The Awami League has not taken any visible initiative to execute the conditions set in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) peace accord, since they took office in 2009, complained Parbatya Chattagram Jana Samhati Samiti (PCJSS) President Jyotirindra Bodhiprya Larma, known as Santu Larma.
“The foreigners are given the false impression that eighty percent of the treaty has been fulfilled and that the rest will be done if they take office this year,” he told the media on Thursday (Nov 29) at a program organized to celebrate the 22nd anniversary of signing the CHT peace accord.
The government claims that 48 out of the 72 conditions in the accord have been fulfilled. Denying such claims, Larma said, “Only two-thirds of the actual treaty has been implemented. A meagre 25 out of the 72 conditions have been executed.”
“Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was provided the report for the implementation in 2015, but even then no useful steps were taken,” he added.
He said that the democratic protest in the hill tracts of Chittagong are being portrayed as criminal activities instead.
The hill tracts will never have free, fair, neutral and acceptable polls as long as the people are being oppressed, Larma said.
“The people of Jumma are still being conned out of their land and belongings and are being prosecuted every day. Violence against women is increasing at an alarming rate,” he added.
Larma pressed that the overall situation in the hill tracts is dire. “More than 5 percent of the indegenious Jumma people in Bandarban’s Alikadam, Thanchi, Lama and Naikhyongchari are escaping to neighbouring Myanmar.”
Accusing the government of conspiring to wipe out the 14 indigenous tribes, Larma said that the crisis at the hill tracts shows that in reality the system is nothing close to democratic, secular or progressive.