The September 1966 Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference was the 16th

Meeting A meeting is when two or more people come together to discuss one or more topics, often in a formal or business setting, but meetings also occur in a variety of other environments. Meetings can be used as form of group decision making. Defin ...

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 g ...

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 ...

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 is ...

Harold Wilson James Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx, (11 March 1916 – 24 May 1995) was a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from October 1964 to June 1970, and again from March 1974 to April 1976. He ...

. The conference was dominated by the rebellion of the British colony of

Rhodesia Rhodesia (, ), officially from 1970 the Republic of Rhodesia, was an unrecognised state in Southern Africa from 1965 to 1979, equivalent in territory to modern Zimbabwe. Rhodesia was the ''de facto'' Succession of states, successor state to th ...

which was under the

white minority rule In political science, minoritarianism (or minorityism) is a neologism for a political structure or process in which a minority segment of a population has a certain degree of primacy in that entity's decision making. Minoritarianism may be contr ...

regime of

Ian Smith Ian Douglas Smith (8 April 1919 – 20 November 2007) was a Rhodesian politician, farmer, and fighter pilot who served as Prime Minister of Rhodesia (known as Southern Rhodesia until October 1964 and now known as Zimbabwe) from 1964 to ...

. Facing the possible collapse of the Commonwealth, with African states threatening to leave the association if action wasn't taken against Rhodesia, Britain agreed to a 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 independenc ...

(NIBMAR). The Commonwealth issued an ultimatum declaring that if the Smith regime did not comply by the end of the year Britain, with Commonwealth support, would seek mandatory

sanctions A sanction may be either a permission or a restriction, depending upon context, as the word is an auto-antonym. Examples of sanctions include: Government and law * Sanctions (law), penalties imposed by courts * Economic sanctions, typically a b ...

against Rhodesia by the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmonizi ...

. The Commonwealth also issued a statement calling for

nuclear disarmament Nuclear may refer to: Physics Relating to the nucleus of the atom: * Nuclear engineering *Nuclear physics *Nuclear power *Nuclear reactor *Nuclear weapon *Nuclear medicine *Radiation therapy *Nuclear warfare Mathematics * Nuclear space * Nucle ...

and deploring

nuclear weapons testing Nuclear weapons tests are experiments carried out to determine nuclear weapons' effectiveness, yield, and explosive capability. Testing nuclear weapons offers practical information about how the weapons function, how detonations are affected b ...

by France and China.

References

{{Commonwealth Heads of Government Meetings Commonwealth Heads of Government Meetings, 1966 Diplomatic conferences in the United Kingdom 20th-century diplomatic conferences 1966 in international relations 1966 conferences September 1966 events in the United Kingdom 1966 in London Events in London Harold Wilson