Asian peace roadmap needs local solutions: Rabbani

Says superpowers ought to be excluded from the process

ISLAMABAD: Senate Chairman Raza Rabbani has proposed building an Asian roadmap for peace that would rely more on finding indigenous solutions and excluding superpowers from all ‘peace-making’ efforts altogether.

Since superpowers need wars to keep their military industrial complexes running ‘efficiently’, their role in crafting any roadmap for peace would prove detrimental, Rabbani cautioned.



“Former colonial masters have been main suppliers of weapons to the conflicting nations,” Rabbani pointed out in his address at the inaugural session of the 9th Plenary of the Asian Parliamentary Assembly being held in Siem Reap, Cambodia, a statement issued by the Senate Secretariat said on Monday.



The Senate chairman said peace could only be brought about by nations that desperately need peace. “Regional conflicts have led to higher defence budgets, which have led to higher budgetary deficits destroying our economies,” he added.

Underscoring the need for making collective efforts to combat the scourge of terrorism, he said ‘the western policy’ of supporting extremist groups to overthrow progressive regimes has to be openly condemned and resisted in Asia.

“It is only through collective action and sharing of intelligence on the identification and activities of extremist and terrorist groups that these menaces can be finally eliminated,” he added.

Rabbani said donor-driven economies were designed to create poverty and to increase income gaps. “Their [the West’s] formula for economic growth starts and ends with retrenchment of workers and closure of industrial units,” she said.



He said economic growth is not possible without increasing the purchasing power of the poor. “Nations have to focus on equality, maximum employment, higher production, poverty reduction and poverty eradication,” he added.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 29^th, 2016.