Abstract
The last three non-aligned summits before Cartagena (1995) cover a period in which non-aligned countries have had, like other political movements, to adapt their concerns to the post cold war era. It seems sensible therefore to consider all three. Harare in 1986, the eighth in the series of summits, which began in 1961, was the last one to be held before the cold war ended. The participants at Belgrade in 1989 were, by contrast, already beginning to discuss questions about the non-aligned movement in a changing world order, whilst Jakarta in 1992 was concerned with problems stemming from the end of the cold war as well as showing one way of achieving domestic economic growth. Indonesia gave up its leadership of the non-aligned late in 1995 when it handed over the chairmanship to Colombia at the eleventh summit which unusually, for reasons connected with the fiftieth anniversary of the UN, was held in October.
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Notes and References
The non-aligned movement has included among its members certain liberation movements, including SWAPO, now replaced by Namibia, and the Palestine Liberation Organization (the PLO), since the end of 1988 known as Palestine.
The six-year gap between 1964 and 1970 reflected the battle between Sukarno (Indonesia) who espoused militant struggle against the West and was overthrown in September 1965, and Tito (Yugoslavia) who championed active and peaceful coexistence and cooperation through the United Nations. Iraq was due to hold the summit in 1982. This had to be cancelled because of the Iran-Iraq war. The postponed summit was subsequently held in New Delhi in February 1983.
Tenth Conference of Heads of State or Government of Non-Aligned Countries Jakarta, 1–6 September 1992, A/47/675, 18 November 1992, p. 11. The Bandung Conference of 1955 was not a non-aligned summit, the first of which was held in 1961, but it contributed much to the development of non-aligned ideas.
The summits are underpinned by a system of other meetings including meetings at foreign minister level two years after each summit (the last such meeting was held in Cairo in May/June 1994 — it would normally have been held in August/September but was held early as Cairo was hosting the UN Population Conference at that time) and yearly meetings at ministerial level in New York in late September at the beginning of the General Assembly. Non-aligned members of the Security Council often vote together as a group. See my article, ‘The Influence of States and Groups of States on and in the Security Council and General Assembly, 1980–94’ Review of International Studies, vol. 21, no. 4 (October 1995).
This meant that their name became less relevant. Countries in the movement considered changing it at their foreign ministers’ meeting at Accra in 1991. They decided that this would be too complicated and have retained the current name.
China became an Observer in the non-aligned in 1992. India was opposed to its involvement before the fragmentation of the Soviet Union.
There have always been European members of the non-aligned. Cyprus and Malta are both European members. The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) was not asked to the non-aligned foreign ministers’ meeting at Cairo in June 1994. It remains a European member. The UN has a Western European and Others Group and an Eastern European Group.
The Group of 77’s membership in 1995 was 131. This includes such countries as Brazil which remains an Observer in the non-aligned
See UN document A/41/697 and S/18392 of 14 October 1986.
See UN document A/44/551 and S/20870 of 29 September 1989.
For UN document reference see note 3. A more detailed account of the summit can be found in my article, ‘The Non-Aligned in the New World Order: The Jakarta Summit, September 1992’, International Relations, vol. XI, no. 4 (April 1993).
This idea had been tried successfully at the Nicosia foreign ministers meeting in 1988. See also my article ‘The Non-Aligned Movement and the Foreign Ministers’ Meeting at Nicosia’, International Relations, vol. IX, no. 5 (May 1989).
A useful account of the negotiations leading up to these is given in ‘The Singapore Symposium: The Changing Role of the United Nations’ in Conflict Resolution and Peace-Keeping, 13–15 March 1991, pp. 65–79. The Head of State of Cambodia, Norodom Sihanouk, in his speech to the summit stressed that ‘Indonesia has played a very important role in the search for, and the achievement of, peace in favour of Cambodia’.
The nearest precedent was the attempt to expel Egypt at the 1979 Havana summit over the Camp David Agreements. This did not succeed. In this case the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia remained a member of the movement. The decision as to what to do was, sensibly, postponed until the General Assembly had an opportunity to consider the question.
This was, of course, a shorthand reference to the Soviet Union’s occupation of Afghanistan, a member of the non-aligned.
The Group of 15 was set up at the 1989 Belgrade summit to increase South-South cooperation in quantity and quality.
Dr Ranko Petkovic, ‘The Non-Aligned in Jakarta’, Belgrade Review of International Affairs, 1007–8, 1992, pp. 7–8.
Ibid., p. 7.
Margaret Doxey, ‘The Commonwealth in a Changing World: Behind the Headlines’, Canadian Institute of International Affairs, Summer 1992, p. 13.
Chester Crocker, High Noon in Southern Africa — Making Peace in a Rough Neighbourhood (New York, Norton & Company, 1993), p. 454.
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Morphet, S. (1996). Three Non-Aligned Summits — Harare 1986; Belgrade 1989 and Jakarta 1992. In: Dunn, D.H. (eds) Diplomacy at the Highest Level. Studies in Diplomacy. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-24915-2_10
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