ADDRESSING THE ETHNIC PEOPLE OF CHITTAGONG HILL TRACTS

Recognizing tribal people of Chittagong Hill tracts (CHT) as ‘Indigenous People’ has become an important discussion topic in the media, seminars, meeting and other forms of formal/informal discussion/interactions. A great echo is raised to recognize the tribal of CHT as indigenous people during constitutional reforms. Terminologies like ‘Tribal’, ‘indigenous people’, ‘Aborigines’ are loosely and inter-changeably being used by many. This may have been due to the liberal/sympathetic attitude and knowledge gap on the issue. But these recent discussions are likely to develop a wrong perception about the issue in general. It is important to have clear understanding and correct perception on the issue.
‘indigenous and tribal population Convention 107’ is an International Labour Organization (ILO) convention within the UN which was adopted in 1957. Its primary focus is to enable the indigenous and tribal people to benefit on an equal footing from the rights opportunities which national laws grant to other elements of the population. Initially total 27 countries including Bangladesh ratified it, but later 9 countries denounced the same. In 1989, the ‘indigenous and tribal population Convention 169’ was adopted with the purpose of revising the earlier convention of 1957. This convention is articulated based on the idea that indigenous people are the permanent residents of the country/geographical areas as ancestral descendants. So far total 22 countries have ratified this convention, among them Nepal is yhe lone Asian country. Later ‘UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People’ was adopted by the UN General Assembly on 13 September 2007 during its 61st regular session. In that, four countries voted against, and 11 abstaining. the four member states that voted against were Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United sates. Bangladesh abstained from voting on the issue.