Civil society groups urge 'a new South Asia'

SAARC People Assembly calls for unity against US, allies to strengthen pro-people regimes in South Asia

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka: South Asian People’s Assembly kicked off Friday calling on the South Asian leaders ahead of their 27 July summit to ‘Imagine a New South Asia’ free from hunger, poverty, disasters, bad governance, authoritarian rules and lack of control over their resources through new neo-colonial masters.

Speaking at the inaugural session of the Assembly, leading human rights and civil society activists from across South Asia said unity of all the people of region together can make a difference and frustrate conspiracies and vested interests of the United States and its allies against the people’s interests to lead the region towards prosperity and development.

The SAARC Peoples’ assembly which was attended by a large number of civil society, peace and human rights activists, scholars, educationists, parliamentarians, journalists and writers and concerned citizens from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka is organized ahead of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) summits as an alternative people’s process. The sessions on various themes will be held for next two days.

The official SAARC summit which will be held during 27 July-3 August will focus among other pressing regional issues the food crisis and climate change. Analyzing and visualizing the challenges ahead, the SAARC People’s Assembly urged the states to settle their disputes and conflict and increase the quantum of people to people contacts by agreeing to a visa free regime across the region. The SAARAC leaders should mobilize resources on protecting their people’s right to food, economic and political rights and specially put an emphasis to protect poor, vulnerable segments such as women, children marginalized groups, ethic and religious minorities.

“Only a peaceful democratic transition of all the countries of South Asia can bring peace in the region and the entire population of the region has a consensus on the issue of democracy and human rights,” said Ms Nimalka Fernando, a leading human rights activist from Sri Lanka.

She said the member states of SAARC region should stop exploitation of the poor in the name of so-called national security and ideological boundaries, since the people do believe in borderless integrity and unity across the region.

“The assembly was a clear massage to the SAARC countries that the entire region is one voice on the issues of their political, economic and social freedom so no state should try to have hegemony over the process under which the people are coming closer to each other,” said Mr Babu Mathew, country director Actionaid India.

He criticized the role of India and said that now instead of focusing on the development of the region India is trying to play a role of local manager of new masters of neo-colonial agenda, which will certainly harm the process of unity of the region in all terms.

“South Asia has all the potential to grow as one of the healthy region of the world but the evil designs of the United States and its allies are the barriers to the development as the Americans always support dictatorships in the region,” said Mr Iqbal Haider, former law minister of Pakistan and now a key leader of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.

He warned that now the people of South Asia will no longer allow them to continue with their exploitation as now the people’s movements across the region are getting strength that is fast leading the region to an era of democracy and human rights.

The SAARC People’s Assembly urged the leaders to explicitly recognize and reflect in their actions the linkages among food crisis, climate change and disaster risk reduction. The Assembly demanded that disaster risk reduction should be included in the SAARC Development Fund.
ENDS

NOTE

‘Imagine a New South Asia’- a civil society initiative is organising a three-day South Asia Policy Forum during 22-24 July 2008 in Kandy in Sri Lanka, three days ahead of the SAARC Summit. Leading parliamentarians, journalists, academia and civil society activists will participate in the forum.