Rangamati, Dec 1(bdnews24.com) — Twelve years on from the signing of the Chittagong Hill Tracts Peace Accord, to end decades of insurgency and bring stability to the troubled region, indigenous communities are still calling for a roadmap to its full implementation.
"The fundamental issues of the agreement are yet to be implemented," Santu Larma, chairman of the Parbatya Chattagram Jana Shanghati Samity (PCJSS), said Tuesday.
"An urgent roadmap needs to be prepared for fast implementation of the accord in full." he told a press conference at the regional council office in Rangamati, on the eve of the Peace Accord's twelfth anniversary.
Larma holds that the incumbent AL-led government will solve hill tract problems in line with its electoral pledges.
He said appointments to crucial bodies, such as the CHT Land Commission, were finally made under the current government that came to power in January this year.
The government since January has taken a number of other steps for the peace process—it has created a high level committee on the implementation of the peace accord, including a taskforce on rehabilitation of refugees, as well as forming a parliamentary standing committee on CHT affairs and.
In August this year, the government started what it termed as "the biggest single withdrawal" of troops from the region since the accord was signed, though regional leaders have demanded a timeline for full withdrawal.
There is also disagreement on the actual number of army camps that have been withdrawn since the accord was signed. The government says 200 camps have been dismantled in the past twelve years, while the regional council says the number is nowhere near as many.
"The situation has improved a bit. I believe this government is earnest in implementing the accord," Larma said on Tuesday. But, he said he was still frustrated with the slow pace of implementation.
Pending issues of the Parbatya Chattagram Jana Shanghati Samity, or Chittagong Hill Tracts Regional Council, and the three hill district councils must be finalised, he said.
"Provisos in the accord for the chairman and members of the councils to be made fully functional and effective must be resolved."
He called for determining the status of council members, building a council complex and allotting land and money for construction of a Parbatya Chattagram Bhaban in Dhaka.
The press conference was attended among others by regional council members Goutom Kumar Chakma, Ushatan Talukdar and Sneh Kumar Chakma.
The present government has said it will not retreat from implementing the Peace Accord despite all difficulties.
The main conditions of the accord are phased withdrawal of army troops, rehabilitation of refugees and restoration of land rights.
The army was deployed in the troubled region after indigenous communities, led by Chakma leaders, took up arms in the 1970s in protest against the government of a newly independent Bangladesh for its "inaction" over key demands.
These included decommissioning the Kaptai hydroelectric project and restoration of traditional land rights.
The Kaptai Lake, built in the 1960s, inundated the palace of the Chakma King and vast tracts of land displacing thousands of people. Many fled across the border to India to wage a campaign of insurgency against the Bangladesh Army. Many more fled in the wake of violence.
The conflict escalated as the government in 1979 took up a policy of settling Bengalis, giving them lands and other facilities there, as a neutralising strategy that subsequently reduced the indigenous population in the region from 97.5 percent in 1947 to just 50 percent at present.
The Awami League government signed the peace deal on Dec 2 1997 with the PCJSS headed by Santu Larma, who at one time led the guerrilla war against the army.
Complications remained, however, as the accord was opposed by another faction of Chakma guerrillas, the UPDF, which continued with violence despite the peace deal.
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