The government on Tuesday requested foreign governments and international communities to rectify their misperception about the identity of the ethnic minority communities in the Chittagong Hill Tracts.
The foreign minister, Dipu Moni, made the call at a meeting with ambassadors of different countries.
'Please sensitise your governments to the misconception about the identity of the ethnic minority communities in the Chittagong Hill Tracts,' a foreign ministry official quoted the minister as telling the ambassadors.
'Unfortunately once again Bangladesh and the ethnic
Bangali nation, has become a victim of global misperception about our ancient anthropological roots, our colonial history and our identity as a nation,' she said, according to excerpts of her statement distributed to reporters by the external publicity wing of the ministry.
'This record needs to be set straight so that Bangladesh's friends and international partners see eye to eye on our historical and ethnic roots as a nation and how this misperception and misrepresentation of historical facts about the ethnic minorities in the CHT is running counterproductive to the internal political process and spirit of the CHT Peace Accord that was signed between the government of prime minister Sheikh Hasina and tribal leaders of the CHT region in good faith and confidence in 1997,' she said.
More than 50 ambassadors, charge de affaires and deputy heads of missions and top officials of the UN bodies attended the meeting held at the foreign ministry. There are about 53 missions of foreign countries and international agencies in Dhaka.
Describing majority Bangalis as 'indigenous people' of Bangladesh, the minister said, the first nation of this soil 'are the ethnic Bangalis by descent' that constitute nearly 99 per cent of Bangladesh's population.
They have all been original inhabitants of this ancestral land for 4,000 years or more, according to archeological proof found in the 'Wari Bateshwar' excavations, she said giving historical, anthropological, colonial and legal references.
'Recently we have noted with concern that the tribal people or ethnic minorities in the CHT region have been termed as 'indigenous peoples' of Bangladesh in two paragraphs of the 2011 Report of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues,' she said.
'There is misplaced linkage between the term "indigenous peoples" and the identity of the ethnic minorities in the Chittagong Hill Tracts region,' she said.
A section of the leaders of the ethnic minorities have, however, kicked up new controversies by demanding their recognition as 'indigenous people', the minister said.
The majority Bangali people will be 'disfranchised' if the ethnic minority communities are recognised as 'indigenous' people, she said.
The recorded history of the presence of the ethnic minority communities in Chittagong hill districts, are found from 18th century, she said.
The word 'tribal' was mentioned as the identity of ethnic minorities in all of the WW Hunter Census of 1881, the Chittagong Hill Tracts Regulation, 1900 and Chittagong Hill Districts Acts, 1989, she said.
Most significantly in the CHT Peace Accord 1997 itself the CHT ethnic minorities have been definitionally categorised as 'tribal', not 'indigenous peoples', she said.
Now the word 'indigenous is arbitrarily and wrongly' introduced by some quarters nationally and internationally going beyond the CHT accord, she said. 'It is a major detraction from the accord.'
'Attempts by some vested quarters to establish those very people who signed the CHT Accord as 'tribal'' to the status of 'indigenous' in some international and UN Forums is solely aimed at securing a privileged status for an established and legally accepted entity, at the expense of national identity, image and territorial integrity of Bangladesh,' the minister said.
Dipu Moni said in the constitution of Bangladesh all minorities were recognised generically as minorities. 'Through the 15th amendment the present government took the initiative to categorise them to a more honorable and distinct status recognising their ethnicity for the first time and term them as "ethnic minorities" and no longer only as "tribal people", ' she said.
The foreign minister said Bangladesh was a 'unitary' country where majority Bangali and all religious and ethnic minority communities were citizens of the land.
The government has started implementing the CHT accord, she said. 'We are also ready to consider recommendations made to implement the entire accord.'
After the meeting with the diplomats, Dipu Moni held a luncheon meeting with select editors of the print and electronic media on ethnic minority issues.
Some of the editors described the government's latest position on the issue as a 'wake-up call', meeting sources said.
Source : New Age
No comments:
Post a Comment