass has also expressed concerns about the BA's move to improve its offensive capabilities</b>. Reports have been received that the BA has raised seven new armoured regiments to be used in a purely offensive role. In fact, worried about the vulnerability of the Siliguri corridor, the army recently moved some of its formations deployed in Jammu and Kashmir during Operation Parakram to the region.
An Indian army assessment has also pointed to the renewed activities of several fundamentalist organisations in Bangladesh and their impact on the region's overall security. Among others, the report names Jamaat-e-Islami and Islamic Chhatra Shibir, organisations which have maintained an anti-India stance. However, the emergence of new organisations like Jagrata Muslim Janata BD, the assessment says, is cause for worry. <b>While the Jamaat-e-Islami is a part of the four-party alliance in Bangladesh, other bodies like the Harkat-ul-Jihadi-al-Islami have also made Indian intelligence agencies see red.</b> The assessment notes that its activities in areas bordering West Bengal and Assam are cause for worry. According to the report, the organisation has now changed its name to Islamic Samaj Kalyan Parishad with a youth wing called the Jamat-ul-Mujahideen.
While India is watching the ongoing developments within Bangladesh, analysts say the continuing illegal immigration can no longer be ignored. "There are reports that all long-term perspective plans drawn up by the Bangladesh Army look at India as their area of concern which is worrying," says a senior army official.
The Border Security Force has also raised the issue of illegal immigration with its counterpart, the Bangladesh Rifles, in several meetings. While Bangladesh has maintained that there is no illegal immigration, the bsf has pointed out that several terrorist groups operating against India are based in Bangladesh.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->I guess our leadership will wait for few decades before the situation goes out of hand just like Kashmir and then start negotiating with bangaldesh for the sake of peace.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It is already out of hand. These BDies are crawling in every single town in India.
<b>Savagery Repeated on Indo-Bangladesh Border </b>
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The Indo-Bangladesh border is far from being calm. The BSF chief has himself stated that the core issues like handing over Indian militant leaders taking shelter in Bangladesh, destroying militant camps, and checking illegal migration from across the border, have not been resolved in the meeting that took place at Dhaka recently. Both sides have merely agreed that these issues would be discussed at the next meeting that would take place after six months in New Delhi. Hence, the issues that have bedeviled the bilateral relationship still remain intact. Moreover, the fencing work and patrolling of BSF along the border especially after the increasing tension between the two neighbours has threatened to disrupt the economy based on smuggling. This is not to the liking of Bangladeshi sides. India must take up this issue at appropriate level so that such incidents are not repeated. Besides, the other side should also not feel that they can get away with their heinous acts time and again. We can not leave our security personals who are guarding our borders defenseless.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>People chase Bâdeshis from Assam</b>
IANS/ Guwahati
Hundreds of suspected Bangladeshi migrant workers fled an Assamese city following threats, from an unidentified group, asking locals not to employ "illegal foreigners". "Maybe a few hundred suspected Bangladeshi nationals, working in brick kilns and doing menial jobs, have fled Dibrugarh town, during the last few days<b>," Assam Inspector General of Police Khagen Sharma told IANS."We are not sure where they have gone," </b>he added.
For the past fortnight, an unidentified group in Dibrugarh district, 490 km from Guwahati, has been circulating leaflets and sending messages on mobile telephones warning "all illegal Bangladeshi nationals" to leave Assam or face action. <b>"Let's take an oath... no job, no food, no shelter to any Bangladeshi. Start a complete economic blockade against the illegal immigrants,"</b> read a leaflet, doing the rounds in Dibrugarh.
