Peace and progress in South Asia
Thawing relations between India and Pakistan almost overshadowed other important achievements at the South Asian Agreement for Regional Cooperation Summit, writes Iffat Idris from Islamabad
Follow the media coverage of the 12th South Asian Agreement on Regional Cooperation (SAARC) Heads of State Summit in Islamabad, held from 4 to 6 January, and you could be forgiven for thinking it was a bilateral India-Pakistan meeting -- such was the extent to which relations between the two nations dominated the agenda.
The media frenzy started with an initial meeting between Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Pakistani Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Jamali. Then came last Monday's meeting between Vajpayee and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf that sparked massive speculation about progress towards normalising Indian-Pakistani relations. The final day of the SAARC summit then saw a joint statement by Indian and Pakistani foreign ministers in which the two sides announced they would be holding talks in February.
"The two leaders are confident that the resumption of the composite dialogue will lead to peaceful settlement of all bilateral issues, including Jammu and Kashmir, to the satisfaction of both sides," the statement read.
Given India's previous refusal to discuss Kashmir, which it maintains is an internal matter, and given the fact that there had not been any high-level dialogue on such issues between India and Pakistan for over two years, the announcement was greeted with great enthusiasm at home and abroad.
"History has been made," was President Musharraf's verdict at a press conference following the joint statement.
The enormous media contingent that descended on the Pakistani capital was also powerful testimony to the anticipation that some real progress between India and Pakistan would come out of the SAARC summit. Yet despite the expectations, the final joint statement by the two heads of state was by no means a given. Prime Minister Vajpayee had indicated just days before the SAARC summit that he would not be holding any bilateral meetings with President Musharraf. In view of those signals, the ensuing pledge from both sides to resume dialogue was hailed as a breakthrough.
Concessions were made by both countries. From an Indian perspective, the decision to hold talks on Jammu and Kashmir was a major achievement. New Delhi has, up until now, always insisted that Kashmir is an internal problem and that Pakistan had no reason to have any say in the affairs of Kashmiris. From a Pakistani perspective, President Musharraf's personal pledge not to allow Pakistani soil to be used for acts of terrorism was equally significant. Indian demands for an end to so-called "cross-border terrorism" had always been rejected by Islamabad, which argued that Kashmiris were engaged in a struggle for freedom and that there was no terrorism involved. Given this previous stance, it came as no surprise that Islamists within Pakistan condemned Musharraf's implicit acknowledgment that there may in fact be terrorist elements within the Kashmiri freedom movement.
Indian-Pakistani normalisation is developing at a rapid pace. Following the resumption of direct flights between Islamabad and New Delhi -- after a suspension of almost two years -- the Samjhota Express is set to resume service on 15 January. There is also talk of expanding these links with a bus service between Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani-administered Kashmir and Srinagar, the Indian capitals of Indian- administered Kashmir.
Of course, handshakes and smiles before the international media are the easy part of improving bilateral relations. The real test will come when the two sides sit down at the table to discuss contentious issues -- most notably Kashmir. Peace activists in both countries will be hoping that the confidence- building measures carried out by India and Pakistan in recent months will foster an atmosphere of good will and accommodation in negotiations.
This was by no means the first SAARC event to be hijacked by the India-Pakistan relationship. The enduring image from the 2002 SAARC Heads of State Summit in Kathmandu was of President Musharraf walking across the stage and offering his hand to a bemused Prime Minister Vajpayee. The Kathmandu Summit had itself been postponed because of Indian-Pakistani acrimony. Originally scheduled for November 1999, that meeting was put off for more than two years over Indian objections to Pakistan's military government, which took power in a bloodless coup in 1999.
The reason why the SAARC agenda generally seems to be overshadowed by developments in the India-Pakistan relationship has a lot to do with the fact that India and Pakistan together account for 87 per cent of SAARC countries' population. Without these two countries, SAARC would be virtually meaningless. Yet, while India and Pakistan's size, clout and nuclear arsenals provide visibility on the world scene, SAARC's objective of mutual cooperation leading to growth and prosperity is often undermined -- or rather impeded -- by the frequently hostile nature of Indian-Pakistani relations. Another important reason for India and Pakistan dominating SAARC coverage is that the summit presents an excellent opportunity for Indian and Pakistani leaders to interact without the pressure and expectations that invariably surround high-level bilateral meetings.
This situation is of course very frustrating for SAARC's smaller members -- Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Bhutan and the Maldives. But short of giving up on SAARC completely, they have no option but to wait for periods of Indian-Pakistani rapprochement to push the SAARC agenda forward. This is precisely what happened in Islamabad. Although the media focussed on the India- Pakistan dimension of the summit, the 12th SAARC summit also made substantive progress in a number of important areas such as South Asian free trade, a social charter for SAARC countries and a protocol on terrorism.
The South Asia Free Trade Agreement (SAFTA) has for years now been on the SAARC agenda but was consistently delayed by Indian-Pakistani acrimony. SAFTA is a follow-up to the South Asia Preferential Trade Agreement, both of which are designed to address anomalies of intra-regional trade, like the fact that it is oftentimes more expensive for South Asian manufacturers to deal with their immediate neighbours than with countries in the Gulf or the Far East. SAFTA is set to come into effect from 1 January 2006. If implemented fully, it would cut all tariffs between member states to 0.5 per cent within a decade on all but a few selected goods.
The 10-point Social Charter was another major achievement coming out of SAARC. Acknowledging the dire human development indicators in most parts of the region, the charter requires member states to take legislative, executive and administrative measures to increase the social welfare of their citizens. Target areas for the charter include education, health, poverty alleviation and women's development. Furthermore, it requires SAARC countries to share and review their implementation strategies with each other.
Finally, the Additional Protocol to the Regional Convention on the Suppression of Terrorism addresses the funding aspect of terrorism by criminalising the "provision, collection or acquisition of funds for the purpose of committing terrorist acts".
The 12th SAARC Summit achieved a great deal -- on paper at least. Implementation of the agreed upon measures is, however, once again hostage to the unpredictable state of relations between India and Pakistan. Only if those relations continue to make progress can SAARC hope to achieve the reduction of tariffs envisaged in SAFTA, the sharing of implementation strategies for human development envisaged in the Social Charter, and a joint effort to crack down on terrorism.
