Upholding the spirit of Liberation War is not possible without upholding the rights of indigenous communities in the country, human rights activists and indigenous community leaders said.
Speaking at a seminar, they said the freedom fighters fought in the Liberation War in 1971 to establish a country where people from all communities would be able enjoy their rights to the fullest, people from indigenous communities are now deprived of their rights, which defies the spirit of Liberation War and Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
The seminar, titled “International Indigenous Day 2019: Bangladeshe Adivasi Gonogosthir Bhumi o Vasar Odhikar Surokkha,” was held at the auditorium of Centre on Integrated Rural Development for Asia and the Pacific (CIRDAP) in Dhaka on Tuesday.
A national committee formed to oversee the observation of the International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples 2019, which was on August 9, arranged the seminar.
Addressing the event as the introductory speaker, Shamsul Huda, executive director of Association of Land Reform and Development (ALRD), said respecting the rights of the country’s indigenous population means respecting the spirit of the Liberation War.
Khushi Kabir, coordinator of NGO Nijera Kori, echoed Shamsul’s statement. “We all love our country, which means we also love all the people of our country; that includes the indigenous people.”
Sultana Kamal, human rights activist and member the board of trustees of independent think tank Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), who chaired the event, said: “We believe in the spirit of the Liberation War, and we will not rest until we can fulfil the rights and demands of the indigenous communities.”
She said that the word “equality” means equal rights for all people.
Nizamul Haque, former justice of the Supreme Court, said the heritage of indigenous people is connected with their land, but they are being uprooted from their land.
“The government should also ensure that each and every indigenous child can avail primary education in their own mother languages,” he further added.
Rana Dasgupta, general secretary of Bangladesh Hindu-Buddha-Christian Oikyo Parishad and a prosecutor in the International Crime Tribunal, said: “During the Liberation War, our aim was to form a country that would be democratic and free from exploitation, where every citizen would be able to exercise their rights.”
He urged the political leaders in the Chittagong Hill Tracts region, including the Parbatya Chattagram Jana Samhati Samiti (PCJSS) leader Jyotirindra Bodhipriya Larma, popularly known as Shantu Larma, to come forward and maintain peace among the CHT-based political parties.
Supreme Court lawyer Jyotirmoy Barua said according to the constitution, there is no legal bar to addressing indigenous communities as indigenous, rather than ethnic minorities.
“The government has formed a land commission for the CHT to solve land-related problems, but the commission has yet to resolve a single issue.”
Instead of the land disputes being resolved, indigenous people have been uprooted from their lands, he alleged.
The seminar speakers advised the government to take initiatives to resolve land disputes and other problems of the indigenous communities, including formation of separate land commission for indigenous communities, removal of all army camps from the CHT region, rehabilitation of Bangali settlers with dignity, reformation of land commission, reformation of The Chittagong Hill Tracts (Land Acquisition) Regulation, 1958, and implemention of laws for indigenous people in accordance with the International Convention on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples 107 (Convention 107), International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), and the International Convention on Economic, Social Cultural Rights (ICESCR).
Robaet Ferdous, professor of Dhaka University, and Sanjeeb Drong, general secretary of Bangladesh Indigenous People’s Forum, presented their keynote papers at the seminar.