Police in Dibrugarh said many brick kilns in the district have since closed down, and there is a crisis for commuters in the city, because cycle rickshaws have gone off the roads, due to manpower shortage. "Many of those who fled were working in brick kilns or pulling rickshaws," Dibrugarh district police chief P.C. Saloi said over the phone. "We have heard about messages asking Bangladeshis to leave. This is a social action and we do not like to comment on this," Home Secretary V.K. Duggal told journalists in Guwahati. "We are continuing to erect quality barbed fencings along the border, to prevent illegal infiltration, and at the same time using legal and judicial measures to deport Bangladeshi settlers from here<b>." Assam shares a 272 km border with Bangladesh, a vast stretch remains unfenced.</b>
India often claims that large-scale infiltration from across the border was threatening the region's demographic profile. Workers who cross into Assam from Bangladesh are employed in road and construction companies because they provide cheap labour. There are no official estimates as to the actual number of Bangladeshi migrants residing in Assam although Governor Ajai Singh has reportedly said that up to <b>6,000 illegal infiltrators enter the state daily </b><!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Pioneer
[/QUOTE][QUOTE]<b>Danger from east</b>
SirâThis refers to your editorial, âAlien poisonâ (May 23). Like true nationalists, you have done well to highlight the dangers of illegal infiltration of migrants from Bangladesh into Assam. This has led to a change in the demography of the State and is likely to jeopardise the security of the country. But our selfish politicians could not care less as long as the illegal immigrants keep adding to their Muslim vote-bank. It may be recalled that Assam was claimed by Jinnah as a part of Pakistan. During the early 1940s, a Muslim League Ministry headed by Muhammed Saadulla (who later helped in framing the Constitution of secular India as member of the Constituent Assembly) opened the doors of Assam to lakhs of Bengali Muslims. After his visit to Assam, Khaliquzzaman, a Muslim leader, reported to Jinnah that Assam would soon become a Muslim-majority province. The Viceroy, Lord Wavell, after his visit to the State during the Bengal famine, wrote in his diary, âThe chief political problem in Assam is the desire of Muslim ministers to increase immigration into the uncultivated government lands under the slogan, âgrow more foodâ, but what they are really after is âgrow more Muslimsâ.â However, the ambition of the Muslim League remained unrealised because independence and Partition came sooner than expected. This unfinished agenda is being brought to its logical conclusion by the Congress Government of Assam. What is beyond comprehension is why the NDA Government led by the BJP in all the six years of its rule did nothing about the swelling Bangladeshi population in India. Not a single Bangladeshi infiltrator was deported by them. This is one reason among others why people have lost faith in the BJP.
HD Sharma
THE most densely populated of the world's big countries, Bangladesh is also among the most sparsely covered by the international press. This is in part the government's choice: it makes it hard for foreign journalists to visit. When they do, it tends not to like what they write, especially recent suggestions that Bangladesh is witnessing a rise in Islamic extremism, and becoming a haven for international terrorists. The government is right that claims of âTalibanisationâ are exaggerated. Bangladesh remains a relatively liberal and tolerant place. But it is becoming less so, and that is a concern.
Rich-country diplomats say that whereas, three years ago, their main focus was on economic development, it is now on defending democracy. Later this year, a number of such countries, who meet informally in Dhaka as âthe Tuesday groupâ, are planning to hold a conference on the conduct of free and fair elections.
The BNP is the ruling party in Bangladeshâs government. The main opposition is the Awami League in partnership with smaller parties such as Jamaat-e-Islami. World Audit has information and links on democracy in Bangladesh. Odhikar is a Bangladeshi human-rights group.
This is the burning issue in Bangladesh. Elections are due next year. Already, the main opposition, the Awami League, led by Sheikh Hasina Wajed, is threatening a boycott, alleging government attempts to rig the pollâthis despite Bangladesh's unique system of conducting ballots under the eye of a supposedly neutral caretaker government. A boycott would formalise the deadlock between the League and the Bangladesh National Party (BNP) of Khaleda Zia, the prime minister. It is the bitterness and lack of trust between these two women and their parties that has hijacked the democratic process, and encouraged the growth of extremism.
The government says that if the League were to boycott the election, it would do so merely in fear of defeat. A recent poll has suggested the BNP might indeed winâin part because of the popularity of a brutal campaign against alleged criminals. Odhikar, a human-rights group, claims that 168 such people have been killed by security forces, âin crossfireâ, in the first five months of 2005.
