by BHUMITRA CHAKMA
The continued violence in the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh is rooted in the state’s policy of erasing the ethnic identity of the indigenous people and usurping their land for settling Bengali-speaking populations. In this, Bangladesh has followed the same policy as Pakistan and used the army and state machinery to suppress and evict the local people from their land and livelihoods. Unless the structural roots of this violence are addressed by the Bangladesh state, the cycle of violence will not end.
Table 1: Massacres in the Chittagong Hill Tracts
Place Date Number of Dead
Mubachari 15 October 1979 Number unknown
Kaukhali-Kalampati massacre 25 March 1980 200-300
Barkal massacre 31 May 1984 110
Panchari massacre 1 May 1986 Number unknown
Matiranga massacre May 1986 70
Commillatilla/Taindong massacre 18-19 May 1986 200
Hirachar, Sarbotoli, Khagrachari, Pablakhali massacres 8-10 August 1988 over 100
Longudu massacre 4 May 1989 over 30
Malya massacre 2 February 1992 30
Logang massacre 10 April 1992 138
Naniarchar massacre 17 November 1993 100
Sources: Compiled from various sources, including The CHT Commission (1997, 2000), Life is Not Ours: Land and Human Rights in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bangladesh, The report of the Chittagong Hill Tracts Commission; Amnesty International (1986), Bangladesh: Unlawful Killings and Torture in the Chittagong Hill Tracts; Mohsin (1999), The Politics of Nationalism.
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