Gujral initiative to revive SAARC

NEW DELHI, FEB. 17. The former Prime Minister, Mr. Inder Kumar Gujral, today announced a track-II initiative called South Asian Community (SAC) to revive the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) process.

``I, along with 15 other prominent political and civil society leaders of all seven SAARC countries, have set up the South Asian Community (SAC) last December with a specific objective to revive the SAARC process,'' Mr. Gujral told PTI on the sidelines of a seminar on ` Secular democracy in South Asia - a futuristic vision.'

The first meeting of SAC had already been held in Colombo last December, Mr. Gujral, who is the Chairman of SAC, said, adding ``I have written letters to all seven Governments in the region urging them to revive the SAARC process in the interest of regional security, cooperation and democracy.''

So far only Pakistan has responded to the letter, he said but did not elaborate on Islamabad's response.

Talking about South Asian initiative for human rights (Saihr), another new body that he helped set up in July last year, Mr. Gujral said ``its three areas of activities are plight of fishermen who frequently find themselves on the wrong side of the borders, trafficking in women, and plight of prisoners.''

After the first meeting of Saihr, in which around 100 people participated, the second would be held in November, he said.

Expressing concern over stepped up terrorism and growth of fundamentalism in the SAARC region, Mr. Gujral said

``I cannot think of a single country in the region which is not facing terrorism but unfortunately, our societies are not showing the resilience that is needed to fight terrorism.''

He said two clearly emerging threats to democracy in the region were `talibanisation' and `temple brigade' and ``Indian democracy has been unable to even project this reality let alone confront it.''

``A Fundamentalist's basic approach is to spread hate and once hate campaign spreads, democratic process gets buried, whether it is Ayodhya or Kashmir,''he noted.

If the region was presently confronted with danger to democracy, secularism and regional cooperation, it was because of weakening of the SAARC process particularly after the Colombo summit, he said.

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