North–South Summit


The North–South Summit, officially the International Meeting on Cooperation and Development, was an international summit held in Cancun, Mexico from 22 to 23 October 1981. The summit was attended by representatives of 22 countries from 5 continents. It is the only north-south summit conference in history.

Participants

The summit was attended by 22 countries from 5 continents. The Soviet Union chose not to attend the summit. Cuba was excluded at the request of the United States.
CountryRepresentativeTitle
Kurt WaldheimSecretary-General
Chadli BendjedidPresident
Willibald PahrMinister of Foreign Affairs
Abdus SattarPresident
Ramiro Saraiva GuerreiroMinister of External Relations
Pierre TrudeauPrime Minister
Zhao ZiyangPremier
François MitterrandPresident
Forbes BurnhamPresident
Indira GandhiPrime Minister
Simeon AkéMinister of Foreign Affairs
Zenko SuzukiPrime Minister
José López PortilloPresident
Shehu ShagariPresident
Ferdinand MarcosPresident
Fahd bin Abdulaziz Al SaudCrown Prince
Thorbjörn FälldinPrime Minister
Julius NyererePresident
Margaret ThatcherPrime Minister
Ronald ReaganPresident
Luis Herrera CampinsPresident
Hans-Dietrich GenscherMinister for Foreign Affairs
Sergej KraigherPresident

Proceedings

No official agenda was set for the meeting.
The conference was chaired by Mexican President José López Portillo.
French President François Mitterrand attended the summit on one of his first official trips abroad. He spoke about the need to change the terms of trade between industrialized countries and developing countries, and affirmed the will of France to actively contribute to the development of the Third World. Chinese Premier Zhao Ziyang called for the establishment of a new international economic order.

In popular culture

The conference is one of the elements of the 1984 French film The Vengeance of the Winged Serpent.
It is also the subject of story arc Nuclear Alert of the Franco-Belgian comic book series Buck Danny, published in 1983, 1984 and 1986.