Making SAARC an effective regional grouping

[ABDUL JABBAR KATIAR]

By SABA JAVED
Exclusive Article

The 17th SAARC summit, held in Addu city, the Maldives, on 10-11 November 2011 concluded with ambitious “ADDU Declaration”. The theme of summit was “Building Bridges”, meaning bridging the differences, creating better understanding, promoting amity and mutually beneficial and comprehensive cooperation in order to promote effective linkages and connectivity for greater movement of people, enhanced investment and trade in the region. Will any of these ideal ever be acoced in the SAARC region, remains a hard question – an affirmative answer to which is not easy to come by.

As is well known, SAARC has not achieved a desired position as regional grouping. Progress has been very slow which raises some pertinent questions such as “is ‘SAARC’ that platform which would bring all the required changes?”, “Is SAARC capable of doing this?”, “Should we still rely on SAARC that it would bring the region towards betterment and would fulfill all its objectives like, better communication, smoothen the progress of trade and investment, expand tourism, assistance in power and energy sector endorse private sector, and terrorism, etc”. Alternatively, there remain apprehensions that “should we consider it a failed organization and look for any other platform?”

The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) is an organization of South Asian nations, founded in December 1985 by Zia-ur-Rahman and dedicated to economic, technological, social, and cultural development emphasizing collective self-reliance. Its seven founding members are Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. Afghanistan joined the organization in 2005. Meetings of heads of state are usually scheduled annually; meetings of foreign secretaries, twice annually. It is headquartered in Kathmandu, Nepal.

The 16 stated areas of cooperation are agriculture and rural development, biotechnology, culture, energy, environment, economy and trade, finance, funding mechanism, human resource development, poverty alleviation, people to people contacts, security aspects, social development, science and technology; communications, tourism. Later on strategies were made, consisting of five prime objectives i.e. better communication, smooth the progress of trade and investment, expand tourism, assistance in power and energy sector, and endorse private sector. But Social, technological, economic sector, poverty eradication and trade were major issues faced by SAARC.

It is a disappointing fact that after three decades of its origin, SAARC remains far away from its objectives. The basic focus of SAARC was on economic integration but it was able to progress in this area. Even it has not ratified yet or put into operation some of its own agreements such as SAFTA or convention on terrorism. So far, on the other hand, the social area of cooperation, education programs, visual exchange programs, visa free travel for SAARC lawmakers and judges have set new foundations in the region. SAARC represents one fifth of humanity and is the largest grouping in terms of human resources. Yet it has not been able to heave living standards of its people nor helped in reduction of poverty. There is a variety of areas of cooperation in SAARC region and the organization tries to cover all the areas but there is no progress which can change the daily lives of the SAARC people.

One of the major drawbacks has been that SAARC states are not using this forum for collective good of the region, but for their respective individual interests. India is the dominant power in SAARC and is using its dominance for its own purpose. It has been denying discussing bilateral issues with Pakistan and SAARC charter says that bilateral discussions are not allowed. This tussle among countries especially between India and Pakistan has been the main cause of delayed discussions, postponed summits, slows the process.

In case of political environment, “War on Terror” is the hottest issue in SAARC region. It creates mistrust between South Asian nations and is a big stumbling block between the development of economic and political relations. India and Pakistan have a history of conflicts and war and this burden of history can’t let them make their relations better. The basic idea of creation of SAARC was that “better economies make better politics”. Arrangements like SAFTA and SAPTA came into being to end political rivalry between member states. However, the mistrust between India and Pakistan has not allowed let countries to move even towards economic integration of any extent, what to talk about resolving disputes.

Mostly people compare EU and SAARC but that comparison is not justified because there is a huge difference between the environments of EU and SAARC. In EU the people are well educated and can understand the importance of such organizations. Most of the countries are well developed and they are well integrated. They solve their problems via mutual discussions and have same ideologies. SAARC nations lack all these qualities.

Expansion of SAARC was seen as a step forward. SAARC gave the observer status to Australia, China, European Union, Iran, Japan, Republic of Korea, Mauritius, Myanmar and USA but didn’t give the permanent membership to any country. But a major issue is that after three decades, there is a huge debate whether China should be given the status of permanent member or not as China is seen as a balancing factor as against Indian dominance

China became observer of SAARC in 2005. From 2007 to 2011 Chinese foreign ministers attended SAARC leaders’ summit. China’s vital interest is cross-border integration schemes with South Asia. Tibet and Yunnan province also lies on South Asian region. At present China SAARC Cooperation is limited to diplomatic exchanges, official seminars and trade fairs.

It is clear that India would not like China to be permanent member of SAARC and it is also pressurizing other countries for not supporting China’s entry in SAARC. India is also opposing it, though not publicly, because of its strategic relations with Pakistan, Chinese naval ambitions in Indian Ocean and China’s influence over Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka.

SAARC is not fulfilling its objective due to above mentioned causes but SAARC countries should put their efforts to root out these causes and think of a collective interest rather than individual ones. In SAARC summits, many sensitive issues remained under discussion but no work was actually done. We can say that in papers SAARC is working a lot but if we look practically there is no progress. The only advantage which may benefit the members is the sideline meetings between the members of the SAARC, by which they may resolve their conflicts and disputes by discussing bilaterally. And SAARC people to people contact programs are making a little difference like SAARC Youth Awards Scheme (SYAS), SAARC Visa Exemption Scheme and most importantly Establishment of South Asian University etc. Yet, these are issues of marginal significance until the major issues see any resolution.

What SAARC needs is to play a more positive and visible, result oriented role not only for economic and social issues, but also to solve the critical political issues between member countries. And where an expansion can help, it must be considered. (ENDS)

-Saba Javed is DDS student at the Fatima Jinnah Women University, Rawalpindi

The article is contributed to pkarticleshub.com