Farmers fall victim, livelihood at stake

Despite natural disasters and threats from robbers, Rahima Begum, 50, has clung on to the piece of land that she has cultivated for over 15 years in Noakhali's Char Carring area.

Having lost everything to river erosion, Rahima, like more than 5,000 landless families in the area, leased land from robbers who claim ownership of Char Carring and other islets in the country's south. She thought her hope of the land's ownership would soon materialise after the government's Char Development and Settlement Project (CDSP) started there in 2011.

However, with the arrival of army in the area in 2012, that hope seems unlikely to be fulfilled.

"When the Bangladesh Army arrived, we felt that they would provide us with security," said Rahima, 50, yesterday at a press briefing organised by eight human rights organisations at the Dhaka Reporters Unity.

The rights bodies briefed media about the findings of a report which highlighted five cases from different parts of the country where land grabbing by corporate bodies and land acquisition of forest and agricultural land by the government have put residents' lives and livelihood at stake.

Rahima, who constitutes one of the five case studies, described her plight after the army had started putting up flags and pillars around her homestead and told the islet residents to stop cultivating crops in arable land: 

"They did not even let us rebuild the hay-roofed houses which were badly affected in a cyclone that had occurred in 2012."

The Association for Land Reform and Development, Ain O Salish Kendra, BLAST, Adivasi Forum, Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association, Nijera Kori, Bangladesh Poribesh Andolon and TIB jointly organised the briefing.

Referring to Char Carring, under Noakhali's Hatia Upazila, Khushi Kabir, executive director of Nijera Kori, said, "How can the land ministry allocate the same land both to the landless and the army?"

12,000 acres of land in Char Carring were given to the army for its winter exercise. Besides, 35,000 acres of Zahaziar Char, which fall under three southern upazilas, were also given to the army after evicting 500 landless families from there, according to the report.

The government decision to build a cantonment in Ramu, Cox's Bazar  acquiring 1,800 acres of forest land and another one in Ruma, Bandarban acquiring 997 acres of hilly land also came up in the report.

The report also mentioned a proposal to acquire 2, 408.05 acres of land for building military infrastructure in Chatmohar, Pabna where 2,941 families own land.

Acquisition of this land, which is part of the ecologically rich water body Chalan bill, will threaten the livelihood of many farmers and fishermen, speakers noted.

Iftekharuzzaman, executive director of Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB), said: "We too want development and industrialisation, and protection by defence forces but not at the cost of public interest."

The defence force was allocated about 50,000 acres of land including those near the Padma Bridge, he said adding that most of this was done on an ad hoc basis.

He stressed the need for a National Defence Policy which would set the long term strategy of the defence forces and answer what was to be achieved, and why and how.

"We need cantonments but we don't need to violate the rights of people whose tax money finances the sector," he said.

The fifth case highlighted how the owner of four factories in Shailat, Gazipur is grabbing land, forcing people to sell their land. The report, however, does not mention the owner's name.

Rezwana Hasan, executive director of Bangladesh Environmental Lawyer's Association (BELA), pointed out how the corporate body had been defying the law in the area in connivance with police and land administration officers.