Bangladesh’s Hidden Shame

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.3 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 9 June 2016

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Lipika Pelham travels to a remote part of south eastern Bangladesh to report on claims of human rights abuses against indigenous inhabitants of the area. The Chittagong Hill Tracts are home to thirteen indigenous groups with the Chakma, Marma, Chak and Mro mostly practicing Theravada Buddhism. Thousands were forced off their lands from the 1960s until the 1990s. An insurgency that started in the mid 1970s ended in a peace settlement in 1997 under which the army was supposed to withdraw but it continues to maintain a tight grip on the area. The resettlement of tens of thousands of Bengalis from other parts of the country has only added to tensions.

Lipika is one of the few journalists from a foreign media organisation to report from there in recent years. She has returned with first-hand accounts of alleged rape and torture and hears claims that soldiers have been involved in evicting people from their homes. Her report carries details of attempts to forcibly convert young children to Islam as well as accusations of rape by Bengali settlers of girls as young as thirteen.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is a BBC podcast.
0:02.3	You can get all our podcasts and our terms of use
0:04.9	at BBCworldservice.com slash podcasts. You're listening to assignment with me Lippecapelum. I'm in the Chittagong Hill tracks in Southeast Bangladesh. Gai Gai Gai Gai Kuyah D'Agol potan on the.
0:35.0	Meksaga Urijada Naga Jandhi.
0:38.0	Gai Gai Gai Gai Gai Gai Gai Gai Gai Gai Gai Gai Gai Gai Gai Gai Gai Gah Gahrutta.
0:42.0	These young girls are singing about a lover walking along a village path under a
0:47.7	cluster of soft clouds. The song contrasts with the reality of life in the hill tracks.
0:54.0	There have been reports of human rights abuses, torture, rape. While I listen a teenager is coming all the way from her village to see me, her story is coming all the way from her village to see me.
1:12.0	Her story is disturbing.
1:15.0	I was coming back from a Buddhist festival
1:20.0	when four Bengali settlers raped me, she says.
1:22.8	This is just one of many shocking stories I hear during my visit. My journey begins with the bus ride to Bandervon, the southernmost district in the hill tracks.
2:00.1	The area has been heavily militarized since an uprising by indigenous peoples who enjoyed autonomy before Bangladesh became an independent nation state.
2:05.0	It began when they lost their special status under British rule
2:10.0	which prevented outsiders from settling in the region
2:13.2	and ended when a peace treaty was signed in 1997.
2:17.7	But the army continues to maintain its presence.
2:22.0	Journalists from the foreign media aren't exactly
2:25.1	welcome here. An indigenous people aren't allowed to talk to them without supervision.
2:32.1	So I have bought a fake ID for 200 Taka, around three US dollars.
2:39.0	Okay, we have just arrived in Panterbonnene and up until about five kilometers before
2:47.0	Banderbonne town the highway was incredibly congested
	...

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