The Chittagong Hill Tracts: A case study in the political economy of "creeping" genocide

In: Third world quarterly, Band 20, Heft 2, S. 339-369

Abstract

The destruction of indigenous, tribal peoples in remote and/or frontier regions of the developing world is often assumed to be the outcome of inexorable, even inevitable forces of progress. People are not so much killed, they become extinct. Terms such as ethnocide, cultural genocide or developmental genocide suggest a distinct form of "off the map" elimination. By concentrating on a little-known case study, that of the Chittagong Hill Tracts in Bangladesh, this article argues that this sort of categorisation is misplaced. The relationship between a flawed state power and genocide can be located. (DSE/DÜI)