The 11th SAARC Summit
A Landmark Achievement

By Laxmi Bahadur Vaidya

AFTER a gap of over three years since the tenth summit of 1998 in Sri-Lanka the historic 11th SAARC Summit was held in Kathmandu which can be considered as a great achievement even though the atmosphere was not so favourable due to deteriorating political relation between the two member states India and Pakistan. Both the member nations are nuclear powers of South Asia with 85 per cent of the total population of the region. Unfortunately, the two neighbours have amassed their troops along the border, after the December 13th terrorist attack on the Indian parliament. It has posed a great threat to bilateral peace, security and stability as well as in the region as a whole.

For the first time Nepal had hosted the summit back in 1987 and after a gap of 14 years she hosted the summit for the second time. The Kathmandu Summit reactivated the stalled SAARC the process and it is hoped that the process will be continued without interruption in the future. Even at the time of critical juncture the two leaders of the member states of South Asia, President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan and Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee of India had participated at the Kathmandu summit leading the delegation of their respective countries. It is a matter of immense joy and satisfaction for the South Asia region as a whole that both the leaders of India and Pakistan are, it seems, very serious and anxious to work for the welfare and benefit of the people of the region.

The 11th SAARC Summit adopted a 56-point Kathmandu Declaration and decided to meet in Pakistan in the beginning of 2003. The heads of state and government of the SAARC who had participated in the summit made commitments on various core issues such as poverty alleviation, accelerated economic cooperation, development of the social sector, terrorism and people to people contact.

The Kathmandu summit was the first of the new century and also of the new millennium. The summit has a special importance due to the fact that the SAARC leaders after an interval of three years unanimously acknowledged that in the past the activities of the SAARC was slow to catch up the objectives, principles and goals of the regional body. Now the leaders realised that past gains must be consolidated and the present decisions must be implemented strictly and vigorously, keeping in mind the need for a regional focus and orientation and finding the solution to take new decisions.

To accelerate cooperation in the core areas of trade, finance and investment the leaders accepted the vision of a phased and planned process moving towards the formation of the South Asian Economic Union. They also stressed the need on equitable sharing of regional cooperation to achieve and maintain a minimum acceptable level of socio-economic development in each member state.

Regarding the poverty alleviation in the region the Kathmandu Declaration has accorded top priority with sustained measures to extend rural micro-credit programme and labour intensive technology focussing on women and the poor. A great majority of the people in the SAARC region is dependent on agriculture for their livelihood. Taking this stark reality the Declaration has accorded special importance to the agricultural sector which is appropriate and desirable to eradicate poverty from the region. In this regard a decision has been taken to reconstitute the independent poverty commission to review the progress as well as to suggest relevant and effective measures.

The Kathmandu Declaration has reaffirmed to address the problem of terrorism in a comprehensive and holistic manner because it violated fundamental values of the United Nations and the SAARC charter. In this 21st century it is the greatest menace to peace and security in the world. All the South Asian leaders are unanimous on the view that terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, is a challenge to all states. Hence, it cannot be tolerated on any ground whether it is ideological, religious, humanitarian or philosophical.

During the summit the two important conventions namely SAARC convention on preventing and combating the Trafficking in women and children for prostitution and SAARC convention on Regional Arrangement for the promotion of child welfare in South Asia were signed. It is certainly a major achievement for addressing the plight of many women and children in the region. Due to the lack of a regional mechanism to coordinate remedial measures the women and children of the South Asian region suffered a good deal from the scourge of trafficking and prostitution. Now the South Asian nations came together to jointly fight the heinous crimes that keep many South Asian women and children exploited. Besides, the two above mentioned conventions, four regional conventions and agreements have already been signed since the inception of SAARC. These are SAARC Food Security Storage, SAARC Regional Convention against terrorism, SAARC Regional Convention against Drug Abuse and SAARC Preferential Trading Arrangements.

In order to achieve the goals of common interests by promoting collective self-reliance among the South Asian nations and ensuring peace, security and stability, the Regional Association has established. However, the political climate of the South Asia region has not been conducive to enhance such cooperation due to misunderstanding and lack of trust between the two neighbour India and Pakistan. To avert the crisis the leaders of the two neighbours must explore ways and means so that the problems can be resolved in a peaceful and friendly manner because the destiny and future of SAARC depends on how these neighbours behave with each other. If this region is to forge ahead along the path of the European Union (EU) or the Association of South East Nations (ASEAN) the SAARC leaders must substitute the hostility, mistrust among nations with goodwill and harmonious relations.

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