From: "Magnus Bernhardsen" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [Peoples War] Bangladesh: POLICE ATTACK ON LANDLESS PEASANTS' MARCH
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PRESS RELEASE
HUMAN RIGHTS' VIOLATIONS ON THE INCREASE:
POLICE ATTACK ON LANDLESS PEASANTS' MARCH
On January 21st last, a peaceful March staged by thousands of
landless peasant
men and women in a distant region along the coast of Bangladesh, was
violently attacked
by police forces, seeking to prevent the peaceful take-over of
fallowland by landless peasant women and men. The peasant march and
the police intervention, which resulted in the dispersal of the
march, in some fifty injuries and in the arrest of an estimated one
hundred fifty landless, followed shortly upon the holding of a mass
rally, under the leadership of the Krishok (Peasant) Federation and
the Kisani Sabha (Peasant Women's Association), two organisations
which advocate implementation of existing government regulations on
the distribution of fallowland. The local administration, besides
having scores of landless participants put behind bars, has also
declared it will reward people helping to round up local leaders of
the landless. These measures of repression well illustrate that human
rights' violations continue to be on the increase under the BNP-led
government which has come to power three months' back.
First, the peasant rally and march in the coastal area,
called Patharghata, as stated were explicitly based on existing legal
regulations regarding the distribution of fallowland. Ever since the
1980s, undernourished landless peasants have eagerly looked forward
towards implementation of a law that gave recognition to their demand
to get access to land. The Land Manuel, adopted way back in 1987,
stipulated that all plots registered as fallow land, khas, which land
areas notably include numerous newly emerged lowlying areas along the
coast and in Bangladesh's large rivers, should be allocated to
landless families. The Manuel further assigned land rights to
landless women at par with men. Subsequently, during the rule of
Awami League (1996-2001), the government has partly amended these
legal rights. Yet under the pressure of the Krishok Federation, the
Kisani Sabha and other representative organisations, the main demand
of landless peasants was upheld, and a very modest start was made
with legalisation of land rights in lowlying areas where settlements
had previously been built.
The demand for distribution of fallow-land, consistently
voiced by the Federation and the Sabha for well over a decade, has
also received considerable international backing. The European
Parliament, for instance, in its landmark resolution on development
cooperation with Bangladesh, adopted last year, gave full support to
the demand that landless women and men each receive one acre of land
in agreement with longstanding legal promises (resolution
B5-0048/2001/rev.1). Further, a host of prominent personalities and
institutions interested in human rights have cautioned the
Bangladeshi government in the past not to use indiscriminate violence
and state-repression against the landless' peaceful actions. Thus, in
a letter addressed to the country's Prime Minister in 1997, the
worldfamous author Susan George, four Members of the European
Parliament, and a series of international feminist authors, jointly
championed the rights of landless women and their families in the
South of Bangladesh. Bangladeshi Ministries have also received
repeated protests over landlord- and police-violence from the
Germany-based international campaign FIAN.
In view of the prolonged non-implementation of existing legal
regulations, the January 21 police-action against the peasant march
in Patharghata can only be termed a travesty of justice. Moreover,
the action appears to indicate there is a qualitative difference
between the attitude of the BNP-government which ruled Bangladesh
from 1991 til 1996, and the BNP-led coalition government formed late
last year. In the firstmentioned governmental period, the attitude of
the police was generally benevolent and the country's courts, from
the local court upto the High Court, frequently upheld the legal
rights of landless settlers. Now, given the nature of the present
regime, which includes the notorious Jamat-Islam, - there is an
urgent need for international pressure, to defend civil and
democratic rights in Bangladesh. BPSC calls upon human rights'
organisations to demand that the authorities immediate release the
landless peasants arrested on January 21st, that they refrain from
harrassment of peasant leaders, and that instead the government
swiftly take the long-delayed implementation of regulations on
khasland forward.
BPSC, January 22,
2000
BPSC
Bangladesh People's Solidarity Centre
P.O.Box 92066
1090 AB Amsterdam
The Netherlands
Tel/fax: +31 20 6937681
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