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GUEST ARTICLE

        Four important proposals were made at the 14th South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) summit that concluded in the first week of April that merits close attention.

        First, Sri Lanka's president Mahindra Rajapakse said that SAARC should move on to become a union and should adopt a single currency. Second, President of the Maldives Manmoon Abdul Gayoom said that from SAFTA (South Asian Free Trade Arrangement), SAARC should move on to a Customs Union. Third, India's Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh said that India was ready to take asymmetrical responsibilities by opening its markets without insisting on reciprocity. 'We will allow zero-duty access to India before the end of this year to our South Asian neighbours who are least developed countries,' he volunteered. And President of Afghanistan Hamid Karzai said that it was important to 'speed up the process of Turkemenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India gas pipeline to address energy shortage.'.

        Afghanistan has been admitted as the new - and eighth - member of SAARC to tremendous applause, indicating the desire for a continued growth of SAARC. In due course, SAARC should also admit Myanmar and Malaysia to complete its structure. The only 'fly in the ointment' at the SAARC meeting was Pakistan and though it said that Islamabad and New Delhi have managed to reduce some of the 'trust deficit', its Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz's insistence that there will be no trade with India, no implementation of SAFTA, no transit, nothing 'until Kashmir is resolved' is very discouraging.

        Pakistan's obsession with Kashmir is, to say the least, pathetic. He calls it a key dispute and a core issue. It is nothing of a sort. The 'core issue' is Pakistan's refusal to face reality. Pakistan today is a pathetic joke. Its writ hardly runs in Waziristan and the North West Frontier Province. A tyrannous army runs Baluchistan against the people's wishes. Sind is in perpetual tension with unabating Shia-Sunni and native Sindhi versus Mujahid rivalry.

        There is hardly a Pakistan to speak of. Musharraf's only hope to keep Pakistan - or what is left of it - together is to continuously harp on Jammu and Kashmir, as a desperate measure. Will Pakistan ever learn to make real peace with India to their mutual interest and benefit? One has to be optimistic.

        France and Germany had fought two bitter wars between 1914-1918 and 1939-1945. There had been other wars in the nineteenth century and the bitterness between the two countries had reached monumental heights.

        I had the privilege of visiting Germany in 1954 to witness bombed and devastated cities like Berlin, Hamburg, Frankfurt and Cologne. Many German families were living in ruined buildings with hardly any access to water or electricity. Later, when I visited Paris, I had the privilege of having an interview with Jean Monnet, often called 'the Father of Europe.' Describing to him what I saw in Germany, I asked: 'Sir, given the history of two major and several minor conflicts between your country and Germany, do you really believe that it is possible to think of a European Economic Community (EEC), let alone an European Union?' His reply was classic. He said: 'Young man, wait and see'. I waited and saw. First, French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman Prad made his famous declaration on 9 May 1950 seeking the establishment of the European coal and Steel Community (ECSC). That was the beginning. This suggestion was followed by the establishment five years later of the European Atomic Community (EAC) and the European Economic Community. Not that everything went on smoothly.

        During discussions in Brussels, there were wordy warfare between France and Germany. But Jean Monnet never despaired. In 1955 he succeeded in forming the influential Action Committee for a United States of Europe, a private body composed of 30-odd leading representatives of the various political parties and trade unions in the six European countries and the United Kingdom.

        When the Foreign Ministers of the six countries met in Messina in June 1955, they made a Committee, chaired by Paul Henri Spaak, to study and propose what further steps might be taken towards European integration. The Spaak Report was accepted and adopted and the Treaty of Rome was signed on 25 March 1957 bringing into being the European Economic Community (EEC), also known as the Common Market. What the European countries can do, so can the countries of SAARC.

        Slowly but surely, the EEC expanded, from the original six countries to nine in 1980 to 15 in 2002. The first wave of enlargement consisted of countries of Southern Europe (Greece, Portugal, Spain).

        Their per capital income was lower than rest of the members. But then other countries joined. Today the European Union is a reality and it also has a common currency, the Euro. Jean Monnet's dream had come true. The single market also become a reality since January 1, 1993. Old enmities were forgotten. That is what is likely to happen in South Asia, Musharraf or no Musharraf. Dictators come and go, but history has its own way of dealing with people as of nations. The European Union did not come into existence overnight. A lot of bitter fighting, a lot of negotiations had to take place, but in the end history had the last laugh. No wiser words were said than what the Maldives President, with no axe to grind and no hatred to exercise said when he pointed out that from SAFTA, SAARC should move on to a Customs Union and an Economic Union. The European Union, as it today stands, has a population of about 500 million, which is less than half of what is today's India's population.

        With the creation of a South Asian Union we will have a united population of over 1.5 billion - no ordinary force. No matter what Pakistan says now, a day will come when it will willy nilly have to join the Union for its own sake. Sadly, it is presently being ruled by men with no vision. But there are forces operating in the world over which Pakistan can hold no sway. The formation of a South Asian is a matter of time. If Pakistan wants to make a fool of itself now, let it. It thought that it could destroy India with a thousand minor cuts. It failed. And it will continue to fail until circumstances teach it that the way to peace and prosperity is by holding India's hand of friendship and respecting the views of other SAARC members. We have waited for 60 years since partition. We can afford to wait another 60 years till wisdom dawns on Islamabad.