Summit Diplomacy In South Asia
New Approach Needed

By C D Bhatta

MOST of the writers, seasoned diplomats and also who take a little bit interest in the world affairs of South Asia at this moment of time are busy in writing about the SAARC and the recent coup in Pakistan as these manifestations are entangled in such a way that both have become complimentary to each other. The October 12th’s incident has really brought a drastic change in Nawaz Sharif and General Musharraf’s life which they might have never thought and its aftermath repercussions are very much alive in the ongoing SAARC process.

Example

The process of SAARC in South Asia can be taken as an example of summit diplomacy. The idea of summit diplomacy or ‘summitry’ is very new in South Asia and very much young even in western world. The word ‘summit’ itself was for the first time used by the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill.

The basic idea of the ‘summit diplomacy’ or ‘summitry’ was to hammer out the problems that subsist amongst the participants of the summitry. In fact it did achieve a great deal of success in bringing the Cold War to an end. Many contentious issues were solved though it. Following the advancement that occurred in the information technology and the down fall of the Russian empire; some of its critics feel that summit diplomacy is no more required. Nevertheless, it has been kept alive to keep the diplomacy, one of the oldest state practice or statecraft, going on.

The eleventh SAARC summit scheduled to be held in Kathmandu on November 26-28 has been postponed and new date has been fixed. Also, confidence-building measures among member states, so vital to the attainment of SAARC’s objective, have been stalled. This is the general conception for those who knows SAARC as SARC. But if one goes a little bit deeper and do some research on each and everything involved in it, then one will definitely comes to the conclusion that there is ‘no true regional cooperation’ has taken place under the SAARC. The SAARC itself carries very good principles in terms of promoting cooperation in South Asia but it has been forced to deviate from the very common established concept of the regional cooperation and summitry as outlined above. Because the organisation today seems to be not so effective just because of the non-cooperation among the member countries. Truth is always bitter. Except Maldives — which is far away in the middle of the sea — all other countries have serious problems among each other. The most defective part it carries seems to be the Charter which blocks the contentious issues being discussed in the open forum and its Chairman has no right at all to run the organisation.

Even after one and a half decade of its existence it still lacks identity and vision. What is it for? None of the country has been truly benefited from the SAARC so far in terms of mitigating the regional problems, except the one who are working under it and enjoying the diplomatic privileges on taxpayers money. Otherwise, its activities and modus operandi on various subjects are a great matter of concern for everyone as how to push the SAARC ahead. The postponement of SAARC Summit is a blow to strengthen the regional cooperation in South Asia and an opportunity lost for everyone who love peace and prosperity.

Few poor and weak countries like Nepal, Bangladesh, Maldives are sincerely working in pushing the SAARC ahead but the so called mighty countries of the region seemed to be least bothered about it. Their voices are heard in the world because of their activities in the region. So far as Sri Lanka is concerned, it is under the fire of war for the last seventeen years. Due to the geographic location Maldives is really detached for the region physically. Bhutan was never interested in SAARC, it became the member of SAARC just for the sake of becoming.

The reason behind the postponement of the SAARC is that India just did not want to hold it citing the prevailing conditions in Pakistan. But the important thing is that if the Indian Prime Minister is ready to hold talks with the military leaders of Pakistan in terms of their bilateral relations, why cannot Indian Prime Minister attend the SAARC summit. This point is really contradictory in itself. New Delhi never hesitated to deal with martial law regimes of Ayub, Yahya and Zia in Pakistan and with military dictators, Ziaur Rahman and Ershad in Bangladesh and the former Soviet-backed Babrak Karmal and Najibullah in Afghanistan and General Ne Win and his successors in Burma in the past. Almost throughout the 1980s, when Gen. Zia-ul-Haq was in power in Pakistan, New Delhi had no particular reservations about dealing with Islamabad.

In fact, the idea of SAARC was conceived by the military ruler General Ziaur Rahman and espoused by General Zia-ul-Haq, the military rulers of Pakistan and Bangladesh, and the monarchs of Nepal and Bhutan have been associated with the formative phase of the South Asian organisation.

