Alumni SG´s

The four past secretaries general of SAARC include Abul Ahsan from Bangladesh, followed by Kant Kishore Bhargava from India, Ibrahim Hussain Zaki from the Maldives and Yadav Kant Silwal from Nepal. They have been activated under the aegis of Coalition for Action in South Asian Cooperation, an organisation supported by the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, to make recommendations on improving and updating the functions of the SAARC organisations. These recommendations are to be presented to Maldivian President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, who takes over as Chairman at the forthcoming SAARC summit in Male on 9 May. Himal met with this gathering of SAARC alumni when they came together in Kathmandu to discuss their recommendations. This is what they had to say:

Abul Ahsan

SAARC is now collaborating with foreign governments like Japan and with international organisations. During my time there were serious reservations on the part of certain members about SAARC having anything to do with outside funding and foreign governments. So clearly this is an opening. As for those who question the use of SAARC for bilateral relations, look at India and Pakistan, which are forced to interact at so many levels. Because of SAARC, they do meet and interact at different levels in the presence of others. As with ASEAN or the EC, regional cooperation here has improved relations among the member states. Without the frequency of SAARC meetings, India and Pakistan might have avoided each other for years.

It is also important to start worthwhile regional projects with a view to attracting private investors, who are able to put up billions of dollars into physical infrastructure. Say, if you want to connect Bhutan, Nepal, Bangladesh and parts of India by roads or a power grid, this will immediately draw attention of private investors.

All our countries are engaged in a process of dismantling tariff barriers and introducing economic reforms as a consequence of what is going on elsewhere. When you open up, you do so not only to the outside world but also to your next-door neighbour. The possibilities which were denied for so long by artificial government fiat are now opening up. The whole process is assisted by communications technologies which are making so many rules and regulations obsolete.

Kant Kishore Bhargava

In South Asia there is this asymmetry, India not only being big, but being centrally located. And efforts to have traditional balance of power through internal arrangements or through involvement of external power, such as the United States, have been at best problematic. On the other hand, you will have cohesion in the region if you continue the patient pursuit of consensus. This is what SAARC is in the process of achieving. There is no doubt that time has been lost within SAARC as well, and we failed to make leeway in so many fronts. The accumulated cost of non-cooperation is large, and we have to see how we can retrieve the situation and have multiplier effects.

The recommendations made by the former secretaries general of SAARC call for a movement towards better political accommodation among the governments. There is sufficient movement at the conceptual as well as ground level in economic and trade cooperation. We should therefore go in for a more closely knit economic grouping and a new paradigm of economic regionalism, towards a South Asian Economic Community. The workings of the "technical committees" within the structure of SAARC have to be streamlined, and we must mobilise the power and reach of non-governmental organisations for regional cooperation.

Yadav Kant Silwal

There is a South Asian civilisational commonality which is not found in other regional groupings. Overall our thinking pattern is the same. The countries of South Asia attract and repel each other like magnets. The asymmetry factor is significant: India is so predominant, and every other South Asian country borders it and not each other. India therefore has necessarily a central and careful role to play in the future of SAARC, to be active without muffling other voices. If India does not show its overbearing nature, what is wrong with that centrality? New Delhi has also realised in recent years that without regional amity, it cannot project a good picture for itself internationally.

There is consensus that SAARC has to be pushed ahead, and yet the young nations of South Asia do want safeguards to protect their perceived individuality. Pakistan might want safeguards in trade, Bangladesh on transit, and the LDCs among us will want special protection. No one wants to go the whole hog, and yet we have to go a distance for everyone´s benefit. Also, remember that statehood is important to everyone.

The move towards subregional cooperation announced recently by Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Nepal is not being seen as a transparent exercise, and there is a perception that it might undermine SAARC at an important juncture. The SAARC Charter does have the provision for "action committees", but this was not used for the purpose.

Within the SAARC organisations, there are challenges. There is a need for institution building after ten years, eight summits, 18 council of ministers meetings. In the summits, the leaders sound like visionaries, but they are not able to allow SAARC to attain its potential. In the meetings of officials, there is no continuity of representation, meetings are not held on time, and the results of the hundreds of workshops and seminars are not implemented where it matters, at the grassroots. The SAARC cell in each foreign ministry is the weakest.

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