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everal months after the insurgent group Kuki Chin National Front (KNF) staged bank heists and carried away not only money but also arms and ammunition, a military operation is still underway against the Bawm, one of Bangladesh’s Indigenous minorities.
This is despite a dramatic regime change in Bangladesh last August, and even as the Bawm have repeatedly said that they are not supporters of the KNF.
KNF, however, is headed by one of their own: Nathan Bawm, and Bawm communities are near the heist sites. These two factors have apparently been enough for the military to round up dozens of the Indigenous minority’s members and put them behind bars. Thousands more Bawm have fled their villages amid the crackdown and have sought refuge in nearby jungles, with relatives elsewhere in Bangladesh, or have crossed the border into India.
“I’m very disappointed because our people may never come back to our village,” said 26-year-old Thue Bawm in a phone interview with Asia Democracy Chronicles (ADC).
“My sisters are now in Mizoram (in India),” he continued, his voice trembling. “They went there with other villagers. But I’m worried about my younger brother, I have yet to get any trace of him.”
In early April, KNF had robbed three banks in succession in a span of 16 hours in Bandarban, one of the three districts in Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) in southeastern Bangladesh. The KNF also kidnapped the manager of one of the banks, but he was released after ransom was paid.
Eleven of Bangladesh’s more than 50 ethnic groups are indigenous to CHT and are collectively called jumma. Among these 11 CHT tribes is the Bawm, which has a population of more than 13,000. The Chakma and the Marma are the biggest Indigenous groups in CHT, however.
According to the 2022 census, CHT has a total population of 1.84 million, 50.06 percent of whom are Bengali, the predominant ethnic group across Bangladesh. The jumma, meanwhile, make up 49.94 percent of CHT’s people.
The jumma have long alleged that the central government and the military have been instigating Bengalis to migrate and settle in CHT, the end goal supposedly being to eventually take over tribal land. This had led to a decades-long armed conflict in the CHT.
In 1997, a peace accord was signed by the then Awami League government and the Parbatya Chattagram Jana Samhati Samiti (PCJSS), the political organization representing the 11 CHT tribes. But because the accord has never been fully implemented, CHT has remained restive and prone to producing insurgent groups like the KNF.
From rights to rebellion
Founded in 2008, KNF – known locally as the “Bawm party” – purports to represent not only the Bawm, but five more of CHT’s smaller ethnic groups. Initially, it was supposed to be only advocating for the rights of these groups, but found little support from even the Bawm because of its divisive rhetoric against the bigger tribes.
More than 10 years later, the KNF spawned an armed wing and established ties with other ethnic insurgent groups in India and Myanmar. It now aims to set up an autonomous Kuki state within Bangladesh.
Since 2022, CHT has experienced unrest largely because of KNF’s armed activities and the military’s efforts to contain the group and arrest its members – with the locals inevitably caught in the crossfire. A July 2023 PCJSS report even said that more than 100 unarmed jumma were used as human shields during a particular military operation against the KNF.
Thousands of Bawm have fled their homes to escape the fighting and the military crackdown. The April bank heists have only escalated military operations in CHT and have upended the lives of more people there, but especially the Bawm.
Last April 7, the joint forces of the Bangladesh Army and the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI) started yet another massive military operation in CHT against the KNF. Just like before, the crackdown has affected even civilians, including nine who were reportedly shot dead by the joint forces during the early days of the operation.
More than 100 Bawm, including pregnant women and minors, have been arrested and detained by authorities since the April bank heists. Even after the interim government headed by Nobel laureate Mohammad Yunus was established last August, the military has continued its sweep of CHT to find KNF members and supporters.
The military has put strict quotas on the amount of food the Bawm can purchase at a time. In addition, the military and the paramilitary Border Guard Bangladesh have set up camps in some Bawm villages and are confiscating villagers’ mobile phones, cutting communications among family members elsewhere.
At least five Bawm villages in the CHT are now deserted, while Bawm who have stayed put in CHT are now required to have travel passes on them whenever they leave their homes. In early November, ADC asked a CHT local to check on the situation in Bethel Para, a Bawm village near the heist sites. The local said he was surprised at what he saw there.
“I came to this village a year ago and saw it full of noise, houses clean, village children screaming,” he told ADC. “But this time I found it as quiet as a crematorium.
“The yards were full of leaves,” he added. “I saw two old men and a few women staying in the village for about a couple of hours. Trees bear various fruits but no one eats them, no one picks them up and sells them.”
He said that he was careful not to be seen by the military personnel who were guarding the village. “The army always keeps a watch on anyone entering or leaving the village and if anything suspicious is found, extensive interrogation and arrests are made if necessary,” he said.
Calls still unheeded
Thlir Bawm, who is now living in the port city Chittagong with four members of his family, said that they have been there since early April. He said that they walked around 10 hours from their village in CHT before finally taking a bus to Chittagong.
A former jum (traditional cultivation) farmer, he is currently pulling a rickshaw in the city to earn a few takas and help feed his family. “I’m at least doing something and surviving somehow,” he said. “But I’m very sad about those who are living in the jungle. I know of so far around 50 Bawm staying in the jungle and they are in hunger.”
He said that some of his own relatives are in the jungle, among them three children. Thlir told ADC: “I request the government of Bangladesh and other human rights activists to protect them and make an environment where Bawm and other tribes will live with peace.”
In early May, the international rights group Amnesty International had urged the government to end the crackdown against the Bawm community and urgently release all civilians — especially pregnant women and children – who have been arbitrarily arrested, or at least provide them adequate legal representation and allow visits by relatives.
Local groups and organizations have echoed that call. In an editorial last May, the Daily Star newspaper urged the government to take Amnesty International’s “allegations” about what was happening to the Bawm “seriously.”
It also said: “The prevailing situation in the CHT, as we understand it, is quite sensitive. In the face of various challenges, security personnel have their work cut out for them. But it is precisely because of the sensitive nature of this situation that security operations in the region should be conducted keeping in mind that the rights and security of citizens – especially those belonging to minority communities – are not violated in any way. Ultimately, peace in the CHT is dependent on the proper implementation of all the clauses of the CHT Peace Accord.”
“And that,” said the Daily Star, “is the direction we should be headed for, not greater securitization or marginalization of local communities.”
But the Bawm are not the only Indigenous people undergoing hardships in Bangladesh. According to Bangladesh Indigenous Forum Secretary Sanjeb Drong, around four million Indigenous peoples living in different parts of the country have been subjected to various kinds of exploitation and discrimination, which have led to their losing their land rights.
“In the name of forestry, tourism, rubber plantations, and development, there is continuous encroachment of tribal lands,” Drong said. “All in all, tribal life has reached the edge of marginalization today due to multifaceted aggression.”
There have even long been rumors going around CHT Indigenous groups, including the Bawm, that the KNF had military support and was meant to create division among the tribes.
The rumors go on to say that the military had welcomed the news about the KNF taking up arms as that gave state authorities more reason to clamp down and force their will on CHT.
Thue Bawm, for his part, simply said, “The process of creating a CHT without hill tribes is going on. Even after that, I hope for a change in the attitude of the government so that peace can come to this land.” ◉
Sangram is a journalist based in Dhaka, Bangladesh, covering human rights, minorities, and the environment, among other issues.
