Adivasis again demand relocation on eve of Independence Day

"I want my daughter to grow up in my own home. I will not accept any (compensation) offer. Nothing is as good as returning home," said Kusumika Chakma.

She named her child Biplobi, in Bangla, meaning a revolutionary.

Biplobi was sleeping peacefully in her arms, undisturbed by the human chain Kusumika joined at the High Court's Mazar Gate in the capital yesterday, on the eve of Independence Day, demanding return of their ancestral land in Khagrachhari's Dighinala upazila.

She told The Daily Star about her longing to sit in her front yard with the family around her smiling, welcoming the new member.

What instead now menacingly encircles Shashi Mohon Karbari Para and adjoining Jatna Mohon Karbari Para is a barbed wire fence erected last March by Border Guard Bangladesh marking its 51 Battalion headquarters.

Cut off from shorter paths, which they have been using for years, the indigenous villagers are frustrated over the resulting long treks to their farmlands and neighbouring communities.

The inevitable tension erupted in a clash on June 10, prompting over 80 people, including Kusumika and another pregnant woman, of some 21 Adivasi families to flee to a local school for shelter, ending up being crammed in two classrooms.

The 25-year-old new mother had to share a room with 30 others once released from hospital after Biplobi's birth in September.

But they were told to leave when exams began several months later. Now the premises of an age-old agriculture office serve as a refuge.

Demands for the homesteads' return, and relocating the headquarters had led to another clash just 10 days ago, leaving six indigenous people and four members of law enforcement agencies injured.

That day a procession the families brought out under Dighinala Bhumi Rakkha Committee's banner was intercepted by the joint forces comprising army, police and ansar personnel.

Rights activists at yesterday's human chain, which the committee organised with many of the displaced people, demanded release of the 11 indigenous persons arrested, and withdrawal of a case filed after the clash. "The government always boasts of restoring peace and bringing development to the hill districts," Dighinala upazila parishad vice-chairman Shushomoy Chakma told the gathering.

"But what is peace and development to the people who have lost their ancestral lands and homesteads?"

Barrister Sadia Arman pointed out that there would be no such frequent land disputes in Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT), had the CHT land commission been properly functioning after its formation following the 1997 CHT peace accord.

"Rapes, murders, and forced disappearances take place in the hill tracts regularly. It has been already proven that an increased presence of armed forces personnel will not solve the problems. The government should find democratic means to solve the issues in CHT," she said.

Maj Kamal Uddin of BGB 51 Battalion finds these people making false and irrational claims to make some money in the name of compensation.

"A vested quarter, which does not want the headquarters to be built here, has instigated the indigenous people," he had told The Daily Star earlier.