The foreign policy of a country it is accepted is a projection of its national interests. Thus the forthcoming summit of eight South Asian nations to be held in Colombo from July 28 to August 3 should be viewed by Sri Lankans in terms of the benefits - long term as well as short term - that would accrue to Sri Lanka particularly in view of the tremendous expenditure it would involve - an estimated Rs. 2.8 billion. This comes at time when the country's economy is in a perilous state with inflation running over 30 per cent, the highest in Asia and a military conflict that is a major drain on the country's scarce resources. The political instability too would certainly preclude wasteful political jamborees, if commonsense prevails.

Nonetheless President Rajapakse, for reasons best known to himself, has decided to host the conference even though according to the accepted SAARC convention the summit is hosted in rotation by the states and this time it was the turn of the Maldives whose economy is in a much better shape to hold this conference.

Usually summits are held in a quiet and peaceful environment where leaders can relax and give thought to the objectives of the conference rather than be nervously twitching about their own safety. Colombo's political and security environment nowis highly charged with the LTTE having exploded many bombs in recent times in and around the city presumablytodrive fear into the visiting national leaders and if possible make the Sri Lankan government abandon the conference.

Another matter of concern is that the LTTE is now being openly hostile to India and the fear is being entertained by many that the visiting Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh too will be at risk even though the Sri Lankan government is confident that all the visiting delegates will have adequate security. The Indians, however, are not taking chances in Sri Lanka no doubt the case of a naval rating swinging the butt of his rifle at former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi's head, etched in their memory.

The government itself has not helped ease the concerns of the SAARC nations by stating that intelligence reports received clearly reveal the LTTE will carry out attacks in the city. While the government may well have floated this report to sabotage the JVP led strike on July 10, it will no doubt be counter-productive in winning the confidence of the visiting heads of state on the question of security.

The very fact India believes the Government of Sri Lanka cannot provide adequate security to its delegation is also underscored by the request New Delhi made of President Rajapakse to allow the Indian military to do the needful in Colombo to ensure security in addition to patrolling the Sri Lanka waters.

Security concerns are not limited to the Sri Lankan situation but are international as well. Last week an explosion of a human bomb at the Indian Embassy in Kabul resulted in the death of 40 persons including that of several Indian diplomats. The immediate response of the Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai was that it was the work of those opposed to the growing friendship and cooperation between Afghanistan and India. Later, he specifically mentioned Pakistan. Such is the state of cooperation between three leading states in the union of friendship and cooperation. Attempts of external terrorism being projected during the conference cannot therefore be ruled out.

With member states - save that of Bhutan - being wracked with internal dissension and the leaders being more concerned with retaining their seats of power and the threat of terrorism across their borders, it is doubtful that the subject of South Asian Economic Cooperation would be foremost in their minds.

In Afghanistan the government of President Hamid Karzai is reeling with the Islamic fundamentalists, Taliban who ruled the country but being driven out by military forces now making their presence felt in the countryside and cities with daring attacks. Aerial bombing by his allies, the NATO forces have resulted in many civilian deaths adding to the unpopularity of Karzai who is to face an election soon.

President Pervez Musharraf is clinging on to power with pressure stepped up daily by the opposition and civil society to remove him while in Bangladesh the Chief Adviser Fakhurddin Ahmed is being propped up by the military which has arrested the two former women Prime Ministers Khaleda  Zia and Sheik Hasina. The once popular military is now out of favour with the people having failed to live up to its promises.

In Nepal a new government has not yet been formed despite elections to the Constituent Assembly and whether former Prime Minister Girja Koirala or the Maoist Leader Prachandra will represent Nepal in Colombo is not certain. Abdul Gayoom, the strongman of the Maldives having ruled for well over 26 years is in trouble with the opposition democrats growing in strength. That is probably why he dodged hosting the summit.

In India, this week the Communist parties which were propping up the Congress government of Manmohan Singh withdrew their support and to survive he has to strike horse deals with minority parties and only Bhutan is relatively stable, the wise King Wang Chuk giving up his absolute monarchial powers voluntarily and having his son declared a constitutional monarch. In Sri Lanka galloping inflation has left the people in dire straits while a war in the north drains a great part of the government's financial resourcesand law and order is breaking down rapidly.

Considering the fact the entire region is in such a disarray what do the leaders expect to perform in their two day pow-wow? Reports say that the energy and food crises and terrorism are new subjects on the agenda. Having been unable to make any viable proposal to tackle these problems, the people can only expect that they like magicians can pull rabbits from their hats at the conference. Grandiose pipe dreams and idle boasts such as the region's rich culture and heritage take much of the time of this two day talkathon which the propaganda mills of the states roll out to the gullible billion plus in the region. Whatever happened to the Food Bank that was proposed at the last summit held in New Delhi?

The SAARC Charter Against Terrorism and all that talk of South Asian cooperation to combat terrorism are being treated as jokes because some of the leading states have been accusing one another of cross border terrorism and infiltration of insurgents from the very beginning.

An attempt is being made to project the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between India and Sri Lanka and now an extension of it, the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) as an outcome of SAARC. Firstly, these are bilateral agreements between two countries. India has even signed such an agreement with Singapore and has nothing to do with SAARC. It does appear that these bilateral agreements are an Indian strategy to bypass SAARC where most member countries find themselves locking horns with the Indian giant.

Even SAFTA to which many hosannas are sung needs very close scrutiny because this small country stands little to gain and much to lose in  dealing with  the giant. An article published in The Morning Leader last Wednesday examines the implications of SAFTA and CEPA in certain aspects. It is pointed out that even though under SAFTA Sri Lankan exports to India have increased it lags behind Indian exports to Sri Lanka. India has gained tremendously, overtaking Japan as the largest exporter of goods to Sri Lanka and that the trade balance is more adverse than in previous years and is widening in favour of India.

Perhaps it will be beneficial to Sri Lanka if they listen to the advice of Mark Twain, the American humourist. In his book Tom Sawyers Abroad the following passage is relevant to us:

"I asked Tom if countries always apologised when they had done wrong and he says: 'Yes, the little one does'."

The 15th SAARC Summit holds nogood prospects for Sri Lanka, unless India adopts the attitude of former Prime Minister Inder KumarGujral. His contention was that if SAARC was to be a success, India should do much more for its smaller neighbours than what the neighbours could do for them. That spirit did not prevail in the pre-Gujral times or even after that. On the other hand the seven dwarfs around India should also not be pricking the giant at every given moment, however justifiable it may be.

To the question of what benefit SAARC Summit No.15 holds for Sri Lanka, the only beneficiary could be President Mahinda Rajapakse. He becomes the chairman of the largest regional organisation of any kind in the world - 1.1 billion. It doesn't matter if they are the poorest.

It will do wonderfully well for his ego andmake his family photoalbum bulge while hopefully it would help project himself as the leader of 1.1 billion people especially at a time Sri Lanka is getting increasingly isolated in the world due to its poor human rights record.