The 1964 Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference was the 13th
Meeting of the
Heads of Government
The head of government is the highest or the second-highest official in the executive branch of a sovereign state, a federated state, or a self-governing colony, autonomous region, or other government who often presides over a cabinet, a ...
of the
Commonwealth of Nations
The Commonwealth of Nations, simply referred to as the Commonwealth, is a political association of 56 member states, the vast majority of which are former territories of the British Empire. The chief institutions of the organisation are the ...
. It was held in the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
in July 1964, and was hosted by the UK's
Prime Minister
A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister i ...
, Sir
Alec Douglas-Home.
With the collapse of the
Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, the Commonwealth decided to exclude the
white minority rule
In political science, minoritarianism (or minorityism) is a neologism for a political structure or process in which a minority segment of a population has a certain degree of primacy in that entity's decision making. Minoritarianism may be cont ...
regime of
Southern Rhodesia
Southern Rhodesia was a landlocked self-governing British Crown colony in southern Africa, established in 1923 and consisting of British South Africa Company (BSAC) territories lying south of the Zambezi River. The region was informally kno ...
from the conference for the first time as it was not an independent state. The conference communique rejected any prospective
Unilateral Declaration of Independence by the colony and called for all party talks to achieve a multi-racial state. The meeting also reaffirmed its opposition to
apartheid
Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...
, expressed concern about racial strife in
British Guiana and the situation in
Cyprus
Cyprus ; tr, Kıbrıs (), officially the Republic of Cyprus,, , lit: Republic of Cyprus is an island country located south of the Anatolian Peninsula in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Its continental position is disputed; while it is ge ...
. The Commonwealth meeting expressed sympathy for
Malaysia
Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...
in
its conflict with Indonesia. The creation of a
Commonwealth Secretariat
The Commonwealth Secretariat is the main intergovernmental agency and central institution of the Commonwealth of Nations. It is responsible for facilitating co-operation between members; organising meetings, including the Commonwealth Heads o ...
was also proposed.
Participants
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference, 1964
1964
Events January
* January 1 – The Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland is dissolved.
* January 5 - In the first meeting between leaders of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches since the fifteenth century, Pope Paul VI and Patriarc ...
Diplomatic conferences in the United Kingdom
20th-century diplomatic conferences
1964 in international relations
1964 in London
United Kingdom and the Commonwealth of Nations
1964 conferences
July 1964 events in the United Kingdom
Alec Douglas-Home
Robert Menzies
Lester B. Pearson
Kwame Nkrumah
Jomo Kenyatta
Julius Nyerere