03 January 2004	Saturday	10 Ziqa'ad 1424

ISLAMABAD, Jan 2: Leaders of non-governmental organizations from six countries of South Asia here on Friday held forth the vision of a South Asia united against poverty, social injustice, undemocratic attitudes and militarism.

Speaking at the inauguration of the 4th People's Summit organized by the South Asia Partnership (SAP) and South Asia Alliance for Poverty Eradication (SAAPE) in time to present to Saarc states' heads their point of view on the issues that are likely to figure in their summit beginning here on Sunday.

Attended by a couple of hundred social activists from Bangladesh, the Maldives, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, the inaugural ceremony began with a theatre performance by the Lower Sindh Rural Development Association, Mirpur Khas. The play almost constituting the theme of the conference set the tone for the subsequent proceedings.

Mohammad Tahseen, executive director of the SAP, Pakistan, said that while other regions had overcome their past rivalries for mutual benefit of their peoples, the South Asian countries remained indifferent to the need of combating poverty, hunger, malnutrition, illiteracy, etc.

Though global military spending declined by about 37 per cent during 1987-94, in this region it went up by 12 per cent. Similarly, South Asia was expanding its standing armies at a time when other nations were reducing theirs, Mr Tahseen said, commenting that South Asia was one of the most militarised regions in the world.

His criticism, that Saarc unlike other regional blocs had hardly achieved anything concrete since its inception in 1985, was one of the refrains of the first day proceedings.

Other speakers included: Ms Taleya Rehman (Bangladesh), Mr Babu Mathew (India), Dr Rohit Kumar Nepali (Nepal), Mr Karamat Ali (Pakistan) and Dr Padma Ratnayake (Sri Lanka).

They chided the governments of regional countries for cheating the people of their hopes and aspirations. It was observed that the working people had more rights in 1947 than now. These governments had not fulfilled the promise made at the first Saarc moot to devote their energies for the welfare of the people, they said.

The pledge was to maintain the region as a nuclear weapons-free zone and to dedicate all the energies to the alleviation of poverty and uplift of the people. While India and Pakistan flaunted their nuclear weapons in 1998, other regional countries congratulated them, one speaker noted.

The people of all the regional countries suffered from common problems which, however, took different forms in different countries, and it was the common man who suffered as a result of these internal conflicts.

Another hot topic was the conduct of the governments under the dictates of imperialist capitalism led by the United States. Thus the public sector, which ushered in industrialization in the countries after liberation from colonialism, was being dismantled by them.

A delegate said hunger was spreading because of the dictates of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Consequently, 60 million ton of food grains were rotting in the government godowns, but the people could not draw their requirements from these.