Rabbani for indigenous solution of conflicts sans superpower

Addresses 9th Plenary of the Asian Parliamentary Assembly in Cambodia

ISLAMABAD: Chairman Senate Mian Raza Rabbani has called for finding indigenous solution of conflicts, excluding the super powers.

He said that roadmap for peace in Asia, the nations, which had suffered and those continue to suffer from internal and external conflicts, could only be made by finding indigenous solutions excluding super powers from ‘peace-making’ efforts as the super powers need war to keep their military industrial complexes running ‘efficiently.’

Rabbani asked the Asian nations whether they could consider to agreeing on reducing the defence budget every year by certain percentage and divert the savings towards specific national funds created for poverty alleviation and developing a common technology pool and free transfer of technology among themselves.

He stressed that the region should prove itself equal to the task as the might could not be accepted as right because right is might. He expressed these views Monday while addressing the inaugural session of the 9th Plenary of the Asian Parliamentary Assembly being held in Siem Reap, Cambodia.

In a message received from Siem Reap, Senate chairman said that regional conflicts in post-colonial Asia and other colonised continents have emerged from disputed boundaries that colonial powers left undecided while leaving those countries.

“Peace can only be brought about by nations that desperately need peace and that regional conflicts have led to higher defence budgets. Higher defence budgets have led to higher budgetary deficits destroying our economies,” he pointed out.

He said that donor driven economies were designed to create poverty and to increase income gaps. Their formula for economic growth starts and ends with retrenchment of workers and closure of industrial units, he added.

Rabbani observed that economic growth was not possible without increasing purchasing power (wages) of the poor, increasing national production and decreasing income gaps. “Nations have to focus on equality, maximum employment, higher production, poverty reduction and poverty eradication,” he siad.

Rabbani said that former colonial masters had been main suppliers of weapons to the conflicting nations. “Can the nations of Asia, as a starting point agree on a multinational ‘No War Treaty’ thus creating the right and conductive atmosphere for conflict resolution through dialogue, Rabbani questioned.

He emphasised that western policy of supporting extremist groups to overthrow progressive regimes had to be openly condemned and resisted in Asia. He underscored the need for making collective efforts to combat the scourge of terrorism, saying that it was only through collective action and sharing of intelligence on the identification and activities of extremist and terrorist groups that these menaces could be finally eliminated.Rabbani called for reviving the same passion and zeal that saw the Asian and African nations unite at the platform of the first Afro-Asian Conference, held at Bandung, Indonesia in 1955.