An English saying goes – beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder. Beholders are none but us, the human beings, who (must) have a mind of openness, impartiality, liberality and diversity in our judgment of everyone and everything that happen to be in a human society. The Law of a human society is different from the Law of the jungle, simply because human beings have appreciation of openness, impartiality, liberality and diversity. Animals of the jungle have no sense of respect, tolerance and appreciation of the beauty that lies in social and religious ethnicity and diversity. Therefore human beings who lack these beautiful humane qualities are no better than animals of the jungle. They are animals in disguised human forms. The insolent reason for human beings not having these beautiful humane qualities is none other than religious extremism – a religion which dictates only in ONE: one religion – Islam, one race – Bangla and one language – Bengali. This ONE-ness as enshrined in the Constitution of Bangladesh under the pseudo name of ‘Peoples’ Republic’ is the root of all the inhumane atrocities like murder, rape, ethnic and religious persecution, forceful land grabbing, looting and arson attacks happening (especially) in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT), the country’s only restive region which is ethnically and religiously diverse. The Jumma indigenous people of CHT are the victims of these atrocities committed by the illegal intruding Bengali Muslim settlers backed by the Bangladesh Islamic Army which is notoriously credited for its numerous coordinated attacks on the innocent lives of the Jumma indigenous people of CHT.

Any foreigner who happens to visit CHT only witnesses the all-pervading presence of this notorious Islamic army which is making the daily lives of the Jumma people hell. Whether this Islamic army’s presence in the CHT is for the betterment of the existential survival of the CHT Jumma indigenous people or not is up to the victimized Jumma indigenous people to answer. It has been and is the case that a country’s citizens feel secure and protected in the presence of the army and police who are democratically and constitutionally entitled to protect and secure the lives and properties of the country’s citizens. A case is here in Thailand’s south where its Buddhist and Muslim citizens want the presence of more troops and police so that a section of Islamic fundamentalists inspired by Islamic fanaticism cannot disrupt the peaceful daily lives of all Thai citizens irrespective of cultures and religions. But why do the CHT Jumma indigenous people want the Bengali Islamic Army (hereafter BIA) to be withdrawn from CHT? Any person with common sense can answer this. The nobility of the BIA deployed in CHT can be assessed from here  where numerous horrific massacres committed by the BIA against the innocent Jumma indigenous people have been recorded. The Bengali Islamic diplomats, Islamic fundamentalists like Mohammed Zainal Abedin and M.B.I. Munshi and like-minded people can deny the injustice being done upon the CHT Jumma people because they are trained to do like that. But they cannot hide the real truth from the eyes of those who are the real victims of Bengali-Islamic chauvinism.

Blaming the Indian RAW for months, and finding no one else to blame for their records of gross human rights violations against the CHT Jumma people and the country’s Hindu/Buddhist/Christian minorities which are the obvious results of Islamic Extremism (= terrorism), fundamentalist writer Mohammed Zainal Abedin in one of his articles titled ‘RAW-sponsored anti-Bangladeshi campaign’ pitifully has started to blame even British, American, European and even Asian lawmakers and human rights activists as ‘stooges’. Mr. Abedin should know that the people whom he has started to blame are not fundamentalists like him. Mr.  Abedin also should know that he can not possibly elevate himself to a status of nobility, rationality and humanity by blaming others when he himself is entangled in Islamophobia. In the article aforementioned, Mr. Abedin invites ‘British lawmakers and MPs’ to Bangladesh to investigate what he calls ‘allegations’ charged against the Government of Bangladesh (GoB) by victimized people. Mr. Abedin, this is exactly what we, the CHT Jumma indigenous people want!!! Why only British lawmakers and MPs? We even have long been demanding UN affiliated impartial and independent investigating teams to come over to Bangladesh and investigate the truth-based allegations. If you are very sure that the GoB and the BIA are innocent and faultless, then there are enough reasons for you to support the cause of the Jumma people when they are demanding an UN affiliated International Peace Keeping Force to be stationed in CHT to monitor the criminal and rubbish activities of the GoB and the Bengali Islamic Army. Unfortunately Mr. Abedin, your Islamic government is at fault, weak and afraid and dares not invite any international impartial and independent investigating teams lest the allegations would turn out to be true and not ‘fake’ and ‘false’ as you think. And if this happens then Bangladesh will die of starvation in weeks without international financial fund.

In the same article Mr. Abedin also proudly says as if he was a high ranking impartial and independent chief of an investigating team “I personally visited some spots whose names and stories of atrocities were flashed in a section of Bangladeshi newspapers. I found no persons of such names living in the locality that were mentioned in the dailies…”

But the naked truth is that people like Mr. Abedin always visit the reported crime spots but unfortunately they cannot find the reality of the reported crimes because they are either the people who commit those crimes or are Islamic fundamentalists assigned to cover the reality of those actual crimes.

