Transforming Ethnic Conflict and Building Peace in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bangladesh

Abstract:

The Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) has experienced conflicts and violence in both colonial and post-colonial periods. Ethnic violence in post-independence Bangladesh exists there since the 1980s. Despite the formal ending of the armed conflict between the state security forces and the peace force of the indigenous people with a peace treaty in 1997, the intercommunal violence continues in the CHT. This paper explores the salient factors of the CHT conflict by applying the social cubism model within a critical and emancipatory peacebuilding framework. The CHT conflict results from the dispossession of the indigenous communities from their ancestors’ land, the deprivation of the indigenous people of their traditional and customary practices with nature and environment, and the silence over their histories, needs and identities. This paper argues that the CHT conflict is complex and protracted due to interlocking conflict factors that need to be considered in order to transform the conflict and build peace in the CHT territory of Bangladesh. This paper has immense research and policy implications for transformative and constructive peacebuilding in the CHT by addressing the social cube’s multi-causal driving forces of the ongoing ethnic violence.

Read or download full paper:

Rahman, Aziz; Ali, Mohsin (2019). Transforming Ethnic Conflict and Building Peace in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bangladesh

Journal of Living Together, 6 (1), pp. 110-132, 2019, ISSN: 2373-6615 (Print); 2373-6631 (Online).

@Article{Rahman2019
Title = {Transforming Ethnic Conflict and Building Peace in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bangladesh}
Author = {Aziz Rahman and Mohsin Ali }
Url = {https://icermediation.org/ethnic-conflict-in-bangladesh/}
ISSN = {2373-6615 (Print); 2373-6631 (Online)}
Year = {2019}
Date = {2019-12-18}
Journal = {Journal of Living Together}
Volume = {6}
Number = {1}
Pages = {110-132}
Publisher = {International Center for Ethno-Religious Mediation}
Address = {Mount Vernon, New York}
Edition = {2019}.

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