A Brighter Future for the Chittagong Hill Tracts?
by Michael Heyn

The Chittagong Hill Tracts (the CHT) is an area of marvelous ethnic diversity and cultural richness that some 13 different tribes call home. It is a land of special beauty with great expanses of rugged hills and mountains and varied vegetation.

The CHT has had a special identity as a recognized autonomous tribal area under British colonial rule, and as an area that has maintained its uniqueness throughout more modern times.

Unfortunately, the CHT is also a land of people who have suffered from years of pervasive and grinding poverty combined with a quarter century of intense conflict. The creation of Lake Kaptai in the 1960s, while enhancing its natural beauty, deprived this region and its people of some one-third of their arable lands and livelihoods.

The people have had to struggle for survival through a system of shifting cultivation on hilly slopes, a practice known as Jhum. The low productivity and lack of agricultural diversity caused the CHT to become one of the few food deficit regions of Bangladesh today, particularly in terms of rice.

With a large influx of ‘settlers’ from the plain lands during the 1970s and 80s, land became even scarcer, and as a result, both the tribal people and their new Bengali neighbors fell more deeply into poverty.

The impact has been especially severe on the young people of the CHT who have little hope for their future. More than half of school-age children drop out of school before the age of 10, literacy is as low as 30% especially among women in remote areas, and unemployment is over 40% of the labour force, causing a large out-migration of young men and a profound alienation and drug problem for those who remain behind.

This growing desperation and increasing resentment over land ownership led to 25 years of tribal insurgency and Government counter-insurgency. Fortunately, a Peace Accord was signed at the end of 1997, but its implementation has been extremely slow, and openly resisted by a tribal faction still insisting on complete autonomy for the region.

On top of this, some Danish and British development workers were kidnapped in February 2001, and although released unharmed one month later, a broad donor moratorium on development aid has been applied to the area ever since.

Through an initiative of the UNDP Resident Representative, the Government agreed to a Joint Risk Assessment Mission in June this year, and as a result of the findings—that almost all areas of the region are now sufficiently safe for development work—the CHT is on the brink of a possible new era of development opportunity and assistance.

But this will be possible only if there is a clear vision and a coming together of all concerned to support the people and the institutions of the CHT to manage their own development as they best see fit.

At least that is the view of the Joint Mission which has recommended a follow up Joint Government and Donor Development Programme for the CHT that is based on community participation.

It is anticipated that the UN Agencies in Bangladesh will join together in this effort, along with Government and Donors, to take a genuine partnership approach.

It is a unique opportunity for the United Nations family to demonstrate its own special advantages in bringing to bear the neutrality and trust it has gained over many years in Bangladesh, to facilitate and support a truly people-centred approach to development, and to build a sustainable peace and a potentially brighter future for the CHT.