‘Of unkept promises and curtailed human rights’

The human rights situation in Chittagong Hill Tracts has become extremely fragile as the CHT Peace Accord has not been properly implemented, said Parbatya Chattagram Jana Samhati Samiti (PCJSS) in its annual report, released yesterday.

Repression by security and law enforcement agencies, arrests, jail sentences, killings, disappearances, false cases, land grabbing, eviction from homeland, expansion infiltration, minorisation of Juma people, communal attacks, and violence against women have become regular affairs in the CHT, the report said.

On December 2, 1997, the then Awami League government and PCJSS signed the CHT peace accord to solve the CHT crisis through political and peaceful means.

26 years have passed since then, but the accord is yet to be properly implemented, the report highlighted.

The PCJSS annual report said the AL government has been in power for 15 years since 2009 but did not come forward to implement the basic clauses of the treaty.

The government has not taken any effective steps to implement the agreement; rather, it has been implementing anti-agreement and anti-Juma activities.

The report claimed the CHT affairs ministry formed an "inter-ministerial committee" that spread propaganda, saying that 65 out of 72 clauses of the peace accord have been implemented.

"But the truth is only 25 of the 72 clauses have been implemented. The remaining 47 sections have either been completely unimplemented or partially implemented," it added.

The report said the government is criminalising the Juma people who are demanding its implementation.

The report said 240 incidents of rights violations were reported in CHT last year, while 1,933 people were victims of rights violations.