The 1969 Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference was the 17th 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 January 1969, and was hosted by that country'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 ...

, Harold Wilson. Five newly independent member countries participated for the first time:

Botswana Botswana (, ), officially the Republic of Botswana ( tn, Lefatshe la Botswana, label= Setswana, ), is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. Botswana is topographically flat, with approximately 70 percent of its territory being the Kalaha ...

Barbados Barbados is an island country in the Lesser Antilles of the West Indies, in the Caribbean region of the Americas, and the most easterly of the Caribbean Islands. It occupies an area of and has a population of about 287,000 (2019 estimate) ...

, Lesotho,

Mauritius Mauritius ( ; french: Maurice, link=no ; mfe, label= Mauritian Creole, Moris ), officially the Republic of Mauritius, is an island nation in the Indian Ocean about off the southeast coast of the African continent, east of Madagascar. It ...

and Swaziland. On the issue of the rogue colony of Rhodesia, Britain re-committed itself to the policy of

No independence before majority rule No independence before majority rule (abbreviated NIBMAR) was a policy adopted by the United Kingdom requiring the implementation of majority rule in a colony, rather than rule by the white colonial minority, before the empire granted independe ...

(NIBMAR) which it had adopted at the last Prime Ministers' conference in September 1966. Also discussed was the Biafra crisis in Nigeria and discrimination against South Asian communities living in Africa and Black and Asian immigrants living in the UK.

References

External links

Commonwealth Conference - British Pathe (1969)
Newsreel {{Commonwealth Heads of Government Meetings

1969 This year is notable for Apollo 11's first landing on the moon. Events January * January 4 – The Government of Spain hands over Ifni to Morocco. * January 5 **Ariana Afghan Airlines Flight 701 crashes into a house on its approach to ...

Diplomatic conferences in the United Kingdom 20th-century diplomatic conferences

Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conferences were biennial meetings of Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom and the Dominion members of the British Commonwealth of Nations. Seventeen Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conferences were held betwee ...

Events in London Harold Wilson