The Awami League is justifiably suspicious of the government. In August last year, 23 people were killed at one of its rallies in Dhaka in a grenade attack. Sheikh Hasina herself was lucky to survive. In January this year, another party leader, Shah A.M.S. Kibria, a former finance minister, was also killed in a grenade attack. A number of people, including members of the BNP, were arrested for Mr Kibria's murder. But no one has been charged for the earlier crime.
These spectacular attacks are only the most visible symptoms of the disease: endemic political violence, in which both big parties are implicated. Local heavies act as their enforcers, in return for protection from politicians with sway in the police and judiciary. Odhikar reports that 526 people died in political violence last year.
The League says the BNP is hostage to two of its three junior coalition partners, Jamaat-e-Islami and the smaller Islamic Oika Jote (IOJ), both Islamic parties. It says that the BNP turns a blind eye to violence by Islamic extremists, and to all sorts of encroachments on Bangladesh's traditional tolerance.
Take the fate of Bangladesh's Ahmediya minority, who number some 100,000 out of a population of about 140m. Regarded as apostates by some Muslims, many have in the past 18 months been victims of a campaign of discrimination, expropriation and violence, documented in a report published this week by Human Rights Watch, a lobbying group. In January last year, at the insistence of the IOJ, the government banned Ahmediya publications. The law minister, Moudud Ahmed, concedes this was âa big mistakeâ, and says that the ban will be overturned in the courts.
There are also concerns that women are under pressure to wear the veil, that some traditional entertainment is being suppressed, and at the spread of Islamic schools teaching purely religious doctrine. But there are many forces in Bangladesh beside Islamism. The economy has been growing at a steady 4-6% a year for a decade. Bangladesh does much better than India, for example, in educating girls, and the success of microcredit lending is giving women improved status and income.
The BNP's Mr Ahmed insists the party leads a âcentrist, slightly rightâ government. Jamaat's leader, Motiur Rahman Nizami, the industry minister, describes his party's main objective as âa welfare state based on the moral and social values of our religionâ, but says it will pursue this through democratic politics. Jamaat's student wing, however, known as Shibir, has a history of violence, and Jamaat's opponents claim it has links with terrorist groups. Of these the most notorious is the Jagroto Muslim Janata, led by a thug known as Bangla Bhai, once a Shibir activist. Despite claiming Islamic credentials, and reports (which he has denied) that he once fought for the Taliban in Afghanistan, Bangla Bhai seems more like a gangster, engaged in a local power struggle.
Foreign diplomats say outfits like Bangla Bhai's do have links to international Islamic groups, but that they are not extensive. Of greater concern is the attitude of the BNP government: at first utter denial that the Islamists even existed; then, since February, when it banned the group, a half-hearted effort to eradicate it. India faces similar denials when it takes Bangladesh to task for allegedly harbouring some of the many separatist groups fighting in India's north-east. Even Manmohan Singh, India's mild-mannered prime minister, is exasperated: âWe can choose our friends,â he commented recently, âbut we cannot choose our neighbours.â
Bangladesh will be an even less attractive neighbour if the election leads to the breakdown of the political system, and, such is the animosity between the two big parties, this is possible. As it is, the judiciary and parliament are weak and dysfunctional. Neither party has a real interest in building strong checks on executive power. So elections become winner-takes-all contests. The biggest loser could be the country.
Air Force | Bangladesh | Intelligence Reports | North East
28 June 2005: Repeated violation of Indian airspace by Bangladeshâs defence helicopters might persuade the defence ministry to consider establishing an air force base or station in Tripura. Sources said security agencies have been analysing the situation since the latest incursion inside Sabroom subdivision in south Tripura on Sunday.
Bangladesh army helicopters have made sorties inside the state on two occasions since April this year amid strained relations between the two countries caused by the killing of a BSF assistant commandant by the Bangladesh Rifles, and BDR firing on the Lankamura frontier near here. There were border skirmishes and tension in the past, but never before had Bangladesh violated Indian airspace.
Tripuraâs nearest air force base is in Shillong, which is also headquarters of the Eastern Air Command. Other bases in the region are located in Upper Assam. On the other hand, Bangladesh has air force bases in Chittagong, Cox Bazar in the southeast, and Sylhet in the northeast of the country. These bases are closest to Tripura of all the North East states.
