Sri Lanka and the Non-Aligned Movement

Sri Lanka is one of the founding members of the Non-Aligned Movement. Principles of Non-Alignment and participation in movement's activities is of high priority in foreign policy of the country.[1]

Its capital of Colombo hosted the 5th Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement on 16–19 August 1976. The country proposed its bid to host the summit at the 1973 Non-Aligned Standing Committee Conference in Kabul.[2] Following the 1976 Summit Sri Lanka held the chairmanship of the movement for three years until 1979.[3] This role represented the pinnacle of Sri Lankan foreign policy in the period of Cold War.[4]

History
Sirimavo Bandaranaike

Ahead of the 2nd Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement Indonesia and China strongly criticized the idea of the Non-Aligned conference as counterproductive to Bandung which motivated Prime Minister of Sri Lanka Sirimavo Bandaranaike to confront those criticisms by stressing indivisibility of the World peace.[5]

On 16–19 August 1976 in Colombo hosted the 5th Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement with 86 nations participated in the summit with additional 30 observers and guests representing all the continents in the world.[6] The logo of the conference included references to five values of self-determination, economic development, peace and security, solidarity and the denial of colonialism and imperialism.[7] The Government of Sri Lanka declared the public holiday to enable residents in the capital city to get to the street and see and greet foreign guests.[7]

At the time of 6th Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement in Havana, delegation of Sri Lanka expressed the concern that due to the host's sectarianism his opening speech was deficient in showing appropriate level of statecraft.[2] In 2021, during his participation in 60th Anniversary Additional Commemorative Non-Aligned Meeting in Belgrade, Tharaka Balasuriya reaffirmed his country's continued commitment to principles and goals of the movement.[8]

See also

References
  1. "Non-alignment and SL's foreign policy". Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Sri Lanka). 10 January 2012.
  2. Tvrtko Jakovina (2011). Treća strana Hladnog rata [The Third Side of the Cold War] (in Croatian). Fraktura. ISBN 978-953-266-203-0.
  3. Karunadasa, W. M. (1993). "A re-appraisal of Sri Lanka's Non-Alignment : 1948 - 1960". Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Sri Lanka. 37: 69–81.
  4. "Non Alignment: Will Lanka abandon principles". The Sunday Times (Sri Lanka).
  5. Bogetić, Dragan (2017). "Sukob Titovog koncepta univerzalizma i Sukarnovog koncepta regionalizma na Samitu nesvrstanih u Kairu 1964" [The Conflict Between Tito’s Concept of Universalism and Sukarno’s Concept of Regionalism in the 1964 Summit of Non-Aligned Countries in Cairo]. Istorija 20. Veka. Institute for Contemporary History, Belgrade. 35 (2): 101–118. doi:10.29362/IST20VEKA.2017.2.BOG.101-118.
  6. Prithvis Chakravarti (11 April 2015). "Non-aligned Summit: Togetherness in Colombo". India Today. Retrieved 19 September 2021.
  7. Jürgen Dinkel (2014). "'To grab the headlines in the world press': Non-aligned summits as media events". In Nataša Mišković; Herald Fischer-Tine; Nada Boškovska (eds.). The Non-Aligned Movement and the Cold War: Delhi — Bandung — Belgrade. Routledge. pp. 207–225. ISBN 978-0-415-74263-4.
  8. "Sri Lanka remains committed to principles and goals of the Non-Aligned movement - State Minister Balasuriya". Lanka Business Online.
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