“Being Neutral is Our Biggest Crime” - Global Coalition to Protect ...

our huts. About 10 forest department people and 40 villagers came
and beat everyone, even children and women…. They have come about
eight or nine times like this. Each time the forest department comes
with villagers and burns everything. Forest department people come in
jeeps and on motorcycles and the villagers come on foot. Sometimes
they [officials] do it [burn] sometimes they tell the villagers what to do
and then stand back and watch. They say “Go and set their huts on
fire” and stand and watch. 275
Villagers from only three of the 17 IDP hamlets stated that there was acrimony
between local tribal communities and displaced persons, and while local tribal
communities were indeed involved in the violence in each of those three hamlets,
the forest department was also involved. 276
In some cases, local tribal communities actively assisted displaced persons to find
new homes. 277 One displaced person who witnessed his hamlet being burned said,
“After that [burning] the local villagers helped us and told us to come and live here—
to come and stay with them over here. So now we have made our huts amidst the
local villagers’ huts. If we go to the jungle for something, then we get beaten.” 278
In one case, a displaced person in Warangal district stated that forest and excise
officials destroyed his hamlet even though they had the support of local villagers:
We came [from Chhattisgarh] to Bootharam [in Andhra Pradesh] … and
we built huts. About three months later, 20 forest and excise officials
came and said that they knew that we had come from Chhattisgarh
275 Human Rights Watch interview with Prakash (pseudonym), IDP from Kannaiguda, Kothooru, Khammam district, December
4, 2007.
276 Human Rights Watch group interviews with numerous IDPs from different villages in Dantewada and Bijapur districts,
villages Kothooru, K7, and K8, Khammam district, December 4-6, 2007. IDPs settled in these three villages told us that forest
department officials along with local villagers attacked their hamlets.
277 Human Rights Watch group interviews with numerous IDPs from different villages in Dantewada and Bijapur districts,
villages W2, W3, W4, W7, K5, K9, W6, K1, K2, K3, K10, and K11, Warangal and Khammam districts, November 28-December 8,
2007. IDPs in these 12 villages shared with Human Rights Watch stories of the different ways in which local tribal communities
had assisted them to settle safely in Andhra Pradesh.
278 Human Rights Watch group interview with numerous IDPs from different villages in Dantewada and Bijapur districts,
village K5, Khammam district, December 4, 2007.
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