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