The Lashkar-e-Toiba decided to shift terror operations from Jammu and Kashmir to states in the interior in December 2004, and the Ayodhya attack was planned with weapons delivered from Nepal and the terrorists infiltrating from Bangladesh.
The Lashkar-e-Toiba decided to shift terror operations from Jammu and Kashmir to states in the interior in December 2004, and the Ayodhya attack was planned with weapons delivered from Nepal and the terrorists infiltrating from Bangladesh.
Officials said that the government has not officially taken up with Bangladesh the use of its soil by the LeT for the Ayodhya attack and other terror activities in India, since the Lashkar build up in that country is only now becoming visible, and more evidence is being collected to nail the Khalida Zia government as an accomplice in jihadi violence.
Since being first noticed in year 2002, when the LeT organised a rally in Dhaka where the Bangladesh prime ministerâs elder son, Tareq Rahman, was a key speaker, the Lashkar has grown to having twenty-seven offices in Dhaka district, and sixteen of them are near the main university campus.
Officials said that students are routinely asked to join evening prayers in the LeT offices, with promises of financial assistance for higher education in the West, even girls and women are being recruited as cadres, while middle-aged men have been offered jobs in the Middle East.
LeT plans include opening more madrasas, establishing NGOs to spread the teachings of Islam, but officials warn that the Wahabi Lashkar leadership could soon confront the Deobandi Jamaat-e-Islami, the powerful fundamentalist party which is allied with the Khalida Zia government, but there is an uneasy truce between the two sides for the moment.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The world can't afford Bangladesh's going Taliban
By Charles Tannock
Commentary by
Thursday, July 21, 2005
[From: Daily Star (Beirut)]
Is Bangladesh headed into the black hole that consumed Afghanistan
under the Taliban? Fears are mounting, as official and fundamentalist
religious forces now seem to operate with impunity - and the apparent
support of local police, the ruling Bangladeshi National Party (BNP),
and local authorities.
For many years Bangladesh was an exception in the Islamic world,
pursuing an independent course in a peaceful, secular and democratic
fashion. Traditionally, under Bengali Sufi mystical teachings, the
majority Muslim population lived peacefully with other religions, and
Bangladesh had a good record on education and civil rights for women.
Until recently, Muslim fundamentalists were discredited, because
militias such as "Al-Badr" and "Razakar" had supported atrocities
against civilians during the civil war of 1971.
That began to change in 2001, when Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia,
the widow of the assassinated military strongman General Zia,
replaced secularism in the Constitution with the "Sovereignty of
Allah." Encouraged by this change, the BNP's junior coalition
partner, Jamaat-e-Islami, which has links with the militias and
remains close to Pakistan, has been calling for imposition of Sharia,
or Islamic law.
The BNP appears to view religious extremism as a tool to break the
power of the opposition Awami League, which is largely supported by
the secular and urban middle classes. Similarly, the massive rise in
the number of madrassas, or religious schools, financed by Saudi and
Gulf money - totaling roughly 64,000 and operating under the same
fundamentalist Deobandi Islam that inspired the Taliban - is part of
a clear effort to change Bangladesh's culture of religious tolerance.
The danger inherent in Bangladesh's course is very real. Indian
intelligence officials allege that the leader of a BNP coalition
partner, Mufti Fazlul Haq Amini, maintains ties to the banned armed
Islamist group, Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami, or Huji, which in turn is
allegedly linked to Al-Qaeda. In 1999, Huji members attempted to
assassinate the moderate poet Shamshur Rahman with an axe. Forty-four
Huji members were arrested, two of whom claimed to have been sent
from South Africa and Pakistan by Osama bin Laden to distribute money
to the extremist madrassas.
Bangladeshi migrant workers in the Gulf states who return home imbued
with radical Wahhabi and Salafi teachings fan the fires even more.
Competing for influence among radical Islamist leaders in
northwestern Bangladesh is Bangla Bhai, who in 2004 attempted an
Islamist revolution in several provinces bordering India. Supported
by local police and 10,000 followers, the rebellion ended only after
a government crackdown.
