FAMINE NEARING IN CHITTAGONG HILL TRACTS?

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 DHAKA 000442

SIPDIS

SENSITIVE
SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/17/2018
TAGS: AID PGOV PHUM PREL BG
SUBJECT: FAMINE NEARING IN CHITTAGONG HILL TRACTS?

REF: DHAKA 0102

Classified By: Ambassador James F. Moriarty. Reasons 1.4 (b) and (d)

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SUMMARY
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1. (C) A food crisis in remote regions of the Chittagong Hill
Tracts may be headed toward famine. Villages that lost rice
and other crops to a rat infestation last year show signs of
severe food insecurity and widespread malnutrition. Many lack
seed rice to plant before the arrival of the rainy season in
a few weeks. Other villages may soon be in similar dire
straits when the bamboo flowering that causes rat populations
to explode spreads to new areas. Recent assessments of the
Hill Tracts by an Embassy Dhaka interagency team and several
non-governmental organizations found a need for immediate
international emergency relief and for subsequent ongoing
food assistance if disaster is to be averted for tens of
thousands of people.

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ANATOMY OF A FOOD CRISIS
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2. (SBU) Remote areas of the Chittagong Hill Tracts along the
Indian border in southeastern Bangladesh are covered by
bamboo that flowers once every 40 to 50 years, triggering a
series of events that lead to a rapid increase in rat
populations (Reftel). When the hordes of rats first arrived
in August, they ate their way through entire crops of rice,
fruits and vegetables, leaving many people with little option
but to forage for wild potatoes and roots in the forest.
Numerous villages lost seed rice, which means there is
nothing to plant before seasonal rains arrive in May. Even if
seeds were available, the next crop would not be ready to
harvest before early fall.


3. (SBU) To date, food relief has been insufficient. The
Government of Bangladesh (GOB) has allocated 1,400 metric
tons of rice in the three districts of the Hill Tracts, while
the United Nations Development Program has provided rice,
salt and shrimp paste to 7,000 families in Rangamati
district. By the reckoning of non-governmental organizations
and tribal officials, that aid is not nearly enough to
support the affected population through the crisis. The
situation clearly exceeds the capacity to respond of the GOB,
which is struggling to ensure affordable food is available
throughout the country in the wake of crop-destroying natural
disasters and high international commodity prices.

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HUNGER AND DESPAIR IN SAJEK UNION
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4. (SBU) Sajek Union of Rangamati District, whose 40,000
people are tucked into the extreme northeastern corner of the
Hill Tracts, is among the worst-hit areas. On April 11, two
EmbOffs traveled to Philamukh village -- a 3-hour car ride
along narrow, serpentine roads from Khagrachhari city to
Ruilui town, followed by a two-hour jungle trek -- to see
part of the affected area. Nilik Dhan Chakma, the local
headman, recounted how the rats came eight months earlier and
devoured nearly all of the rice, vegetable and ginger crops
that the villagers eat and sell in the local market, where
they purchase shrimp paste, rice and basic household goods.
He displayed a wicker basket with a gaping hole in its bottom
to show how rats had gobbled up stored grain as well. Some of
the approximately 100 villagers have earned money by selling
their labor to people with unaffected fields, while many
others have resorted to hiking up to eight kilometers into
the forest to find edible roots and wild potatoes."Life is
very uncertain," said Nilik Dhan, whose relentlessly grim
mien is testament to his 60 difficult years, as he sat on a
raised bamboo porch of a local home. "I don't know what will
happen next." At least some of the rats remain and can be
heard scurrying about at night, he said. The fields remain
unplanted. Since the infestation, he reported, not a single
government official has visited the village.


5. (SBU) Residents of Philamukh and nearby villages said they
often go a day or more without food; before the rat attack
they typically ate two meals a day. Some younger children
showed signs that typically indicate weight loss -- visible
rib cages, thin arms and pot bellies. Another sign of food
scarcity was the failure of the Philamukh headman to offer
refreshments to the EmbOffs; Bengali and tribal hosts without

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fail aggressively ply visitors with local delicacies.


6. (C) A preliminary draft report of 34 villages in Sajek
Union conducted by the non-governmental organization Medecins
Sans Frontieres (MSF) found "a severe food crisis with
potential to progress, at least in some areas, toward
famine." The survey, conducted over several weeks by three
teams of six members, found nearly four out of five
households faced severe food insecurity, which typically
means cutting back the size or number of meals. Two deaths
were reported in the survey that could be related directly to
food shortage. Nearly half of those questioned had to sell
livestock to survive while the vast majority had to borrow
money. Several families in the most remote areas have
migrated across the border to India in search of food. Some
areas reported food theft within villages, suggesting the
fraying of social cohesion in a region where tribal
insurgents remain active. "It's a matter of weeks, not
months, before serious mortality comes out of these places,"
said Frido Herinckx, MSF's head of mission in Dhaka.

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HOW MANY PEOPLE ARE THREATENED?
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7. (SBU) It remains unclear exactly how many people are at
risk from the rat infestation in the Hill Tracts, although
the number is certainly in the tens of thousands. Mohammad
Nurul Amin, the deputy commissioner of Rangamati, put the
number at 5,540 families in his district, one of three that
comprise the Hill Tracts. Still, during an hour-long meeting
with the interagency team neither he nor his aides were able
to provide a clear picture of the scope of the crisis or
outline a cogent government response, lending credence to
criticism from tribal officials that the government was not
on top of the problem. The UNDP, meanwhile, provided
emergency aid to 7,000 families in Rangamati alone. Medecins
Sans Frontieres says most of Sajek Union's 40,000 people are
affected by the infestation. As the bamboo flowering
continues to move west through the Hill Tracts, the number of
affected people will only rise.

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COMMENT
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8. (C) Raja Devasish Roy, the king of the Chakma tribe that
is bearing the brunt of the rat infestation, implored the
Embassy interagency team to help provide food and seed rice
to the affected areas during this time of greatest
vulnerability. Roy, who also is special assistant to the
Chief Adviser for the Ministries of Chittagong Hill Tracts
Afairs and of Environment and Forests, is working with UNDP
to set up a distribution system to immediately get any
available rice to the neediest areas of Rangamati. As an
initial step, Ambassador will request $100,000 in USAID
Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance funds to provide
emergency supplies in time for the current planting season
(Septel). We will also work with Roy, the UNDP and other
international agencies to assess the longer-term needs of
tribal areas affected by the rat infestation and to come up
with a multilateral response to a crisis MSF's Herinckx
expects could last at least several years. Assistance will
not only help stave off famine but will deny space ripe for
exploitation by tribal insurgents.
Moriarty