THE National Committee on CHT (NCCHT) has sent a tri bal -dominated delegation to the ethnic refugee camps in the Indian state of Tripura in a fresh bld to bring back their tribal compatriots to Bangladesh. Not only is the seven-member team headed by tribal leader and MP Kalparanjan Chakma. three other prominent leaders of the same community viz. Samlran Dewan, Chairman. Khagrach-hari District Council, Bir Bahadur. MP from Bandarban. and Akhoy Muni Chakma are also Included in it. •

Three other members of the team are Bangladesh government officials like the Divisional Commissioner. Chittagong, M Sakhawat Hossain, Director General. Special Affairs Division at the PM's Sectt, ASM Mobaidul Islam, and DC. Kha-grachhari, Ismail Hossain, persons who have grown sufficient expertise in their fields of competence. They have also developed good rapport with the tribal negotiators from a series of encounters they have had under the leadership of Abul Hasnat Abdullah, the ruling garty Chief Whip who heads th.

The tribal leaders in the del-

egatlon are being relied upon to persuade Upendra Lal Chakma. a former MP and leader of the refugees In India not to put a spanner on the wheel of their home-coming The apprehension about his likely obstructionist role grows because it was chiefly owing to him that a well-resumed repatriation process early this year came unexpectedly to a halt.

Under a 20-point accord reached between NCCHT and the Refugee Welfare Association in India, of which Upendra Lal is an unquestioned supremo, as many as 7,600 tribal refugees actually trekked back home in the March-April period of the current year. They were rehabilitated with care and compassion.

On return from his reappraisal mission to Bangladesh rehabilitation camps Upendra Lal Chakma dissuaded the refugees in Tripura camps from going back to Bangladesh on the plea that implementation of the repatriation agreement was being flawed. His contention in-

volved matters of detail, and not so much of principle. Even looking at it from his side, it sounded quite like pandering to either the extremist views within the Shantibahini ranks, or that it was his indiscreet attempt at showing off his leader-

ship clout to the community at large.

Upendra Lal Chakma made matters worse by raising the demand that no further repatriation would be allowed except under the supervision of the UNHCR or the ICRC. There was no human rights violation, no blood-letting, no sign of overt or covert persecution and not even any acute manifestation of

mismanagement on the Bangladesh side that could have warranted a demand for an international Involvement like that. This tangential move to associate an international agency with repatriation when the CHT has not been a flash-

point, either in terms of internal commotion or refugee exodus, is manifestly an extension of the Shantibahini extremists' desperate bid for Internationalising their separatist political goal in order to keep at alive.

The militants and their surrogate variants are fighting a lost battle in view of the seachange that has occurred in the objective situation pertaining to

the CHT question. The central government of India, the Tripura state government and the government of Bangladesh stand committed to combating any form of insurgency in that vulnerable area. Minority rights are regarded to be safe in the hands of the AL government which is also eminently suited for bringing about a political rapprochement with the tribals on a durable basis.

The Bangladesh Army's counter-insurgency role in the CHT has been dubbed as the most low-profile one in the present-day world. In fact, it has evolved, matured and mellowed over the years.

While the Shantibahini operations have- ceased from across the border, the Tripura state government does not see any reason why in the present congenial conditions across the border the tribal refugees should not return to their hearths and homes In the CHT. Their occasional sneaking into the outer periphery of the camps and straying into the

contiguous states has fomented local sentiments adversely, something that Tripura government could not trifle with.

The forty thousand tribal refugees now crammed in the squalid camps in Tripura should prefer breathing fresh air at their homes in Bangladesh to languishing indefinitely on the margin of life without any future. They are being given all sorts of rehabilitation support and if there is any snag in their re-settlement it can be removed with patient dialogue between patriotic nationals of the same country.

On a broader canvas, a draft peace accord for the hills has been circulated to all the constituents of the Shantibahini by way of ensuring Its implementation on eventual adoption. That being the perspective, let the repatriation process be ended without ado to allow all the tribal citizens of the country the taste of a new life that awaits them.

Remarkably, the tribals seem ready for good things given their fine-tuning to a mental state in which words like quislings', lackeys’ or 'collaborators' are alien to their present community culture.