FROM THE FIRST DECADE

A selection from LMD’s Cover Stories

AUGUST 1994

SAARC AT THE CROSSROADS

BY Deshamanya Dr. Vernon L. B. Mendis

The dominant impression of SAARC at the moment seems to be that it is heading for the crossroads that will decide whether it can last, let alone live up to expectations or be marginalised and disappear from view.

From the outset, SAARC has been dogged by misgivings within, despite the flamboyant utterances, the soulful speeches and fanfare that accompanied its launching and elevation from SARC to SAARC, from ministerial to summit status. It has been overcast by a Hamlet-like complex of “the native hue of resolution being sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought and enterprises of great pitch and moment, their currents turn awry and lose the name of action.”

There was a lingering suspicion that some countries were -reluctantly forced into membership because of the fear that keeping out would backfire on their image and interests. This may explain its lacklustre performance, its meagre achievements and the virtual collapse in the non-summit of December 1991.

A basic disability of SAARC has been a built-in evasion of reali-ties under the specious caveats of avoiding contentious issues and interfering in internal affairs. While the avowed justification is a desire not to rock the boat, it betrays a kind of naivete in imagining that mature meaningful relations could be conducted between states, let alone those directed towards forging a community on the basis of glossing over practical realities.

It was argued that such a benign start would clear the air and build mutual confidence but after 14 years, it does not seem as if this goal is yet in sight. Apart from not rocking the boat, it seems to be about to sink. One likes to think that this is a case of the heart being willing but the flesh weak, yet both seem unwilling in some cases. There is in fact a dichotomy between member states like Sri Lanka who are its zestful advocates and others who have reservations.

EVOLUTION OF SAARC This current uncertainty about SAARC was predictable in the light of the course of the evolution of the associa-tion since its inauguration. The original conception of its founding father President Ziaur Rahman was ambitious and envisaged an inauguration with a summit but it was referred to bureaucrats in whose hands it was reduced to the so-called inte-grated programme for coordinated development in a number of identified areas.

Those chosen initially for the purpose were agriculture, rural development, telecommunications, meteorology, health and population, which could scarcely be considered as priorities for a programme aimed at integration and revealed a halfhearted perfunctory approach.

It was really in 1983 that the organisation got down to business with the meetings of national planning representatives who proposed a number of activities in key areas such as -intra-regional trade expansion, study of industrial protection policies, and joint ventures in agriculture, industry and energy, which went to the heart of genuine regional cooperation, and veritably revolu-tionised the character and image of SAARC.

There was a sense of purposefulness in identifying the hardcore problems and coming to grips with them. This was lacking at the start. These measures coincided with a number of structural changes in the organisation, which set it on a new course.

These were the adoption by the organisation of its present nomen-clature and form as the South Asian Association for -Regional Cooperation, and a new status of a Council of Foreign Ministers of the member states being at the helm.

The change in status and structure certainly enlivened the -association, accompanied as it was by a solemn charter -embodying its mandate and objectives but it was really the prelude to the dimensional leap of 1985 when with the Dhaka Summit, it assumed the exalted status of having the heads of states/governments as its chief executives.

TIMELY CHANGE Image-wise, the assumption of summit status was no small change because it put SAARC on par with other prestigious regional organisations in the world, with heads of states as the executives, as several regional associations only had ministers in that capacity. It meant that SAARC now wielded power at the highest level and theoretically, it enhanced its -image. It gave room for hope that it could assert itself and live up to the highest expectations.

The summit era from 1985 onwards was certainly marked by dynamic approaches and the launching of new initiatives that were in accord with its mandate. Some of these initiatives were the study of natural disasters, which was an urgent preoccupation of disaster prone countries like the Maldives and Bangladesh, the studies on cross border terrorism and drugs, resulting in the adoption of convention, and the establishment of a develop-ment fund.

A landmark in the development of SAARC that was long overdue was the creation of the SAARC Secretariat to administer the multifarious activities undertaken by the association since its -inception, which till then were the responsibility of the standing community. The summit status and secretariat strongly suggested that SAARC had not only acquired the stature of a regional organisation equal to that of its peers but that it was equipped to carry out these responsibilities.

