[🇧🇩] Chittagong Hill Tracts----A Victim of Indian Intervention

[Vsdoc]

@Krishna with Flute @Bilal9

Cheers, Doc

 

[Bilal9]

সনাতনী নির্যাতন প্রশ্নে চট্টগ্রামে কি ভারতের এখনই হস্তক্ষেপ করা উচিৎ ? (I am surprised at the audacity of this nincompoop)

No one in any sane leadership in any country would even "think" about invading another country. Crimea and Ukraine were naked attempts to attack Russian sovereignty.

Mostly countries fight proxy wars and help insurgencies. That favor can be returned.

Armed forces have to prepare for any eventuality.

There are all sorts of muckraking "experts" in the media, their primary objective is to gather views with audacious claims like this.

Best to ignore them.

 

[Saif]

27yrs of CHT peace accord: Key promises still unfulfilled

Twenty-seven years have passed but four key promises of the Chittagong Hill Tracts Peace Accord remain unfulfilled, said indigenous leaders and rights activists.

www.thedailystar.net

27yrs of CHT peace accord: Key promises still unfulfilled
Indigenous rights advocates say successive govts ignored pact

Twenty-seven years have passed but four key promises of the Chittagong Hill Tracts Peace Accord remain unfulfilled, said indigenous leaders and rights activists.

These are rehabilitation of repatriated and internally displaced indigenous people, demilitarisation, empowering district and regional councils, and making the Land Commission effective.

They alleged that the full implementation of the accord is elusive due to the unwillingness of successive governments to carry it out.

The government claims that 65 out of the 72 sections of the treaty have been fully implemented. However, leaders of the Parbatya Chattagram Jana Sanghati Samiti (PCJSS) said only 25 sections have been fully implemented and 18 partially, adding that 29 others are untouched.

The CHT Peace Accord was inked on this day in 1997 between the then Awami League government and PCJSS leaders, ending the armed conflict, as PCJSS leaders surrendered their firearms to the government.

Talking to The Daily Star, Devasish Roy, the king of the Chakma Circle, said he does not evaluate the status of the CHT Peace Accord by the number of clauses implemented.

"I focus on the qualitative aspects. From that perspective, four key elements -- rehabilitation of returnees from India and internally displaced indigenous people, demilitarisation, empowering district and regional councils, and making the Land Commission effective -- are still unmet."

He added that not a single repatriated or internally displaced indigenous person has been rehabilitated, despite the formation of a taskforce on January 20, 1998. Similarly, the district and regional councils have been rendered ineffective.

Demilitarisation has also not been achieved, even though the treaty stipulated the presence of only six camps, he said, adding that the Land Commission, formed in 2001, has yet to resolve any land dispute.

Dipayan Khisa, a PCJSS central committee member, said that despite being a signatory to the accord, the AL government has betrayed the CHT people as it did not implement the treaty fully.

"Voter lists of the CHT permanent residents must be prepared for holding elections to three district councils, members of which elect the regional council. However, no government, including the Awami League, has taken any steps to formulate the voter lists."

In the absence of such lists, polls in the three hill districts have not been held and consequently, the regional council elections could not take place, he said, adding that the district council members are replaced whenever the government changes.

The PCJSS leader alleged that the district councils function as a tool of the government, turning the three district councils into factories for implementing the ruling party's agenda without respecting the highest administrative body in the hills, the regional council.

Santoshita Chakma Bakul, general secretary of the Parbatya Chattogram Jumma Kalyan Samity, said a separate 20-point treaty was signed with the government on March 9, 1997, before the CHT Peace Accord, in which the government promised rehabilitation of the returnees from India.

"A taskforce was formed on January 20, 1998, for rehabilitation, but not a single person has been rehabilitated to date, as the issue relates to the Land Commission, which could not resolve any disputes because the government failed to formulate its regulations."

He demanded that the government prepare the regulations for the commission immediately.

Shamsul Huda, executive director of the Association for Land Reform and Development, said the law under which the Land Commission was formed contradicted the CHT Peace Accord, and it took until 2016 to amend the provisions of the law.

"After 2016, the Land Commission managed to hold a few meetings. But it could not convene meetings regularly due to opposition by a Bangalee organisation in the CHT. A powerful group supporting this organisation has prevented the commission from functioning."

He added that over 28,000 land-related complaints remain unresolved because the Land Commission is dysfunctional.

