ISLAMABAD, Jan 11: The people have triumphed and they have been able to meet to voice their urgent needs, even though the governments have postponed the Saarc conference, said Human Rights Commission Director I A Rehman at the inaugural session of the third people’s summit here on Saturday.

Pakistan chapter of South Asia Partnership International (SAP) organised the seminar at the national library auditorium here.

Mr. Rehman represented the Pakistan delegation. He said,”0ur governments were determined not to allow us to meet. They were afraid of the people.” A multi-dimensional curse leading to abuse of ideology, succeeded in dividing the common citizens of the region, he remarked

The tone of the inaugural session was set by Dr Mahbubul Karim, from Pushkin, a Bangladesh NGO. He urged the people of the region to carry out a people to people dialogue for achieving greater coordination.

He said the region had the poorest, most illiterate and most deprived population and advocated an alternative paradigm to save the people from the destructive effects of highly flawed market forces of globalisation, which was leading them to despair.

Dr. George Matthew was the only delegate to make it to Pakistan. He is director in the Trust of Social Sciences at Delhi. The Saarc region was the most deprived region with very low levels of human development, and yet it was exposed to war-mongers who revelled in stockpiling nuclear weapons at phenomenal expenditure that could be diverted to social sectors, he said in the opening statement.

“We do not feel safe with nuclearisation, and must ensure the end of the suicidal policy of national chauvinism - to replace it with a policy to achieve reconciliation among the inhabitants,” he told the audience.

Nepal’s SAP treasurer, Ms Savita Thapar, led her country’s delegation to the summit and spoke of difficult situations in her country, where development activities had become paralysed due to internecine conflict.

It was left to Sri Lanka’s chief delegate Dr. Vijaya Yatilake to focus on policies of good governance during which he referred to IMF and WB conditionalities. The life of individuals from different walks of life was enmeshed in harsh problems, which was being accentuated by arbitrary policies of respective weak governments, who were fond of introducing excessive rules and regulations, and laying down priorities which were inconsistent with resources. The citizens must play an active role and raise their voice in favour of good governance,’ he said. Pakistani delegate, Karamat Ali, called for making identical rational labour policies in Saarc countries to protect labourers and workers whose rights were being curtailed.

He advocated ‘legitimacy of the Saarc organisation’ among common people, in addition to government level negotiation. — Jonaid Iqbal