'Indigenous people' a misnomer: Moni

The foreign minister clarifies the official position on Chittagong Hill Tracts to diplomats, editors.

Dhaka, July 26 (bdnews24.com) – The foreign minister held back-to-back meetings with senior diplomats and media editors on Tuesday to deal with "misperceptions" both at home and abroad about the ethnic minorities.

In a "candid and open meeting" with the ambassadors and other mission heads, Dipu Moni discussed the issues relating to tribal people in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) from a historical perspective, her aides said.

"Unfortunately, Bangladesh and the ethnic Bangalee nation remain a victim of global misperception about the ancient anthropological roots, colonial history and our identity as a nation," the minister was quoted to have told the envoys.

The minister began her day addressing the deputy commissioners who have gathered in Dhaka for an annual briefing, then rushed for a meeting with the envoys, before arriving late for the luncheon meeting with the editors and media managers.

At the state guest house Padma, she faced and countered rhetoric from a history professor who sought to define the tribal people beyond the accepted terminology, but largely impressed upon the editors to accept her plea not to call them 'indigenous'.

"In the constitution, all minorities were recognised generically as minorities, and through the 15th amendment, the present government has categorised them as 'ethnic minorities' and no longer only as 'tribal' people," she said.

The minister told both groups Bangladesh was concerned that the 'tribal' people or ethnic minorities in the CHT region were being described as 'indigenous peoples' of the country.

She stressed that they were wrongly called 'indigenous peoples' in two paras of the 2011 Report of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues-PFII, in the context of Chittagong Hill Tracts Peace Accord.

"There is a misplaced linkage between the term 'indigenous peoples' and the identity of the ethnic minorities in the CHT region or implementation of the CHT Peace Accord of 1997," Moni told the envoys.

"This record needs to be set right so that Bangladesh's friends and international partners have the right perception of our historical and ethnic roots as a nation."

"The misperception and misrepresentation of historical facts about the ethnic minorities in the CHT is proving counterproductive for the internal political process and spirit of the CHT accord," Moni added.

"The ethnic minorities in the CHT region have been clearly termed as 'Tribal' in the 1997 peace accord, but there are attempts by some vested quarters to establish them as 'indigenous' in some international and UN forums."

"This is solely aimed at securing a privileged status for an established and legally-accepted entity, at the expense of national identity, image and territorial integrity of Bangladesh."

Citing census of 2001, she said the people of CHT constitute less than 1.2 percent of the total population of Bangladesh.

"Giving a special and elevated identity to enfranchise only 1.2 percent of the total population of 150 million by disentitling the 98.8 percent cannot be in the national interest of Bangladesh."

The foreign minister said very well recorded recent history of the Indian subcontinent and the CHT region reaffirm that the tribal people of CHT migrated to Bangladesh between 16th and 19th centuries from neighbouring countries and Mongoloid nations.

"They came here as asylum seekers and economic migrants."

The original inhabitants or first nationals of Bangladesh are the ethnic Bengalees by descent that constitute nearly 99 percent of the country's 150 million people.

"They have all been original inhabitants of this ancestral land for 4,000 years or more according to archaeological proof found in the 'Wari Bateshwar' excavations."

"The ethnic Bengalees are not colonial settlers, neither are they foreigners or non-indigenous to their own native land and never will be," she stressed.

"We had a very distinct culture, ethnic heritage and language when our colonisation took place and we still uphold the same despite our subsequent religious conversions."

From an institutional and legal point of view, the 'ethnic minorities' or 'late settlers' residing in CHT region had been officially recognised as 'tribal' people in all historical documents and references of the Indian sub-continental and colonial documents, she added.

bdnews24.com/ssz/nir/2145h.

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