Open letter to all
heads of state in SAARC
Dear Excellency,
Greetings from PVCHR, Varanasi, India.
PVCHR wrote to all Government of SAARC and National Human
Rights Commission for establishment of South Asian Human Rights Mechanism Links
as follows:
PVCHR
(India), INSEC (Nepal), LOKOJ (Bangladesh), Human Rights Commission of Pakistan
and Wiros (Srilanka) jointly organized first Peoples’SAARC at Varanasi India on
17 January 2005. Nearly 200 organization and five thousand people participated
from India, Nepal,Bangladesh, Afganistan,Pakistan and Srilanka and resolved
follows declration:
South Asian people's Declaration
The People's Vision
We, the South Asian People's Forum,
desiring that SAARC embody the aspirations of the People, aver the need for
greater efforts for promoting the sovereignty of the People and violence free
South Asia through democratic values and structures.
We envision a SAARC that encompasses
all people living in South Asia and promote greater understanding and equal
respect of all people to eliminate discriminations based on gender, creed,
caste, ethnicity and color.
We also insist on declaring South
Asia as nuclear free zone.
Our Mission
We promote peace and understanding of
disputes, and efforts for settling them amicably at the popular level.
We firmly demand urgent and complete
de-nuclearization of South Asia.
We uphold social democracy, secular
values, and economic equity and envision sustainable development.
We advocate greater efforts to
prevent environmental degradation, and optimum and equitable utilization of
resources for the benefit of the people, providing them adequate space to
influence and participate in decisions on resource use and management.
We endorse the inalienable right of
the People of South Asia to basic needs including food, clothing, shelter,
health, education, social security and productive work.
We advocate people to people
communication facilities and an end to travel restrictions.
Major concerns
Democracy
We cherish and uphold the Rule of
Law, sovereignty of the people, a system of governance that ensures devolution
of power, People's right to self-rule and control over resources.
We advocate full independence of the
judiciary, adhering to internationally recognized values and principles.
Pro-people lawmaking has to be participatory, representative and fully
transparent.
We believe that People have sovereign
rights to take decisions on matters concerning their lives, and urge periodic
review of all international commitments and national laws to enable people to
exercise sovereignty.
We maintain that governance
improvements have to begin and end with the People and that empowerment can result
only when power is devolved through effective structural changes.
We also maintain that existing
social, economic and political imbalances hinder nation building and that the
legislature, executive and the judiciary must be fully inclusive and accountable
to the People.
We believe People are the real owners
of resources and support mechanisms to make them rightful owners of resources
through systems that ensure collective ownership and responsibility.
We uphold the People's right to
information through participation in decision-making and governance.
We believe that internal and external
displacement is caused by political, social and developmental factors and any
attempt to end displacement should begin with addressing the root causes.
We assert that refugees are sovereign
people with sovereign identities and they need to be provided guarantees of
protection, dignity and access to basic services until final resolution and/ or
repatriation.
We are concerned by the increase in
human trafficking (including children, women and marginalized communities) in
the region and call for receiving countries to take on responsibility for
repatriation and compensation of the victims.
Discrimination
We affirm that discrimination based
on gender, caste, creed, and ethnicity and differently able is a major obstacle
to meaningful participation of People.
We endorse patriarchy-free South
Asia, and support the individual's right to self-determination and development
and uphold their duty to national integration.
We resolve for an immediate and
effective end to untouchability, the worst form of discrimination and demand
interventions as follows:
- Programs for the uplift of the Dalits and mechanisms to empower them for their rights.
- Reservations, in public as well as the private sector, to ensure participation of all at all levels starting from primary schooling and across all spheres of life.
- Reservations to enable at least 33% representation of women (including Dalits) in all spheres of private and public life and an end to all forms of discrimination against women.
- Discrimination to be considered a real life problem.
- Review of existing laws and modifications to incorporate the implementation of international instruments.
- Equal respect for religious, ethnic and cultural minorities.
We appreciate the changes being
discussed for the uplift of women by Islamic groups and will provide support to
encourage and facilitate further changes.
We ask for inclusion of rights and
security concerns of migrant workers in the SAARC Social Charter.
Food sovereignty
We believe the right to food is a
fundamental right and must be assured through guarantees to equality in work,
justice and uniform minimum wages, and land entitlement.
We recommend that relief and aid
should be culturally sensitive and value adding, and uphold that hunger and
starvation are unacceptable.
Globalization and International
Finance and Trade
We believe the existing policies of
multilateral aid and trade organizations are anti-people and perpetuate
unemployment, poverty and inequalities.
We advocate that all aid and trade
agreements and instruments be subject to public scrutiny to ensure transparency
and accountability.
We uphold the need for collective
SAARC representation and uniform standards for negotiations on aid and trade
instruments and the formulation of a common social responsibility standard to
govern FDI.
We oppose privatization, particularly
that of social infrastructure.
We oppose Foreign Direct Investment without
effective social controls and strongly endorse the promotion of small and
medium enterprises through people's markets.
We believe the World Trade
Organization is not ratified by the people and advocates only freedom of
capital, and ask SAARC to work towards the democratization of the WTO through
inclusion of civil society organizations in negotiations.
We ask SAARC to move towards the
creation of an economic community to suit the people's interest and step back
from free trade envisaged under the SAFTA, which is an extension of the WTO
model.
We believe that the existing
ownership of intellectual property and laws governing violations are flawed and
advocate stiff penalties for those infringing into the traditional knowledge
and services belonging to developing countries.
Child rights
We uphold the Right of the Child as
defined by the Convention on the Rights of the Child and believe the child is
an integral part of society, has the potential to be agents of social change
and all children have the right to participate in issues concerning them and be
heard.
We believe a child's right to
survival and health is of paramount importance to the progress of the country,
and maintain that the child's right to development be upheld through free and
compulsory education, including vocational training, and recreation without
discrimination for all and in a child-friendly environment.
We demand that a child's right to
protection be upheld through the abolition of child labor, abusive forms of
punishment and all forms of discrimination with special focus on
differently-abled children.
We demand that the juvenile justice
system be child friendly and be strictly implemented in the region.
We demand immediate resolution of
existing social, cultural, economic and political factors that promote the
trafficking of children.
We advocate areas where children
frequent be declared zones of peace to enable them to grow in peaceful and
secure environments.
We oppose involvement of children in
all forms of violent conflicts.
Varanasi, 17 Jan. 2005
It is disgraceful that Governments of
SAARC did not fulfill above aspiration of People of South Asia.
I appeal as citizen of South Asia
that it is high time and right time for fulfill above demands of People of South
Asia.
With regards,
Subodh Raj Pyakurel
Chairperon,INSEC
Lenin Raghuvanshi
2007 Gwangju Human Rights Awardee
2010 Weimer Human Rights Awardee
No comments:
Post a Comment