The Daily Star, Wed. December 03, 2003
Staff Correspondent
Shantu (Jyotirindra Bodhipriyo) Larma, president of the Parbatya Chattagram Jana Sanghati Samity (PCJSS), has demanded withdrawal of security forces camps from the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) and cancellation of the 'Operation Uttaran' by this month.
"Otherwise, we'll throw a series of agitation programmes from the first week of January. The government has put us in such a situation that we now have no options but to move for implementation of the (peace) accord," he said at a press conference at the National Press Club in Dhaka yesterday.
"We will continue with our movement until Wadud Bhuiyan is removed from the CHT Development Board and a full minister is at the helm of the CHT affairs ministry as per the accord," said Shantu.
As the government did not remove Wadud Bhuiyan from the CHT development board by November 30, the deadline the PCJSS set, it will enforce a hartal on December 8 according to an earlier announcement, he said.
The PCJSS will contact CHT people, professionals and members of the civil society to garner support for implementation of the accord.
They will also form a support group and a forum drawing members of the civil society to work for the implementation of the peace accord. Shantu also extended support to the 11-party alliance's hartal on December 13.
Shantu said the presence of so many army camps in the region is a clear violation of the accord. With the direct aid of the army officials, he complained, attacks were launched in Baghaihat bazaar, and Babuchhara in 1999, Dighinala, Bowal Khali in 2001, Ramgar in 2001 and in Mahalchhari in 2003. "So it is very important that they (army men) are removed from the region."
He said after the signing of the CHT peace accord in 1997 that ended decades of insurgency, the country had three governments including a caretaker administration, but none of them was pro-public. They could not resolve the problems of the CHT people, nor of the country.
The PCJSS chief blamed the governments for encouraging Bangalees from all over the country to settle in the CHT. Now the government itself has created unrest in the CHT, he added.
He, however, admitted that some clauses of the accord were implemented, but some key clauses were not.
Rupayan Dewan, vice-president of the PCJSS, Dhaka University teacher Dr Mesbah
Kamal, Sanjib Drong, secretary of Bangladesh Adivasi Forum, Sumanalangkar Mahathero,
president of the Parbatya Bouddha Samity, and representatives of the non-settling
Bangla-speaking people's forum, were among those present at the press conference.