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SAFMA declaration
Proposal to set up S-A Parliament
Shubhadeep Choudhury
Tribune News Service

Shimla, June 4
Declaration by the parliamentarians of eight South Asian countries, who met here during the past two days under the aegis of the South Asian Free Media Association (SAFMA), said a South Asia Parliamentary Commission (SAPC) would be set up with Speaker of the Lok Sabha Somnath Chatterjee as patron to get the ball rolling for the establishment of a South Asian parliament.

The declaration, which could not be issued yesterday owing to disagreements between the Indian and Pakistani MPs over the Kashmir question, was released here today by Imtiaz Alam, Pakistani journalist and secretary-general of SAFMA and K.K. Katyal and Venod Sharma, senior Indian journalists and president and general secretary of SAFMA, respectively.

The SAPC, the declaration said, would have four MPs from each member countries of SAARC. The commission would also have two experts to be nominated by SAFMA. The commission’s agenda would be to persuade SAARC to take concrete initiatives for the establishment of a South Asian parliament.

The proposed South Asian parliament, the declaration said, could initially function as a deliberative and consultative body and not as a law making agency. The parliament could create regional opinion and build regional pressure on the issues pending before SAARC for implementation.

While admitting that a full fledge parliament “might take a decade or two”, the declaration added that it was time that steps were taken to realise the goal of creating a South Asian identity without compromising the respective national identities of the people of SAARC countries.

The initiatives proposed by the parliamentarians to constitute the SAP included the creation of an intra-parliamentary union in South Asia, to make SAARC agree in principle for a South Asian parliament and persuade SAARC to appoint a group of experts who would prepare a comprehensive report and give a time frame for the establishment of the parliament. The SAARC Speakers Forum should be activated and it should monitor the work of experts hired for suggesting ways for giving shape to the idea of SAP, the declaration said.

The controversial resolution, which mentioned the people of Jammu and Kashmir as a distinct nationality from other Indians and led to heated debates between Indian and Pakistanis in the conference yesterday, was watered down in the final declaration issued today.

The resolution said it welcomed the current peace process between India and Pakistan with its two-fold objectives of final settlement of the Jammu and Kashmir question and coming out with confidence building measures (CBMs) with regard to nuclear and conventional military capabilities of both countries.

The resolution acknowledged Bangladesh as a country having conflicts with India and said like India and Pakistan were having dialogues, similar exercises was needed between India and Bangladesh.

The clause on conflict resolution mechanism under the head of South Asian cooperative security in the draft declaration was modified today and the mention “specifically of the people of Kashmir” as victims of the “increasingly intrusive nature of the international system” was dropped. On the issue of conflict resolution, the final declaration called upon SAARC to consider the establishment of a SAARC security forum on the lines of the Asean Regional Forum.

The suggestion on the phased demilitarisation and redeployment of troops in Siachen in the clause was also withdrawn. The clause figuring in the final declaration, however, had an additional point. It said cooperation with neighbouring countries such as China, Iran, Myanmar and Central Asian countries was a must for SAARC for conflict resolution in the region.

The declaration advocated a common exchange rate policy for eventually creating monetary union of South Asian countries, effective implementation of the South Asian free trade agreement (SAFTA), cooperation between the SAARC countries for harnessing the energy and water resources of the region, liberalisation of visa regimes of the member countries for citizens of SAARC countries, and so on.

Eighty-three delegates representing the parliaments of the eight member countries of SAARC took part in the two-day conference in Shimla, which concluded yesterday.