# Games of the New Emerging Forces (10–22 November 1963)

URL: https://allhistories.com/indonesia/timeline/1963-games-of-the-new-emerging-forces
Location: Jakarta
Themes: Southeast Asia, Border war

From 10 to 22 November 1963 Jakarta held the first Games of the New Emerging Forces (GANEFO) with about 2,700 athletes. The sources disagree on participation: the article gives 46 or 51 states. China topped the medal table with 68 golds, ahead of the Soviet Union and the United Arab Republic. The games were a response to Indonesia's suspension by the International Olympic Committee after it refused visas to Israel and Taiwan at the 1962 Asian Games. The president called the IOC a tool of imperialists and colonialists, and GANEFO's constitution openly linked sport and politics, presenting the games as a gathering of socialist and newly independent states. The movement did not last. A 1967 Cairo edition was cancelled, a regional Asian GANEFO was held in Phnom Penh in 1966, and the organisation collapsed after a planned 1970 event did not take place. GANEFO remains an example of sport used as Cold War diplomacy. At this point in the timeline (1963), Indonesia's head of state was President Sukarno (17 August 1945 – 12 March 1967).

## Why it matters
GANEFO showed Indonesia's attempt to build a rival international order of 'new emerging forces', but collapsed with the political shift of 1965–66.

Ruler at the Time: [Sukarno](https://allhistories.com/indonesia/rulers/sukarno)

## Sources
- [Wikipedia — Games of the New Emerging Forces](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Games_of_the_New_Emerging_Forces)
- [Wikipedia — 1962 Asian Games](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1962_Asian_Games)