Pledge-bound to ensure peace in the hills: PM
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday said the government was pledge-bound to ensure peace across the country, including in the Chattogram Hill Tracts (CHT).
She made the comment in a message issued on the occasion of the 23rd anniversary of the CHT Peace Accord.
Hasina greeted the countrymen, especially the people of the three hilly districts, and sought cooperation from all for the full implementation of the accord.
The peace accord brought an end to the long ethnic skirmishes in the CHT region and established the trend of peace and development there, she said.
The PM said the post-1975 undemocratic governments (after the assassination of Bangabandhu) had created divisions between the Bangalees and the people in the hills for their self-interest instead of maintaining social stability there.
Killings, tortures and injustice, grabbing of lands and wealth and misuse of the state resources had made the region more unstable, she added.
Hasina said that in 2001 the then BNP-Jamaat alliance government had opposed the historic peace agreement and wanted to destabilise the hilly region again. But their ill efforts went in vain, she added.
"We are pledge-bound to maintain peace across the country, including in the CHT," she said during her speech.
The PM said CHT was no more a backward locality because of the timely steps taken by the government.
On December 2 in 1997, the historic CHT Peace Accord was signed without the mediation of any third party, with a view to stopping bloody conflicts in the CHT, the premier said.
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