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Peace still a far cry in the hills

Shirin Lira
THE Awami League Election Manifesto of 2008 said — "The 1997 Chittagong Hill Tracts Peace Accord will be fully implemented. More efforts will be directed towards the development of underdeveloped areas, and special programmes on priority basis will be taken to secure rights of the ethnic minorities, indigenous peoples and other communities, and to preserve their language, literature, culture, and unique lifestyles." Unfortunately during the last six months of the present government, there have been no significant initiatives to implement the
CHT Accord.
The government has only started to reconstitute different committees and appoint members but no impact has been seen in the field on the lives of the people in the hills. The practical situation of the Chittagong Hill Tracts is extremely uncertain and human rights violations including torture, killings, harassment of Buddhist monks, sexual violence against women and children and the dispossession of indigenous peoples' lands by Bengali settlers and military personnel are regularly reported.
Land grabbing by settlers, military, political leaders, multinational companies, NGOs are increasing day by day and the poor hill people are slowly losing more land. The hills remains heavily militarised and people are facing regular checking at the checkpoints in CHT, which reveals the human rights violation committed against paharis in the region. 'Operation Uttoron’ and pacification programmes for the military forces are still ongoing.
The government still has not declared any steps or set any time-limits for withdrawal of all the temporary camps of military forces as per CHT Accord. The CHT accord recognises CHT as a tribal-inhabited region and introduces special political arrangement for CHT with formation of CHT Regional Council (CHTRC), as an apex political body of the region and three Hill District Councils (HDCs).
The CHT Regional Council has never been able to work with full function in the last eight years. It is very important for the government to take effective measures for strengthen CHTRC soon otherwise it will become a useless institution. The Accord also provides establishment of Land Dispute Settlement
Commission, demilitarisation of the region, rehabilitation of the victims etc.
Very recently the government has reconstituted the Peace Accord Implementation Committee led by Sajeda Chowdhury but no action plan for implementation of the CHT Accord has been published. Unfortunately, the government plans to appoint the Chairman for CHT Lands Disputes Resolution Commission without amending the Chittagong Hill Tracts Land Dispute Resolution Commission Act 2001 in conformity with the 1997 Accord.
On the other hand we are moving far away from the demand of the constitutional guarantee of the indigenous people living in Bangladesh. The movement for constitutional recognition has become "out of agenda" nowadays as neither the government nor the civil society is raising the issue anymore. Though Bangladesh Awami League used the term 'Indigenous People' in their Election Manifesto, but nowadays the ministers and other government officials are not willing to use the word 'Indigenous' or 'Adivasi' either formally or in documents. Awami League achieved the absolute majority in the general election held on December 29,2008 and now they are the majority in the parliament, so they could easily take an initiative for the constitutional recognition of the indigenous people, but no good initiatives have been noticed yet in this regard.
If we take a look at the constitution of the new republic of Bangladesh that was adopted in November 1972, the document did not explicitly recognise the ethnic identities and self-government systems of the indigenous peoples of the CHT or of those living in the other parts of the country.
According to the Bangladesh Constitution our country is a unitary state and the state language is "Bangla" whereas almost 45 Indigenous communities are living here and they have their own languages. There is no provision for indigenous people or affirmative discrimination or action towards IP's in this constitution. There are no constitutional safeguards for the ethnic diversity and culture of IPs living in Bangladesh. However, for the sake of integrity, development, democracy
and human rights, constitutional recognition of these indigenous people is a must.
The Bengalis who fought for their language can also respect and recognise other communities' languages and existence. It is a universally agreed notion practiced by the leading states of the world that the beauty of democracy lies in diversity, be it ethnic, cultural, religious, lingual and so on. Bangladesh contains all these diversities and glories, but with no official political recognition.
By denying rights of our own people, we are embracing disgrace rather than achieving dignity as a nation in the eyes of others in the world. If the government changed this trend, it could bring peace, prosperity, and stability in the country. We are looking forward to seeing peace in CHT through ensuring rights of the indigenous peoples by the present Government. By constitutional . guarantee, full implementation of the ! CHT Accord and other affirmative I actions.
Shirin Lira is Coordinator of the International CHT Commission