People’s SAARC Declaration 2007

Created: 27 March 2007

Democracy, Justice, and Peace

25th March 2007, Kathmandu, Nepal

We, the participants of People’s SAARC from Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka met from 23rd to 25th March 2007 at Kathmandu to affirm our commitment to justice, peace and democracy in the region. We also affirm and commit ourselves to the vision of an alternative political, social, economic, and cultural system in the region that will do away with all distinctions and discriminations of gender, caste, religion, language, and ethnicity; lead to a situation free from exploitation and oppression; inaugurate a climate in which each individual will have the opportunity, in concert with the collectivity; realise the full development of her or his human potential; restore the balance and harmony with nature; liquidate the artificial and human barriers that divide lands, collectivities and minds; and transcend all boundaries. Such a South Asia must be the goal of the people of this region and of their solidarity.

Shared socio-cultural history of the region

We, the people of South Asia, not only share a contiguous geographical space but also a social and cultural history that shapes our life styles, belief systems, cultural particularities, material practices and social relationships. Our natural environments are related, interdependent, and form elements of a common eco-system. There is a similarity in our life practices. Our belief systems and cultural practices have been influenced by each other which exhibit distinct similarities. On the other hand, the unique diversity of our region in all aspects has enriched the common heritage, and we celebrate a sustained history of mutual respect for one another.

However, we also recognize the reality that the ruling elites in the post colonial period within our respective countries, have kept the people of our region apart through the creation of walls of suspicion, hostility, intolerance, dis- and mis-information and the prevention of interaction amongst the people, in order to maintain their status-quo over their societies. Whilst recognizing the existence of the identities and natural boundaries of the people in the region, we note with concern that one of the mechanisms for the creation of spurious consent and fraudulent legitimisation for the rule of the ruling class and systems of oppression and exploitation is due to the constant creation of suspicion and fear among neighbours leading to constant insecurity over the national security and hence to militarization. This system also creates ideal conditions for the advancement of paranoia, war hysteria, militarization, proliferation of nuclear weapons and dominance of the armed security forces along with an ultra– nationalist ideology, which self-righteously curbs democratic debate and dissent on many vital issues.

The formation of SAARC was welcomed by the people across the region, as it aroused the hopes and aspirations amongst them for a better South Asia and the hope that SAARC would enhance people-to-people linkages, free flow of people across the borders of the region and mutual cooperation amongst people to build a strong, vibrant societies as well as create a new era of prosperity; of a qualitatively more humane, egalitarian, secular (promoting religious harmony, respecting each others religious and cultural beliefs), democratic, ecologically balanced, socially just and sustainable societies hitherto unknown in the region.

The Present Predicament

However, contrary to expectations, the officia l SAARC failed to fulfil the promised goals of a better South Asia. Instead economic policies pursued by ruling classes and parties of the region created conditions of exclusion and marginalisation, denial of rights, justice and democratic freedom in different countries of the region.

As a result, South Asia and its people stand at a very testing and critical crossroad in the history of the region. The logic and thrust of the policies and programmes of SAARC have failed to address the issue of sovereignty of the people, including their economic, social and cultural rights.

The present crisis calls for a new response. The globalisation of South Asia and its people, buttressed by the Structural Adjustment Policies (SAP), spells doom on the economic front; presents a threat even to the existing democracy and unleashes the demon of communalism and fundamentalist intolerance; increases disparity and discrimination; erodes livelihood opportunities; withdraws existing services and facilities, and instead encourages militarization and gender violence; and brings forth social and cultural deprivation. This process further reinforces and reconstitutes exploitative and oppressive structures in newer and newer forms.

Finally, it breaks up social cohesion by the degradation of the human spirit. All this is, of course, in the name of progress, development, modernization and reform.

Changing Politics of the Region

1. The states seek to control and contain all potential or actual discontent through strict regulation and the use of naked force. The actual solutions vary depending on specific situations. From monarchic or military dictatorships to the exercise of dictatorial power under the guise of democracy and to ‘functioning’ formal democracies, all variations exist in the region. In substance, the regimes severely restrict the rights of the people, particularly through modifications of labor laws and limits on legitimate protests in words and action.
2. The rulers direct popular wrath against soft false enemies. Chauvinism, nationalism, and fundamentalism thus flourish under covert or overt state/ruling class patronage. Border conflicts, national chauvinism, ethnic strife, religious fundamentalism, or revivalism thus dominate politics. The major causality is of course democracy – in concept, institution or practice.
3. The state as an instrument for the peaceful resolution of various forms of social conflict remains fragile as political institutions have been robbed of their relevance and there grows the danger of the whole normative framework of democracy becoming undermined. Ironically, while the state has abdicated its social responsibility, it has equipped itself with draconian powers of control, legal or extra-legal, which aim to curtail people’s rights of movements and legitimate forms of organization and protest.

