Terrorism and SAARC

Despite poor progress pertaining to burning issues, the SAARC Conferences can boast of indiscriminate use of hyperbolic expressions, generally, by all and sundry. The final declarations tend to be well-worded but bathetic. More often a wish list adorns such official communiqués instead of a course of action developed on the basis of a consensus. Such dramatic utterances with nothing to stand on undermine the status/ credibility of the organization. However all members appear reconciled to holding such exercises, perhaps, as a tribute to Don Quixote' adventures.

 The biannual Conference of the SAARC chiefs of Police on cooperation held in Islamabad in mid-April this year was no exception. Putting paper over cracks in inter-state relations in the region, diplomatic homilies were, generally, used. The Secretary General SAARC, an officer of the Indian Foreign Service, sounded truly diplomatic. However, the others too, reportedly, kept up the façade as usual. Amid high-sounding statements etc on terrorism etc, the end-result looked a Whimper.

Colombo hosted 15th SAARC summit on Aug 2-3 which again projected terrorism as the dominant agenda. Karzai started the blame-game which sidelined the real issue of cooperation. The final declaration called "Partnership for Growth of Our People" stressed the leaders' commitment to upgrading the "legal regime against terrorism" under the auspices of International conventions etc on the subject as well as the SAARC-specific protocols signed by all the members.

All regional alliances tend to capitalize on shared interests of the members to promote collaboration for the realization of peaceful coexistence, upgradation of economic benefits and harmonious policy-making for facilitating fair social surge in the region. Such a mandate presupposes certain equality among members. The working-arrangements benefit greatly if there are no festering inter-state disputes. In   such an environment, a consensus on major issues can be worked out, generally, acting in good faith.