KARACHI, Feb 25 After two decades of the establishment of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc), the University of Karachi and the Hanns Seidel Foundation organised a three-day Saarc Simulation Exercise to assess its performance and bring the issues plaguing it to the fore.

Attended by participants of almost eight public-sector universities, the exercise — second of its kind — aimed to address various issues that afflict the region including the right to self-determination, the proliferation of small arms, women's empowerment, human rights, poverty alleviation and education.

According to Dr Moonis Ahmar, chairperson of the department of international relations, owing to the problems that it faces, South Asia has often been referred to as an asymmetric region. In order to address these issues Saarc came into existence and even after 25 years despite a lot of paperwork, no tangible results can be seen. He argued that this was due to the trust deficit between member states.

However, former foreign secretary Shamshad Ahmed was of the view that other factors too contributed to the organisation's failure.

“Poverty and unresolved disputes are the major reasons why there hasn't been any substantial achievement,” he said.

Mr Ahmed called for the re-writing of the Saarc charter to achieve the many goals present on its agenda along with a change in approach from the members and the international community.

The day opened up with a workshop on human rights. Mr Shamsudin of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) along with others briefed the audience regarding the state of human rights in Saarc member states.

The first session that was held today discussed the right to self-determination. The delegates that represented the eight member states (Afghanistan, Bhutan, Bangladesh, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka) presented their conntry's stance on the issue and reached the consensus that although, as mentioned in Article 1 of the United Nations Charter, the right to self-determination is a fundamental human right, terrorism in its name will not be tolerated. A participant acting as the foreign minister of Bhutan stressed that although territorial integrity of states must be maintained, yet it was imperative that grievances of fringe groups be addressed.

To deal with this issue which plagues most member states, the participant acting as the Pakistani foreign minister emphasised the importance of discerning between terrorism and movements for self-determination which could be done with support, goals and violence.

The next session was related to the South Asia Network on Small Arms. Here participants stressed that availability of small arms in the region has affected its progress considerably. The 'interior minister of Afghanista' lamented that relief organisations were reluctant to work in Afghanistan because of this.