The initial reactions of Chandrika Kumaratunga to New Delhi’s opposition to the holding of the summit was that it must be convened despite India’s hostility but later it gave in to Indian move.

The postponement of the SAARC summit on the ground of political change in Pakistan is bound to have far-reaching outgrowth. What if Pakistan retaliates by opposing any future date for the summit? And if that condition persists, then the SAARC could die a natural death. This will be a regressive development. The prospects of political stability in South Asia, as such, seems to be entirely dependent on the activities of Pakistan and India.

Motto

Regionalism has become a motto in the world, when most of the regional organisations in the world are thinking of single currency, no visa system and so on to increase the regional harmony. On the other hand, South Asians are not even able to meet once a year, which is a great irony. If we really want SAARC to achieve something at least the annual summit should take place in time where at least leaders can exchange camaraderie, if not anything else. That too will be of a great help in strengthening cooperation in the region.
(C D Bhatta is now a student of International Studies at the University of Birmingham, UK.)

Dimensions Of Poverty

By Kedar Dahal

POVERTY is a universal problem, although, it is more marked in Third World countries like Nepal. High rate of poverty is closely related to the rate of population growth and environmental degra-dation. Increasing population together with decrease in agricultural productivity increases the poverty pressure. The rapid population growth is a core issue for poor nations. The World Bank Report (1990) underlines that, fast population growth is the characteristic of poor nations and poor economy does not allow any incremental gain offsetting the beneficial effect of economic growth.

Nepal is one of the poorest countries in the world having some 45 per cent of the people below the poverty line. The poor socio-economic indicators reveal the low level of the living standard of the Nepalese people. Agriculture is still the backbone of the national economy, which contributes about 42 per cent of the GDP (World Bank, 1997), and some 80 per cent people have made it as their main occupation. Industrial service sectors are not quite developed.

It has been estimated that about 5 per cent of the total labour force is unemployed at the national level.

The dimensions of poverty related to the rapid population growth and multi-faceted consequences such as excessive pressure on basic social amenities, rising unemployment, land degra-dation and deterioration of environmental quality. The population below the poverty line comprises mostly of the landless as well as small and very small farm families in the rural areas. There are still about 10.3 per cent landless and about 64 per cent small and marginal farm families in the country. In the urban areas, it is mostly constituted of families without earning members, semi-literate, unskilled adults, small retailers and physically weak persons unable to perform manual works.

The dimension and magnitude of poverty varies in relation to the social class, ethnicity, gender and so on. Socially disadvantaged people suffer more and are more prone to poverty than others.

There are 15 minor ethnic groups, like, Musahar, Dhusadh, Chamar, Mallah, Muslim, Kewat, Dhanuk, Sarki, Kurmi, Kami, Yadav, Tharu, Tamang, Damai and Kushawa, which are educationally disadvantaged (Chhetri, 1997) who constitute about 35 per cent of the national population. Poverty and deprivation in those ethnic groups, as compared to the others, are rather high. They have small and marginal land, which is not significantly important from the viewpoint of agricultural production and development.

Gender discrimination in Nepal is also a distinct feature. Women are more deprived of opportunities and rights than the male. Women constitute half of the population, although, contribution of women in social and economic activities is paramount. Unfortunately, they have limited access to all kinds of resources including financial resources, which make them vulnerable to the effect of poverty.

Moreover, among the underprivileged groups, women become the first victims of poverty and deprivation.

One more dimension of poverty in Nepal is regional. Broadly speaking, Nepal has been divided into three ecological regions like- Terai, Hill and Mountain, and five development regions: EDR, CDR, WDR, MWDR, and FWDR, which in fact, have different levels of poverty. About 45 per cent of the population live in the hills while about 48 per cent in the Terai region.

There is no doubt that increasing population in relation to the decreasing agricultural productivity results in high poverty rate. Rural poverty increases as demand for scarce resources increases caused by the rapid population growth and the thereby lead to the high rate of migration to the urban centres.