Editorial
CHT's potential for development still unrealised
Implementation of the accord is pivotal
The Chittagong hill tracts with their natural endowment of resources make up a region that is capable of firing the imagination of any development planner with a vision. Apart from its contoured topography, home to a rich bio-diversity of flora and fauna, being an environmental asset and tourist attraction in its own right, the potentialities for economic development the hill districts have are also immense. But unfortunately, all of this enormous possibility of the region, has hardly ever crossed the academic threshold, the rhetoric wish-list, as it were.
The accord putting an end to the two-decade-long insurgency and the relative calm that followed notwithstanding, some key provisions of the pact remain unimplemented even after 12 years of its signing. All we are constrained to say is that the fervour and high degree of importance with which the agreement was signed up to by the government and the tribal leadership lost its way, spiraling down the priority list. This is a sad commentary on the successive governments' basically balking at resolving issues that were not amenable to easy solution. But, solving difficult issues is the stuff of which the strength of a democratic government is made.
Land disputes are at the heart of the implementation issue. One of the main pillars of the accord was the return of numerous tribal refugees from India to their hearths and homes in the CHT. Their settlement remains an issue as no cathedral survey drawing the property lines has been conducted as a basis for according land ownership rights. The Land Commission has long been comatose; this has to be activated through a reform of the relevant act in conformity with the CHT accord. Apart from empowering it, it needs to be adequately manned and provided with other logistic supports.
Indigenous people will have to be given a greater voice in the regional and hill district councils with elections being held to such bodies and relevant acts amended where necessary. The gaps in coordination among regional council, hill district councils and district administrations will have to be bridged.
Our hope is the AL government, the architect of the peace accord, will speed up the process of its implementation and help pave the way for a rapid all round development of the region. The sectors that deserve focussed attention are health, education, women empowerment, promotion of indigenous culture and uplift of the relatively backward communities.
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