In the 1980s when the CHT was in its peak of gross human rights violations, journalists and researchers like Mohammed Zainal Abedin and M.B.I. Munshi perhaps happily slept with their families and relatives saying ‘there is nothing happening in CHT’. But Mr. Abedin and like-minded people should know that in the early 1990s after much international pressures, the Islamic GoB reluctantly agreed for the first and the only time to allow an UN affiliated international impartial and independent investigating team popularly known as ‘The CHT Commission’ to visit CHT. After days of impartial and independent investigations and months of careful scrutinization, the CHT Commission came out with a well-known booklet titled ‘Life is not Ours’. The booklet contains explicit and lavish details of horrific atrocities like extra-judicial and unlawful killings, rapes, tortures, lootings, forceful land grabbing and arson attacks carried out by the illegal Bengali Islamic intruding settlers and the BIA against the innocent helpless Jumma indigenous people. Mr. Abedin, if you really consider yourself a person of humanity and not a fundamentalist then you would most probably shed hot human tears upon reading this booklet containing ‘praising songs’ of your Islamic government. With a clear purpose of not letting the country’s liberal public know the real situation happening in CHT, the Islamic GoB banned the booklet in the country. So most probably Mr. Abedin and others did not have the chance of reading it which is why they are jumping like frogs in a frying pen. Common sense says it that the GoB would not invite a second international human rights commission to come over to Bangladesh because if it does then its image temperature would go down to minus zero. So Mr. Abedin should write something in his own capability. He should know that liberal and practical people do not like to hear the incessant cracking of frogs.

Mr. Abedin and like-minded fanatics cannot play the fool with the innocent lives of the Jumma people. The GoB also should know that desirable peace and development in the CHT cannot be achieved unless and until it changes its hidden Islamic policy of ethnic cleansing and Islamization of CHT. The CHT development board is only a show to the international community because its immediate illegal chairperson was an anti-Jumma corrupted Islamic MP who misused the CHT development fund in settling thousands of new Islamic settlers to CHT, the land of the Jummas. The CHT Jumma indigenous people also do not want to be caged people by showing whom to national and foreign tourists the GoB can earn money under the pretext name of promotion of tourist industry in the CHT. The CHT Jumma people are not zoo animals to be shown to others. They are human beings who have fought, are fighting and will continue to fight for their existential survival, distinct ethnic and religious identities and self-determination and their struggle is a resistance against intruding Bengali Islamic settlers to CHT.

After enduring years of oppression and persecution at the hand of the GoB, the peace loving Jumma people have waited for nine long years hoping that the vital clauses of the much applauded Peace Accord would soon be implemented. The Jumma people have now become impatient. Yet there is enough time for the GoB to solve the CHT problem today or tomorrow in a peaceful manner in accordance with the wishes of the Jumma people. Else the poverty stricken country should get ready to witness a second Jumma uprising in the green hills. Mr. Santu Larma, the ex-rebel commander and the chairman of the CHT Regional Council has made this fact clear in his speeches marking the 9th Year celebration of the signing of the CHT Accord on 2nd  December.

Unfortunately, recent history has shown that any guerrilla war is always in favour of the guerrillas/rebels concerned. The Nepalese Maoist rebels and the Indonesia’s Aceh rebels are two of the many living examples to prove that even People’s governments fail to subdue guerrilla wars through military means, no matter how powerful the governments are and how weak the rebels are. History also shows that any country which is engaged in any form of guerrilla war can never prosper and develop. In stead, it will fall down deep into a pit of international debt from where it’s not that easy to come out.

The news coming out of CHT indicate that a second Jumma uprising is imminent unless the soon-would-be GoB have a strategic plan to solve the CHT problem peacefully acceptable to the Jumma people. I am sure the country’s liberal public does not opt for another Jumma insurgency in the Peoples’ Republic of Bangladesh, so do the Jumma people. Therefore, people of all social levels should come forward in pressuring the GoB to implement the Accord without further delay so that we all can have a war-free Bangladesh where the CHT Jumma indigenous people can live with self-determination, dignity and respect. However the biggest obstacle for achieving this goal is the country’s Islamic Extremism and their widespread propaganda. The country’s liberal public will have to decide the fate of these extremists.

Otherwise, as long as these fundamentalists do not know how to value, appreciate and admire the beauty of a garden full of diverse flowers, plants, creepers and trees so long as the country’s ethnic and religious minorities shall continue to be suppressed, oppressed and persecuted which is against the Law of Human Society.

The Writer is a graduate research student, Thailand. Email:  mointawla@hotmail.com