25 January 2004	Sunday	02 Zilhaj 1424

ISLAMABAD, Jan 24: The two-day meeting of eminent individuals from South Asian countries has concluded with the adoption of the South Asian Declaration for Refugees and Migratory Movements , seeking establishment of a common legal framework for the protection of refugees.

The declaration proclaims that human rights law constituted the normative basis for all human security, and the rights of refugees to seek and enjoy asylum in other countries was entrenched in international human rights law. Similarly, granting of asylum by a state to refugees, being a non-political act, should not be considered unfriendly, it added.

The former chief justice of Pakistan, Nasim Hussain Shah, representing eminent persons group of Pakistan, and Sri Vijayaratne, chairman of Legal Foundation of Sri Lanka, released the text of the declaration at a new conference here on Saturday.

Also present on the occasion were Viswanath Upadhaya, former chief justice of Nepal, and Farouk Chowdhury, former foreign secretary of Bangladesh. They apprised journalists about migration and refugee issues in their respective countries.

Justice Nasim Hussain Shah (retired) termed the adoption of the declaration a momentous step to help resolve the complicated refugees protection problem faced by the South Asian states.

He said few laws existed in the South Asian states to govern the treatment of refugees. Refugees' affairs are being dealt with on ad hoc basis.

Even Saarc states have so far not signed the 1951 Convention relating to the status of refugees. Therefore, there was a need to develop an international set of guidelines based on the Model Law, which Bangladesh adopted in 1986. The model law was the basis for writing the International Declaration signed on Saturday morning at Islamabad, Justice Shah said.

He said the declaration would be referred to nation states for incorporation in their legal systems after the respective legislatures passed enabling laws. And, now a model has been provided for legislation by national governments, he added.

Pakistan is not faced with influx of refugees any longer, Justice Shah said, adding that it still had two million Afghan refugees. Afghan refugees in Pakistan have been treated generously with compassion and provided economic sustenance, but they have to be repatriated, he said.

"However, no deadline has been set for the implementation of the declaration," he said in reply to a question.

It is a comprehensive declaration that reflects all such contingencies, the former chief justice said when a journalist pointed out to him that some Afghan refugees in Pakistan had been suspected to have some kind of link with terrorist activities.

But other countries also have urgent refugee concerns, such as Nepal, which is crowded with by 100,000 Bhutanese refugees, and negotiations in this regard are in progress, former Nepalese chief Justice Vishwanath Upadhaya said.

Sri Lanka's Vijayaratne joined in to say that officially his country had only 18 refugees. But there were about one million 'internally displaced persons' - a consequence of prevailing conflict in the country. About a million people have fled Sri Lanka to seek refuge in Indian camps and quite a few have gone over to Germany and other European states.

Similarly, Bangladesh was faced with quarter million refugees from Myanmar, Farouk Chowdhury said, adding that his country was negotiating with the Myanmar government, and a few of such refugees had returned.

The attention of Bangladeshi representative was drawn towards the case of stranded Pakistanis. He said his country had granted refugee status to these people, who were living in camps at Dhaka. But they wished to return to Pakistan.

After the news conference, Mr Chowdhury told this reporter that the people of Bangladesh knew very well that they (stranded Pakistanis) came to Pakistan of that time. "Irrespective of the ideology, we will treat such persons with compassion. They are fellow Muslims. Bangladesh will always treat them humanely," he said.