TRULY YOURS Saarc in doldrums: So is the economic future of the region
After five nations pulled out from the Saarc meet, Pakistan announced the postponement of the 19th South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation summit in Islamabad scheduled for November 9-10.
The Pakistan foreign office in statement said, “a new set of dates for holding of summit in Islamabad will be announced soon, through the chair of Saarc (Nepal), accordingly, we have conveyed the same to the Prime Minister of Nepal, the current Chair of Saarc.”
That this SAARC summit will be hit by crisis was anybody’s guess. It was being talked about for quite some time now in the corridors of the member states, especially in India and Pakistan. Other member states were also showing their reluctance in attending the session.
It is well nigh impossible for Pakistan and India to be on good terms. More often than not, the relations between the two neighbors are in flames. For now it is the Kashmir issue that has inflamed the situation.
For readers of history, it should be clear that Kashmir will never be place of political peace. We would not have seen this volatility had the British also handed independence to a free Kashmir along with Pakistan and India in 1947. Instead the British government left this land (Kashmir) in an undefined and most controversial state, so that Pakistan and India will never live in peace.
The East India Company, its related associates and the queen’s men all had to leave the subcontinent in an unhappy situation. Even the geographical boundaries of the two main states of the subcontinent are still marred with controversy. So for Kashmir, both India and Pakistan are adversaries. Kashmiris want freedom which they are not getting. Instead the beautiful land has become a battle ground as senseless killing of its people goes on unabated.
India and Pakistan should have realized this ‘bone of contention’ left to them by the British, was a ploy to keep them in war. This move has kept all three nations involved in uncomfortable circumstances.
Under these conditions it was natural that SAARC summit would be difficult to take off. The postponement announcement comes three days after four member countries — Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan and India — expressed their unwillingness to participate in the summit, citing increasing cross-border terrorist attacks in the region and growing interference in the internal affairs of member states by one country.
Latest, Sri Lanka yesterday expressed the same, saying the prevailing environment in the region was not conducive for holding the summit.
Though all the five member states said they would not participate in the summit citing the same reason, Pakistan blamed only India for “derailing” the event.
“Pakistan deplores India’s decision to impede the Saarc process by not attending the 19th Saarc Summit in Islamabad on November 9 and 10,” Pakistan’s leading newspapers Dawn and The Express Tribune quoted a Foreign Office statement as saying.
“India’s decision to abstain from the summit on the basis of unfounded assumptions on the Uri incident is a futile effort to divert attention of the world from the atrocities perpetrated by India in occupied Kashmir,” said a spokesperson for the Foreign Office.
Pakistan Foreign Ministry said all preparations were made to hold the summit, but had to be called off after impediments by the Indian government, which contradicts the PM Narendra Modi’s call to fight poverty in the region. The Foreign Office said Pakistan attaches great importance to regional cooperation under the Saarc umbrella and it is committed to Saarc objectives for promoting the welfare of people in the South Asian region.
According to the Saarc Charter, the conference is postponed should any member state decline to participate. But Nepal, as current Chair, and Pakistan, as host country, did not make any such announcement in last three days although four countries on September 27 pulled out.
So this time around it is Pakistan that has caused the moves taken by other member states. Almost all of them have backed out from the conference blaming Pakistan for wrong doings. India has Kashmir issues – the latest crisis being the Uri attack on September 18 in which 18 Indian soldiers have been killed allegedly by Pakistan backed forces, Bangladesh is not happy with Pakistan because of her repeated attempts to interfere in Bangladesh’s internal affairs which created an environment that is not conducive to the successful holding of the summit.
However, Pakistan denies all the allegations.
Although other member states do not have direct issues with Pakistan, they also gave their moral support to India and Bangladesh. Tensions between India and Pakistan mounted in recent weeks, and keep heating up. Sporadic border clashes go on. A war like situation now prevails, as Indian forces started pounding ‘militant’ hideouts deep inside Pak controlled Kashmir.
In efforts to isolate Pakistan in the region, India first pulled out of the summit last week citing “growing interference in the internal affairs of member states by one country creating an environment that is not conducive to the successful holding of the summit.”
So the SAARC lands in limbo. Not only the current crisis, there will be so many other issues between member states that Saarc will really find it impossible to take off.
In a bizarre fashion the leaders of these countries are only managing to show their gross incompetency in forging ahead with the idea of cooperation and development. They have failed to grasp the opportunity of the common market that SAARC could create; they failed to realize the bright future of our people by uniting within a development framework for economic and politics.
They have not learnt any lesson from EU advantages and also the negative ripples that was created by the brexit. The EU sans Britain has upset the balance and its leaders find it tough to chart out the future course for the Union.
The division in EU was unthinkable only a few months back, now Europeans are faced with it. They are upset with the break. Only one member opted out and the world beholds the reaction.
And look at our leaders; they are more into division and conflict than cooperation and compromise. The leaders in India and Pakistan are not creating good instances. These leaders are the impediments to the growth of SAARC and other South Asian forums. No regional cooperative institutions will grow until our leaders shun this attitude of hate and neglect.