The NGO Taskforce against Torture has documented over 500 cases of
torture and intimidation by radical Islamists, who also have murdered
supporters of the Communist Party, such as Abdel-Kayyam Badshah.
Indeed, Hindus, Christians and Buddhists have been targeted as well,
and religious extremists more recently have attacked Sufi shrines
deemed to be idolatrous, and even Bengali cultural events that unite
all religions in a common identity.
For example, during Ramadan prayers in October 2004, a mob of a 1,000
people razed a mosque of the Ahmadiyya Muslim community. The 100,000
members of this Muslim sect, which believes that Mohammad was not the
last prophet, have been declared infidels. The government outlawed
their publications until the ban was reversed by the Bangladeshi High
Court. Hindus, Ahmadiyyas, and tribal people in the Chittagong hills,
fearful for their safety, have been leaving the country in droves.
The atmosphere of violence is palpable in other ways. Sheikh Hasina,
the Awami League's leader and the daughter of Bangladesh's founding
father, survived a grenade attack last summer that killed at least 20
people and injured hundreds more. The killers have never been
apprehended. Britain's High Commissioner in Bangladesh was wounded in
a similar bomb attack this May.
To their credit - albeit under pressure from donor countries - the
Bengali authorities seem to sense that their country is drifting
toward becoming a failed state and are making greater efforts to
arrest Islamist killers, despite some of them being part of the
ruling coalition. Two radical Islamist groups have also been banned.
But piecemeal arrests will not be enough to reverse the drift if a
culture of intolerance is allowed to fester.
One encouraging note is that annual economic growth has been a steady
5 percent for the past few years. But now many Bangladeshis fear for
their livelihoods, owing to unlimited Chinese textile imports
following the end of quotas last year. Economic deterioration in
Bangladesh would only worsen inter-communal tensions and provide a
fertile breeding ground for jihadists. However, the reforms needed to
head off decline are often blocked by political infighting and
opposition boycotts.
The world cannot afford a second Afghanistan in Bangladesh, where
Huji members are believed to have given sanctuary to many Taliban
fighters after the fall of their regime. Pressure from India will not
be enough to force the Bengali government to adhere to the tolerant
form of Islam that the country pursued during its first three decades
of independence. All of Asia's powers, including China and Japan,
will have to play a part in stopping Bangladesh's drift into
fanaticism and chaos. The rest of the world should support them
before it is too late.
Charles Tannock is vice president of the human rights subcommittee of
the European Parliament. THE DAILY STAR publishes this commentary in
collaboration with Project Syndicate (www.project-syndicate.org).
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->SILENT GENOCIDE IN THE CHITTAGONG HILL TRACTS
26 July 2005
Despite commitments made in the 1997 CHT Accord for demilitarization of the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) and lifting the military rule from the region, officials of the Bangladesh military intelligence agency, Directorate General of Field Intelligence (DGFI), in yet another arrogant and unlawful interference in the affairs of the CHT Regional Council raided the official quarter of the CHT Regional Council chairman Jyotirindra Bodhipriyo Larma on 13 July evening.
Mr. Larma, who is also president of the Parbatya Chattagram Jana Samhati Samiti (PCJSS), the political organization representing the Jumma indigenous people, enjoys the status of a deputy minister in Bangladesh.
During this operation the police cordoned the entire Kalyanpur area in Rangamati town housing the official residence of the Jumma indigenous leader.
The DGFI officials aided by police Sub-Inspector Asifur Rahman, Sub-Inspector Asif Elahi and Sub-Inspector Mohan Lal entered the compound of the quarter of the chairman ignoring the security warning of the police guards on duty and threatened the leaders of CHT permanent Bengali residents who came to meet him.
The area was de-cordoned after one and half hour. The PCJSS protested the raid and demanded punitive action against the officials involved.
