3rd Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement

Third Conference of the Non-Aligned Movement on 8-10 September 1970 in Lusaka, Zambia was the third conference of the Non-Aligned Movement. A preparatory meeting of Foreign Ministers drafted a number of resolutions which were considered by the Summit Conference. President of Zambia Kenneth Kaunda opened the conference by underlining non-alignment as "the natural choice at the time of increased hostility created by ideological conflicts in the bipolar world"
The conference adopted, the ""Declaration on Peace, Independence, Development, Cooperation and Democrtization of International Relations" and the "Declaration on Non-Alignment and Economic Development"". It also adopted as a number of resolutions on the "UN and the Non-Alignment" (reaffirming the commitment to the world organization), "Seabed usage" (peaceful and scientific usage), "Disarmament" (nuclear dissarmament), "Middle East situation" (call to Israeli withraval from the ocupied territories), "Agression on Lebanon" (condemnation of the Israeli intervention and call for UN action), the "Arrest of Algerians in Israel" (call for release from prison), "Strengthening the Role of the Non-Aligned Movement" (establishment of the executive mechanism), "Southeast Asia Situation" (concern over US involvement), "Decolonization" (call on France and Spain to complete the process and call for new measures on Portugal, South Africa and Rhodesia), "Racial discrimination" (South Africa situation), "Portugal colonies", on "Zimbabve" and on "Namibia".
The conference was commended by the Premier of the Soviet Union Alexei Kosygin, Premier of the People's Republic of China Zhou Enlai, Chancellor of Germany Willy Brandt, Chairman of the State Council of East Germany Walter Ulbricht, Pope Paul VI, President of the State Council of Romania Nicolae Ceaușescu and others.
Preparation for the Conference.
The initiative to organize the third NAM conference to follow the 1964 conference in Cairo was formed by the Federal Secretariat of Foreign Affairs of Yugoslavia on 9 May 1968 when the institution published the "Draft Thesis for the Platform of the Conference of Non-Aligned and Peaceful Countries". Zambia was one of the countries which supported the idea to organize the event. To promote the idea, President of Yugoslavia Josip Broz Tito visited 11 countries in early 1968 including prominent Non-Aligned members such as India, Egypt and Ethiopia. Request by the Francoist Spain to the Yugoslav representation in Paris to get involved in the movement was perceived as unexpected, but was nevertheless shared with Ethiopia and India (both of which were initially considered for hosting the event) and was ultimately rejected as inappropriate due to Spanish support to Portuguese colonialism. Ethiopia and Yugoslavia were strongly motivated to initiate the event to voice concerns of small states after the August 1968 Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, therefore Yugoslav Delegation to the United Nations hosted the NAM foreign ministers (59 out of 74 invited attended) at the margins of the Twenty-seventh session of the United Nations General Assembly. At the meeting in Dar es Salaam countries formally interested in hosting the event were Ethiopia, India, Morocco and Algeria. Arab countries pressured Ethiopia to drop its application, after which Addis Ababa strongly advocated for Zambia which received 29, while Algeria received 23 votes.
The meeting in Dar es Salaam was followed by the Preparatory Meeting for the Third Conference by the NAM Permanent Committee was held in New Delhi, India between 7 and 9 June 1970. Delegates of 16 member states of the NAM Permanent Committee at the time were Algeria, Burundi, Ceylon, Ethiopia, Guyana, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Yugoslavia, Malaysia, Morocco, Senegal, Sudan, Tanzania, United Arab Republic and Zambia. The Committee confirmed Zambia as the host the conference and invited member states with delegations in Lusaka to provide help needed in the preparation of the event.
Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (host of the first conference) provided significant support to Zambia in organization of the conference. Only four months before the event President of Zambia (reluctant to invite companies from Western Bloc) invited Belgrade based construction company Energoprojekt holding asking them to build 4,000-seat convention hall as fast as possible. The project was designed and built simultaneously and 115 days after the works started and two weeks ahead of the deadline, the new convention hall was ready for the event.
Participants.
The following states participated at the Conference in Lusaka;