A rat has crept into my SAARC frame of mind

I am in a SAARC frame of mind. This happens whenever the SAARC Summit takes place. There is a rush of regional blood and my solidarity with peoples in the region become warmer. I was thrilled, for example, when Afghanistan was welcomed as an observer nation. That was in 2009, I believe. Today, on the SAARC website, we see the Afghan flag along with those of the ‘older’ members.

So yes, the South Asia’s Heads of State are confabbing in Bhutan as I write. They will be debating issues that are of common interest to the member nations and the concerns of the region in general. They will be talking about trade, facilitation of cultural exchanges/sharing, perhaps a common currency, easier movement of people among the SAARC countries, tourism, terrorism and climate change. The focus was to be on the last of these, we were told and that’s good.

All good, in fact. All good, thank you, congrats, best wishes and all that sort of thing are due to the leaders of Pakistan, India, Bhutan, Maldive Islands, Nepal, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka.

Regional cooperation

India’s Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh in his opening statement has urged fellow-members to ‘renew their compact to build a region that is better connected, better empowered, better fed and better educated.’

He has observed that regional cooperation should enable freer movement of people, of goods, of services and of ideas’ and that ‘it should help us re-discover our shared heritage and build our common future’. All good, all good.

He hasn’t said, ‘more secure’, though. I found this extremely strange, since Dr Singh has also noted that ‘while the member-state were able to cooperate individually as members in various international fora, it was unfortunate that, together, the people of South Asia did not have the voice they should and could have in the global polity’. He has put it bluntly: ‘The 21st Century cannot be an Asian Century unless South Asia marches ahead and marches ahead together.’

Direct dialogue

I find the cursory reference to ‘terrorism’ troublesome. I find it even more worrying that Uncle Sam has sent his nephew, Robert Blake to ‘oversee’ proceedings in Bhutan. I find it worrying that someone like Dr Singh has failed to take note that his rhetoric about ‘marching forward together’ and about South Asia having a strong and common voice in international for a falls flat against the backdrop of Blake passing out brownie points to Dr Singh and his Pakistani counterpart Yusuf Raza Gilani, for agreeing to restore ‘direct dialogue’.

Listen to this big-brotherliness of the US Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs, P J Crowley: ‘We have encouraged the leaders of Pakistan and India, to restore, direct dialogue that has been characteristic of the relation between those two countries within the last few years. We’re encouraged that they are taking steps to do that.;

To think that I believed the USA was an ‘observer’ and not a school principal chairing a meeting of students who are discussing an end-of-term concert. Even if these statements were made to the press, the talking-down tone makes Dr Singh’s assertions regarding the ‘should’ and ‘can’ part of being SAARC sound quite hollow to me.

I am downright livid that SAARC doesn’t see fit to include the presence of non-regional armies within the region a concern serious enough to be included in the agenda. We are talking about a situation where fraternal citizens are being killed in their hundreds by a bunch of incompetent thugs whose pay-masters lie through their teeth at every turn. We are talking about non-combatants being killed regularly. We are talking about half a million people being turned into IDPs. We are talking about regional instability. We are talking about resource extraction. We are talking about Uncle Sam’s thirst for oil. We are talking about terrorism, US-style.

Dr Singh has urged the other Heads of State to recognize that a lot still needs to be done. He has failed to tell them that not much can get done when a country at the other end of the globe has sent thousands of trigger-happy, torture-loving troops to occupy, molest, intimidate and destroy vast swathes of the region whose activities SAARC was supposed to streamline.

Peace-keeping force

Why is there no talk of a SAARC peacekeeping force in Afghanistan? Crowley is thrilled that Gilani and Singh are exchanging pleasantries. Why is he not urging his boss Barrack to have a chitchat with the Taliban? No, I am not comparing either Gilani or Singh to Obama or the Taliban’s current supreme commander. Just saying that if talk is good, then drop the freaking guns and talk for goodness’ sake!

I am in a SAARC frame of mind. I don’t know how the world’s biggest thug got into the picture and why none of my leaders are telling him where to get off. Actually they don’t have to be told that.

It’s very simple. I have noticed that those who want to be observers also want to be ‘minders’ and such people don’t want others to observe them or mind them. So set up a prominent camera close to the US ‘observers’ and make sure Blake and his team notice that they are being ‘seen’. All the time. I assure you they will not come back next year. Please do this. Humour me. I just want a better SAARC experience next year.

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