Santu threatens non-cooperation:Daily Star

Parbatya Chattagram Jana Sanghati Samity will go for a non-cooperation movement against the government if sincere efforts are not made to achieve conspicuous progress in implementing the Chittagong Hill Tracts Peace Accord, 1997 by April 30 next year. Three days before the 17th anniversary of signing of the CHT peace accord, PCJSS president Jyotirindra Bodhipriya Larma, known as Santu Larma, gave
this ultimatum to the government at a press conference in the capital yesterday. The PCJSS will also resist all activities that go against the spirit of the peace accord and the interest of the Jumma people, Larma said.  “The nature of the non-cooperation movement will depend on the time and situation,” he said while reading out a written statement. The CHT Peace Accord was signed between the Awami League-led government and the PCJSS on December 2, 1997. It stopped a two-decade-long armed conflict in the region. However, many key provisions of the accord, including a functional CHT land dispute resolution commission and a taskforce, are yet to be implemented. The peace accord was signed to ensure the rights of the Jumma people living in the CHT region, said Larma, also chairman of the CHT Regional Council. "The issues in CHT pose political as well as national problems. The peace accord was signed in for the greater interest of the country. So it is the duty and responsibility of the government to fully implement the accord," the former guerrilla leader stressed. Advertisement He said the political situation in the CHT region had worsened as the government had been dillydallying about implementing the accord. Referring to incidents of eviction of 21 Chak families in Bandarban, he said land grabbing, attacks and repression on the Jumma people were increasing day by day. Following the signing of the accord, the then AL-led government remained in power for about four years during which time many provisions of the accord were implemented. They included formation of a CHT affairs ministry, repatriation of refugees from India, passing the CHT regional council and CHT district council laws and formation of a peace accord implementation committee.  But the current AL-led government has done nothing more than handing over some activities of the hill districts to the district council authorities in the last six years since 2009, he added. Pointing to the growing presence of fundamentalists and communal forces in the CHT day by day, he said the government, on the one hand, will keep on giving false assurances of implementing the peace accord and sponsor activities that go against the interest of the Jumma people on the other. 'The main motto behind all these is to turn a non-Muslin majority area into a Muslim majority area,' alleged Larma in his written statement. Senior leader Pankaj Bhattacharya, president of Nap Oikya, Ushatun Talukder, MP, Rabindra Nath Soren, president of Jatiya Adivasi Parishad, Numan Ahmed Khan, executive director of Institute of Environment and Development, advocate Neelufar Banu, among others, spoke at the press briefing.