SUMMARY

When confronting the Government of Bangladesh in intrastate armed conflict the JSS/SB (Jana Samhati Samiti/Shanti Bahini, People’s Solidarity Association/Peace Force) did not only engage in combat with government forces, but also made use of one-sided violence.

In the JSS/SB's use of one-sided violence a number of specific targeting patterns can be discerned. The bulk of attacks were directed at Bengali settlers, who are non-tribals, inhabiting the Chittagong Hill Tracts area. A second target was the government’s development activities and agencies, such as constructions and oil companies, with the presumed motive of damaging the government’s interests and attempts of pacification through development. A third target was specific tribal groups that were branded as traitors due to their reluctance to support the JSS/SB in its fight against the government. One example would be the Tanchangya group. It is also likely that an element of revenge has been involved, with JSS/SB fighters exacting retaliation on Bengalis for abuses committed by the Bangladeshi army.

The vast majority of deaths are to be found in the first category of targets; people of Bengali ethnicity. The reasons for the JSS/SB's targeting of Bengalis can be found at the roots of the armed conflict itself. One of the demands made to the government already in 1972 was a ban on the influx of Bengali settlers into the Chittagong Hill Tracts area. Both the Pakistani government (in control of Bangladesh until 1971) and the Government of Bangladesh condoned and also sometimes supported the immigration of the majority Bengalis (making up approximately 99% of the population) into the relatively sparsely populated hills of the Chittagong area. The influx of hundreds of thousands of settlers over the years, and this group’s relative economic strength, severely decimated the land held and political influence wielded by the tribal groups. In order to reverse this trend the JSS/SB made use of one-sided violence so as to displace and scare off what they perceived as an occupation of their homelands. Cadres of the group would thus attack Bengali villages, bomb places that were frequented by Bengalis or ambush workers and peasants in rural areas. Methods have varied, including bombings, shootings, and the hacking to death of civilians.

Violence against government development activities and economic interests also took various forms, including bombings and shooting attacks.

In the third category the violence mainly took the form of executions of those deemed to be traitors to the cause.

JSS/SB first became active as a one-sided actor in UCDP data in 1989, when the one-sided violence resulted in at least 25 civilian deaths. However, the group made use of one-sided violence before this year. The threshold was reached in August 1989 when 8 civilians were killed in the bombing of a ferry that was crossing the Kaptai Lake in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, bringing the total toll over 25 deaths.