Hill Voice, 27 November 2024, Special Reporter:
Rehabilitation of Internally Displaced Tribal People
The historic Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) Accord was signed on 2 December 1997 between the Government of Bangladesh and the Parbatya Chattagram Jana Samhati Samiti (PCJSS) with a view to resolving the CHT problem in political and peaceful means.
Although there is provision to take steps to rehabilitate the Internally Displaced Tribal People of the three Hill Districts identifying them according to Section No. 1 and 2 of Part ‘D’ of the CHT Accord, through the Task Force, but the Internally Displaced Tribal People have not been rehabilitated yet.
The definition that was determined referring to the ‘internally displaced refugees’ in the third meeting of the Task Force held at the Khagrachari Circuit House on 27 June 1998, is as follows-
“In the time from 15 August 1975 to 10 August 1992 (from the day of the Ceasefire) due to the prolonged unstable and commotion situation of the Chittagong Hill Tracts (Rangamati, Khagrachari and Bandarban), the tribal people who has compelled to abandon their own village, mouza, area and has gone or compelled to go other places within the country will be considered as Internally Displaced Persons.”
A decision was resolved in the Task Force meeting held on 13 September 2014 to provide the ration and other financial facilities to the internally displaced tribal families and minutes of the meeting including the decision were approved in the Task Force meeting held on 28 February 2015. But the decision has not yet been implemented.
It should be noted that Dipankar Talukdar was appointed as the Chairman of the Task Force during the Awami League government of 1996-2001. Although the Accord meant only the rehabilitation of the Internally Displaced Tribal Persons, the government took initiatives to rehabilitate the settler Bengalis as internally displaced persons who had been settled for political purposes in the CHT. The representatives of PCJSS and Jumma Refugee Welfare Association staged a walkout during the ninth meeting of the Task Force in protest against this initiative of anti-CHT Accord.
Later in the illegal eleventh meeting of the Task Force held on 15 May 2000 under the presidentship of Dipankar Talukdar in absence of representatives of PCJSS and Jumma Refugee Welfare Association, 90,208 tribal families and 38,156 non-tribal settler families were unilaterally declared as Internally Displaced Persons. Finally, in the face of strong protests from the Jumma people, the activities of the Task Force at that time almost came to a standstill.
In fact, after the signing of the CHT Accord, two-thirds of the clauses including the core issues of the Accord have not been implemented even in the past 27 years.
