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Peace Accord: 17 Years on

CHT land rights still not settled

Land commission amendment bill not passed in 13 years; hill people losing land

Pinaki Roy
Nearly two decades since the signing of the Chittagong Hill Tracts Peace Accord, the government is nowhere near ensuring the land rights of the hill people.
A key provision of the 1997 accord is to give back their land taken away from them by government and non-government actors, but it is a right that exists only on paper.
In all, some one lakh indigenous families in the three hill districts - Bandarban, Rangamati and Khagrachhari - had lost all or some of their lands. Of them, around 90,000 families were locally displaced during insurgency and nearly 10,000 are refugee families repatriated from India following the deal. They have yet to get
back their lands.
The repatriated families totalled 12,212.
Over the years, different government agencies and Bangalee settlers have occupied the homesteads and agro lands that once belonged to the Jumma people. The local administration has also leased out hundreds of acres of land to different individuals and businesses.
Indigenous leaders say the government has been dragging its feet over amending the relevant law that will empower the CHT Land Dispute Resolution Commission to ensure indigenous people's land rights.
"Land is the most important issue for the indigenous people. But the government is purposefully dilly-dallying over resolving the matter," said Mangai Kumar Chakma, publication secretary of the Parbtya Chattagram Jana Sanghaty Samity (PCJSS), which signed the peace accord with the government.
Instead of settling the issue, different government agencies have also continued to occupy their land, he alleged.
In 2011 alone, at least 7,118 acres of land belonging to indigenous people were grabbed by Bangalee settlers in the three hill districts, according to a 2012 report of Bangladesh Legal Aid Services Trust (BLAST).
The ruling Awami League was in power when the deal was signed. Since then, the party has formed two more governments in 2008 and in January this year. But it has done little so far to amend the CHT Land Commission Amendment Bill 2001.
Once passed, the law will solve the issues of land ownership and land management. But the government has shelved the bill for all these years, said Mangai Chakma.
Moreover, the government is now set to pass some laws that will go against the spirit of the peace accord itself, alleged other indigenous leaders.
Asked about the status of the amendment bill, chief of the House body on the land ministry Rezaul
Karim Hira said he was not aware of it. The previous parliament had sent the bill to the relevant committee for scrutiny.
Under the rules, the House cannot pass any bill placed in the previous parliament. This means, the bill will have to be brought before parliament afresh.
Against this backdrop, PCJSS President Santu Larma has said they would start a non-cooperation movement from May 1 next year if the treaty is not implemented by then.
STATUS OF CHT LAND
According to the Land Revenue Administration Report of 1965-66, there were 32,59,520 acres of land in the CHT. Fifty-one percent of them were declared reserve forest.
Of the rest 49 percent, only 1,30,000 acres were cropland, of which 54,000 acres (40 percent) were submerged due to the Kaptai dam, constructed for hydropower project in the 1960s in Rangamati.
The project displaced about a third of the indigenous population in the district, which was the key reason for the armed conflicts in the hills.
As the indigenous people started to target the security forces in the late 1970s, the government took up a programme to drastically increase Bangalee settlements there in efforts to weaken insurgency.
From 1979 to 1985, some 80,000 families from the plains were brought
to the hills. Each of these families was given about 10 acres of croplands and hilly lands, indigenous leaders claim.
Most of these lands belonged to the indigenous people, suggest different studies.
'GOVTWORKING'
The government claims it has implemented at least 48 of the 72 peace pact provisions fully and 15 partially while implementation of nine other provisions are underway.
"I would say 95 percent provisions of the peace accord have been implemented. The government is working to implement the rest within the shortest possible time," said Obaidul Muktadir Chowdhury, chief of Parliamentary Standing Committee on the Chittagong Hill Tracts Affairs Ministry.
Contacted, Naba Bikram Tripura, secretary of the ministry, said implementation of the treaty was an ongoing process.
He said the ministry held a meeting yesterday on the amendment bill.
CHT Minister Bir Bahadur Ushwe Sing, Santu Larma, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's Adviser Gowher Rizvi and the secretary, among others, attended the meeting.
The CHT Land Dispute Resolution Commission Act was passed in 2001. So far, six such commissions have been formed, but none has been functional due to legal tangles.