The New Nation - Internet Edition

AS appeared in media recently, an independent international commission opined that multilateral and bilateral donors have given rise to 'some controversies' while carrying out development work in the Chittagong Hill Tracts after the 1997 peace treaty. The Chittagong Hill Tracts Commission co-chair Lord Eric Avebury, a member of the Upper House of the British Parliament, expressed his critical views to newsmen about the donors raising the question 'why should they focus only on indigenous people and do they pay equal amount of attention to the Bengali community living in the CHT?' During its four-day tour of the three hill tract districts, the commission had talks with the donors at work in the hill region where Lord Eric was rather surprised to hear that their 'primary concern' was to raise living standard of the indigenous people. That is a source of controversy as he considers raising level of living standard of the people irrespective of their identity should be the priority of all.

The visit was aimed at designing a programme to help attain major objectives of the peace accord signed in 1997 by the then Awami League government. In this regard, the commission attributed some of the problems prevailing in the hill region to the non-settlement of lands and disputes over possession of lands. Presence of security forces, particularly of the army troops, in the hill tract region from defence point of view is vital for checking infiltration of terrorists and insurgency elements through the long forest range in the region. In fact, the commission mentions about the disproportionate attention of some donors to the tribal people ignoring others who live in abject poverty mainly for resource constraints of a poor country like Bangladesh.