VICISSITUDES OF ETHNO-POLITICAL VIOLENCE IN CHITTAGONG HILL TRACTS OF BANGLADESH: THE POST-ACCORD SITUATION

Abstract

The insurgency in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) had been raging for twenty years before Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina finally reached a negotiated settlement with the Parbatya Chattagram Jana Samhati Samiti (PCJSS) in 1997. Following the signing of the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) Accord of 1997, new violent actors emerged from within the indigenous Jumma community and from the Bengali settler community. Meanwhile, the CHT remains heavily militarized under the successive Awami League (AL) and Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) regimes. This paper explains why the peace Accord is presently threatened by new violent actors such as the Jumma anti-Accord group, termed as the United People’s Democratic Front (UPDF), the settler militia Somo Adikhar Andalon (SAA), the security forces and the PCJSS. I posit that the post-Accord ethno-political violence is a result of termination spoiling actions conducted by those who oppose the peace treaty. Termination spoiling strategies include stoking communal fear, mobilizing combatants, and justifying spoiling behaviour. While violence is an integral part of termination spoiling, the aforementioned tactics make collective violence possible. Therefore, termination spoiling strategies employed by actors who oppose the peace agreement drive and sustain ethno-political violence in the post-Accord CHT.