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President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga in her address at the eleventh South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) Summit in Kathmandu has said that the recent election has provided an opportunity for the two major political parties, to evolve new systems of constructive cohabitation and collective action to settle the separatist conflict.

The address made by President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga at the inaugural session of the eleventh SAARC summit is as follows:

"As the outgoing Chairperson of SAARC, it is my duty to brief this Summit on the developments in the SAARC process and candidly assess both the gains made, as well as the lapses observed during the past years. A major strength of SAARC is that it continues to be looked up to both within the region and beyond, as the only regional organisation within South Asia to promote for its people's, the goals of peace, welfare and socio-economic advancement.

The South Asian identity, strengthened over two decades of SAARC's existence, remains the single most important factor in bringing the peoples of South Asia together. On the other hand, this positive aspect has not developed strongly enough to make a qualitative change in the lives of our peoples, the majority of whom remain mired in poverty.

A conspicuous lack of political will, to drive forward and strengthen what would be a natural process of harmony and coherence within the region, continues to hold back progress in vital areas of regional co-operation. It is pertinent to mention here that even though the Colombo Summit was held at a time of severe tension in our region, we succeeded in arriving at a large number of decisions for collective action in varied fields.

"I as Chairperson and my Government were very keen to do all that were required to implement these decisions. Yet the continuing tensions between member States and the lack of will amongst some members to participate even at the level of high officials, has hindered seriously our ability to implement the decisions.

"Due to the constraint of time today, I shall not endeavour to enumerate the progress of the implementation of the decisions taken at the Colombo Summit in 1998. The details of this are given in the published document which has been distributed to you today. They deal with subjects such as: * Regional Free Trade Agreements, * Economic Co-operation, * The Social Charter, * Cultural Co-operation, * People to people contact between identified groups of professors, business community and artists of the region, * The strengthening of the SAARC Secretariat, * Collective action at multi-national organisation.

"At this point it would be useful to remind ourselves that it is not terrorism nor terrorists that divided Ireland nor caused the Isreal Palestinian, problem 50 odd years ago. They did not impose white rule in South Africa, nor did the terrorists overthrow the duly elected government of Salvador Allende in Chile. The terrorists did not separate India and Pakistan and create the tragedy of Kashmir as a buffer zone. To come closer home, neither did the LTTE nor the armed Tamil militants create the circumstances for the marginalisation of the minority communities of Sri Lanka.

"Violence, social, political or physical, perpetrated by the State or the agents of the State, against other States or its own peoples is the womb of terrorism, humiliation its cradle and continued revenge by the State, becomes the mother's milk and nourishment for terrorism."We need to look at the causes of modern day terrorism because it has become, in the past decades, the one single most terrifying factor in national and international politics. At long last, on the 11th of September 2001, when terrorism struck at the heart of the developed world, the community of the rich and powerful countries woke up to the base, senseless, inhumanity of terrorism.

"In Sri Lanka we have had to face the challenges of a military conflict against an armed terrorist group for the past two decades. My first Government, elected in 1994, started the process of political negotiation to end the conflict, rather than solely employing military methods. We attempted to deal with the root causes of the problem, arising from the marginalisation of the Tamil and other minority communities of Sri Lanka. While we have not succeeded in ending the conflict, we have made much progress towards peace.

"I am happy to state that the new Government elected a few weeks ago, is also taking action to continue the process. My Presidency remains committed to the process of peace that I initiated seven years ago and shall continue to give leadership and guidance to the Government in this regard.

The recent election has provided a historic opportunity for the two major political parties of Sri Lanka, now both in Government, through the Presidency and the Cabinet, to evolve new systems of constructive co-habitation and collective action for the resolution of the separatist conflict.

"Double standards cannot work any more, and will not resolve the long-standing problem of terrorism. The use of force directly by a state or through encouraging other terrorist movements to use violence against an enemy state or group, may temporarily curb a terrorist movement or the enemy. But these methods have proved to spread and intensify violence. Today I believe that the challenge before us nationally and regionally, is to recognise terror and political violence as the main enemy of modern society. The main enemy of all that is just and decent, of all that humanity has built up through the centuries, to be respected and looked upon as civilisation.

"But saying this will not be sufficient. It should lead urgently to identifying the causes for terrorism in each different state. Then begin within nations and together regionally and internationally, to find solutions to these causes, to alleviate the sufferings and the frustrations that have given rise to each terrorist movement.

"We also need to mobilise those young people in every nation who have taken up arms and taken to terrorism against civil society and the State. We need to employ constructively the great energies of these young people and their immense commitment towards change in their societies.

"For this we need visionary leaders. We need programs of action with an agenda focused to change radically the present distribution of wealth and power within nations and between nations.

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