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Upbeat SAARC Amidst this gloomy scenario, comes good news from both India and Pakistan, injecting the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation with the much-needed political energy and stirring hopes that the regional grouping representing one fifth of humanity is ready for a takeoff. Politics in one nation has a direct bearing on another. The Kashmir issue has pitted India against Pakistan and the Sri Lankan ethnic question is a major foreign and domestic policy concern in India while India and Bhutan conduct joint military operations against United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) guerrillas who have sought asylum in the tiny Himalayan kingdom. Apparently realizing that cooperation rather than conflict is the order of the day or the command of President George W. Bush's global empire to its allies in the war against terrorism, both India and Pakistan which are trying to outsmart each other in wooing the United States, have, of late, been talking of what was politically untalkable if not suicidal a few months ago. Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf, who survived two assassination bids in as many weeks recently, took a bold step last month when he said his country was willing to abandon a nearly 50-year call for a referendum in the disputed Kashmir region. As if to reciprocate, Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee offered what he described as his last attempt at making peace with Pakistan and agreed to attend the SAARC summit. Airlinks suspended two years ago were resumed this week with one of the first flights from New Delhi to Islamabad carrying Indian Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha. India, which was once a reluctant partner in SAARC, initiating bilateral trade pacts with all its neighbours but Pakistan, instead of boosting South Asian free trade, is now talking about a South Asian economic union with a common currency and open borders while Foreign Minister Sinha dispels apprehension of the Pakistani media that the economic union proposal was New Delhi's newest ruse to undo the partition. Against this upbeat backdrop, Sri Lanka, represented by President Chandrika Kumaratunga at the summit, is also expected to endorse the views of its two nuclear neighbours and offer its services to make peace between them, though there appears to be little need for such facilitation in the light of positive signals from New Delhi and Islamabad. With the meeting between Vajpayee and Musharraf being kept in suspense, probably for a headline-hitting surprise, SAARC is beginning to smile again as the member countries have come to an agreement on South Asian free trade while its upbeat proponents have named the common currency as 'Rupa'. Jubilation and upbeat atmosphere have been seen in past summits as well. We hope that the present rejuvenation will not be short-lived, thus denying the teeming South Asian millions living in abject poverty the much-needed economic uplift.
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ADVERTISING OFFICE
CIRCULATION DEPARTMENT No. 47, W.A.D. Ramanayake Mawatha, Colombo
2, Sri Lanka.
Copyright © 2001 Wijeya Newspapers
Ltd. All rights reserved. |
