Priorities for SAARC Summit

Kazi Mohoshin Al ABBAS

Colombo, the capital city of Sri Lanka, has prepared itself to welcome the pivotal leaders of South Asian countries as SAARC summit is scheduled on August 2-3, 2008. This gathering of South Asian Head of the States/Governments is very important because of the volatile situation running through out the region.

In this Summit, it is the principal task that the leaders should prioritise the issues and challenges including global, regional and bilateral, which should be overcome through a combined initiative and method.

As of the present socio-political and diplomatic scenario of the region, the concentration of the SAARC leaders should be on regional & internal security, insurgency & anarchy, food security, price control of essentials, challenges from fuel price hike, effect of climate change, free trade agreement among members, inter country transportation, Human Resource Management and people to people connectivity.

It must be told that for a better SAARC, all member countries should consider the pattern and extent of relationship among nations. Moreover, internal socio-political environment also be taken in to account for building of a common goal for the region.

Though the Army Chief of India is on a visit to Bangladesh with a high profile team, Bangladesh-India relationship is less warmer than the previous days.

After the India visit of Bangladesh Army Chief and frequent Bangladesh visit by Indian Foreign Minister the relationship between the two neighbours was in a wormer stage.

But few border disputes put this relation in a cold stage despite of the fact that BDR-BSF high profile meeting makes the promise that both side will take care of the field level activities and each country will show honour to others.

The Bangladesh visit of Indian Army Chief could be the point of strengthening relationship further.

India Pakistan relationship is a bizarre in terms of pattern and extent. Pakistan is one of the important members of SAARC.

The prevailing relationship between India and Pakistan could be judged by the sentence, ‘Dialogue process is going under stress on the backdrop of recent Kabul Attack and public statements of some Pakistani leaders uttered by Indian foreign secretary after the last phase of composite dialog with his Pakistan counterpart. This relationship is a mixture of enmity and friendship, hostility and cooperation.

Sri Lanka, the host country of forthcoming SAARC summit, is a conflict trodden country which has an important role in South Asian Cooperation and the country has a better relationship with other SAARC nations that could be a positive influence in the decision making process of SAARC.

Nepal is in an unstable political situation as it is yet to form a new Government after the successful end of absolute monarchy and Maoists’ rigid stand for an acceptable national political consensus.

However, the new democratic nation has elected its President as head of the state last week denouncing the long-standing King, which makes sure its representation in the summit.

Bhutan, now a constitutional Kingdom, is in a stable position anyway. Though Maldives is stable in terms of political happenings, this nation is running through a socio-political change so far.

Opposition political parties grouping for contesting general election next that is a cause of social restlessness in this islands-nation. Afghanistan itself is a portrait of a problem. These countries could play a vital rule to minimise the mistrust, if any, as they have similar representation like the other three.

Besides these, the growing militancy as a cause of the religion and Maoism are the problems which influence the decision making process significantly.

Trans-border terrorism and crime is another problem creating mistrust among the member nations.

These problems are related to the internal and regional security concerns. As of a research report, in the year 2009 nearly half a billion more South Asian residents are to suffer food constrains due to price hikes.

As the nations are involved in spending more on security, social sector investment is not as of desired level. Building of a Social Safety Net for the people of South Asia is the goal, and should be the principal goal, for SAARC leaders.

If they could be able to make it possible, the upcoming SAARC summit might be a remarkable one. Personally I would say to make the summit notable, leaders should point out the priorities.

The author is a senior journalist based in Dhaka, Bangladesh, and he contributes articles for a number of newspapers and news portals across the world.