The Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) is situated in southeastern Bangladesh and home to 11 indigenous groups collectively known as the Jumma, named after their slash and burn agricultural practices. Since settling in the region in the 15th Century , the Buddhist Jumma had lived autonomously and peacefully. The geographic and social isolation of the Jumma ended with the building of the Kaptai Hydroelectric Dam in the early 1960's. Along with flooding more than 40% of the arable land in the CHT, more than 100,000 people were displaced. In 1964, the region's special autonomous status was revoked and the area was opened up to economic exploitation and an influx of Bengali settlers. Since the 1970's successive Bangladeshi governments promoted the migration of muslim Bengalis to the Hill Tracts as the Jumma were forcefully moved off their land by the army with false promises of compensation. An armed rebellion followed which lasted nearly two decades and had cost over 25,000 lives. Although a peace accord was signed in 1997, the area remains militarized with the Jumma substantially underrepresented in the political and economic arenas. They suffer from limited pubic health facilities, environmental decline which is a result of massive deforestation, dispossession from their land, and fierce competition with the Bengalis to settle on underutilized land.
