SAARC scores high marks for failure

by Amal Jayasinghe KATHMANDU, Jan 6 (AFP) - South Asian leaders wrap up a summit in Nepal Sunday after unleashing unprecedented criticism against their regional body, with one head of state warning it would take a Himalayan effort to make the group a success. The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), which began nearly two decades ago with ambitious plans for collectively becoming the world's next economic powerhouse, is today fighting for survival. Leader after leader castigated the regional body on Saturday, when the summit bringing together the group's leaders opened two years behind schedule thanks to bickering between the two big members -- India and Pakistan. Meeting in the Nepalese capital of Kathmandu, the summit saw leaders agree on one thing: as an organisation, SAARC has failed the 1.3 billion people living in the world's poorest region. President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, of the low-lying Indian Ocean atoll nation of Maldives, took the high ground at Kathmandu, saying he had a right to speak "freely and frankly" on SAARC as he had attended all its 11 summits. "I believe that we are going through a traumatic phase in regional co-operation," Gayoom said. "It will take a great deal of energy, persistence and commitment, indeed a Himalayan effort, to restart what has become a stalled process." Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf was even more blunt in his critique. "SAARC's performance so far, in comparison with other regional organisations, has been dismal," Musharraf said. "While SAARC limps along, organisations like the European Union and ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations) have galloped ahead." India's prime minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, lamented that an ambitious poverty alleviation plan proposed 10 years ago in Bangladesh was never implemented in a region where more than 500 million people get only one meal a day. "I believe that we owe it to our people to make another sincere attempt," Vajpayee said. "Let us this time show greater commitment to making our cooperative mechanisms work." Bhutan's prime minister, Lyonpo Khanda Wangchuk, chided the organisation and said the countries should be ashamed the bloc had been slow to act against the trafficking of women and children within the region. "In a region known to be the cradle of ancient civilisations and great religions, it is a cause of deep shame that, within and across our borders, our women and children are traded like commodities," Wangchuk said. He wanted two conventions adopted by the Kathmandu summit Saturday on protecting women and children to quickly be given legal effect in the member states -- Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Nepal's prime minister, Sher Bahadur Deuba, who took over the leadership of SAARC Saturday from Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga, said the group still had an important regional role to play. "Our people cherish the ardent desire to see a more coherent, stable and prosperous South Asian community," Deuba said. Bangladeshi Premier Khaleda Zia had a nostalgic attachment to SAARC as it was founded by her late husband president, Ziaur Rahman, but she also said SAARC had failed to implement a single regional project. However, a SAARC diplomat said reports of an early demise of SAARC were premature. "Even to close down SAARC, they will take years to decide, that is if they get round to it at all," he said.