Quest for transforming words into actions

The News, Sun, July,25, 2004.

Pervaiz Iqbal Cheema


The 25^th session of SAARC’s Council of Ministers concluded on 21^st July with hopes and optimism. Highlighting the decision taken by the Council of Ministers, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri stressed that SAARC has started ‘to exude new confidence and its international profile has improved’. ‘ Our deliberation was imbued with a new spirit of dynamism’. Indeed the decisions that have been taken are substantive and impressive especially if compared with the past performances.

Among the decision that are generating optimism include the strengthening of cooperation in areas of telecommunications and information technology, approval of the plan of action recommended by the working group on energy and authorization of a meeting of SAARC energy ministers to consider recommendation of the group and the establishment of a SAARC forestry center in Bhutan.

Perhaps the most significant decision was linked with the ongoing efforts for poverty alleviation. The Council approved the decision to take immediate steps for the implementation of SAARC program with the assistance of the international development institutions. Poverty is indeed the single most daunting challenge confronting all the SAARC countries. It is a well-known fact that SAARC has been studying the problem how to tackle this menace for quite sometimes.

Not only the Secretary General has been specifically asked to complete regional poverty profile for the year 2004 but the Independent Commission on poverty alleviation has also been asked to expedite preparations of South Asian development goals for the next five years in poverty alleviation, education, health and environment. It was also reported that UNDP has agreed to support the exercise.

The Council of Minister also agreed to expedite the process of seeking UN observer status for SAARC, to enhance inter regional cooperation and to encourage cooperation with other regio0nal organizations and regional bodies. To promote dialogue partnership with other regional bodies such as ASEAN, it was decided to study the modalities.

Responding to a question about the ineffectiveness of the SAARC, the Chairman of the meeting pointed out that it often takes time to make some organization more progressive than the others. Quoting the examples of European Union he highlighted the fact that it took 25 years to make it an effective body. Similarly ASEAN also experienced many problems before it really took off.

The 25^th meeting of Council of Ministers also recommended conferring posthumously SAARC award on late President Zia-ur-Rehman of Bangladesh in recognition of his vision of initiative for the establishment of SAARC. The award is likely to be conferred in the next SAARC Summit, which is scheduled to be held from 9^th to 11 Jan. 2005 at Dhaka.

Undoubtedly the recent SAARC meeting of the Foreign Minister has been very productive. Not only agreements in many important areas marked the success of the meeting but many interesting proposals were also advanced. Several Indian proposals were aimed at enhancing cooperation and some of them certainly deserve to be mentioned here. Among the Indian proposal that were put forward included establishment of a SAARC High Economic Council consisting of Finance and Commerce Ministers with the objective to promote economic integration in economic, trade, financial and monetary areas, setting up a SAARC infrastructure Fund.

Another important proposal that was advanced by India revolve around setting up of National Committees in member states to monitor and devise programs to implement the goals of SAARC Social Charter as well as consult with each other in order to promote collaborative Poverty Alleviation Projects under the SAARC Poverty Alleviation Fund. The Indian delegation also proposed to establish a South Asian Parliamentary Forum to deliberate on issues pertaining to regional cooperation.

The Council of Foreign Minister also approved the appointment of new SAARC Secretary General Ambassador Lyonpo Dorji of Bhutan who is likely to start his term in Jan.2005 when the present Secretary General’s term ends. Indeed the current secretary General would be remembered in positive terms especially because of his role and the achievements of his tenure.

Given the long list of decisions and discussion over many interesting proposals, it can be safely stated that this meeting could easily convince all the skeptics that SAARC has certainly started moving ahead. All credit must go to the successful conclusion of the 12 Summit, which was held at Islamabad in January this year. The agreements by the heads of government on Social Charter, SAFTA and Additional Protocol on Terrorism carved a way for smooth sailing of SAARC. It has been suggested that this year alone roughly 140 SAARC related meetings would be held. By any standards this is indeed a very impressive number.

During their stay in Islamabad, the SAARC Foreign Ministers called on both the President as well as the Prime Minister of Pakistan. Both the President and the Prime Minister referred to the need of building trust in order to have peace and security in the region, which could and would always facilitate progress in all areas. President Musharraf specifically emphasized that SAARC should institute confidence building measures in order to build trust among the member states. Similarly the Prim Minister stressed that the promotion of peace and security in the region would contribute to the overall economic development.

More than 19 years have passed since the birth of SAARC in 1985 but the performance was not all that impressive which, in turn, was inviting biting criticism almost regularly. Just as the United Nations did not live up to the expectations of a vast majority of member states, SAARC also disappointed many in the region, especially in terms of tangible outcome that can substantively affect the lives of ordinary citizens of the member countries.

While there is no doubt that the year 2004 has proved well for SAARC, it is not all that certain that no impediment would surface or the prevailing positive spirit would continue for a very long time in future. The main hurdles that had effectively hampered progress continue to exist. Among these are included regional bilateral disputes, internal unexpected developments, differing security perceptions and Charter’s problematic clauses. Admittedly the overall atmosphere has considerably improved particularly since January six this year, but one must not forget that efforts must be directed to remove, as far as possible, all the possible irritants that can take an unexpectedly heavy toll.

Perhaps the most important hurdle is the ongoing dispute over Kashmir. Two approaches are often advocated, either one starts with soft issues and gradually moves towards the hard and complex ones or vice versa. Either way unless and until the main dispute is not resolved, the permanent peace will continue to evade. However this does not mean that soft issue approach does not pay dividends.

It is indeed a welcome development that so many constructive decisions have been taken with a view to ensure the onward movement of SAARC.  On the face of it is difficult not to recognize the sincere efforts of the SAARC Foreign Ministers that have managed to pull SAARC from the vortex of failures and placed it on the right track. It is not too far fetched to assume that progress in SAARC could facilitate recently initiated Indo-Pak composite dialogue. The quest for transforming words into action appears to be relatively more determined and in consequence it is anticipated that the incumbent trends could elicit the desired dividends.