Indigenous Minority Rights – 1998
1998
Clause 1 of the 1997 CHT Accord provided a one sentence synopsis of the purpose and intent of the 75 clauses that followed: to protect and preserve the rights of indigenous peoples in the CHT to their cultural property, identity, and language. To do that, the Accord put forth 72 articles that were intended to protect the Jumma population from violence, displacement and the larger trend of Islamization in the CHT.
If fully implemented the Accord’s specific stipulations would have provided self-determination to the Jumma community in the form of a Regional Council dominated by Tribal members, an overall electoral system that advantaged Jumma voters in general CHT elections, and the legal basis for providing land restitution to displaced Jummas. Across these fronts, beyond being ratified in 1998 by the parliament of Bangladesh under the Chittagong Hill Tracts Regional Council Act of 1998 and in the amended version of the Rangamati Hill District Council Act of 1989, the new legislation has not been applied or legally enforced.1