Mal Aria in the The Chittagong Hill Tracts

(Also see my previous article "Horace in the Hills" at http://www.onlinejournal.org/Commentary/100105Sayeed/100105sayeed.html

Late on the night of December 2, 1997 my mother received a phone call from an Awami League MP, Mrs. Chitra Bhattacharya, who is also a close family friend.
The message she had to communicate with breathless excitement was that the Peace Treaty with the PCJSS of the hill tracts had been signed. Her husband, Mr. Debesh Bhattacharya, was an ex-judge of the Supreme Court. How the pair could connive at such a massively illegal manouevre is beyond me.

1) The so-called treaty has a provision for a Land Commission under which all land disputes will be settled – without any scope for appeal to the Supreme Court of Bangladesh, thereby setting up another Supreme Court in Bangladesh; in effect, creating two countries. This violates the rights of all concerned – the hill people as well as the Bengali settlers – and violates the sovereignty of Bangladesh.


2) The so-called Treaty was rejected by a section of the people of the hill tracts – the United People's Democratic Front (UPDF), which, on my last visit, was far more popular than the PCJSS. I do not see how the PCJSS can pretend to speak for all the hill people.


3) The International Chittagong Hill Tracts Commission, a body set up in Copenhagen in the 1990s after the cold war ended to pressure the Bangladesh government to 'resolve' the hill tracts issue, has scant regard for the constitution of the country. They have devised a treaty that is ultra vires of the constitution, as I pointed out in section 1. This won't be the first time that foreigners have raped our constitution: in 1990, when General Ershad resigned, instead of the vice-president taking over per constitution, the Chief Justice, the supposed protector of the constitution, became its chief violator by becoming president – and then legalizing his action by an act of parliament. Henceforth, no one could be certain that, given sufficient international pressure, our apex court won't give in. This was how the international community hoped to bring about the 'rule of law' in Bangladesh. They repeated a similar manoeuvre on 11th January 2007. All the talk about the 'rule of law' and 'the people's rights' is just palaver.


4) Since the signing of the hopelessly misnamed Peace Treaty, over 200 people have been killed in violence between the PCJSS and the UPDF. The Commission insists there will be no slide in law and order after withdrawal of the armed forces: the events of the past years belie that possibility. Furthermore, settlers have put up road blocks to prevent the army from leaving on several occasions: despite these facts, the Commission insists there's nothing to fear.


5) One of the major sticking points in the implementation of the non-treaty, and one which nobody talks about, is the fact that the Bengali settlers are internally displaced people (IDP): they didn't voluntarily go to the hills to settle among the malaria and the jungles. Thus, they have to be rehabilitated as well as the hill people. This is something the PCJSS refuses to accept. No doubt, the Commission and our government will sell out the settlers for a fictitious and iniquitous peace that will be no peace.


6) The disrespect of the Commission for constitutional procedure is evidenced by the fact that the Commission insists there will be no violence if the army is removed from the hills – despite the matter being sub judice and that the High Court of Bangladesh has issued an injunction against troop withdrawal. Does the Commission feel that it is above the judiciary of Bangladesh? Clearly it does.


7) It is unfortunate that the so-called Peace Treaty has stirred up such a hornet's nest of constitutional matters. Whichever way the High Court verdict goes – and no doubt the issue will be taken all the way to the Appellate Division – the verdict will not please all parties. Such verdicts cannot: either the settlers and their supporters will be angry, or the hill people and the PCJSS will be disappointed. And the apex court will once again be discredited.

Quad scripsi, scripsi (2)

The other day I received an irate e-mail. It accused me of being 'indecent' and 'insensitive'.

Why?

Because I had revealed certain unpleasant truths about his parents – and said that they were 'alleged' lady and gentleman.

I'm sure he is right, being a sober, scholarly gentleman, soft-spoken and with good taste in his choice of reading and viewing material.

Let me review the facts regarding the 'lady' first.

I have known, and respected, Mrs. Chitra Bhattacharya since I was a child. They are family friends.

I remember her now as the MP during the rule of the Awami League. I remember it as though it were yesterday, the violence that preceded the election. For months, Dhaka city was besieged by the thugs, goondas and foot soldiers of the Awami League. The other thugs and goondas of the ruling BNP resisted them, as did the police.

Then what I had predicted three years earlier started – the state began to split. Some bureaucrats joined the opposition!

Anyway, Mrs. Chitra Bhattacharya was selected MP (women were not elected) by the triumphant Awami League. The preceding violence seemed not to have disgusted her at all. Au contraire. She served the party very loyally.

