In 1985, during the first Summit, although the leaders of seven countries -- Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka -- reaffirmed their fundamental goal to accelerate the process of economic and social development in South Asia through optimum utilisation of human and material resources in the seven countries, they made it conditional on the existence of "peace and security" in the region (paragraph 4 of the Declaration). Therefore there is a catch in the Declaration that has stalled in many ways the growth of SAARC since its creation. Furthermore the SAARC Charter deliberately avoided the role of the organisation to discuss bilateral issues or disputes within its members.

The South Asian region is a land of contrasts. Although all the seven countries account for 20 per cent of the world's population, its share in the global trade is about 1 per cent and the region constitutes 1.5 per cent of the world's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in comparison with G-8 countries that represent 60 per cent of the world's GDP.

While there are very rich people ( one Indian national Azim Premji reportedly became one of the world's five richest men), almost 450 million people out of about 1.4 billion live below poverty line. More than 50 per cent are illiterate and more than 50 per cent children are unschooled. On the other hand defence expenditure in the region has been dramatically on the rise. The reason of defence expenditure is primarily due to the continuing animosity between India and Pakistan and perceived rivalry between India and China in the Asia-Pacific region.

Weakness of SAARC

SAARC has been limping since its birth. An academic has compared SAARC to a salad dish, a valuable side dish but not essential to sustaining life. Furthermore to the academic, it looks like a salad dish that has been left out in the tropical sun for too long. As one cannot split sunrise from the sun, the vitality of SAARC cannot be separated from political tension existing between India and Pakistan.

South Asia faces two stumbling blocs in the maintenance of regional peace and security: first is the existence of the Kashmir territorial dispute between the two key members, India and Pakistan, and secondly, the two rival countries perceive regional security differently. That simply means that one country's "friend" is often perceived as another's "competitor" or even an "enemy".

As earlier mentioned, the SAARC Charter of 1985 understandably left out consideration of bilateral political disputes within its mandate. This appears to be the greatest weakness of SAARC's Charter. Although bilateral discussion is the preferred method of resolving conflicts, Article 33 of the UN Charter enumerates five other methods of peaceful settlement such as, mediation, conciliation, enquiry, arbitration and judicial settlement. SAARC could have been of help by resorting to one of these procedures to resolve bilateral disputes.

Disputes among neighbouring countries are not uncommon and that is why Article 52 of the UN Charter specifically contemplates a role for the regional institutions or agencies in dealing "with such matters relating to the maintenance of international peace and security as are appropriate for regional action".

In Europe, the Organisation of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) has been entrusted with a role to manage conflicts among member-nations and in recent years it successfully resolved potential disputes, such as , between Czech Republic and Slovakia on property related questions after break-up of Czechoslovakia in 1992, Russia and Ukraine over Crimea and between Macedonia and Albania on ethnic conflict.

If there is no mechanism within the regional institution to resolve disputes, maintenance of regional peace and security becomes a difficult problem that has an adverse impact on economic and social progress in the region. Although the leaders of SARRC had appreciated peace and security as a "prerequisite" for economic progress, they deliberately left out this specific role for SAARC. It was argued that SAARC would not have come into existence if such role were entrusted with SAARC in its Charter because India would have seriously objected to it as one of its cardinal principles of foreign policy was to avoid intervention of a third party in the settlement of bilateral disputes.

There is another factor that could be attributed to SAARC's lack of progress compared to other regional organisations, such as ASEAN. The South Asian region is asymmetrical. India is the dominant country in all respects. India's size, population and natural resources are larger than those of other six countries combined. Furthermore India's geographic location in South Asia is very strategic as it is situated right in the middle of the region and therefore India cannot be sidelined in any regional cooperative effort or conflict. For example, Bangladesh's trade with Bhutan and Nepal depends on transit rights over India's territory and Sri Lanka's internal ethnic war has spill over effects on India (Tamil Nadu state).

Limited achievements of SAARC

Although the momentum of progress has not picked up as expected, given its constraints SAARC has done commendable work on many agreed areas of cooperation. For example, creation of regional food security, cooperation in transport, communication, biotechnology, environment, meteorology, forestry and media sectors, preparation of the regional poverty profile, proposal for establishment of a SAARC energy grid, and SAARC Preferential Trade Agreement (SAPTA) are some of its achievements.

