Commentary
The current activities of the army deployed in the
Chittagong Hill Tracts remind one of the story of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza.
After reading many thrilling tales of chivalry, Don Quixote dreamed of becoming
a knight himself. So, he set out on a series of adventurous expeditions, taking
along as his companion a simple, realistic peasant named Sancho Panza.
On his adventures, Don Quixote perceived very ordinary
things as great threats. For instance, he mistook windmills for giant monsters
and attacked them. As a result, he was struck down by the windmill’s sails and
fell to the ground defeated. But even then, he did not regain his senses — he
thought he had been ambushed by some magical force. Eventually, after being
defeated in battles against imaginary enemies, he returned home, abandoned his
knightly identity, and died.
Likewise, the army stationed in the Chittagong Hill
Tracts seems to be living in a world of fantasy like Don Quixote. They are
treating ordinary matters as “threats to sovereignty” and attacking them. They
are portraying the democratic political group, the UPDF, as terrorists and
conducting operations against them. Yet, the UPDF itself has been a brutal
victim of both state and vigilante terrorism. Over the last 27 years, around
400 of its leaders, activists, and supporters have been killed in these two forms
of terror.
This is the tragedy of the hills: those who want to
wage a democratic movement are branded as “terrorists,” while those who
suppress them through terror are hailed as “patriots and defenders of
sovereignty.”
The actual situation in the Chittagong Hill Tracts is
this: there is no war, no armed struggle, no so-called insurgency. It is true
that there are occasional fratricidal conflicts, but these were created and
perpetuated by the ruling powers themselves through Santu Larma. If they truly
wanted to stop such internal conflicts, they could easily do so by instructing
their obedient ally, Santu Larma, and peace would immediately return to the
hills.
Instead, what are they doing? They are spending
millions of taka every day on operations and patrols that are making the lives
of ordinary people unbearable. They raid homes, shops, and religious
institutions — turning everything upside down in the name of “search
operations,” looting money and valuables, harassing women, torturing and
detaining innocent villagers, and sending them to jail.
During these operations, soldiers occupy school buildings and conduct military drills on school playgrounds, disrupting students’ education. They seize Buddhist temples and forcibly take temple property, desecrating the sanctity of these sites and obstructing both public worship and monks’ meditation. And all this is done in the name of “protecting sovereignty” and “combating terrorism.”
Every citizen of Bangladesh has the right to question what exactly the army stationed in the Hill Tracts is doing in the name of protecting sovereignty — how much money it is spending, how it is spending it, and why. Because this money comes from the people’s hard-earned taxes. The people of Bangladesh have certainly not leased the Chittagong Hill Tracts to the army to do whatever it pleases, nor are they obliged to accept everything the army says as truth.
After the recent settler attack in Ramesu Bazaar,
Guimara, the army authorities in the Hill Tracts did not arrest the killers or
attackers. Instead, they beat the drums of “sovereignty” and proposed to
increase the number of army camps in the region. What is the real purpose of
this proposal for more camps and military operations?
The main goals are:
1. To protect and shield the soldiers and extremist
settlers involved in the Guimara and Khagrachhari incidents.
2. To intimidate and oppress the hill people so that
in the future they dare not protest against rape, land grabbing, or other
injustices.
3. To destroy or weaken the only active political
movement in the hills — the UPDF — so that the hill people are left leaderless.
The military rulers know very well that no successful movement can be carried
out without an organized leadership.
4. To use the pretext of “protecting sovereignty” to
justify the army’s continued presence in the Hill Tracts for their own vested
interests, both domestically and internationally.
In short, the real purpose of these operations and
camp expansions is not the defense of sovereignty — because there is no actual
threat to Bangladesh’s sovereignty in the Hill Tracts, nor any possibility of
one. The military authorities stationed there know this perfectly well.
Whether new camps are built or not, the Chittagong
Hill Tracts is already filled with military camps. In fact, it is one of the
most militarized regions in the world, with around 100,000 soldiers and
paramilitary personnel deployed. Maintaining this massive militarization costs
Bangladesh thousands of crores of taka each year — with no accountability
whatsoever. And all this, too, is done in the name of “defending sovereignty.”
Every citizen of Bangladesh has the right to demand
accountability for what the army is actually doing in the Hill Tracts in the
name of sovereignty — how much money it is spending, how it is spending it, and
why. This is the people’s tax money. The people have not leased the Hill Tracts
to the army, nor must they blindly believe whatever it says.
Another justification the army gives for its actions
is “counter-terrorism.” But that, too, is a hollow claim. The truth is that the
army itself has created terrorist groups to suppress the democratic movement of
the people. For the past 27 years, it has been doing precisely that — and in
the process, it has itself become the embodiment of terror.
To put it plainly, because of the army’s wrong
policies and actions in the Hill Tracts, the army and the people now stand face
to face as enemies. This cannot continue. The Bangladesh Army must abandon its
Don Quixote-like expeditions, return to the real world, and take political —
not military — initiatives to resolve the recognized political problems of the
Chittagong Hill Tracts.
(November 6, 2025)
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