Mixed Chakma reaction to Bangladesh's repatriation plans
''We are elated about returning home after 11 years but can you say whether we’ll get back our land, property and honour," asks a 26-year-old Chakma girl. Her community in the Takumbari refugee camp of South Tripura has mixed feelings about the Bangladeshi government's announcement of repatriation of 51,000 refugees to their homeland in the Chittagong hill tracts of south-east Bangladesh.
''Though the Bangladesh government delegation has assured us that our lives and properties would be protected, our land would be restored and we would be reinstated in our respective government jobs, we are still in the dark whether these assurances are sincere,'' says a middle-aged Suresh Kanti Chakma. He was a teacher of the Bhaibonchara primary school in Khagrachari under the CHT before being forced into India with his family after the 1986 massacre in the hill villages.
Another refugee, Bindy Chakma says he was 15 when his family was forced to seek refuge in India. "Now I am 26. I don't know whether I have to take up arms to protect my deprived community or I live there as an honourable citizen with all fundamental rights,'' he says.
One of the camps more illustrious members is refugee leader and former member of Bangladesh Parliament Upendra Lal Chakma. He says the jumma (tribal) refugees were eager to go back to their homeland, but the political turmoil in CHT was the main hitch.
The Jumma Refugee Welfare Association, as a token of its goodwill, cooperated with the then Bangladesh government headed by Begum Khaleda Zia to repatriate 5,169 refugees from 1,027 families in two phases in 1994. But a deadlock was reached after the Bangladesh government then adopted some dubious policies, Chakma said.
Observers feel the much-delayed repatriation will further strengthen the bilateral relation between India and Bangladesh. Bangladesh is facing worldwide pressure to solve the two decade-old ethnic problem in the CHT.
A refugee leader said now all eyes are focused on the March 12 meeting in Dhaka between the Bangladesh National Committee and the Parbatya Chattagram Jana Samhati Samity, which has been fighting for the autonomy for CHT tribals since 1971.
A joint agreement was signed in Agartala Sunday between the refugee leader Chakma and the Director General of Special Affairs Division in the Bangladesh Prime Minister's office A S M Mobaidul Islam to resume the third phase of repatriation of the refugees from March 28.
A 20- point economic package was finalised following series of meetings between the Bangladesh government delegation and the refugee leaders since February 27 to economically rehabilitate the
repatriated refugees in the CHT, which is the homeland of more than a million tribals.
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