A Sri Lankan cyclist passes a billboard featuring images of South Asian Leaders in Colombo on July 24, 2008. South Asian leaders will meet in the Sri Lankan capital for a the annual SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) two-day summit starting August 2. Sri Lanka’s separatist Tamil Tiger rebels have announced a unilateral ceasefire to coincide with SAARC meetings, an offer brushed off by the government. About a thousand delegates from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka will take part in the meetings.
AFP PHOTO Via Wijeya Newspapers
July 25, 2008 at 11:36 pm
Most people fear that the SAARC security plan would bring Colombo to a standstill during the summit days and with road closures and restrictions on travelling it would be a ghost town that the delegates would be witnessing. However August 2 and 3 when the summit would take place is a weekend and would not cause much trouble to the general public.
Sri Lanka hosted the SAARC summit on two previous occasions during the tenures of President Ranasinghe Premadasa and Chandrika Kumaratunga. Although the government seems to be making a huge fuss over SAARC one wonders whether the summit itself carries much importance.
The organization does not seem to have achieved much headway since its inception two and a half decades ago. For many in the smaller countries of the South Asia region SAARC is nothing but another version of the overarching shadow of India over them. The only countervailing factor to the massive Indian hold in SAARC is Pakistan.
Despite SAARC, many conflicts have been raging in the region in most of the South Asian countries during the last two decades. India and Pakistan have almost gone into war over the Kahmiri issue on several occasions. India and Bangladesh have had tense situations along their border. Sri Lanka and Nepal have had continuous internal conflicts with many allegations of Indian assistance to the rebel groups in these countries on various occasions.