The government is committed to implement the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) Peace Accord with a view to upholding political, social, cultural and economic rights of all the people living in the CHT region.

Foreign Minister Dr Dipu Moni told this to Lord Eric Avebury, Co-chair of the International Chittagong Hill Tracts Commission (ICHTC), as the latter called on the former at her ministry yesterday morning, official sources of the Foreign Ministry said.

The overall political and human rights situation and minority issue in the country came up for discussion during the meeting, the sources said. The Foreign Minister said despite some constitutional and legal complications, the government would be putting maximum emphasis on the full implementation of the peace accord. She said the government had been offering financial assistance not only to the rootless Banglalee people in the hill districts but also to the indigenous families, who were or had been internally displaced, to alleviate their day to day sufferings, pains and difficulties.

Dipu Moni mentioned that the government had decided to withdraw one Brigade of troops consisting of three infantry battalions and 35 security camps from the CHT by September. "The process of withdrawal has already started," she said adding that this was the biggest single army withdraw from the area after the accord was signed in December 1997, and the remaining camps were expected to be withdrawn in phases. The Foreign Minister told Avebury that the government had appointed retired Justice Khademul Islam Chowdhury as the Chairman of the CHT Land Commission to resolve decades-long land disputes in the region. The 13-member Commission will review land allocations once the land survey is completed.

"The government will intensify various development activities in CHT region persistently with particular emphasis on the socio-economic and infrastructure sector," the Foreign Minister said, adding that the present government was fully committed to promotion and protection of human rights for all its citizens. In this connection, she pointed out that Bangladesh constitution guarantees fundamental rights and privileges to all citizens irrespective of race, religion and creed. "Bangladesh has put appropriate legislative measures in place to promote the rights of children and women, focusing mainly on their protection from violence, abuse, and discrimination," Dipu Moni said, adding that the National Human Rights Commission, established recently, will be strengthened.

The International Commission on Chittagong Hill Tracts yesterday praised the government for withdrawing army camps as part of a peace process, and hoped that the troops recall will not aggravate law and order in the region. "This is good decision of the government to withdraw army," Lord Eric Avebury, one of the three vice chairs of the commission, told journalists at the foreign ministry after calling on Foreign Minister Dipu Moni. The International Commission on the CHT was formed in Copenhagen in the 1990s to create pressure on the then Bangladesh government to stop alleged human rights violation in the hill region. Avebury and members of his entourage this week visited the three hill tract districts -Rangamati, Khagrachhari and Bandarban - troubled by violence and counter-violence between the tribal people and the Bengali settlers since 1970s.