I remember one evening my mother received a call from Mrs. Bhattacharya.

The 'peace treaty' with the insurgent PCJSS in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) had just been signed.

My mother was breathless with excitement – she had caught the infection. I was utterly despondent. It was not because I did not want peace – but because the treaty was an eyewash. It stipulated that there would be a Land Commission in the CHT, which would hear all land disputes.

But its judgements in the disputes would be final – no appeal would be allowed.

Thus, in one stroke, the residents of the CHT were denied the right of appeal to the highest court in the land, the Supreme Court, and the country became split in two, with two ultimate arbiters.

This was absurd, and ultra vires of the constitution, and so to this day the treaty has not been implemented (it was signed in 1997). Indeed, the treaty caused a split among the Chakmas – the dissenting faction styled itself the United People's Democratic Front (UPDF). The two factions, according to newspaper reports, killed 200 of each other's members between 1997 and 2007. So much for the 'peace' in the 'peace treaty'.

A lawmaker should have known (and must have known) that this was a piece of skulduggery – indeed, Mrs. Bhattacharya's husband, Debesh Bhattacharya, was a retired supreme court judge. Wives in Bangladesh derive high-flying careers from their high-flying husbands.

Quad scripsi, scripsi

Dear Dipen,

I understand how you feel (and I'm sorry about that), but your comments are way off the mark. (And frankly I don't see why you should take up with me what I wrote about your parents. That strikes me as distinctly odd.)

That Debesh Uncle was not a formal member of the Awami League, we all know: but he was definitely associated with the party. After all, Chitra Auntie (to her credit), was not a career politician: she wasn't elected, she was selected. One of my points was that this is how politics works in Bangladesh : behind the scenes! One doesn't have to become a member explicitly.

Secondly, please read my language carefully: I said "she [Auntie] was to be" MP – that means after 1994, when the Chatra league student-thug came to extort money from my father; she "was to be" MP. I did NOT say she was MP before or after. ["was to be" = "was going to be"]

I have shown considerable restraint in what I wrote about everyone. There's a lot of dirty laundry that I did not air about all the people mentioned in the article. I hope you will appreciate that: not what I wrote, but what I did not write.

The strange thing about your e-mail is that you did not find appalling the fact that a young boy was used as an extortionist (and thousands like him) by the party where Auntie was MP – and that he's rotting in jail. After all, a person is judged by the company they keep – to keep company with the League is...well, words fail me here.

It's curious that nobody finds that appalling. After all, that poor bugger is no relation of mine.
It is needless to add that these are my last words on the subject. Quad scripsi, scripsi.

With immense regret,

Ifti

--- Dipen Bhattacharya wrote:

> On browsing through the internet, I came across an
> article of yours where you write:
> http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/print_friendly.php?p=genera_iftekhar_070811_a_family_affair.htm
>
> "My parents were close to two members of the Awami
> League, Justice (retired) Debesh ýBhattacharya and
> his wife, Chitra Bhattacharya, who was to be MP
> after the next election ýthat would bring the AL to
> power (these threats were, incredibly enough, being
> made ýwhen the AL was the opposition! This was a
> foretaste of what would happen when the ýAL would
> come to power). ý
>
> It was only later that I had enough leisure to
> ponder the fact that these two people – the ýretired
> judge who had sat on the highest court of the land,
> and his distinguished wife – ýwere allied to a party
> that drew its funds with the agency of
> students-turned-thugs: and ýthis was no secret.
> Everybody knew that the parties employed the
> services of musclemen ýý– more like muscleboys – to
> extort money. But what were an alleged gentleman and
> lady ýdoing with these people? "ý
>
>
> What’s striking about these two paragraphs is first,
> that they expound inaccuracies. My father was never
> a member of the Awami League and was never
> associated with it and you may want to look up his
> historic judgments on civil rights during the early
> years of Awami League rule. My mother was a member
> of Awami League only during her tenure in the
> parliament (not before or after).
>
> Second, the level of insensitivity that you have
> shown in writing about my parents is simply
> incomprehensible. “An alleged gentleman and lady?”
> You have no idea what my parents had to sacrifice to
> stay in erstwhile Pakistan and later in Bangladesh.
> But more than that, you have taken the memory of
> these two families’ friendship and turned it into a
> spectacle that ultimately could only make life
> difficult for my mother and maybe to a certain
> degree your parents. This is especially appalling
> because my parents had no bearing on the case that
> you mention. Why bring up their names on the
> Internet? This is simply indecent.
>
> Dipen
>