Saturday

Discussion this morning with Prashanta J Barua, al-Nomaan of Theatre Against Terrorism, and Sujit, on the current situation in Bangladesh, and particularly the slow pace of implementing the Chittagong Hill Tracts Peace Accord, to which the Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is committed by her manifesto. They asked me when I was next likely to visit Bangladesh and the CHT as a co-chair of the Commission, and I had to say that until my present health problems are cleared up I wouldn't be going anywhere.

Sheikh Hasina intends to carry out the Peace Accord in full during this Parliament, but the key to the solution is the restoration of collective land rights, a task which has yet to start. Over a period of years, individual titles were given to settlers, and the original collective occupiers seldom had any documentation to prove their ownership. But so far as I know, the Land Commission has yet to determine a single case of disputed ownership.