Tribal Rebels Disarm in Bangladesh

After 22 years of fighting, the first of 10,000 warriors from such tribes as the Chakma, Marma, Khumi and Mro walked into a hastily built soccer stadium here and put down their rifles to the cheers of thousands of villagers.

The ceremony, attended by the U.S. ambassador, marked an unusual close to a conflict that pitted the government of one of the world's poorest countries against 13 tribes struggling to preserve their way of life.

"There is no rebel army anymore," rebel leader Shantu Larma said, his disarmed soldiers behind him. "But peace is a relative thing. We will see if the government makes good on its promises."

The war in the Chittagong Hill Tracts--a rolling, forested stretch of southeastern Bangladesh--is one of more than half a dozen insurgencies now being waged by tribal peoples struggling for self-rule in this country and in northeastern India. In each, tribal groups, ethnically and linguistically distinct from the majority, are fighting to preserve their unique qualities in the face of overwhelming population pressures. The challenge has forced some to abandon the old ways and pick up modern weapons.

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Here, the government of Bangladesh says it believes that it has come up with a formula that will preserve the tribes' way of life while keeping the country intact: It has granted them a measure of self-rule and put in place a framework to let them hold off the rush of Bengali settlers.

"I am aware that the people of the Hill Tracts have had to suffer all types of loss for a long time," Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheik Hasina Wajed told the surrendering rebels. "Let the old and worn be washed away."

How long the peace will hold is uncertain. Many tribal villagers and Bengali settlers who crowded into the soccer stadium cheered the truce, saying they are tired of a war that never brought them anything but hardship, tears and an estimated 20,000 dead.

"People are sick of the fighting," said Horikhisa Chakma, a tribal member whose grandfather's land was taken by Bengali settlers. "If the government is sincere, then the accord will work."