Non alignment + Bandung conference

1. Non alignment + Bandung conference

2. Bandung conference • In April, 1955, representatives from twenty-nine governments of Asian and African nations gathered in Bandung, Indonesia to discuss peace and the role of the Third World in the Cold War, economic development, and decolonization. The core principles of the Bandung Conference were political self-determination, mutual respect for sovereignty, non-aggression, non-interference in internal affairs, and equality. These issues were of central importance to all participants in the conference, most of which had recently emerged from colonial rule.

3. The development • In all, there were 29 countries representing more than half of the worlds population sent delegates. The conference reflected the five sponsors’ dissatisfaction with what they regarded as a reluctance by the Western powers to consult with them on decisions affecting Asia; their concern over tension between the People’s Republic of China and the United States.

4. Who was involved? • The governments of Burma, India, Indonesia, Pakistan and Sri Lanka co-sponsored the Bandung Conference, and they brought together an additional twenty-four nations from Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Because the decolonization process was still ongoing, the delegates at the conference took it upon themselves to speak for other colonized peoples (especially in Africa) that had not yet established independent governments.

5. What was talked about • The delegates built upon the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, worked out in negotiations between India and China in 1954, as they sought to build solidarity among recently independent nations. Their desire to lay firmer foundations for China’s peaceful relations with themselves and the West; their opposition to colonialism, especially French influence in North Africa; and Indonesia’s desire to promote its case in the dispute with the Netherlands over western New Guinea.

6. Major debates • Major debate centered upon the question of whether Soviet policies in eastern Europe and Central Asia should be censured along with Western colonialism. A consensus was reached in which “colonialism in all of its manifestations” was condemned, implicitly censuring the Soviet Union, as well as the West.

7. Closing • At the close of the Bandung Conference attendees signed a communique that included a range of concrete objectives. These goals included the promotion of economic and cultural cooperation, protection of human rights and the principle of self-determination, a call for an end to racial discrimination wherever it occurred, and a reiteration of the importance of peaceful coexistence. The leaders hoped to focus on the potential for collaboration among the nations of the third world, promoting efforts to reduce their reliance on Europe and North America.