THE PRESS MONDAY, DECEMBER 16, 1985. A South Asian grouping

Press, 16 December 1985, Page 12

THE PRESS MONDAY, DECEMBER 16, 1985. A South Asian grouping

The summit meeting of the leaders of what is being called South Asia, just held in Dhaka, Bangladesh, was important if only because leaders who had much to divide them managed to be united for a few days. The dominant power of South Asia is India, with a population of 750,000,000 and Armed Forces of more than 1.1 million. Its sheer size and strength have led to fears among its neighbours — and all the countries represented at Dhaka for the first meeting of what has become known as the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation are India’s neighbours. In spite of those fears and a multitude of problems among India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Bhutan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Maldives, the meeting ended with an expressed desire to seek peace and progress for the region. The problems are legion. Pakistan and India suffer still from the bitterness left over from the time when the two countries were established. They are suspicious of one another, and of one another’s nuclear intentions. They are divided on their attitudes to China and to the Soviet Union. Pakistan is more sympathetic to China and receives military equipment from China. Bangladesh and India have a major problem over illegal immigration from Bangladesh to the Indian states of Assam, complicated because the Bangladeshis are Muslim and Assam has been predominantly Hindu. They have a dispute about the use of the waters of the Ganges River. Bangladesh asserts that India uses too much of the water before the river reaches Bangladesh. This dispute has gone on for more than. 30 years, when Bangladesh was East Pakistan. India and Sri Lanka have had a dispute about Sri Lanka’s treatment of its Tamil minority and Indian support for the Tamils, who are seeking a separate State in northern Sri

Lanka. Given such problems, it is all the more surprising that the countries managed to arrive at an accord. The idea of formal co-operation among South Asians has been discussed for several years and in 1983 a committee was set up to further the object. One reason contributing to the meeting’s success was that the Prime Minister of India, Mr Rajiv Gandhi, was sympathetic to the aims. . Another was that smaller countries, such as Bhutan, saw great advantages in the formation of a regional body. Perhaps the most important single factor in the meeting’s success was that the more contentious subjects were not on the agenda. The meeting dealt with the questions of Afghanistan and Kampuchea deftly by declaring that they were not in the South Asian area. The precise formula for leaving the nuclear issue off the agenda has not been made public. By avoiding the most difficult questions, the summit meeting reached an accord that expressed some identity of regional interest. Such matters as airline landing rights were among the most tangible of the points of agreement reached. In a region that has been torn by traditional enmities, the intangible outcome of the summit meeting is not to be scorned and, if more co-operation and the pursuit of peace and progress remain the aims for longer than the two days of the meeting, something important will have been accomplished. This could be a long-overdue beginning of general determination to end old feuds, doubts, and fears. The Association of South-East Asian Nations, on the eastern borders of the South Asian group, stands as a model of what regional co-operation • can achieve, in spite of local tensions.