Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin | RLPB 692 | Wed 03 May 2023
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BANGLADESH: CHITTAGONG HILL TRACTS (CHT)
by Elizabeth Kendal
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| Bangladesh, showing location of Chittagong Hill Tracts. (click on map to enlarge) |
BACKGROUND: In 1947 British India was partitioned to become Muslim-majority Pakistan and Hindu-majority India. Despite being only three to five percent Muslim, and despite the Buddhist and Christian paharis (hill tribes) having more in common with their ethnic kin in northeast India than with the ethnic Bengali Muslims of the lowlands, the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) was ‘awarded’ to Pakistan. Since then, ‘all the indigenous tribes began to face discrimination in all aspects of life’. In 1971, East Pakistan declared independence as Bangladesh. Today, after decades of state-sanctioned predatory migration (colonisation) – driven from increasingly Islamist mosques and facilitated by the overwhelmingly Bengali Muslim Bangladesh Armed Forces (BAF) – the CHT is majority Bengali Muslim and Bangladesh’s most militarised region. [See also RLPB 393, ‘Bangladesh: Hidden Genocide in Chittagong Hill Tracts,’ 8 Feb 2017.]
CHT: THE CHRISTIAN STRUGGLE TO SURVIVEIn April, hundreds of the Chittagong Hill Tracts’ (CHT’s) ethnic Kuki-Chin [also known as Bawm / Bom] Christians spent Easter displaced and grieving [RLPB 691 (26 April)]. Early reports indicated ‘a clash’ had occurred ‘between’ forces of the Kuki-Chin National Front (KNF) and the more dominant ethnic Chakma and Buddhist United People’s Democratic Front (UPDF). However, testimony indicates it was a totally one-sided, targeted massacre. The brother of one of the deceased told BBC Bangla that on 6 April, between 6:30 and 7:00 a.m., ‘a group of 20-25 members of the UPDF’ attacked Khamtangpara village in Bandarban District. ‘They threw grenades into the village’ and captured ‘as many men as they could find’. The clerk of Lalthazar Bom Primary School was killed in the attack and ‘scores were injured’. The captured Kuki-Chin men were taken away and ‘laid in the field’. Men aged over 50 were released, but the remaining 22 men ‘were tied with ropes and detained in a [nearby] school … While 15 were released in the afternoon, the remaining seven detainees were shot dead the next day.’ This testimony has been confirmed by several civil society and human rights groups in Dhaka, some of which described the UPDF members as ‘state-sponsored vigilantes’. Police recovered eight bodies.
On 8 April the families were invited to collect the bodies from Bandarban Sadar Hospital mortuary. To their horror, not only were their loved ones dressed in military fatigues, but ‘No one had the back of their head, almost all had their arms and legs broken.’ A spokesperson from the Bangladesh Armed Forces’ (BAF) Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) told BBC Bangla that the victims were ‘identified as members of the armed terrorist group of KNA by their clothing’. The Bangladesh government and military have labelled the KNA as ‘terrorists’, accusing it of training Jama’atul Ansar Fil Hindal Sharqiya (JAFHS) Islamic jihadists/terrorists in exchange for money. The KNF/A denies it has any links with Islamic terrorists and has urged Bangladeshi media to resist publishing the military’s ‘fake news’. Believed to be linked to al-Qaeda, JAFHS emerged in 2019 as the product of a merger of several banned pro-Caliphate militant Islamic jihadist groups.
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| Kuki-Chin Christians fleeing military violence in CHT arrive in Mizoram, northeast India, November 2022. |
In October 2022, the BAF launched a fresh military offensive in the CHT with the aim of preventing the remote, sparsely populated, mountainous far east from becoming a base for Islamic militants, in particular JAFHS. Because the BAF have linked the KNA to the JAFHS, the Christian Kuki-Chin are also under attack. Locals have told BBC Bangla that, not only does the BAF’s Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) enjoy good relations with the UPDF, it routinely operates in collusion with the Arakan Army (comprised of Rohingya Muslims). Since October, hundreds of Christian Kuki-Chin have been displaced by military violence. Hundreds have crossed into Mizoram, in northeast India; meaning Mizoram – which is around 87 percent Christian – is now receiving refugees from east and west (Burma and Bangladesh). In Nov-Dec 2022, some 500 Kuki-Chin Christians fled Cheikhiang village ahead of an assault by joint forces of the RAB and Arakan Army. Unfortunately, Pastor Sawmkhup (70) of the Bangladesh Bawm Tribal Baptist Church did not make it, but died of starvation and dehydration in the jungle en route to Mizoram. While the ethnic Mizo Christians of Mizoram are eager to embrace and assist their kin, New Delhi (India’s political capital) is less so and has ordered its Border Guard Forces to push the refugees back.
