Suffering of Jumma tribes continues 20
years after peace accord
Jumma villagers flee
from an attack, Chittagong Hill Tracts,
Bangladesh
© Anonymous On
the 20th anniversary of the peace accord between
the
Jumma tribal peoples and the Bangladesh
government, campaigners have raised concerns that
successive Bangladeshi administrations have failed
to implement this vital agreement, or protect the
Jumma.
The
tribe continue to face endemic violence,
land-grabbing and intimidation on their
ancestral land in the Chittagong Hill Tracts
(CHT). Jumma women and
girls are frequently subjected to rape and sexual
assault.
The
Bangladesh government has been moving Bengali
settlers onto the lands of the Jumma tribal people
for more than 60 years. The Jummas have gone from
being practically the sole inhabitants of the Hill
Tracts to now being outnumbered by settlers.
In
June this year, at least 250 houses belonging to
Jummas were burnt to the ground by Bengali
settlers. An elderly woman, Guna Mala Chakma, was
trapped in her home and burned to death.
Eyewitnesses
report that army and police personnel stood by and
did nothing as settlers set fire to Jumma houses
and shops in three different villages.
On
2 December 1997 the government and the Jummas
signed a peace accord that committed the
government to removing military camps from the
region and to ending the theft of Jumma land by
settlers and the army.
The
accord offered hope, but twenty years on military
camps remain in the Hill Tracts and violence and
land grabbing continue unabated.
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this online: http://www.survivalinternational.org/news/11873
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