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SAARC
– the good, the bad and the ugly
By Poornima Ravishan Wijemanne
The dogs were rounded up and kept away from
sight, the dirt was disguised, some were made to sacrifice
their houses and much of Colombo was rearranged to make room
for the 15th SAARC summit. But clearly the Sri Lankan people
were not as half as excited and jolly about the 15th SAARC
summit as the government was.
It was proven that the summit would make better the country
and then in turn the people too – but to most people
this was an irritating logic. The collective force of the
sacrifices the SAARC required seemed not to benefit the ones
who made them; people didn’t fully understand the relevance
events from the 27th of July to the 3rd of August had on them.
The 15th SAARC summit was originally intended to be held in
Maldives, but upon seeing the damage hosting the summit would
cause to their tourist industry, the Maldivian government
offered to let the opportunity go. The Sri Lankan government
stepped stoically forward and invited the conference upon
our cash-strapped island, resulting in a hectic few months
for the people at large.
With an official budget of 2.8 billion Sri Lankan Rupees and
after shifting the venue from Kandy to Colombo, Sri Lanka
opened its doors to SAARC last week.
In the days preceding the summit important incidents would
occur that would decide the focus of the summit. Colombo would
undergo many changes in preparation for the summit: the Katunayake
airport, the Bandaranayake Memorial International Convention
Hall (BMICH), the parliament and surrounding areas would be
declared high security zones – transport in, out and
within these areas would be limited. And on the 22nd of July
the LTTE would declare a unilateral ceasefire during the SAARC
summit, which the government would reject. And a series of
bomb explosions would occur in Bangalore and Ahamedabad killing
over 14 and injuring over 70 people.
The SAARC pre-summit meetings began on the 27th of July with
the 33rd programming committee meeting where senior officials
of member states would meet to evaluate the SAARC secretariat
budget and decide the agenda of the summit. The Standing Committee,
made of Foreign Secretaries of member nations met for the
35th time on the 29th and the 30th of July to consider possible
areas to which the SAARC cooperation and its benefits could
be extended – this year’s summit was headed by the
Sri Lankan Foreign Secretary, Palitha Kohona. The Council
of Ministers met on the 31st of July and 1st of August where
they were to formulate policies, mechanisms that can implement
the suggestions adopted in the former meetings.
The summit of the Leaders of States took place on the 2nd
and 3rd of August at BMICH with the participation of The President
of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai; the
Chief Adviser of the Government of the People’s Republic
of Bangladesh, Dr. Fakhruddin Ahmed; the Prime Minister of
the Kingdom of Bhutan, Lyonchhen Jigmi Y. Thinley; the Prime
Minister of the Republic of India, Dr. Manmohan Singh; the
President of the Republic of Maldives, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom;
the Prime Minister of the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal,
Girija Prasad Koirala; the Prime Minister of the Islamic Republic
of Pakistan, Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani; and the President of
the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, His Excellency
Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa.
The SAARC has always been aware of terrorism as a hindrance
to achieve regional prosperity and the need to combat it,
and its member states had signed the SAARC Regional Convention
on Suppression of Terrorism in Kathmandu in 1987, but it had
always tried to attend issues like poverty alleviation that
the summit had identified as ‘core issues’. This
year, with the recent increase of terror activities in many
of the member Nations, the leaders laid heavy emphasis on
organizing SAARC member Nations to fight terrorism, and recognizing
terrorism as an issue not entirely solvable by defeating related
issued. This year the leaders of states were determined –
as the Prime Minister of Pakistan said – “collectively
as well as individually”. For member Nations, this stance
seems – if it doesn’t create some combined SAARC
force – to at least approve of each others operations
against terror groups.
In another landmark event, the Indian and the Pakistani Prime
Ministers held talks on August 2 discussing the development
of the peace process. The two leaders decided to continue
with the peace process despite the recent upsetting events
that had the Afghanistan Prime Minister claiming Pakistani
Intelligence services to be behind the recent terror attack
targeting the Indian Embassy in Kabul.
The summit also highlighted increasing regional connectivity,
developing regional sources of energy, deal with environmental
issues that have led to global warming, climate change etc.
managing water resources, poverty alleviation, developing
more efficient transport services within the region and adding
to the agreements signed regarding this previously, establishing
the proposed South Asian University and to revise the limitations
that apply to duty free international trade of the South Asian
Free Trade Agreement (SAFTA).
This year’s summit concluded with four agreements: providing
legal assistance in criminal matters, setting up the SAARC
developmental fund, the admission of Afghanistan into the
SAFTA.
In addition to China, Iran, Japan, Republic of Korea, Mauritius,
United States of America and European Union – who were
granted observer status in the previous year, participating
in this summit as observer nations were Australia and Myanmar.
A series of cultural events and youth programmes, including
a dance festival, a youth camp, media forum (SAFMA), film
festival and the issuing of a stamp commemorating the event
was organised to run parallel with the summit.
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