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The Catholic church in Bandarban, southeastern Chittagong Hill Tracts is at the center of an anti-Christian campaign (Photo: Chittagong Catholic Diocese website)
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Silence is often prudent but at other times
it’s plain foolish, as is the case with the Catholic Church and Christians in
the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT), where their deathly silence in response to a
long-running anti-Christian campaign is working against them.
In March and April, local newspapers and online media ran a cooked-up story
against priests and religious brothers from the Queen of Fatima Catholic Church
in Bandarban, the largest and one of the oldest Catholic churches in the CHT.
The report alleged that the priests and religious were sexually abusing tribal
girls residing in a Church-run hostel.
To escape the abuses, some 71 girls fled the hostel one night, prompting Church
leaders to pay off local officials to cover everything up, it claimed.
The girls actually fled in protest against the woman in charge of the hostel, a
tribal woman who the girls say treated them badly. They absconded after several
pleas to have the woman replaced fell on deaf ears. The girls later returned
after the woman was dismissed.
The concocted abuse story came from local journalists looking to extort money
from Church officials and was encouraged by local Muslim leaders who have a
history of anti-Christian sentiment.
This is not an isolated case, but part of a game that’s been played against the
Church and Christians for nearly a decade. During this time, several Islamist
and mainstream newspapers have run fabricated reports accusing Christian
missioners of converting thousands of tribals with the lure of money and
plotting to turn the CHT into an independent Christian country like
Timor-Leste.
The reports also alleged that several Western countries were funding Christian
NGO activities to change the religious demography of the CHT to fulfill this
agenda.
Church leaders and development activists have told me privately that government
intelligence agents have paid them visits asking them how many Christians were
in the area and how Christian NGOs were being funded.
Last year, the Hefazat-e-Islam militant group staged two rallies in Dhaka to
make 13 demands. Most Christians failed to notice that one of them was a
crackdown on “unlawful activities by Christian missioners and NGOs in the CHT”.
Throughout this time, Church leaders have remained silent. They have neither
spoken to the authorities nor refuted the baseless claims in the mainstream
press. They also didn’t opt for official complaints and protests, not even with
regard to the Hefazat-e-Islam rallies.
The CHT, which borders India and Myanmar, is the only mountainous region of
Bangladesh. This strategically important area is home to more than 12
indigenous tribes, mostly Buddhist, who have lived there for centuries and been
socially and economically neglected for decades.
These peace loving people have seen the systematic destruction of their culture
and livelihood since the 1970s when the government started changing the local
demography by resettling landless Bengali Muslims who started grabbing tribal
lands. The result has been ongoing sectarian conflict in these hills.
Tribals resisted the influx and, with latent support from India, formed a
militia group to fight the settlers.
In response, the government turned the area into a military zone. For more than
two decades, a bloody bush war between the army and militants claimed hundreds
of lives until it ended with the CHT Peace Accord in 1997, which is still to be
implemented. To this day, the region is heavily militarized with some 500 army
camps.
Christian missioners arrived in the 1950s, and today Christians account for
less than three percent of the region’s 1.6 million people.
The Muslim population, however, has increased from less than three percent in
1947 to more than 48 percent today. Tribals are still larger in number, but
they are marginal in city centers and most businesses are controlled by
Bengalis.
With such a small Christian presence, claims that missioners and NGO’s are
trying to create another Timor-Leste are nothing more than ill intentioned
fairy tales and simply not possible .
Yet, the rumors are rife and are being fed by local Bengali Muslim groups, who
are aggressively anti-tribal.
They are the force behind the occupation of tribal lands by Muslim settlers.
They are also backed by civil and military officials, and Islamic fundamentalist
groups like Hefazat. All are trying to discredit the Church to divert national
and international attention away from the grim political and rights situation
for tribals in the CHT.
The war is over, but sectarian clashes between tribals and Muslims and rival
tribal groups are still common.
According to a local rights group, Muslims killed 11 tribal men, raped 15
tribal women and burned down more than 100 tribal homes last year. Rights
activists also accuse the government and army of keeping unrest alive to
legitimize the militarization of the area.
International rights groups including Amnesty International have reported gross
human rights violations by Muslim settlers and soldiers on tribal people. These
include murder, torture, arson and rape.
Environmental groups allege the region is facing an environmental disaster
because of deforestation and tobacco cultivation by the settlers.
Foreigners are generally not allowed in the CHT; but if they are it is usually
under close surveillance. It is not because armed tribal groups might kidnap
them for ransom, but mostly to stop them seeing what really goes on there.
Like in other parts of the country, Catholics and Protestants have set up
dozens of schools, vocational centers, health clinics, and conducted
development activities in the CHT to help tribals, non-tribals, Christians and
non-Christians alike.
In most other places, Christians are held in high esteem by Muslims for their
contributions in the education, health and development sectors, but in the CHT
they are being vilified.
One reason is the activities of Christian missioners who have made tribal
people more aware of their rights and more vocal.
The Bandarban Church incident is the most recent example of this vilification
and could have been a lot worse if local Muslims had believed the stories that
were told.
A 1998 mob attack by Muslims on several churches and Christian institutions in
the Luxmibazar district of Dhaka during a land dispute between a Catholic
school and a local mosque should serve as a gentle reminder as to how
vulnerable Christians are.
Church leaders should realize that Christian haters consider their silence as
weakness. They should learn from the recent attempt to stoke anti-Christian
feelings in the CHT and act strongly and accordingly.
If they don’t take this seriously, they can be assured that the worst is yet to
come.
END
Read original opinion piece here Bangladesh Church must speak out on long running anti-Christian campaign
