SAARC Under Clouds Of Uncertainty

By Uttam Maharjan

THE upcoming Twelfth SAARC Summit, scheduled to be held in Islamabad from 11-13 January 2003, was at last hour, postponed by Pakistan. In was, in fact, a moot question whether it would actually take place because of the growing tension between India and Pakistan, the two nuclear mastodons in the South Asian region.

Sticking Point

SAARC is a forum, where bilateral problems are not allowed to be discussed. Now, whether a particular problem is bilateral or regional has been a sticking point between India and Pakistan. Pakistan wants the Kashmir dispute to be discussed at the SAARC summit, whereas India insists that it is bilateral and so cannot be mooted there. Instead, it wants the trade dispute, especially that involving the MFN status, to be deliberated upon. Pakistan, on the other hand, claims that it is a bilateral problem.

India and Pakistan have been at loggerheads over Kashmir since 1947. They have fought three wars since independence from Britain, two of them over Kashmir. The frequent back-to-back nuclear tests conducted by them have put them at daggers drawn with each other. The issue of cross-border terrorism escalated so dangerously in the beginning months of this year that both of them deployed hundreds of thousands of soldiers along their border. The soldiers from both sides were on standby, awaiting instructions from their respective governments. The situation then almost looked like a war.
The issue of cross-border terrorism has not sputtered out yet. Rather, it is continually rankling in the minds of both the countries. India did not confirm its participation in the upcoming summit. It went so far as to set pre-conditions for its participation: Pakistan must stop support to Islamic insurgents fighting a battle over Kashmir and key trade pacts must be implemented. Pakistan cautiously noted these pre-conditions and concluded that setting such pre-conditions goes against the letter and spirit of the SAARC Charter. These recent developments were enough to obfuscate the possibility of holding the upcoming summit as scheduled.

This is not the first time that the SAARC summit has hit a snag. In 1999, India put off the SAARC summit following a military coup d'etat in Pakistan that catapulted Pervez Musharraf to power. Before this, the SAARC summit had been deferred over the demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992. Still prior to this, the SAARC summit had been put on the back burner due to the strained relations between India and Sri Lanka over the former's delay in withdrawing its troops deployed in the latter to suppress Tamil insurgency.

The SAARC Charter stipulates that decisions at all levels shall be taken on the basis of unanimity. It is this very provision that has militated against achieving goals. It may be noted that SAARC ministers during the UN General Assembly held in October 2002 had expressed agreement to participate in the upcoming summit. Despite this agreement, India and Bhutan did not confirm their participation.
SAARC has become a weak regional grouping vis-à-vis other groupings such as EEC, ASEAN, NAFTA and APEC. The various resolutions passed at various summits have remained on paper only. The anti-terrorism commitment expressed at the third summit in 1987

has yet to be fully implemented. This commitment was also expressed at the last summit held in Kathmandu. Considering that South Asia, once declared by former US President Bill Clinton as the most dangerous place on earth, has now become a hotbed for terrorism, the synergistic efforts of all SAARC member nations are exigently required to extirpate terrorism, which has been taking a heavy toll in the region.

The goal of declaring South Asia as a nuclear -free zone, which was set at the sixth summit in 1991, has yet to materialise. Rather, the nuclear rivalry between India and Pakistan has put the mockers on this goal. In fact, de-nuclearisation of South Asia is one of the pre-requisites for restoring peace in the region.

Similarly, implementation of SAFTA by SAARC member nations to make South Asia a free trade area (FTA) by 2002 has miserably failed. The joint secretarial meeting of SAARC member nations on SAFTA was concluded in Kathmandu on 2 December 2002. Trade officials agreed to meet again on the last week of December to finalise a draft framework agreement on SAFTA for presentation to the forthcoming summit. It was expected that the groundwork would be laid at the summit for the implementation of SAFTA. It is unfortunate that SAFTA should receive a blow in its implementation.
It must be admitted that although the SAARC played a crucial role in resolving nagging problems in the initial years, it has been held hostage to political disputes that are often bilateral in nature. There are inter-member disputes that must be solved to make SAARC a vibrant forum. The Nepal-Bhutan refugee imbroglio, the India-Bangladesh water dispute and, most importantly, the India Pakistan tension are some of the burning problems being currently faced in the region.

It is a matter of grave concern that at a time when other regional blocs are proceeding on the path to success after success, SAARC is still-entangled in inter-member disputes. While EEC has applied the single-currency regime and ASEAN has installed at FTA, SAARC is being bombarded back to the days of yore. If we look at the history of SAARC, it is more of failures than of successes.

Key

So, unless inter-member disputes are put aside and real sincerity is shown towards reviving SAARC by all member nations, the raison d'etre behind SAARC will not make any sense. As such, coordinated efforts on the part of all member nations hold the key to rejuvenating SAARC.

Poverty Reduction For Prosperity

By Mohan K.C.

POVERTY alleviation has remained top on the agenda in the development plans. The Ninth Plan too focussed its priority on the elimination of poverty by coming up with various programmes aimed at benefitting the most underprivileged section of the society. With around 40 per cent of the people below the poverty line, it is a herculean task to bring about prosperity with the resource crunch that Nepal is facing.

Difficult

The topographical features of the country is such that development endeavours are not only difficult but require a greater amount of investment. The reason is that for most part of the country consists of hills, mountains and the Himalayas and so that the development infrastructure is in itself an arduous task.

