Suchergebnisse

Since the beginning of the hunger strike started by the Algerian detainees in France, the ICRC's neutral humanitarian intervention was sought from various directions.

Application of the Geneva Conventions. — With the end of the Indo-Pakistan conflict, one can observe with satisfaction that the two parties, in accordance with their undertaking, applied the Geneva Conventions and accepted the ICRC's intervention. Humanitarian provisions were thus generally effective on either side of the lines.

Last month the International Review published an article on the tasks which the ICRC has undertaken during the past few months in the Yemen. The conflict in that country having been prolonged, the needs of the humanitarian action are consequently increasing. We now recall the various phases of the ICRC's intervention, in particular since November 1963.

The Geneva Conventions having been invoked in numerous requests for intervention received by the International Committee of the Red Cross concerning the recent trial of Cuban prisoners captured during the invasion attempt in April 1961, it is appropriate to make the following statement:

When one studies the rôle of the International Red Cross in favour of so-called international refugees, who do not benefit from the national regime in the country of their residence, it is interesting to attempt to define, from a legal point of view, the character of the interventions which are made by this institution.

We know what work is carried out by the ICRC delegates in Jordan ; we know that, thanks to them and their intervention, as soon as it was possible the relief mission of the ICRC, aided by the National Societies, could be started and developed. One of the delegates in Amman during the civil war, Mr. Louis Jaquinet, relates below some incidents in the danger-fraught life of a delegate during a crisis.

The large-scale actions which the International Committee of the Red Cross undertakes in conflicts have always raised the difficult problem of recruitment. Under pressure as a result of unexpected situations, these have necessitated the immediate but temporary intervention of personnel sometimes very numerous and experienced in dealing with special and delicate tasks. Now, it is obviously impossible for the ICRC to retain large numbers of delegates permanently in its service who would remain inactive in periods of calm.

Glancing through the 196 numbers of the Bulletin international des Sociétés de la Croix-Rouge certain major themes stand out significantly. Some of these were already described in its first issue of October 1869, then can be met with again throughout the years until this last number of October 1918 devoted almost entirely to wartime activities in 28 belligerent or neutral countries and to interventions on behalf of victims. The account which follows, however incomplete it may be, will at all events describe the successes, hopes and preoccupations of a decisive period in the history of our movement.

In the Yemen the International Committee of the Red Cross is confronted with a particularly difficult task. Intervention is required in a country difficult of access, almost completely without modern means of communication and the population of which has long been isolated from the rest of the world. The war which has been going on for over a year continues to produce its harvest of victims which it is up to the Red Cross movement to assist, for the Red Cross was founded one hundred years ago with the primary task of alleviating suffering caused by armed conflict. Yet, in the Yemen today, conditions are such that victims in vast regions of the country are left completely abandoned.

As usual the ICRC has published a report in which it reviews the work of the previous year.The Report first gives a summary of the International Committee's work in the field in many parts of the world: its conventional activities for the benefit of prisoners of war, its organization of the general exchange of Honduran and Salvadorian prisoners and of the general repatriation of prisoners of war in the Middle East,It describes how, concerned for the welfare of civilian populations, the ICRC went to the assistance of displaced persons in a number of countries, in respect of which some significant statistics are given. Many were the interventions of the ICRC, such as in the Yemen Arab Republic, where food distributions were organized and several medical teams were in action.

The International Committee and the League of Red Cross Societies made a point of informing those taking part in the meetings of the International Red Cross in Prague, by means of information sessions and a booklet, of the work undertaken by the Red Cross in the Congo since 1960. This has been dealt with in the International Review on a number of occasions but in a fragmentary manner and we think it would be useful to summarize for our readers some of the successive stages in an operation which has mobilized, and which continues to mobilize, part of the forces of the Red Cross.Here, first of all, are the main points of a speech made by Mr. Gallopin, Executive Director of the ICRC, to which we have added certain details on the interventions which have taken place in recent months, following events in Katanga. Secondly, we are publishing some passages from a booklet edited jointly by the ICRC and the League on medical assistance in the Congo and to finish we are giving a few details on the medal distributed to the members of medical teams to whom the ICRC wished to express its grateful recognition.