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| KNA worship with singing, Bible teaching and prayer. [screenshot from full story of KNF/A, Zalengam media, 20 April 2022] |
The Kuki-Mizo-Chin people are one ethnic group, called by different names depending on whether they are in Bangladesh, India, or Burma/Myanmar. They are a Christian people. To protect Kuki-Chin people, culture and lands, the KNF demands an autonomous state be formed comprised of several sub-districts across the CHT’s two easternmost districts of Rangamati and Bandarban (which border India’s Mizoram and Burma’s Chin states). Dominated by ethnic Chakmas (the largest ethnic minority group in the CHT) the predominantly Buddhist UPDF seeks an autonomous state comprising the whole of CHT – one in which the Christian Kuki-Chin would remain a marginalised and imperilled ethnic-religious minority (as are the Chin in neighbouring Buddhist Burma). Initially a development organisation, the KNF broke away from the UPDF to fight for Kuki-Chin autonomy in 2017. Today, while the UPDF is pursuing a peace deal with the government, the KNF continues to stand in the way of the government’s total exploitation of the Chittagong Hills. Lord have mercy!
PLEASE PRAY THAT OUR SOVEREIGN GOD WILL:
* intervene in Bangladesh to fight for and deliver his imperilled children – the Kuki-Chin Christians of the Chittagong Hill Tracts. ‘The Lord looked and was displeased that there was no justice. He saw that there was no one, he was appalled that there was no one to intervene; so his own arm achieved salvation for him, and his own righteousness sustained him’ (from Isaiah 59:14-19 NIV).
* intervene to sustain all Kuki-Chin Christians who are impoverished, cut off from aid, displaced and imperilled on account of ethnic-religious discrimination, persecution and military violence. May our Almighty and merciful Lord provide all their needs – physical (e.g. refuge and aid), emotional (e.g. comfort and counselling) and spiritual (e.g. assurance of God’s love and presence).
* intervene in New Dehli (India’s political capital), to redirect the thinking of the Indian government. Instead of maintaining neutrality/silence and pushing back against Christian Kuki-Chin refugees, may the Indian government address root causes and advocate for peace in Bangladesh’ Chittogang Hill Tracts and Burma/Myanmar. ‘The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord; he turns it wherever he will’ (Proverbs 21:1 ESV).
SUMMARY FOR BULLETINS UNABLE TO RUN THE WHOLE ARTICLE
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THE CHRISTIAN STRUGGLE TO SURVIVE IN THE CHITTAGONG HILL TRACTS, BANGLADESH
The Kuki-Mizo-Chin people are one ethnic group, called by different names depending on whether they are in Bangladesh, India, or Burma/Myanmar. They are a Christian people. In Bangladesh’s eastern Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) the Kuki-Chin demand an autonomous state where their people, lands and culture can be protected from colonisation by Bengali Muslims, and from domination by the mostly Buddhist ethnic Chakmas (the largest ethnic minority group in the CHT). For this they suffer persecution and military violence. In October 2022, the Bangladeshi government launched a military operation against ‘separatists and terrorists’ in the CHT. In April, hundreds of Kuki-Chin Christians spent Easter displaced and grieving after ‘state sponsored’ militants attacked Khamtangpara village, Bandarban District, killing one man and capturing dozens, seven of whom they later tortured and executed. Please pray.
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NOTE: Scroll.in reports (24 Dec 2022) that in October 2022, the BAF’s RAB arrested 10 militants in CHT: seven JAFHS and three KNA. During interrogations they ‘confessed’ that the JAFHS had struck a deal with the KNF ‘to provide them with funds in exchange for shelter and training’. Whether or not the KNA has sought to alleviate its poverty by training Islamic militants for pay cannot be known. While it seems unlikely, it could be the case that, if true, the KNA weren’t given much choice. Or maybe it is all just ‘fake news’ from a government and military eager to eliminate inconvenient tribal infidels standing in the way of land seizures and tourist developments. We cannot know because, like Indonesia’s Papuan Provinces, Bangladesh’s CHTs are closed to reporters and observers. In August 2002, when UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, visited Bangladesh she was denied access to the CHT [RLPB 660 (31 Aug 2022)]. Generally, news from the CHT comes in the form of BAF press statements. Whatever the truth of the matter, the fact remains, the Christian Kuki-Chin of the CHT are staring down the barrel of genocide.
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Elizabeth Kendal is an international religious liberty analyst and advocate for the persecuted Church.
The Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin (RLPB) is a donor funded ministry. To support this ministry visit www.ElizabethKendal.com
Elizabeth has authored two books: Turn Back the Battle: Isaiah Speaks to Christians Today (Deror Books, Melbourne, Australia, Dec 2012) which offers a Biblical response to persecution and existential threat; and After Saturday Comes Sunday: Understanding the Christian Crisis in the Middle East (Wipf and Stock, Eugene, OR, USA, June 2016). She is also an Adjunct Research Fellow at the Arthur Jeffery Centre for the Study of Islam at Melbourne School of Theology.
For more information see www.ElizabethKendal.com