Co-Ordinating Bureau
The Colombo conference provided a valuable opportunity for an exchange of views at the summit level on important, international issues and for a review of the growth of the movement in the last 15 years. Significantly, though perhaps understandably, in the context of the increase of the size of the movement, organizational issues called for serious attention. India's views on the need to avoid a permanent secretariat, or even any kind of rigid institutional framework for the non-aligned movement found wide support among participating countries. It was unanimously agreed that instead the co-ordinating bureau should be strengthened and made more effective.
The bureau has emerged as the single most important body for co-ordinating activities and implementing decisions of the non-aligned countries in the period between non-aligned summits. Nonetheless, the mandates given to the bureau by the summit ensure flexibility of operation and avoid undue rigidity in working. Here again, our views regarding the expansion of the bureau and its composition on the basis of the principles of continuity, rotation and balanced geographic distribution were accepted. The size of the bureau has been expanded from 17 to 25 with 12 seats for Africa, 8 for Asia, 4 for Latin America and 1 for Europe. It was in recognition of the key-role which India continued to play within the movement that there was overwhelming support for her re-election to this body. The other countries represented on the new co-ordinating bureau are:
Africa: Algeria, Angola, Botswana, Chad, Guinea, Liberia, Niger, Nigeria, the Sudan, Tanzania, Zaire and Zambia.
Asia: Vietnam, Indonesia, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Syria, Iraq, Palestine Liberation Organisation (P.L.O.) and Sri Lanka.
Latin America: Cuba, Peru, Guyana and Jamaica.
Europe: Yugoslavia.