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Prisoner Release: Chittagong Hill Tracts Peace Accord (CHT)

Implementations

Prisoner Release – 1998

Page 42 of the Parbatya Chattagram Jana Samhati Samiti or PCJSS report (English: United People’s Party of the Chittagong Hill Tracts) stated that all PCJSS members serving out terms in jail had been released. No dates were given for when they were released, although the information followed a narrative of events from 1998 to 1999.¹

As of October of 1998, seven of the 22 jailed PCJSS members listed by the PCJSS were released. Four others were released after their cases had been withdrawn. Release orders were issued on 21 October for Milon Chakma, Nikhil Chakma, Apru Mong Master, Nil Chandra Tanchaingya, Amal Krishna, Usha Mong Marma, and Nagendra Tanchaingya.²

In 1998 the PCJSS turned in a list of 844 cases filed against 2,524 members to be withdrawn or dropped.³

A later PCJSS report stated that in 720 out of 839 cases, the decision made by the government to withdraw the legal case was not implemented. Given that all war prisoners were released, this appeared to be a matter of whether or not other criminal cases were officially dropped – which we must consider as another matter (degree of amnesty). There remained some ambiguous cases of PCJSS members who remained incarcerated; nevertheless, this provision appeared to have been fully implemented as of 1998 or early 1999.⁴

“Report on the Implementation of the CHT Accord,” PCJSS, 2011.
“Release of 7 PCJSS members ordered,” The Independent, October 21, 1998.
Bushra Hasina Chowdhury, “Building Lasting Peace: Issues of the Implementation of the Chittagong Hill Tracts Accord,” (unpublished manuscript for the Program in Arms Control, Disarmament, and International Security, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2002).
“Report on the Implementation of the CHT Accord,” PCJSS, 2011.

Prisoner Release – 1999

Some ambiguous cases of PCJSS members remained in 1999, but the overwhelming majority of war prisoners had been released as of 1998 or early 1999.¹

Ibid.