In another case, on 14 June, the military of the Rangamati Brigade led by Captain Ferdous harassed and tortured 18 leaders of the CHT Permanent Bengali Residents Welfare Council for their support to the CHT Accord and distance from the Sama Adhikar Andolan, an organization floated by Bengali settler leader and M.P. Mohammad Abdul Wadud Bhuiyan and military authorities with an objective of settlement of Bengali settlers in the CHT which opposes and undermines the Accord and its implementation. Among the victims of torture, Md. Azam Ali Azam was seriously injured. He was arrested on a false charge on 17 June at 1.00 a.m. while he was under treatment in Rangamati Hospital.
Bangladesh military authorities have been putting tremendous pressure on the leaders of the CHT Permanent Bengali Residents Welfare Council to dissolve and close their organization and follow the track of the Sama Adhikar Andolan. They also allegedly instructed them not to maintain any relations with the chairman of the CHT Regional Council with threat to face dire consequences if they fail to respect the instruction.
The 13 July raid is a calculated political move of the BNP-led four-party coalition to intimidate Mr. Larma to resign from the CHT Regional Council so that body could be reconstituted with ruling party-workers and Islamic radicals in line with the three Hill District Councils of the CHT.
The CHT Regional Council predominantly formed with PCJSS leaders, who signed the CHT Accord with the former Awami League government, has been a stumbling block to the government policy of settlement of Bengali settlers in lands and territories traditionally owned and controlled by Jumma indigenous people. This policy thought out by the first prime minister of independent Bangladesh Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in the early 1970s and persistently executed by his two successive military regimes headed by Major General Ziaur Rahman (1975 - 1981) and Lt. General H. M Ershad (1982- 1990) encourages cleansing of the indigenous people through demographic invasion, forcible confiscation of indigenous lands and dislocation of indigenous people, militarization and atrocities, religious persecution and imposition of Islam and Bengali cultural values on the indigenous people. Under this policy, the CHT was converted into a virtual cantonment of Bangladesh military with 80,000 troops, 25,000 BDR (Bangladesh Rifles = a paramilitary force) personnel, 8,000 Answars (Islamic Guards) and 1,500 navy servicemen (source: The Report of the Chittagong Hill Tracts Commission: "LIFE IS NOT OURS" Land and Human Rights in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bangladesh, P. 14, 1991, Amsterdam ) and settlements of over 400,000 Bengali settlers surrounded by hundreds of mosques and madrasas (Islamic schools) in the late 1970s and early 1980s. As a result, more than 15,000 Jummas including Buddhist monks were killed, hundreds of Jumma women were mass raped, hundreds of sacred religious sites (Buddhist monasteries and Hindu temples and Christian churches) of the Jumma people were set ablaze, nearly 120,000 Jummas were forced to leave their homeland and take shelter as refugee in India in the 1980s and early 1990s and 98,208 Jumma families (source: Task Force Report 2000) were displaced within the CHT.
The state-sponsored demographic invasion led to the sharp increase in the Bengali population in the CHT from nearly 2% in 1947 to 49% in 1991 (source: Census Report 1991. Some indigenous sources, however, say that this figure is highly manipulated. The Bengalis constitute more than 60% of the current CHT population, they claim). It has completely changed the demography and social fabric of the CHT.
After the 1997 CHT Accord, the in-migration of Bengalis from plain areas into the Hill districts with support from the government and state-machineries has accelerated to an alarming proportion, and now it is a continuous process threatening the identity and survival of the Jumma indigenous people.
<b>The government of Bangladesh is carrying out a systematic ethnic cleansing campaign â a silent genocide -- against the defenseless indigenous people of the CHT without any challenge from the international community and media!!!</b>
Peace Campaign Group (PCG)
RZ-I-91/211, West Sagarpur, New Delhi-110046, India
Telefax: + 91-11-2 539 4277
E-mail: pcgoffice@..., pcgoffice@...
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Peace Campaign Group: A New Delhi-based human rights organization of the Jumma indigenous people of the CHT. It has been working for democracy, human rights, and peace in the CHT since 1994. There are more than 200,000 Jummas, mostly Chakmas in India. They migrated from the CHT to India due to political and economic reasons in 1947 and in the early 1960s<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
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