"To make the commission effective, regulations need to be prepared as early as possible. Despite repeated requests from the regional council, I don't understand why the relevant ministry has not taken any steps in this regard."​

 

[Saif]

Govts blamed for delay in treaty execution

The ineffectiveness of the bodies formed under the Chittagong Hill Tracts peace accord has been delaying the full execution of the treaty signed about three decades ago, national minority leaders and rights activists have said.

www.newagebd.net

Govts blamed for delay in treaty execution
Staff Correspondent 02 December, 2024, 00:45

The ineffectiveness of the bodies formed under the Chittagong Hill Tracts peace accord has been delaying the full execution of the treaty signed about three decades ago, national minority leaders and rights activists have said.

For its effective implementation, they have said that initiatives from the professor Muhammad Yunus-led interim government are crucial to activate all relevant bodies, including the CHT Land Commission having no chairperson since August 2023, the CHT Accord Implementation and Monitoring Committee, and the advisory committee of the CHT affairs ministry.

The frustrating delay in the treaty’s execution was increasing uncertainty of the national minorities in the hill districts of Rangamati, Bandarban and Khagrachari, they observe.

Describing the ‘CHT issues as both national and political’, ethnic minorities and activists emphasise that the full implementation of the accord, popularly known as the peace treaty, signed 27 years ago to establish peace and rights in the region, is crucial for the greater interest of Bangladesh.

They blame the ineffectiveness of the CHT land commission as a major barrier against ensuring their rights to land ownership, a crucial issue for the hill people mostly depending on land for their livelihoods.

They have also underlined the need for handing over responsibilities through executive orders to the regional and district councils for each hill district under the ‘CHT special governance system’.

‘After the interim government took charge, all bodies established under the CHT accord became non-functional and till now remain so, which is dangerous as it has heightened uncertainty regarding the full implementation of the treaty,’ Khairul Chowdhury, joint coordinator of the Chittagong Hill Tracts Accord Implementation Movement, told New Age.

He added that the situation led to growing disappointment and frustration among the national minority communities in the hills.

Particularly, the ineffectiveness of the CHT Land Dispute Resolution Commission, formed in 1999 under the provision of the treaty, as it had no chairman now and lacked corresponding rules under the law, has deprived many national minority people of their land, heightening the instability in the region.

‘Land dispute is the prime problem of the CHT. A major part of the inhabitants have become landless due to the ineffectiveness of the land commission,’ observes KS Mong, a member of the CHT Regional Council.

The CHT Land Dispute Resolution Commission Act 2001 was amended in 2016 to recognise the customary rights of the region’s national minority communities and resolve land disputes in accordance with the law, customs and practices in force in the CHT.

But over 22,000 land dispute applications from the national minorities remained unresolved as corresponding rules under the law are yet to be formulated, the speakers said.

‘Resolving the land dispute is essential to give the special governance system, incorporating the CHT Regional Council and the three hill district councils, an institutional shape,’ said KS Mong, also a central committee member of the Parbatya Chattagram Jana Samhati Samiti.

He explains that a voter list needs to be created for an independent election for the CHT Regional Council that has been operating under an interim committee, and that a person must have a permanent address and ownership of land legally in order to be eligible to vote.

To mark the 27 years of the treaty today, government, several organisations of national minorities and rights activists have announced programmes, including discussion events.

National minority leaders have also said that fundamental issues, including land problems, withdrawal of army camps, resettlement of Bangalee settlers, and self-governance, were not addressed in keeping with the accord in these 27 years.

Chittagong Hill Tracts Affairs adviser Supradip Chakma could not be reached for a comment over phone.

Abul Hasanat Abdullah, then chief whip of the Jatiya Sangsad and convener of the National Committee on CHT, and Jyotirindra Bodhipriya Larma, better known as Santu Larma, who heads the PCJSS, signed the accord respectively on behalf of the then AL-led government and the ‘residents of the CHT’ in the presence of then prime minister Sheikh Hasina on December 2, 1997.

The accord was signed to end the armed conflicts between the ethnic communities and the security forces with promises to protect the hill people’s land rights and the revival and conservation of their cultural uniqueness.

The accord was also aimed at rehabilitating people displaced due to the conflict and repatriating those who had left the country, limiting the presence of security forces, and setting up regional and district councils headed by representatives mostly from the national minority communities.​