![[Laos] A Buddhist monk reads in the evening light in the Laoian capital, Vientian 15 October 2006. The Lao Buddhism Association's Metta Tham programme has been sending monks to visit the homes of those living with HIV/AIDS for over five years now.](https://assets.thenewhumanitarian.org/s3fs-public/styles/responsive_large_2x/public/images/2006103110.jpg.webp?itok=fKL0ft4_ "The CHT has a largely Budhist population")
Share & more
The Bangladesh Jumma Buddhist Forum has called for the demilitarization of Bangladesh's Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) in a statement addressed to the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in Bangkok.
"We are asking for the withdrawal of the 365 military camps, as promised in the 1997 Peace Accord, to end the human rights violations against the indigenous people," Dipayan Chakma, president of the Jumma Buddhists Forum, who presented the letter to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) on 12 May, told IRIN.
The displacement of tens of thousands of Jummas in the past 10 years, and the burning of more than 100 houses in the past month, as well as two Buddhist temples, has been perpetrated by Bengali settlers backed by the military, according to Chakma.
"The majority of human rights violations committed against indigenous peoples in the region [are] attributed to the extensive presence of security forces," said UN special rapporteur Lars-Anderson Baer in a study conducted in April.
dm/ds/mw
This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions
