THE LACK OF CONFLICT MANAGEMENT IN SAARC

BY: SAMREEN ABEDI

International Conflict Management is a dynamic, interdisciplinary field, constantly evolving as a response to problems in International Relations. Theoretically located between social and behavioral science, it is the point at which these perspectives meet and sometimes clash.
Conflict management can be functionally understood by what it seeks to accomplish.
Conflict Management aims to:
• Prevent the eruption of destructive conflict.
• Facilitate a move from violent to spoken conflict
• Enable a transformation from conflict to lasting peace by addressing root causes and effects of conflict.
The Conflict Management identifies five strategies:
• Conflict Prevention
• Peacemaking
• Peacekeeping
• Peace building
• State building
At different phases of a conflict the multiple strategies of conflict management respond to barriers in the process in different ways: Conflict Prevention is an approach that seeks to resolve disputes before violence breaks out; Peacemaking transforms the conflict from violent to spoken, and further, toward the definition of a common peaceful solution; Peacekeeping missions are often required to halt violence and preserve peace once it is obtained. If successful If successful, those missions can strengthen the opportunity for post-conflict Peace building, which should function to prevent the recurrence of violence, by addressing the root causes of conflict and creating a stable and durable peace. Finally, State building, is the process of reconstructing weak or collapsed infrastructure and institutions of a society - political economic, and civil - in order for civil society and politics to begin to function normally.
President Zia Ur Rahman of Bangladesh made a formal proposal for regional cooperation in May 1980 which culminated in the founding of South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation (SAARC) in Dhaka in December 1985. When the proposal was firs made, there were some initial reservation by India and Pakistan while the response of the four other countries Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal and Sri Lanka generally favorable. South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation (SAARC) was already a late starter in regionalism when it began its journey about 16 years ago. However, compared with other regional organizations – NAFTA, EU and ASEAN – the SAARC is seen to have been moving very slowly.
The severe inner weakness in SAARC’s policy is its Article-10 (General Provision), which prohibits discussion of ‘bilateral’ and contentious issues. And this weakness has not allowed SAARC to really take off in real sense of the term. This clause was set primarily with a view to avoiding its direct involvement in any bilateral conflicts in this forum. While India thought that SAARC would develop into an anti-Indian forum, Pakistan, on the other hand, suspected that India would use SAARC as a bloc under its leadership.

It goes to the credit of Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga, who in the 10th SAARC Summit underscored the need for discussing political issues, bilateral/multi-lateral, as they pose attitudinal impediments towards building a climate of cooperation in the region. She insisted that SAARC must sit together even without either one – India or Pakistan – if such a case arises. She opined that without getting contentious issues out of way, or substantially diluting their impact, a whole-hearted commitment to the lofty goals would remain a wishful proposition.
In several SAARC summits, there have been much deliberations in the name of poverty alleviation, but this hapless region has a meager chance of escaping this endemic malady in near future. In South Asia there are various civilizations, castes, religions, values and ethos; and these diversities pose serious challenges. This is a historical fact. Harvard Prof. Samuel Huntington, a controversial Western sociologist, in his book The Clash of Civilizations states that SAARC is a failure because of the diverse socio condition in the region.
More than half of a century old Indo-Pakistan conflict appears to be on its way to finding a solution at present. It is by no means a long standing solution but hope fully avoidance of a major conflict, where no party can expect to win.
We observed Indo-Pak war in 1947-48, in1965.in 1971, Kargil outburst in 1998 and very recent War situation. We also observed many bilateral, tripartite and international agreement, Joint declaration, accords but the situation remain in the same hole.
Without peace and political stability in the region, no multilateral cooperation can bring about any positive result. Apart from the common problems of the poverty, health population in the region the critical problems such as political crisis in India, economic crisis in Pakistan, political instability in Bangladesh, Tamil rebellion in Sri lanka, Maoist problem in Nepal and cloud of Fundamental politics over the whole region are hindrances to rapid economic development of the region.
Geopolitics and Geo-strategy, the prime preoccupation of global and regional actors during the cold war period, have now relatively receded into the background and Geo-economics is the order of the day and South Asia has failed to close its income gap within the Developed world in the last three decades. For instance, South Asia's average per capita GDP was 12 times lower than the average US level. While the population of South Asia is 27% of the developing world, its share is 40% in the total number of absolute poor. 45% in the total number of adult illiterate females and 49% in the total number of malnourished children. Admittedly there should be movement toward economic integration through the preferential trading agreement and talk of a free trade area. Presumably, implicit in this is the notion that economic interaction will breed interdependence and interdependence in turn will breed trust and confidence which will militate against conflict.
Conclusion
South Asia is once again at the crossroads of conflict and cooperation. The cost of non-cooperation has made South Asia the poorest region in world with half of its adult population illiterate, the majority of its children malnourished and 40 percent of its population living below the poverty line. The Governments of SAARC countries are spending on education and health is the lowest among developing countries. At the same time it is facing threats to the peace and stability of its societies from causes such as poverty, population explosion, scarcity of resources, environment degradation, arms and drugs smuggling, corruption and poor governance. Since bilateral cooperation between India and its neighbors will continue to remain the crucial element for peace, progress and stability in the region.
The challenges for SAARC in the 21st Century will be to work for synergy in conflict management and for optimal cooperation through a proper mix of bilateral sub regional and regional cooperation. South Asians will have to change their past way of thinking and adopt a more positive spirit of cooperation, conciliation and consensus. Conflict prevention and management mechanism has to be institutionalized either as an adjunct body to SAARC, as is the case with ASEAN, or dove-tailed into the existing structure. Any modality sought to reduce tension, should be welcome, provided it is even-handed and peace is not imposed under duress.

PREPARED BY: SAMREEN ABEDI
CLASS OF CONFLICT RESOLUTION AND
CRISIS MANAGEMENT
B.A. (HONS) IIIRD YEAR, 2003

All content (C) Department of International Relations, Karachi University

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