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Adivasis tired of hollow promises for 17yrs

Says Santa Larma about CHT accord implementation

Staff Correspondent
The indigenous people are tired of hearing the government's promises of implementing the Chittagong Hill Tracts accord in the last 17 years when successive administrations actually acted against the spirit of the treaty, adivasi leader Jyotirindra Bodhipriya Larma said yesterday.
Sanjeeb Drong, secretary of the Bangladesh Forum for Indigenous People; Pankaj Bhattacharya, senior politician; Prof Mesbah Kamal, expert member of the parliamentary caucus on the indigenous people; Noman Khan, executive director of the Institute for Environment and Development; Endrew
The rights of the indigenous communities are diminishing day by day forcing them to leave the country he told a press conference at Sundarban Hotel in the capital.
Commonly known as Santu Larma, the chairman of the CHT Regional Council said if the government did not implement the 1997 treaty the situation would tell how the aggrieved indigenous people would fight to realise their demands.
At the conference, the indigenous leaders demanded that the government observe International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples on August 9 at the state level and that it amend the constitution and recognise the people as 'indigenous communities" rather than 'small ethnic" or 'ethnic* communities.
Sholomar, treasurer of the organisation, were also present.
Sanjeeb said the condition of the adivasis were really bad in Bangladesh. "All political parties talk in favour of indigenous people but they forget all their commitments when they form the government, ” he said.
Prof Mesbah Kamal said 65,000 indigenous refugees had come back from India on the basis of the promise of the present prime minister. "But 17 years have passed, and none of those people has got back their ancestral homes. Over 90,000 people who were displaced internally also did not get back their ancestral land, "he said. Referring to the rape of an adivasi women's leader in the country's north on Monday following land disputes, Pankaj Bhattacharya said the present government was not a government of the mass people; it was a government of one percent of the people who wielded influence.
Marking the international day, with this year's theme, "Indigenous Peoples: A New Partnership", the Bangladesh Forum for Indigenous People and organisations working for adivasis will organise seminars, discussions, processions and cultural events from today till August 9.
Manusher Jonno Foundation will organise a two-day fair on August 9-10 on the Bangla Academy premises.