Disregarding the Jumma

This year, Bangladesh was the subject of heated discussion at the 10th session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII), held 16-27 May. The starting point was a report, commissioned by the UNPFII and written by a former member of the Forum Lars-Anders Baer. Last year, in his post as special rapporteur on the issue, Baer spent time in Bangladesh and subsequently came out with a report exploring the status of implementation of the Chittagong Hill Tracts Accord of 1997. Although the report received statements of solidarity from the delegates, the Dhaka government's response was novel: it refused to acknowledge the existence of any indigenous population in Bangladesh whatsoever.

The UNPFII, established in July 2000, is the first UN forum where indigenous peoples directly represent their own interests. It consists of 16 members, half of whom are nominated by governments and the other half by indigenous communities, and ultimately is tasked with making reports and recommendations, and generally raising awareness about indigenous peoples within the UN system. The members meet once a year for ten working days, at which governments, UN bodies, intergovernmental and non-governmental organisations, and organisations of indigenous peoples participate as observers. In 2010, Devasish Roy, the traditional raja of the Chakma community, was selected as one of the UNPFII's 16 members, representing the Asian region for the period 2011-13. Although indigenous peoples' representatives from Bangladesh have always participated at the UNPFII, this year's meeting was the first time that the CHT Accord has been a focus of the discussion.

In the event, Baer's report was well received by observer governments and international rights organisations, who called on the Dhaka government to speed up the implementation of the CHT Accord. Although a nine-member delegation of the Bangladesh government, including the state minister for CHT affairs, Dipankar Talukdar, and other indigenous members of the Parliament were scheduled to participate in the UNPFII discussion, they all cancelled at the last moment. (Though no official reason was given, it appears that the officials felt they would be cornered at the Forum given the content of Baer's report.) Instead, Iqbal Ahmed, first secretary of the Bangladesh mission to the UN, gave the official response, the thrust of which was that there were no indigenous peoples in Bangladesh and as such the implementation of the Accord was not a suitable topic for discussion at the UNPFII. 'We urge upon the Forum to dedicate its valuable time to discuss issues related to millions of indigenous people all over the world and not waste time on issues politically concocted by some enthusiastic quarters with questionable motives,' Ahmed stated.

Given that one of the UNPFII members present, Raja Devasish Roy, was an indigenous person from Bangladesh, it was rather surprising for Ahmed to take such an approach. Of course, this argument has been used before. Although both Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia have publicly used the word adivasi (indigenous), and many older government laws use the phrase indigenous hill-men, the current government has categorically refused to recognise the existence of indigenous peoples. The Ministry for CHT Affairs has reflected this denial in a memo in which it instructed district-level officials to stop using the terms adivasi or indigenous in government documents. It instead suggested using the word upajati – sub-ethnicity or sub-nation.

Military bias
In its election manifesto during the 2008 polls, the currently ruling Awami League had promised to implement the 1997 CHT Accord in full. Nonetheless, today the Hill Tracts remains a militarised area, where arson attacks against the indigenous populace are frequent. According to some allegations, the security forces, including the army, police and Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB), covertly support these attacks.

So, in the face of such hostility by a government that was initially seen as secular and minority-friendly, the next option for the indigenous population has been to take their issues to the international community. 'It is important to bear in mind the asymmetry in the status of the two parties to an accord: the state party and the non-state party,' Roy said in response to the government's statement. 'If the state reneges on its promises, what can the non-state party do but approach the United Nations? The Permanent Forum is mandated to deal with issues of indigenous peoples, irrespective of terms the governments use to refer to their indigenous peoples: "tribes" or "ethnic minorities" or otherwise.'

In his statement, Iqbal Ahmed objected to two specific recommendations made by Special Rapporteur Baer's report, calling them 'out of context'. Both of these were with regards to the peacekeeping forces that Bangladesh contributes to the UN: that the UN's Department of Peacekeeping Operations 'develop a mechanism to strictly monitor and screen the human rights records of national army personnel prior to allowing them to participate in peacekeeping operations under the auspices of the United Nations' and that it also 'prevent human rights violators and alleged human rights violators within the security forces of Bangladesh from participating in international peacekeeping activities under the auspices of the United Nations'. This could have a large impact on Bangladesh, which currently contributes more peacekeeping troops than any other country – a significant source of both pride and money.

At the same time, however, indigenous peoples in CHT continue to bring allegations against the Bangladesh Army, which stands accused of abetting or tolerating human-rights violations in the area. In February 2010, for instance, settlers burned down more than 400 homes of indigenous people, with army personnel in the area allegedly working as a 'shield' to protect the settlers. Non-cooperation from the government meant that no independent investigations were conducted into this case. In addition, the army is accused of displacing indigenous people from their lands to increase requisitioned land for military garrisons in the CHT. The CHT Accord includes agreement to dismantle all temporary military camps, apart from the six designated cantonments, in addition to forming a Land Commission to resolve all related disputes. In its current form, however, the Land Commission and its chairperson, Khademul Islam Chowdhury, stand accused of blatant pro-Bengali bias.

Meanwhile, time is quickly running out for the implementation of the Accord during the tenure of the current Awami League government. The UNPFII has provided the Jumma – the collective name for the indigenous hill peoples in the CHT – with a platform to reach out to the rest of the world and try to pressure the government to implement the 1997 agreement. But first, Dhaka needs to recognise why the internationalisation of this issue has taken place in the first place: its own failure to take concrete steps to execute the clauses of the 14-year-old Accord, and its continued anti-indigenous-peoples attitude. Nothing could more potently underline this second point than the government's outrageous current gambit of refusing to admit to the existence of Bangladesh's indigenous population in the first place.

~ Hana Shams Ahmed is a writer based in Dhaka.