Ruling class consider CHT as colony: Santu Larma

Parbatya Chattagram Jana Sanghati Samiti president Jyotirindra Bodhipriya Larma, widely known as Santu Larma, on Sunday said that the ruling class still considered the Chittagong Hill Tracts as a colony and continued colonial rule there.
At a policymaking dialogue on ‘rights to education, land and life of indigenous people,’ he said that ‘military rule’ continues in the hill districts even after 18 year of the signing of the Chittagong Hill Tracts Accord.
The Parliamentary Caucus on Indigenous Peoples organised the dialogue at CIRDAP international convention centre in Dhaka.
Santu, who was chief guest in the first session of the daylong dialogue, said that the ethnic minorities were on the verge of extinction.
‘We live as dead people, we dream as dead…The ruling class do not love us, do not consider us as human, but alien,’ Santu said.
Presiding over the session, Awami League lawmaker AKM Fazlul Haque, opposed Santu’s allegations and said that AL government inked the CHT accord and was working to implement it.
‘There is no army rule in hill tracts…Some military personnel are deployed there on your consent, but army will be no longer there once the CHT accord is fully implemented,’ he claimed.
Fazlul said that development activities were going in full swing in the hill districts in consultation with the ethnic minorities.
In the concluding session, the caucus’ founding convener Rashed Khan Menon, also the civil aviation and tourism minister, said that the cabinet approved the draft of the Chittagong Hill Tracts Land Dispute Resolution Commission (Amendment) Bill in the past week.
He said that prime minister Sheikh Hasina assured that the bill would be made effective by promulgating an ordinance soon to meet the longstanding demand of ethnic minorities.
He called on the government to reconcile tradition land laws with the customary land rights of plain-land ethnic minorities to ensure their land rights.
Menon said the children of five ethnic groups would be able to take primary education in their own languages from 2017.
Journalist Sohrab Hasan demanded that the details of the of the CHT Land Dispute Resolution Commission (Amendment) Bill should be made public and said that the Bengali ‘settlers’ should be relocated from the hill districts and the lands should be handed over to the ethnic minorities.
Journalist Syed Badrul Ahsan said the allegations of repression of ethnic minorities were true and that should be ended.
Bangladesh Adivasi Parishad president Rabindranath Soren demanded separate land commission and separate ministry for the plain-land ethnic minorities.

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net