SAARC Summits provide an excellent opportunity for an exchange of shared perception and values among the leaders of member-countries and such face-to-face meeting is important as a significant step of confidence-building measures. Personal-level meetings at the top always contribute to understanding of each other's point of view on issues that need to be resolved. These meetings are useful in preventing disputes arising between parties, in preventing existing disputes from escalating into conflicts and in limiting the spread of the latter if and when they occur. The atmosphere created during these meetings may eventually lead to an environment of informality, enabling them to speak on telephone to one another when necessary as the leaders do in Europe.

12th Summit in Islamabad

The fact that the 12th SAARC Summit is held a year late exposes again the fragile structural foundation of SAARC. The Summit was originally scheduled to be held in Pakistan in January 2003. In October, Pakistan issued a press statement that "in view of the little time left to make proper preparations...the Government of Pakistan is regrettably left with no other alternative but to postpone the 12th SAARC Summit". The last Summit took place in Kathmandu in January 2002 and therefore Pakistan's explanation appeared to be diplomatic. The main reason for postponement was the fact that India's Prime Minister was not inclined to attend the Summit in Pakistan, given at the time the tense political atmosphere between India and Pakistan.

During the last eight months, confrontational situation between India and Pakistan has been much reduced. Pakistan's Prime Minister Jamali reciprocated the "olive branch" flagged first in April last year by Prime Minister of India Vajpayee while he was visiting the Indian-held Kashmir. Gradually, certain positive steps have been taken by both sides to vastly improve the political climate.

There has been an accommodation from both sides to normalise relations between the countries as far as possible. High Commissioners (Ambassadors) have been exchanged, transport links have been restored and after a lapse of two years direct air-flights resumed on 1st January, 2004 between the two countries. Furthermore there seems to be a new dynamics at play as evident from initiatives of new approach of both parties to look at the Kashmir dispute so as to find a common ground to resolve the sensitive and intractable issue.

The holding of the 12th Summit in Islamabad in the context of positive political atmosphere has indeed been a great helpful event for SAARC. At the Summit it is reported that three landmark agreements are expected to be signed and they are (a) terrorism, (b) free trade within the members and (c) a social charter. The agreements are huge in symbolism , although there may be difficulties in way of their implementation.

The definition of terrorism is inextricably linked with political issues and therefore the UN or the OIC (Organisation of Islamic Conference) could not reach a common definition of terrorism. The difference of attitude on terrorism is best expressed in the expression that a person's freedom fighter is another's terrorist. In view of this, member-countries within SAARC may find it difficult on a common definition of what acts constitute terrorism.

Free trade among members in principle sounds good but there is a genuine apprehension that Indian cheap goods may overwhelm the markets of small countries and thereby ruin their domestic industries. As a result, immediate implementation of free trade may not be possible. Free trade must also be fair trade.

A social charter is a great step forward in recognising, as a group, economic, social and political rights of their citizens, eliminating discrimination between genders. Although the Constitutions of all member-countries affirm these rights, they are not fully implemented because of absence of democratic traditions in the region.

One of the most important aspects of the 12th Summit is that it provides an excellent opportunity for the leaders of seven countries to meet and candidly discuss issues of common interest in the present difficult global environment. For India and Pakistan, it will be a forum for the leaders to discuss bilateral issues including the prickly Kashmir dispute on the sidelines of the Summit.

Conclusion

Time will tell whether India and Pakistan have been able to mend the fracture running through their bilateral relations and in that case, the Summit will certainly boost the activities of SAARC. Economic progress in the region has regrettably been linked with unresolved political dispute of Kashmir and if the two key players -- India and Pakistan -- can take pragmatic steps to iron out their differences for common good of people of the region, SAARC can take giant steps in addressing on a number of areas including eventually progressing towards the goal of a phased and planned process of a South Asian Economic Union (SAEU) as envisioned by the 11th Summit in Nepal.

Furthermore, as trust is built up among the members of SAARC, the gap of perception of regional security between India and Pakistan may likely to be bridged. At a time of economic globalisation, regional institutions, like SAARC, have a vital role to play in collective bargaining with the rest of the world. During the Cold War, an absence of armed conflicts was considered a success. In the 21st century, there appears to be a different definition of success. It is judged by interactions within the regional institutions to enhance their economic gains by fully exploiting economic globalisation.

No one can deny the fact that SAARC is a major piece of political architecture in South Asia and it has come to stay although its progress is slow -- but steady. It is hoped that the 12th Summit could act as a catalyst in rejuvenating SAARC.

Barrister Harun ur Rashid is a former Bangladesh Ambassador to the UN, Geneva.