Our system has constructed political, constitutional, administrative, and developmental mechanisms in a manner that denies the masses the rightful access to the instruments necessary for realizing these rights. The parliamentary, democratic processes in one way has provided a space for legitimate social action but, on the

other hand, the system has exploited each and every situation of crisis and has taken away these democratic rights of the masses and imposed the laws and rules that in reality have spelled a flagrant violation of the spirit of people, of their own constitution and the commitment to uphold the principles of human rights. These laws have empowered security forces to arrest citizens without warrants and detain them without trial for long periods.

Torture, custodial rape and extra-judicial killings have become common occurrences.

Neo-liberal growth model and marginalization and exclusion

The last three decades of this century have witnessed an unprecedented neo-liberal growth model that has severely and even violently restructured the region’s economic policies and cultural life of the people.

Inequality and exclusion are not merely the extravagant outcomes but the results of systematic distortion of the system which have been put forth again to form the very logic of the new paradigm for sustaining the growth and permanence of the system. The growing economic power of TNCs and MNCs and the role of international financial institutions, as well as unequal and unfair trade relations under the WTO regime have resulted in severe erosion of our sovereignty, means of livelihood, agriculture, and destruction of natural resources.

Agriculture

Agriculture along with related activities is the mainstay for millions of people in South Asia. A vast majority of the population of almost all countries in the region survive on subsistence and small-scale agriculture. The current economic trends have plunged agriculture into a crisis and particularly the cultivating peasantry is in deep distress. Corporate logic, single cash crops, dependence on corporate seeds, fertilizers, and pesticides as well as vulnerability to vagaries of the market has made agriculture cash intensive. This has pushed the cultivating peasant into a debt trap that often becomes a death trap. Millions are forced to sell off

their land and become urban destitute in search of any means of livelihood. The forcible acquisition of land of the peasants in the name of development compounds this problem. The increased over-urbanization in South Asia is an indicator of agrarian destitution and the transfer of the poor from the countryside to the cities.

Dangerous Moves

The governments of the north and south – including those of South Asia inspired by the strange logic of their multilateral donor’s indulgent in policies and moves – all in the name of progress and development – have increased the stranglehold of capital and large corporations over the people and their lives. These grandiose schemes seriously undermine the living standards and livelihoods of the people. The achievements so far of so-called Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in South Asia are minimal, hence there is a strong doubt that the majority of these goals will be achieved by the set dateline of 2015. Moreover, the livelihood needs of the people are urgent and need to be addressed with urgent action, so it is ridiculous to ask people to wait until 2015. Also, the MDGs have failed to take into account the gender dimensions of poverty. We therefore, fear that these may prove to be the essential mechanisms to pave the way for an entry of private capital into all sectors including public services and supply of essential commodities rather than addressing the fundamental needs of the marginalised group of people.

While we laud and support all voluntary free exchange between the people of the region, we are very suspicious of market-driven and dominated mechanisms like the South Asia Free Trade Area that may further exacerbate the inequalities and disparities in the region and in turn intensify poverty.

The SAARC states should first give an honest account of their achievements in the fields on which they have made public commitments, for example, reduction in poverty.

Gender Justice

Women in South Asia are particularly the victims of all kinds of oppression, exploitation, and violence that are now a feature of this region. Traditions as well as modern forms of patriarchy have pushed women into virtual servitude in various forms. Violence is perpetrated against them in various ways and forms. We believe that all actions and struggles for democracy, justice, and peace will have to put women in the centre of their thinking. None of these can be achieved unless gender equity and justice are simultaneously achieved.

We affirm:

1. The participants are unanimous that today’s economic globalization is unequal, inequality-enhancing, socially unjust, and disruptive. It must be firmly resisted; as it represents the triumph of corporate capitalism which totally restructures the economic, social, and cultural life of the people in the region. We resist the dominance of financial capital which imperils the world’s monetary equilibrium. It transforms states into mafias. It proliferates hidden sources of capital accumulation such as trafficking, arms race, and child slavery. It is time to refuse the dictatorship of money.
2. We shall unitedly work to develop and strengthen people-based governance systems from grassroots to national and regional levels. We also affirm that organic and sustainable agriculture is imperative for food security at the household, local, and national levels based on the age-old practices and knowledge systems of our ancestors.
3. We also commit ourselves to conserve biodiversity, land, water, and marine ecosystems and marine life and simultaneously resist the intellectual property rights imposed by the northern countries as a mechanism to take away the living resources of the people of the South. We also commit ourselves to reducing the hostilities and tension in the region which can release critical energies and scarce resources towards the betterment of the living conditions of the masses in the region.
4. We the people of South Asia, united in solidarity declare that we are not enemies of each other, that we do not want war against each other, that we do not want to be armed into starvation. We further call upon all the governments of different countries in the region to cease all covert and overt hostilities, to resolve all disputes through amicable dialogue to immediately reduce tensions, to decrease the militarization of the borders, and to take urgent steps to bring about total disarmament in the region.

