Army presence in CHT acceptable

Speakers at a roundtable in the city yesterday viewed that the presence of the army in the Chittagong Hill Tracts is acceptable, but the administration must be run by civilians.
The discussion titled 'A decade of Chittagong Hill Tracts Peace Agreement: An evaluation' was organised by the daily Bhorer Kagoj at its office marking the completion of a decade of the CHT peace accord.
Shah Alam, chairman of the parliamentary standing committee on CHT affairs ministry, presided over the function.
Rashed Khan Menon MP, Hasanul Huq Inu MP, Maj Gen (retd) Subid Ali Bhuiyan MP, Mujahidul Islam Selim of CPB, Prof Harun-ar-Rashid of Dhaka University and journalist Jaglul Ahmed Chowdhury took part in the discussion.
Shah Alam said all confusions will be removed once the Land Commission on CHT starts survey the lands and distribute those to the real owners.
Subid Ali said no development activities can be undertaken in the region without peace established through implementation of the peace accord.
He said the army should stay in the garrison in the hill tracts and the government has right to use them in the event of country's territorial integrity is threatened.
Menon who was involved in reaching the December 1997 peace accord with the Parbatya Chattagram Jana Sanghati Samity (PCJSS) viewed that the problems of the hill tracts could not resolved in an isolated way. CHT has to be involved in the mainstream politics.
He said BNP-Jamat alliance government opposed certain provisions of the accord. But it neither annulled nor implemented it.
Inu lauded Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina for her success in reaching the accord with the tribal insurgents and thus ensured peace in the hill tracts. She is now to ensure implementation of the accord within the current tenure of her government that ends in 2014.
terming the peace accord as a time-bomb, Mujahidul Islam Selim said if it is not implemented, it may explode.