Chittagong hill tracts
The Kuki-Chin National Army (KNA) came to the spotlight again after two soldiers of the Bangladesh Army were killed in attacks reportedly carried out by the KNA in Bandarban.
The KNA has been in the spotlight for a while.
The security forces of Bangladesh launched an operation last year against the militancy in the hill tract areas, targeting those that they said were being trained by the Kuki-Chin National Front (KNF).
According to the military, the KNF were offering the training in exchange for money.
In October 2022, law enforcers discovered the KNF was training members of a new militant group named Jama'atul Ansa rFilHindal Sharqiya.
The KNF, a new armed group, wants independence for the mountainous area.
With their claim of responsibility for the 21 killings of CHT individuals in June of this year, the KNF emerged as a fresh source of worry.
The CHT, which consists of three districts Rangamati, Khagrachari, and Bandarban, is a remote region. The region, with its forest cover and numerous mountains, is a pick for numerous armed and separatist groups.
Many organisations in the bordering countries are politically connected to the KNF and have provided training to them.
According to local media, there are currently between 3,000 and 4,000 trained KNA members living both inside and outside the nation.
Who are they?
The Chin-Kuki-Mizo belong to the same tribe with different names residing in Myanmar, Bangladesh and India with close geographical proximity along the border region between the countries. This ethnic armed group is engaged in political and military endeavors to establish an independent state in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, which encompass the majority of the Bandarban and Rangamati districts.
Their political front, the KNF, also has an armed component known as the Kuki-Chin Army (KNA). It emerged as a non-profit development organisation, but since 2017, it has evolved into a separatist group.
The Kuki-Chin is a geographical grouping of numerous Tibeto-Burman language-speaking ethnic communities that make up the majority in the Indian state of Mizoram and the Chin state of Myanmar.
The KNF, often known as the "Bawm Party" locally, is made up of six members of the Kuki-Chin ethnic group: the Bawm, Pangkhua, Lusai, Khumi, Mro, and Khiang.
KNF leadership
The KNF president, Nathan Bom, passed his master's degree from the Fine Arts Faculty of Dhaka University.
He was an active member of the Dhaka metropolitan branch and central committee of the Parbatya Chattagram Jana Sanghati Samity's student organisationPahariChhatraParishad (PCP). He is also the founding president of Kuki-Chin National Development Organization (KNDO).
He was the first candidate from the Bam community as an independent candidate in the 2018 parliamentary election.
It is believed that implicitly the KNF does not support the Peace Treaty, which, according to different media reports, they feel overwhelmingly supports the Chakma clan โ who have more national representation than other tribes in the region.
They are also found engaged in fierce battles with the JSS members and spread terror in villages to establish supremacy.
The JSS played a leading role in the peace accord.
The Chittagong Hill Tracts Peace Accord was a peace agreement signed between Bangladesh and the United People's Party of the Chittagong Hill Tracts, the political organisation that controlled the Shanti Bahini militia on 2 December 1997. The accord allowed for the recognition of the rights of the peoples and tribes of the Chittagong Hill Tracts region and ended the decades-long insurgency between the Shanti Bahini and government forces.
Regional and National Security at risk
The existence of such an armed group in isolated border regions has also put regional and national security at risk.
In the Indian border side, Mizoram shares 318 kilometers of border with Bangladesh. In the isolated regions of Mizoram state, there are a number of separatist organisations as well. On the other side, various rebel organisations such as the Arakan Army, Chin Defense Force, and Chin National Army are present in the Chin state of Myanmar. The connection and cooperation of KNF with these organisations will exacerbate the instability in the entire region, according to Geopolitics.
In addition to the Chittagong Hill Tracts, India and Myanmar are home to sizable populations of the Kuki-Chin ethnic group.
Bangladesh Defense
