Hill Voice, 25 April 2025, International Desk: Representative of CHT* Indigenous Peoples’ Council of Canada, Bijubi Chakma, has delivered statement on Item 5(a): Dialogue with Indigenous Peoples at the 24th session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) on 24 April 2025.

She opined that in India, there are scheduled tribes, scheduled castes, Tribals and adivasi. They get many facilities for their living, education, development and preservation of their own culture and tradition. If they are eligible, they get 6th schedule of the Indian Constitution which is an established autonomy to the tribal peoples. For example, The Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC) and the Bodo Kachari Welfare Autonomous Council (BKWAC), Chakma Autonomous District Council, Lai Autonomous District Council, Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council, and so on. These councils have been established to promote the socio-economic, educational, ethnic, and cultural advancement of the Tribal peoples. The Indian government considers the adivasis’ right to embrace and preserve their cultural heritage and name.

Whereas in Myanmar, there are 135 ethnic groups who have been suppressed for decades. Now many of them like Chin, Karen, Arakan, Kachin, Ta’ang, etc. are waging struggles against the Myanmar’s military junta. Their active resistance brings them closer to a path of reclaiming their rights and freedoms.

When India has a constitutional guarantee for safeguarding the rights, culture, and traditions of the Adibasis and Myanmar is compelled by its people’s resistence to acknowledge their rights, why is Bangladesh unable to do so? In the past two and half decades, the Indigenous Jummo people of the Chittagong Hill Tracts, also known as the CHT, have relentlessly endured the systemic oppression of the Bangladesh state. Their continuous efforts of resistance achieved the creation of the CHT Accord, a peace treaty intended to uphold the Jummo people’s human rights and freedoms. Yet to this very day, that promise remains unfulfilled.

Though it was the previous government that failed to uphold its commitments, the current Interim Government must both address the realities of Bangladesh and the progress in its neighboring countries’ situations. the Bangladesh Government should be proactive and instate the full implementation of the CHT Accord – an agreement born from so much pain, and bloodshed. Continued reliance on the military force will not solve this issue, it only deepens the wounds.

As a body committed to universal peace and justice, the United Nations should urge the Government of Bangladesh to take meaningful steps toward a lasting and just peace in the Chittagong Hill Tracts.