Parbatya Chattagram Jana Samhati Samiti president Jyotirindra Bodhipriya Larma, also known as Santu Larma, on Wednesday blamed successive governments for non-implementation of Chittagong Hill Tracts Accord in 19 years.
He said that the incumbent government continued to use state machineries to suppress Jumma people, even though the accord had been signed with the aim of resolving that crisis.
Addressing a press conference in a Dhaka city hotel, Santu Larma said the Awami League government kept on deliberately breaching the accord by taking steps that went against the interests of Jumma people.
He warned that Jumma people would be forced to choose alternative paths and might resort to stiffer programmes to ensure their survival and interests.
Santu held the government responsible for what might happen in the CHT as a consequence of suppression and non-implementation of the accord.
‘The government alone will be responsible if any undesirable situation evolves, with the people going for alternative paths,’ he said.
Lamenting the government’s neglect, the PCJSS president claimed that neither the Awami League government nor the previous governments, led by other political parties, took interest in implementing the accord in the past 19 years.
He said that the incumbent government kept on claiming that they had implemented 48 out of 72 clauses of the ‘peace’ accord but they, in fact, implemented only 25 clauses leaving out the important ones.
Santu Larma alleged that in the name of implementing the accord, the government had been implementing virtually anti-accord programmes, including strengthening army rule, making the District Council dysfunctional and destroying the environment in the CHT.
Operation Uttaran and increasing use of the army to quell hill people’s resistance went completely against the spirit of the accord, he commented.
The former guerrilla leader said that they would not stop their non-cooperation movement and would carry on with their 10-point programme until the accord was implemented.
The 10-point programme includes enforcing hartal, blockade, financial blockade, raising voice against ‘illegal’ establishments at tourism centres, boycotting governmental and semi-governmental offices and resisting ‘illegal’ land acquisition and land grabbing.
Santu Larma, on behalf of the PCJSS, signed the CHT accord with the government on December 2, 1997 following talks with successive governments for 26 times, seven of them with the Awami League government.
The PCJSS arranged the press conference in Hotel Sundarban to observe the 19th anniversary of the landmark accord.
Columnist Syed Abul Maksud, Bangladesh Adibasi Forum general secretary Sanjeeb Drong and IED executive director Numan Ahmed Khan also spoke at the programme.