Poverty, illiteracy and the lack of awareness among the people has resulted in Nepal being at the bottom rungs of nations. This however does not mean that development cannot be achieved. With plenty of resources at hand, the future can be made bright if multi-pronged strategies are designed to raise the standard of living of the people in general. Before the advent of development plans, there were no hard and fast rules as to what sector ought to be developed. Whatever development came about were only to benefit a few. The development of jute industry or match factories was because of the Second World War. But development in the real sense did not take place.

The five-yearly development plans were formulated after accessing the needs and demands of the people and priority areas accorded. It was also a way to pinpoint the resources and in what manner they were to be utilised. They gave an overview of what was to be achieved during the period earmarked.

There is no reason to be pessimistic despite the gloomy development scenario at present. The development activities have been dismal in the past few years. For this violence in many parts of the country is responsible. Attacks on industries and the fear created among the people have been responsible for the state of affairs.

Even agriculture which forms the main part of the economy has not been able to live up to expectations. Subsistence farming as such is in practice which means the production is not enough. Productivity must increase then only the farmers can benefit. The increase in the agro-productivity has not materialised because of many constraints. The mountainous regions have always experienced food shortage. Lack of arable land, improved seeds, inadequate supply of fertilisers, etc. have resulted in low yields and hence poverty remaining as a big problem.

The industries including tourism have been hit hard. Tourism has not been able to prosper because of the low number of tourists coming into the country. This has affected everything related with the tourism industry. The hotel industry is in doldrums. People coming in for treks have declined. A conservative estimate is that tourist inflow has declined by over fifty per cent compared to last year. This is certainly an alarming situation and much has to be done to revive it.

The tourism, carpet and garment industries have suffered and that has a nagative impact on the economy of the country. Much foreign currency was earned from these industries but low tourist inflow, decline in carpet and garment exports have been quite disappointing news for the economy.
As they generated employment opportunities, these industries absorbed many workers and contributed in their own way to the poverty alleviation efforts. Now many workers have been made redundant which is not a good piece of news. For example, according to a report, there were one million people engaged in the carpet industry a decade back but now only 200,000 are engaged.
It is time that the economy be given the life line. For this the Tenth Plan has been formulated. It aims to bringing the poverty level from 38 per cent to 30 per cent in the next five years. This has raised optimism but the main fact remains that peace must return to the country and security maintained.

Approach

The manpower in the rural areas must also be mobilised according to the plans and programmes. It is the participatory approach that can do much to revive the economy which in essence means poverty reduction. It is the implementation aspect that must receive focus. Targets can only be met if the implementation and monitoring aspects receive due attention. The past failures were a result of weak implementation in many areas.

Determination Must Come To The Fore

By Krishna Sharma

AFTER the success of the Visit Nepal Year 1998, the tourism entreprenus had every reason to organise similar kind of annual festivals that could help flourish the country's tourism industry. Decision to launch Destination Nepal Year-2002 must have been made considering the positive impact of VNY-'98 on tourism industry. But as the Year is drawing to a close only after a couple of weeks, it can now well be said that the second annual event could not yield anything mentionable to console the country's already falling industry. Throughout the year, the DNY remained formal either with seminars or with meetings about how the event could be celebrated amid few tourists and unfavourable situation in the nation.

This scribe was utterly disappointed when he learnt recently through one of his friends in travel and tourism industry that they did not even receive any inquiries from the tourists about trekking in off-route destinations during the DNY. It may be noteworthy to mention that off-route trekking programmes come second after expedition when it comes to generating national revenue. Except for some trekking packages to economically cheaper and safer destinations like Langtang, the travel and tour operators could not find groups to go to destinations including Upper Dolpo, Annapurna and Manaslu in the DNY.

Official travel and tourism pundits say the reason behind the failure of the DNY was due to Maoist insurgency and the indifference from people working in the industry. Industry people meanwhile, grudge how could they be active when the government failed to ensure security to the visiting tourists.
No doubt the travel and tourism industry is the worst hit industry. After the most infamous Indian Airplane hostage drama Nepal's tourism industry started seeing its downfall. A series of events including Rhitik Roshan scandal saw the industry further sink into the dark den of uncertainty and agony. In the heart of darkness, the industry is nowhere visible and is suffering in such a way that the people employed in the sector are quitting it like a mouse of a sinking ship or are being made to quit it for the entrepreneurs' own survival.

Thousands of people have been relieved from their jobs and at the same time there are other thousands who have packed up their things to try for other businesses. But, as long as uncertainty remains, no business will be fruitful, as we have seen other businesses also failing to the knees of misfortune. It is not only the tourism industry which is badly hit by the existing problematic situation of the country, Nepalese themselves are afraid of visiting places. The fear of life is great. Much to the distress of the Nepalese, production and trade aspects of the country are gradually declining. Despite the country being selected as the second most attractive destination comes next to New Zealand in the priority list, due to its ever arresting beautiful landscape and special natural and cultural features including Mount Everest, Lumbini, and peoples' rich cultural heritage, it has not been able to tap them due to reasons beyond our control.

After tourism industry, it now seems, the nation's educational sector is also going to be hit very hard. Due to the lack of political commitment and lack of confidence between themselves, the country is unwillingly witnessing its decadence. Enough is enough. It is high time we join hands to help ourselves before it is too late.