We demand the following immediately:

1. Ensure (barrier) free mobility of people across the region by guaranteeing the notion of visa-free South Asia;
2. Strengthen and institutionalize democracy, human rights and justice, and proportional participation of women at all levels of state and civil society institutions.;
3. Demilitarise and denuclearize the states and its machineries;
4. Promote communal harmony within and between communities, societies and states;
5. Combat religious, ethnic, and gender based violence and outlaw all types of fundamentalism;
6. Address environmental sustainability as an urgent priority;
7. Protect biodiversity, water, forests, fisheries, and other natural resources from which the majority of the people derive their livelihood; protect Indigenous community wisdom;
8. Guarantee women’s rights to be free from all kinds of discrimination and live a life without any form of violence;
9. Guarantee sovereign rights of the people for food;
10. Respect the independence of all judiciary and judicial systems;
11. Solve the issues of refugees and IDPs; support just struggle of Bhutanese refugees;
12. Respect the right to information and promote free media;
13. Promote gender equality in all spheres – economic, social, political, and cultural; Make provision for at least 50% reservation to women in all political, social, and economic spheres of the society;
14. Make firm commitments regarding state obligations to provide health, education, and basic needs; consider women’s right to their body, sexuality, and reproduction and make special provision for women’s access to health care from women’s perspective;
15. Stop the free trade model that has been responsible for increasing poverty, trafficking of human beings, food insecurity, and environmental destruction in the region;
16. Freeze the defense budget and cut it at least by 10%. This amount should be diverted to social development. We realize that the lavish spending on weapons by poor South Asian countries is one of the major causes of rampant poverty in the region. We also demand that India and Pakistan stop arms
17. Race and give up nuclear weapons which pose a great threat to 1.5 billion inhabitants of this peaceful region;
18. Globalization has resulted in eroding labour rights; we demand SAARC states to ensure the enforcement of Core Labour Rights at workplaces including Special Economic Zones (SEZs) and the informal sector of work;
19. Stop using state force against their own citizens in the name of so so-called war on terror and stop operating as agents of America by allowing land to be used as military bases;
20. Declare 2007-2017 as the SAARC Dalit’s rights decade with the enactment of concrete Acts, policies, programs and action plans;
21. Formulate separate policies for Himalayan and mountainous regions because of the regional specificity and ecological sensitivity of this region;
22. Broaden the definition of violence against women (VAW) and provide justice to victims of all forms of violence. VAW is not only limited to physical or mental violence but also all forms of discriminatory practices against women;
23. Ban the use of genetically modified seeds and organisms. Urgent action is needed to save the genetic contamination of the vast biodiversity of the SAARC region;
24. Stop commercialization of basic education; ensure the right to education for all; treat equally to all students in terms of fee payment (e.g., applicable fees should not be charged in US$ irrespective of the country of origin of the student in the SAARC region;
25. Ensure rights of the children; include child rights in school curricula and declare children as Zones of Peace;
26. Promote religious co-existence, cooperation, and harmony among and between the communities of the region;
27. Recognize labor as one of the important resources of the region and provision of Labour Advisory Committee with the involvement of trade unions as a formally recognized body in SAARC;
28. Respect and recognize the identity of South Asian Indigenous Peoples and ensure their social, political, economic, and cultural rights in the constitution;
29. Free the region from all forms of bonded labor system;
30. Review present SAARC Convention on the trafficking in women and children for prostitution and reformulate it from a Human Rights perspective by broadening its definition of trafficking which can encompass trafficking for all purposes, and adding provisions that can protect the rights of trafficked persons to have access to justice, voluntary return home and fund for appropriate support and care;
31. We urge our Governments to Protect the Rights of Migrants workers and their families by signing the UN CONVENTION ON MIGRANT WORKERS AND RIGHTS OF THEIR FAMILIES 1990;
32. End HIV and AIDS-related stigma and discrimination at all levels by introducing and implementing progressive HIV and AIDS legislation to protect the rights of people living with HIV & AIDS;
33. Guarantee free access to HIV & AIDS related medicines including ART for people living with HIV & AIDS with their meaningful participation and representation at all levels of the decision-making process both in state and non-state domains;
34. Ensure the focused intervention of SAARC on HIV & AIDS;
35. Ratify the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities” (CRPD 2006) by all the countries of SAARC as state party; and
36. Ensure effective implementation and monitoring of CRPD 2006 so that persons with disabilities are truly liberated from being among the poorest of the poor, and at the extreme end of isolation, exclusion, and all forms of discrimination. This is expected to ensure full and effective enjoyment of human rights, fundamental freedoms, and social development on an equal basis with others as per UN standards.

The delegates also met in specific thematic workshops to discuss issues of vital concern to the people of the region. The resolutions, declarations, and demands of these thematic workshops that deal with specific sectors, areas, and concerns from the Annexure to this Declaration.

We conclude this declaration by;

1. Expressing our solidarity with the people of Nepal in their struggle for realizing loktantra and further strengthening and defending the gains of the pro-democracy movement. We also call upon all the democratic forces in the region to extend all possible support to strengthen the democratic movement in Nepal;
2. Expressing our concerns about the present predicament of the peace process in Sri Lanka, and vehemently request the parties to recommence negotiations and end armed hostility forthwith;
3. We warn from the topmost range of the world ‘the Himalayan Mountains’ that the people of the region are sovereign and they are independent to decide the way they like.