BANGLADESH IMPERIALISM

To the Editor:

Your October 24 article on the war between Bangladesh and the Chittagong Hill Tract nations brought to light this little-known conflict but only hinted at the reasons for the fighting, refugees, torture, massacres and genocide.

As depicted, "the root of the problem... is overpopulation." Bangladesh has the world's eighth most populous country with 104 million people packed into an area the size of Nicaragua (3.3m).

Seeking land, Bengali farmers have moved into the chittagong Hill Tracts but "the problem is that these hills... are claimed by a group of 500,000 indigenous tribespeople..." who "have taken up arms to fight back". Overpopulation may lead some day to armed conflicts as many political and military analysts argue, but before viewing this one simply as a population war, it is necessary to look through the other end of the telescope at the history and geography behind the fighting.

The 13 indigenous nations that make up the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) have never renounced their sovereignty or territory to Dhaka by vote, sale, treaty or defeat. Bangladesh has invaded this country and is trying to annex it by moving in its own people backed by a large occupation army. This is similar to invasions elsewhere such as China and Tibet, Ethiopia and Eritrea, Morocco and Western Sahara, Indonesia and West Papua and East Timor, and Nicaragua and Wan Tasbaia.

Bangladesh has 2.8 million more people every year but in 20 years has moved less than one percent of the net increase -- 400,000 -- to the El Salvador-size Chittagong Hill Tracts. Rather than a small number of land-hungry Bengalis, this is a large invasion force that contains 80,000 from the Bangladesh Army (24th Infantry Division), 25,000 in the paramilitary Bangladesh Rifles Sector, 10,000 police, and many of the Bengali farmers are armed. Dhaka is bent on annexing the CHT, nor for extra land for poor farmers, but for hydroelectric power, lumber and minerals, and to extend state hegemony through militarization, Bengalization, and Islamization of indigenous nations located between Muslim Bangladesh and Hindu India.

The British recognized the area as an autonomous indigenous region with the enactment of the Chittagong Hill Tracts Regulation in 1900. The British promised that Chittagong autonomy and continued independence would be recognized with the Independence of India. Instead, the British "granted" the non-Muslim CHT and peoples to newly-independent Pakistan in 1947 by way of "Radcliff Award". The Chakma, Mro, Marma and other indigenous peoples were not participants in the paper transfer and don't recognize the legitimacy of the "Award". The CHT peoples have rejected all foreign territorial claims to their nations: Britain, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

All CHT nations have resisted the invasions. With more than 400,000 people (equivalent to 20 percent of the world's recognized states) the Chakmas have carried the brunt of the defense and the savage reprisals. The Bengali occupation army cannot catch the Shanti Bahini resistance fighters so they have aimed at civilians.

The Bengali army and Bengali paramilitary farmers are responsible for widespread and arbitrary murders, massacres, rapes, wholesale torture, destruction of crops, villages, homes and Buddhist temples. Another army crackdown beginning April 30 forced another 10,000 refugees to flee across the border to India. More than 15,000 people have been arbitrarily arrested and detained (almost as many as in South Africa). These massive human rights violations have been documented by Amnesty International, the Anti-Slavery Society, Survival International, Cultural Survival, International Working Group on Indigenous Affairs, and the Fourth World Journal.

This is not an overpopulation problem, this is a genocide problem. The indigenous Chittagong nations are being subjected to a systematic extermination because they are Chakma and Mro and not Bengali, because they are Buddhist and Hindu and Christian and not Muslim, because they have valuable resources in a strategic location, and because they resist the foreign invasion.

In December 1985 a scheduled second round of negotiations with Shanti Bahini resistance leaders was canceled by the Bangladesh government which then sent a new wave of army-backed "settlers" into the Chittagong Hill Tracts. Hungry people are used by Dhaka to annex territory.

This is imperialism Third World-style: first claim one or more resource-rich indigenous nations, then raise an alarm about "secessionists", "national security" and vulnerable borders to get weapons from a developed country, next use overpopulation and "land-hunger" excuses to get development money from the World Bank or another international agency, and, bingo, an all-expenses paid invasion is ready to go. Without this, Bangladesh could not have afforded its 25-year invasion of the Chittagong Hill Tracts.

Sincerely,

Bernard Nietschmann

Professor

[The writer is co-authoring a book about state-nation conflicts which account for most of the world's wars, refugees, genocide and terrorism.]