http://www.thedailystar.net/2003/12/05/d31205012626.htm

The Daily Star, Fri. December 05, 2003

Larma challenged on demands for CHT peace


Our Correspondent, Khagrachhari

The chairman of the Chittagong Hill Tracts Development Board (CHTDB), Abdul Wadud Bhuiyan, yesterday challenged Jyotirindra Bodhipriyo Larma, saying he was ready to quit from the body if he could guarantee peace in the wake of his resignation.

"But you have to give a written guarantee that all problems in the CHT region would be resolved with my resignation," Bhuiyan, also a lawmaker, said in a speech to a rally at Dighinala in Khagrachhari.

Bhuiyan's challenge came after Larma, president of the Chittagong Hill Tracts Regional Council and chairman of Parbatya Chattagram Jana Sanghati Samity (PCJSS), called a hartal in the CHT region for December 8 for the realisation of a set of demands that include Bhuiyan's resignation from the CHTDB.

"Face us in a democratic way. People will resist you (Larma) if you destroy peace in the region with arms," Bhuiyan thundered.

Local units of the four-party alliance are preparing to resist the hartal.

The United Peoples Democratic Front, an organisation of indigenous people that opposes the landmark peace deal signed in 1997 to end insurgency in the CHT and a bitter rival of Larma's PCJSS, has also called a strike in Khagrachhari for December 6.