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Taskforce for CHT internal refugees in limbo over chairman's status

PINAKI ROY
A taskforce crucial for the rehabilitation of internal refugees in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) is yet to launch its operation because of a controversy over the status of its newly appointed chairman.
After lying vacant for over two years now, the post of the Taskforce for Chittagong Hill Tracts Refugee Rehabilitation Affairs (TCHTRRA) chairman was filled recently.
The prime minister on October 13 approved Samiran Dewan as the chairman of the taskforce, headed earlier by then AL lawmaker Dipankar Talukdar, who stepped down in August 2001 to contest the October 1 ballot.
Samiran is a former chairman of Khagrachhari district council. Jafar Ahmed, a local Bangladesh Nationalist Party leader, was also named a member of the nine-member taskforce, the rest of which are ex officio members.
But indecision on the chairman's
official status, which used to be equivalent to a state minister, has left the taskforce in limbo.
Moni Swapan Dewan, deputy minister for CHT affairs, recently wrote to the prime minister requesting her to give Samiran at least the status of a deputy minister.
"The member secretary of this committee is the divisional commissioner. So, how do I fit in there if I'm not given higher status than him."
Secretary of the CHT ministry Syed Mustak said that the government was thinking of redefining the status of the chairman and it would be decided soon.
As yet, the new committee has not held a meeting and no financial allocation for running the committee operation has been made. No one of the 10 employees of its office at Khagrachhari district headquarters has received salary since the coalition government took power in October 2001.
Formed on January 28, 1998, the taskforce was given the responsibility to prepare a list of internal refugees displaced by the bush war in the hill tracts. The long-drawn conflict ended after the previous Awami League (AL) government signed the CHT peace agreement on December 2, 1997.
After the pact, the refugees returned home from camps in India but they didn't get back their dwellings lost to grabbers during their long absence, and thus became internal refugees, or refugees in their own land.
The then AL government, in line with the peace agreement, formed the nine-member taskforce headed by Dipankar to address the rehabilitation issue. Accordingly, the office of the taskforce was set up at Khagrachhari district headquarters in late 1998.
During the AL's tenure, the taskforce held 11 meetings, although Jana Sanghati Samity boycotted the ninth meeting protesting inclusion of non-tribal people on the refugee list.
The committee identified 1,28,314 families as internal refugees -- 90,208 indigenous and 38,156 Bangalees.