Such a stature was timely because of the importance that -regionalism had assumed in the international scene with almost all the major regions of the world having their own regional -organisations. These included the prestigious Organisation of African States, the Organization of American States, CARICOM in the Caribbean, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations for Asia and in the early nineties, the formation of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation overshadowing East Asia.

Indeed, regionalism was fast becoming both a rival and a complement to the United Nations itself, and hence SAARC’s appea-rance was not a moment too soon.

POLITICAL TENSIONS Despite these lofty aspirations, the -actual performance of SAARC has been an anticlimax. The convention on terrorism (as yet unratified by some), the convention on drugs, the adoption of SAPTA (which Sri Lanka has just ratified) and a few other marginal measures represent the sum of its concrete achievements, and this seems a meagre output for almost 14 years of existence.

Its undoing is that its original sin of refusing to face realities has caught up with it as the political tensions between member states and the explosive security situation has virtually paralysed it.

It seems ironic that the countries concerned should invoke the superpowers to resolve tensions between them when this should be the rightful function of SAARC, which was constituted for the purpose of promoting solidarity. In this respect, SAARC compares most unfavourably with other regional organisations, most of which have adopted procedures through arbitration or mediation to resolve disputes.

Alternatively, there could have been mutual security pacts or friendship treaties and other such avenues, which international law affords to safeguard security but these have not been pursued. Indeed, on security, the position taken up by SAARC is that this should be a matter for the United Nations. In the context of the Treaty of Tlatelolco, the Pact of Ayacucho and numerous peace zone proposals, this attitude seems unconscionable.

NIC STATUS IMPLICATIONS Apart from this overhanging mena-ce of tensions and insecurity, there is a contradictory force of the economic miracles that some member countries are experiencing (like India, Sri Lanka and Pakistan) through the pursuit of open economies and free market policies, which reportedly have revolutionised their economic situations. They are all hopefully in the queue for NIC status, which they expect to attain by the year 2000, when conceivably it may be necessary to change the acronym to SANIC.

On the recent visit of the Indian prime minister to the USA, this economic miracle, which has made it the biggest free economic market in the world, expecting 25 billion dollars of foreign investment was the main plank in his negotiations with the US president. He hoped this would counteract reservations over its nuclear policies.

Sri Lanka likewise entertains high expectations of NIC status being round the comer, despite reservations expressed about its infrastructural and logistical deficiencies.

Whatever the truth and basis of these expectations, they have raised the question of their impact on the role and function of SAARC in the future. SAARC in the first instance was not -designed as an engine of growth. Its main objective was to promote cooperation with a view to regional integration. This dramatic transformation of some member states could thus have a disruptive effect on its modest machinery and perceptions, which were not designed to accommodate dynamic growth that could have breakaway implications.

One fails to see how the flood of foreign trade, which could result from the massive inflow of investments to India, could be reconciled with the requirements of SAPTA. Thus the tidal wave of an open economy and the structural adjustments that it -demands could run counter to the integrationist concept of SAARC.

SAARC DILEMMA Outwardly however, SAARC seems to be flouri-shing and is in the news with a multitude of initiatives in various directions such as SAARCLAW, SAARC Common Market, SAARC Youth Movement, SAARC Movement for Child-ren, Women and Disabled, SAARC and the Girl Child, SAARC Chamber of Commerce and regional apex bodies, SAARC cooperation among journalists and SAARC people to people contact.

A major front that was opened in Sri Lanka was for poverty -alleviation through Janasaviya programmes, to which the -Colombo summit accorded the highest priority. However, their gloss should not blind us to the realities that were succinctly -expressed by the Sri Lankan foreign minister in Dhaka last -December in the words “SAARC can no longer remain deaf and blind to all the vital issues that need to be addressed.” As he very rightly said, “if we cannot sort out our own problems, we will leave the door wide open for outside pressures.”

That, in a nutshell, is the current dilemma of SAARC – whether, above all, it has the political will to come out of its ivory tower, its blissful euphoria and face reality because without that, it will be a case not of SAARC at the crossroads but at the end of the road. The next summit is due this year and when it will come or whether it will come at all is a good means of testing which way the wind is blowing.