Eco park and ethics in development

What, however, is known is the fact that several thousand Garos living in and around the Madhupur forest did not like this approach to development which threatened their livelihood opportunities and the right of free movement. It is reported that the brutal police action of January 4, 2004 led to the death of Piren Slaner, and 25 tribesmen and women were injured. A protest rally was held and the speakers condemned the police action on unarmed indigenous people. Two members of Parliament from Tangail district visited the place of occurrence.

Another news quoted Dr. Kamal Hossain as saying, "The government is implementing the project violating the rights of citizens". He is further reported to have said that some ruling party men would benefit from the Madhupur project that made Garos victims.

Strangely enough, there was no mention of any senior magistrate or police officer visiting the area, which is normally done after such an incident. BBC is said to have reported that the tribal leaders have demanded a judicial enquiry into the shooting incident and exemplary punishment to those responsible for killing Piren Slaner. The further work for construction of wall has been suspended. It was reported that the Garos have been living in and around the Madhupur forest area for centuries. They have a long-standing dispute with the forest department over their title of lands.

It was, however, reported that the district administration had formed a committee to probe the incident. The actions to be taken by the district administration under the relevant regulations do not envisage formation of committee. What it requires is the holding of an executive enquiry to ascertain if the police firing was justified. Such enquiry will be independent of any departmental enquiry. Apparently, the regulatory injunctions have not been followed in this case.

The news report further states that the local police have filed two cases. One against four forest guards for killing and injuring the Garo tribesmen and the other case against ten Garo tribesmen on charge of damaging public property in the Eco Park. The type and nature of the public property damaged by the Garos have not been spelt out. The police have done their duty. It is too early to predict how long will it take to complete the process of investigation and subsequent trial. The forest department is said to have suspended work on construction of wall. It is not known if it will resume the work in near or distant future. What is certain is that Piren Slaner will never be back from 'the undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns'. However, the issues of right to be treated in accordance with law and of ethics in development will continue to remain in Bangladesh.

In one of his recent public speeches, the Chief Justice of Bangladesh is reported to have said that the poor have no access to justice because of their insolvency, ignorance and backwardness. The tragic event centering on the Eco Park at Madhupur more than justifies this observation. The indigenous Garo tribes are poorer and more innocent of the trammels of law and justice and more backward than average Bangladeshi. That is possibly why they could not obtain a prohibitory order from a civil court preventing the forest department from their act of construction of wall. Apparently, the commotion over the Eco Park was building up for quite some time. No legal aid organisation came forward to provide legal aid to the Garos.

Madhupur incident raises substantive issues of the ethical dimension of administration and of development. The incident makes a mockery of the development policies and strategies as embodied in the government-owned Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP, 2003). PRSP asserts that the strategic elements of anti-poverty policies and institutions will cover five broad dimensions. The fifth one specifically relates to participatory governance. It seeks to enhance the voice of the poor, and improve non-material dimensions of well-being including security, power and social inclusion.

PRSP goes on to assert that anti-poverty interventions will be targeted to the poor regions and with special focus on the needs of the most disadvantaged population and ethnic groups. The PRSP avers that institutional actions envisaged will be designed, among others, to reach the areas with high concentration of socially disadvantaged and marginal ethnic groups.

The construction of the Eco Park definitely contradicts the policies and strategies outlined by PRSP, which is supposed to guide all actions of the government in respect of development. On the other hand, if it is accepted that the construction of the Eco Park will conduce to the environmental protection, it cannot be justified on the ground that it involves the uprooting of Garo families living there for years.

In this context, it will perhaps be relevant to quote the Norwegian Prime Minister who said in an international conference on ethics and development that "poverty cannot be defeated with policies and actions dictated from abroad. Instead it must be fought with the defence of human rights, good practices of private initiatives in the environmental and social areas and an incentive for public debate encouraged by the State".

In the instant case, the State supported development programme does not defend human rights rather it promotes insecurity, that too of a disadvantaged and marginal ethnic community. The Garos, who have been living in Madhupur for generations, ought to have been involved in making the so-called Eco Park a success. Being the residents of the area, they would be more committed and better equipped to protect the forest that provides them with livelihood opportunities than the type of brick and mortar programme of the forest department. Seen in this light, the project objectives, its rationale and benefits call for a serious review and reexamination keeping fully in view the ethical dimensions of development centering on the policies and actions prescribed in PRSP to which the government is committed.

One of the major elements of the policies is to ensure security and well-being of the marginal ethnic groups such as Garos. We often hear such words as marginal ethnic groups but fall short of identifying them. The reference made in PRSP is to communities outside the Chittagong Hill Tract region. That does not carry us far enough. Our State Acquisition and Tenancy Act of 1950 does provide the identification in terms of protection of their land rights. Garos are among the total 22 communities classed as aboriginals. The law imposes restriction of alienation of lands by aboriginals. Alienation or transfer of rights of lands can only be made from one member of these communities to another aboriginal who is domiciled or permanently residing in Bangladesh.

During the pre-1971 period, in most of the districts there used to be a Special Officer in the office of the Deputy Commissioner to deal with issues of legal rights of the ethnic minorities. They appear to have gone out of existence. Some of the recent project related studies involving Participatory Need Assessment (PNA) Surveys have indicated the lack of security of the ethnic communities like Garos in terms of land rights. The Research Initiatives Bangladesh (RIB) has last year completed a comprehensive review of land laws. In this review also, the need to protect the land rights of the ethnic minority was highlighted. Any approach to meet the goals of a pro-poor approach to development, in particular the ethnic groups, may well start on establishing a well functioning system of land rights for such communities. The National Land Use Policy (2001) does state that it will provide land rights to ethnic communities, preserve and protect their community rights to land. This appears to be more of a pious wish than anything else.

It has been reported that the Garos 'are being evicted from their ancestral homes'. This, on the face of it, appears to be unlawful action of lawful authority. If we had a well-functioning system of enforcing land rights, the tragic event of Eco Park could be avoided. The Land Reform Ordinance (Ordinance X of 1984) expressly prohibits eviction from homestead land. The relevant provision reads as under:

"No eviction, etc. from homestead.--Any land used as a homestead by its owner in the rural area shall be exempted from all legal processes, including seizure, distress, attachment or sale by any officer, court or any other authority and the owner of such land shall not be divested or dispossessed of the land or evicted therefrom by any means: Provided that nothing in this section shall apply to the acquisition of such homestead under any law."

The law is there. There is no protection to the Garos in spite of the law. The constitutional right to be treated in accordance with law thus is more a fiction than a fact.

Public debate on the issue may be the starting point. More efforts will be needed for operationalising the much trumpeted words 'listening to the voices of the poor' that form part of our development policy agenda and repeated in many seminars and workshops.

AMM Shawkat Ali is former Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture.