‘The humanitarian adventure’ The vision behind the Movement’s newly reopened museum From horror to hope A child refugee turned author takes on humanity Red Cross Red Crescent Voices for humanity ISSUE 1 . 2013 www.redcross.int Red Cross Red Crescent magazine wants your views A journey into the heart of humanity

THE MAGAZINE OF THE INTERNATIONAL R E D C R O S S A N D RED CRESCENT M O V E M E N T

RCRC_1.13_Eng+.indd 31 12.04.13 16:00 The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is made up of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) and the National Societies.

International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies

The International Committee of the Red The International Federation of Red Cross National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies Cross is an impartial, neutral and independent and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) is the embody the work and principles of the organization whose exclusively humanitarian world’s largest volunteer-based humanitarian International Red Cross and Red Crescent mission is to protect the lives and dignity of network, reaching 150 million people each year Movement in more than 188 countries. National victims of armed confl ict and other situations of through its 187 member National Societies. Societies act as auxiliaries to the public authorities violence and to provide them with assistance. Together, the IFRC acts before, during and of their own countries in the humanitarian fi eld The ICRC also endeavours to prevent suff ering by after disasters and health emergencies to meet and provide a range of services including disaster promoting and strengthening humanitarian law the needs and improve the lives of vulnerable relief, health and social programmes. During and universal humanitarian principles. Established people. It does so with impartiality as to wartime, National Societies assist the aff ected in 1863, the ICRC is at the origin of the Geneva nationality, race, gender, religious beliefs, class civilian population and support the army medical Conventions and the International Red Cross and and political opinions. Guided by Strategy 2020 services where appropriate. Red Crescent Movement. It directs and coordinates — a collective plan of action to tackle the major the international activities conducted by the humanitarian and development challenges of Movement in armed confl icts and other situations this decade — the IFRC is committed to ‘saving of violence. lives and changing minds’.

The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is guided by seven Fundamental Principles: humanity, impartiality, neutrality, independence, voluntary service, unity and universality.

All Red Cross and Red Crescent activities have one central purpose: to help without discrimination those who suff er and thus contribute to peace in the world.

RCRC_1.13_Eng+.indd ii 12.04.13 16:02 Editorial Echoes from the past, glimpses of the future

N LATE AUGUST 1945, a young man named delegates and staff who have worked tirelessly Fritz Bilfi nger was the fi rst ICRC delegate to make the world a more humane place. They Ito reach Hiroshima after the city was dev- come from all walks of life, but their common astated by an atomic bomb. “Conditions ap- humanity has compelled them to act even in palling,” he wrote in his fi rst telegram to the the face of grave challenges. ICRC’s representative in Tokyo, Marcel Junod. “City wiped out. Eighty per cent of all hospitals We mark 150 Years of Humanitarian Action Photo: ICRC archives destroyed or seriously damaged… Eff ect of with a historical timeline, accompanied by One of the fi rst ICRC delegates, bomb mysteriously serious…” current-day stories that refl ect many of the Louis Appia, used sketches to share same challenges our predecessors had to humanitarian innovations. Just as Japanese Red Cross Society nurses and tackle. Our feature focus is the confl ict in Af- doctors were dealing with a horror beyond ghanistan, which in many ways is emblem- their imagination, Bilfi nger had come face to atic of the problems faced by humanitarians face with the unknown, a situation far beyond today. The series on Movement history will any of his previous experiences. continue throughout the year as we look at the evolution of National Societies and the The archives of the ICRC, the IFRC and many 150th anniversary of the fi rst National Societ- National Societies are full of stories that echo ies. Then, in early 2014, we will commemorate Bilfi nger’s struggles. Artefacts, letters, photos the 150th anniversary of the fi rst Geneva Con- and drawings reveal an ongoing eff ort to fi nd vention by analysing the historic, current-day solutions in extreme, often hostile conditions. and future challenges for international hu- manitarian law. Thanks to the courage, hard work and human- ity of those volunteers, delegates and staff In a world where neutral and impartial hu- over the last 150 years, the humanitarian of the manitarian action is still not universally under- Photo: ICRC archives 21st century has a worldwide network of col- stood or respected, these anniversaries remind That spirit of courage and invention in leagues and a body of knowledge and law that everyone that humanitarianism has endured, the face of hardship continued when now backs up and protects (albeit imperfectly) and that the values espoused by both Henry ICRC teams performed surgery in a their eff orts. Dunant and today’s humanitarian ambassa- remote Yemeni desert in the 1960s. dors represent norms of behaviour that must But even in today’s world, which boasts a vast be respected. humanitarian sector, we still face many un- knowns. The need for courage, humanity and These milestones are also a chance to refl ect innovation is as great as ever. Just as Move- on the key questions facing humanitarian ac- ment founder Louis Appia drew meticulous tion. We hope the stories in this issue will help sketches of rolling stretchers and inspire this examination and, on page 28, we wagons (above) in order to share best prac- describe how to contribute your voice to the tices with fl edgling relief societies, today’s discussion. How should the Movement adapt? delegates and volunteers are solving complex What have we learned? What are the most in- problems with new ideas and the creative use spiring trends? The most threatening? Given of the latest technology. Movement eff orts to what has been achieved — starting from share evidence-based fi rst-aid procedures and scratch — in the last 150 years, what can we best surgical practices, develop early warning and must we achieve with the tools we now systems and track disease via cell phone net- have before the Movement’s 200th anniver- Photo: Benoit Matsha-Carpentier/IFRC works are just a few examples. sary? It’s your future. Now it’s your move. Let’s Today, the Movement uses technology write history, together. to reconnect families, send out storm A special edition warnings and sanitation messages during This edition of Red Cross Red Crescent maga- Sincerely, natural disasters or, as pictured in the zine, which commemorates 150 years since Malcolm Lucard IFRC project above, track the spread and the offi cial creation of the ICRC, is dedicated Editor, Red Cross Red Crescent magazine treatment of infectious disease. to these humanitarian innovators: volunteers,

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RCRC_1.13_Eng+.indd 1 12.04.13 15:48

In brief... Poverty rises in Europe Kicking out violence Since the 2008 global economic crisis with football hit, National Societies in Europe have With an unemployment rate of 50 been reaching out to what many are per cent, the township of Khayelitsha calling Europe’s ‘new poor’ — men in Cape Town, South Africa has high and women who have lost jobs, levels of violence and crime, as young homes and life savings. In Milan, the people are easily lured into joining helps roughly 50,000 gangs. That’s why the ICRC has people each month, about a third partnered with Amandla EduFootball, of those who need help. In Athens, a Cape Town organization that homelessness has increased by an uses football to help young people estimated 20 to 25 per cent. “What

avoid violence and crime. With a Photo: Patrick Fuller/IFRC I need is to fi nd a job, make some fusion of football and education, the money, rent an apartment and live organization creates safe spaces for Typhoon Bopha slams When Typhoon Bopha hit the Philippines in December 2012, it left scenes a decent life,” says one 60-year-old learning and equipping young people of massive destruction. More than 6 million people were aff ected and mechanic in Athens. “This all seems with skills, tools and positive attitudes. 216,000 homes damaged or totally destroyed. Months later, 95 per cent of very hard to achieve.” Late last year, “I feel safe at the fi eld,” says 14-year- aff ected families continue to live in makeshift shelters. “We worry that the the Spanish Red Cross also launched old Kwanele. “There are no drugs and fl oods will come again,” says 63-year-old Rodrigo Palaga, who has been a major campaign to assist Spaniards knives here at the fi eld, but outside trying to salvage wood from the debris to make repairs to his house in San after unemployment hit 25 per cent. there are gangsters who say to me, Roque, New Bataan. The distributed household items The IFRC, meanwhile, is working to ‘Come, you must smoke’. But I say, ‘No, and tarpaulins, one of which Palaga used to make a tent at the bottom of expand the humanitarian response you must come and play football’.” across Europe and Central Asia. his land. “We have been given some food supplies and household items but what I really need is plywood and roofi ng sheets. We can’t live like this without walls or doors.”

Reuniting families When conflict, disasters and “The Movement has a grass-roots violence strike, families and network of volunteers already loved ones often find themselves on the ground, in virtually every separated, with little or no corner of the world, who actively information as to each other’s search for missing persons,” says whereabouts. Now a new Olivier Dubois, deputy head of global tool can help: the ICRC’s the ICRC’s Central Tracing Agency Restoring Family Links web site and Protection Division. “No other (www.familylinks.icrc.org) was organization in the world can launched in November 2012. provide such a service.”

Photo: Humanitarian index A camp for Simon 16: Number of states that signed the 9,500: Number of Red Cross Voices The week begins as a young original 1864 Geneva Convention for messages the ICRC and the Sudanese “If it wasn’t for the help of the volunteer camp counsellor from the Amelioration of the Condition of Red Crescent collected and delivered the Polish Red Cross leads Simon, the Wounded in Armies in the Field. to family members in 2012.** Red Cross, I would still be in a young disabled man, from the Today, 166 countries have ratifi ed the 160 million: Number of tons bus to a small cabin in the leafy, the camp living in a tent — Geneva Convention of 1949 and both of supplies delivered to European forested campsite. Each morning, not because I wanted to, but Additional Protocols of 1977. victims of the Second World War the counsellor wakes Simon up, 18: Number of media workers killed between 1941 and 1946 by the Joint because I had no choice. The helps him wash his face, brush in Somalia during 2012, according Relief Commission formed by the Red Cross gave me a choice.” his teeth and get dressed before to the National Union of Somali ICRC and the League of Red Cross heading out for a day of activities, Mother-of-two Rozette Roseau lived in Journalists, based in Mogadishu. Societies, now the IFRC.*** from singing to painting or making a camp for two years after the 2010 Haiti This is three times the number killed costumes. One of several dozen 209 million: Approximate earthquake; she now lives in a rented when this magazine published its children at a camp for disabled number of people aff ected by apartment. cover story, Protecting the witnesses, youth run by the Leszno district natural disasters in 2011, of which in August 2012. “I am now another person, branch, Simon is the focus of a 206 million were aff ected by not the Niloufar of before. short documentary fi lm, 14 days, 31: The average number of small or climate-related disasters.* I can do anything. I am which depicts the everyday needs, medium-sized disasters or health 375 million: Number of people emergencies that Red Cross Red strong, I am powerful.” diffi culties and joys of disabled who, by 2015, are expected to be young people and their parents. Crescent Societies around the world aff ected annually by climate-related 19-year-old Niloufar from Kabul, See: www.redcross.int for a link to respond to each month.* disasters.* is wheelchair-bound since a gunshot wound the video. Sources: *IFRC, **ICRC, ***Beyond confl ict, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent injured her spinal cord (see page 20). Societies 1919-1994.

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RCRC_1.13_Eng+IRL.indd 2 23.04.13 09:58 Contents ISSUE 1 . 2013 . www.redcross.int

■ Special anniversary coverage 4 ■ Second World War 14 150 years of humanitarian action, March to the brink with a focus on Afghanistan The Second World War prompted a massive A century and a half after the creation of the ICRC, humanitarian response and presented some of humanitarianism is alive and well — but it faces humanity’s greatest challenges: mass aerial bombing great hurdles. Our story starts on two tracks: of urban areas; the use of two atomic bombs; and the a historical timeline beginning just before the Holocaust. Movement’s founding; and an exploration of a 4. 150 years of action current-day confl ict that is emblematic of the gains ■ Movement history 16 and challenges faced by humanitarians today. A humanitarian adventure As our timeline covers the 1950s to 1970s, we take “I could not leave these women” 6 you behind the scenes at the newly reopened While our timeline reports on the fi rst National International Museum of the Red Cross and Red Societies and the creation of the Geneva Conventions, Crescent. our feature story focuses on an Afghanistan Red Crescent worker whose commitment exemplifi es what ■ Women, war and livelihoods 20 has driven humanitarians since the beginning. “I can do anything” As our timeline moves into the 1990s, we look at the story The impulse to help 8 of women permanently wounded by war, now getting From the Movement’s earliest days, the impulse to back on their feet with the help of new livelihoods. help others has led ICRC, IFRC and National Society 6. “I couldn’t leave” delegates to head off , often by themselves, to struggle ■ Water 22 in complex and sometimes dangerous situations. “If we have water, we have everything” During confl ict and natural disaster, access to clean “He did not forget” 10 water is critical. The idea was born in Solferino when Movement founder Henry Dunant came across a dying soldier ■ Fundamental Principles 24 who wanted to send a message to his parents. Horror to hope A child refugee during the Biafran war, Nigerian writer ■ Silent disasters 12 Okey Ndibe explores the fundamental principle of Unnoticed killers humanity. We also ask for your thoughts on humanity, Established in the wake of the First World War, 150 years after the Movement was founded. the League of Red Cross Societies (now IFRC) is 8. The impulse to help responding to more and more natural disasters. Today, ■ Movement 28 with disasters ever more frequent, the IFRC says Your future, your move humanitarian and development groups need to help What will humanitarian action be like in 10, communities reduce risk and build resilience. 20 or 50 years?

■ Resources 29

Articles, letters to the editors and other correspondence We gratefully acknowledge the assistance of researchers and should be addressed to: support staff of the ICRC, the IFRC and National Societies. Red Cross Red Crescent The magazine is published three times a year in Arabic, Chinese, P.O. Box 372, CH-1211 Geneva 19, English, French, Russian and Spanish and is available in 188 E-mail: [email protected] ISSN No. 1019-9349 countries, with a circulation of more than 80,000. Editor The opinions expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily Malcolm Lucard of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. 16. A humanitarian adventure Production Offi cer Unsolicited articles are welcomed, but cannot be returned. Paul Lemerise Red Cross Red Crescent reserves the right to edit all articles. Articles and photos not covered by copyright may be reprinted without prior Design permission. Please credit Red Cross Red Crescent. Baseline Arts Ltd, Oxford, UK The maps in this publication are for information purposes only and Layout have no political signifi cance. New Internationalist, Oxford, UK Printed on chlorine-free paper by IRL Plus SA, Lausanne, Switzerland On the cover: Mah Bibi was 10 years old when photographer Nick Editorial board Danziger documented her story in 2001. After losing her parents, she ICRC IFRC was taking care of her two younger brothers in central Afghanistan’s Dorothea Krimitsas Andy Channelle Gohr province. “People tell me there is war but I only think about Sophie Orr Susie Chippendale hunger,” she said. Florian Westphal Pierre Kremer Photo: Nick Danziger. Photos this page, from top: ICRC archives; Nick Danziger; 20. “I can do anything” Nick Danziger; Alain Germond; Nick Danziger.

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RCRC_1.13_Eng+.indd 3 12.04.13 15:48 “We would have died”

In many ways, the Movement’s eff orts in Afghanistan civilians have rights under international law. “I didn’t are emblematic of the gains and challenges faced by know there were laws to protect civilians who are humanitarians today, 150 years after the creation of not part of the hostilities,” she says. the ICRC. We asked photo-journalist Nick Danziger, “At the camp, through MSF, I followed a course on who has reported on confl ict in Afghanistan for three hygiene. I became a hygiene trainer… Now that I am decades, to return and talk to people about what it back home, I do the same thing, it’s my public duty.” means ‘to prevent and alleviate human suff ering’ on the More than 11 years after I fi rst met Qualam at the Khoja Bahauddin refugee camp, the story of her des- battlefi elds and disaster zones of the 21st century. perate fl ight on that night in 2001 has haunted me. Meeting her again, most recently a few months ago, IKE MANY IN THE VILLAGE OF HAZAR BAGH, in reminds us how Dunant’s vision continues to save the far north of Afghanistan, Qualam was a farm and change lives. Llabourer, working in cotton and wheat fi elds, In fact, many of those helped here in Afghanistan when her village came under attack during a Taliban have been empowered with the health, energy and off ensive not long before 11 September 2001. expertise to help others, be they friends, neighbours In the panic that gripped the village, Qualam (pic- or strangers. Tens of thousands of people have had tured right) could not fi nd all of her fi ve children. She their lives changed for the better. They’ve been shel- made the diffi cult decision to save the sons already tered and fed, received news from loved ones via with her rather than search for the others in case Red Cross messages or had their story heard while they should all perish in the bombardment. in detention. They drink clean water or can walk and “We knew the danger, that it could happen at any work more easily due to a prosthetic limb. time as it had happened to neighbouring villages,” But even with all that’s been learned and says Qualam. She walked with her children for two achieved, the challenges are still daunting. What is days and three nights, their stomachs aching from now a diverse humanitarian sector does not have hunger, their bodies shivering from cold before all the answers, resources or access it needs to al- fi nding shelter at a camp for the displaced in Khoja leviate the underlying poverty and violence. Health Bahauddin. and aid workers face threats to their safety and se- It was at this camp that Qualam fi rst heard of curity, humanitarian work is sometimes confused the Afghanistan Red Crescent, the ICRC and other with political aims and, despite the Movement’s humanitarian organizations such as Médécins sans global scope, many combatants and civilians have Frontières (MSF), which provided blankets, soap, little notion of the ICRC, humanitarian law or the red tarpaulins, sugar and food. “Without ICRC’s inter- cross and red crescent emblems. We have come a vention, we would have died of hunger,” she recalls. long way in 150 years, especially in recent decades. It was also Qualam’s fi rst encounter with organ- But sadly, our story is in many ways similar to what ized humanitarian groups and the notion that Dunant witnessed on the battlefi eld at Solferino. ■ • 150 years of humanitarian action • 150 years of huma 1850s: The conditions are ripe minds advocate for new systems, conditions in war hospitals are for organized international including volunteer networks atrocious, the volunteer nurses humanitarian action. The for treating the war wounded. are not at fi rst welcomed by movement against slavery Press reports about wartime military medical staff . Injured intensifi es while awareness conditions for wounded soldiers soldiers suff er in overcrowded, about the plight of prisoners shock the public and shame some dirty rooms without blankets. and psychiatric patients grows. governments into action. Many die from typhus, cholera Military forces are creating better and dysentery. systems for medical treatment J November 1854: Florence during confl ict although they Nightingale arrives in 24 June 1859: The armies of often prove woefully inadequate with 38 nurses from England France and Sardinia clash with despite advances in medical to care for soldiers wounded in Austrian forces near the north

knowledge. Leading medical Photo: ICRC archives the Crimean war. Even though Italian village of Solferino. Swiss

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RCRC_1.13_Eng+.indd 4 12.04.13 15:48 Photo: Nick Danziger manitarian action • 150 years of humanitarian action • businessman Henry Dunant key ally of ICRC founders Henry 17 February 1863: Creation witnesses the bloody aftermath, Dunant and Gustave Moynier of the International Committee helps organize aid to wounded and went on to found the for the Relief of Wounded in soldiers and returns to Geneva . the Event of War, precursor to deeply moved and committed the ICRC and the Red Cross Red to improving the lot of people I 1862: Using his own money, Crescent Movement. injured in battle. Dunant publishes 1,600 copies of A Memory of Solferino and November 1863: The fi rst Red J 1861: Clara Barton becomes begins an intensive lobbying Cross National Society is founded in one of the fi rst volunteers at campaign to gain support for Stuttgart, then part of the Kingdom the Washington Infi rmary at his idea of an international of Württemberg. The Württemberg the outbreak of the US Civil volunteer corps to assist Red Cross would become part of

Photo: ICRC archives War. She would later become a wounded soldiers in war. Photo: ICRC archives the in 1921.

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RCRC_1.13_Eng+.indd 5 12.04.13 15:49 1864 “Almost asphyxiated by the cold” “I couldn’t These are the words of Charles Van de Velde, describing the conditions as he journeyed north to Denmark as part of the HAD NOTHING,” says Shahnaz of the day Committee’s fi rst-ever delegation to an international confl ict. The not long after her husband disappeared that mission would infl uence the future of humanitarian “Ishe fi rst went to live at the marastoon (‘place action and the budding eff orts to create an of assistance’ in Pashto), an asylum for destitute, wid- international convention. It also marked the fi rst use of the red cross owed and mentally challenged women provided by emblem. Van de Velde and Louis Appia set out in the winter of 1864 the Afghanistan Red Crescent. “I couldn’t turn to my to observe, meet with and help organize assistance on each side family, they didn’t have anything to spare, they were of a confl ict between Danish and Austro-Prussian forces. Freezing living off the land in Nejrab. Like my husband, one of temperatures were not the only hardship. Danish authorities, my two brothers disappeared at the same time. With press and military offi cials were openly critical and sceptical of this nowhere to go and unable to support myself, I moved ‘neutral’ mission in which the Danes were attacked by a far superior to the marastoon, where I lived for fi ve years.” fi ghting force. This new ‘committee’ should be condemning the Today, Shahnaz (pictured right), at 54, is one of aggression against the Danes, press reports said, two women at the Kabul marastoon in charge of not sending off ers of help to both sides. Later, helping those with mental health problems. There Van de Velde asked to go under the fl ag of truce is no task too diffi cult or too degrading for Shahnaz. to the Prussian hospitals to collect the names She cares for these women and children who have of Danish prisoners and wounded, and share news with been abandoned or whose parents are imprisoned anguished Danish families. The mission was turned as if they were her own, cleaning, consoling, cajoling down as ‘communication with the them through their moods, which in the blink of an enemy.enemy’. “SurelySurely this illustrates,”illustrates, he eye can turn as quickly to violence as to docility. wwrote,rote, “t“thehe neeneedd to ensure tthathat thethe The workers in Afghanistan’s marastoons (fi rst set resoresolutionlution concerning tthehe neutralityneutrality up by the government in the 1930s, and then given ooff volunteer aides is puputt into eeffff ect.ect.”” over to the Afghanistan Red Crescent to run in 1964) are an example of how time-honoured, local sys- tems of protection and assistance have been built up and supported by Movement eff orts and invest- ment. Other National Societies have supported the marastoons and, in 1994, the ICRC intervened to res- cue people at the Kabul marastoon, when it was the front line in the country’s civil war. In 2001, while I was working on a story for this magazine, Shahnaz talked about those days, when her daily commute had become a matter of life and

Photos: ICRC archives death. “I was terrifi ed of the bombing. But I couldn’t • 150 years of humanitarian action • 150 years of huma I 1864: The Committee’s August 1864: First Geneva “Finally, all Europe had united K 1864: By the end of 1864, fi rst delegation helps shape Convention signed by 16 to study the means of putting there are already 11 National the course for the Geneva states. Offi cially named the a curb on the brutalities of war, Societies for the care of war Conventions and the future of Convention for the Amelioration and to create instead a striving wounded in Europe. neutral humanitarian fi eld work. of the Condition of the Wounded among the nations, the peoples, in Armies in the Field, the the races, to vie with each other document’s ten articles laid in dedication to humanity.” the foundation for neutral From the memoires of See an interactive timeline humanitarian action and called Henry Dunant of ICRC history at: on warring parties to respect www.icrc.org/eng/ medical personnel in the fi eld. who-we-are/history Photo: ICRC archives Photo: ICRC archives

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RCRC_1.13_Eng+.indd 6 12.04.13 15:49 ’t leave these women” Photo: Nick Danziger

leave these women on their own. There would have and hand when I raise it.’’ Shahnaz even brought or- been no one else to look after them.” phans and women to her own house when, at one Speaking a few months ago, during my most re- point, the marastoon became unsafe. cent visit, the memories are still fresh. “I would leave Shahnaz’s story is an example of the transformative my home and cross the city and the front line and nature of humanitarian action. Today, she sees herself barricades that were not far from the marastoon. as one of the fortunate ones, able to work and make a I knew it was dangerous and I was scared. When I diff erence in the lives of others during a time of rela- couldn’t leave my children at home, I brought them tive peace. “I am a lucky mother, my children are all with me to work. One day Basir, my oldest son, and happily married, the orphaned children I looked after one of my daughters, 7 at the time, were injured. I have been adopted… I have a good life that makes was also hit by shrapnel. I still feel pain in my arm me think I am a very successful woman.” ■ manitarian action • 150 years of humanitarian action •

J 1866: The Geneva I Fast forward Convention is fi rst applied in In 2012, the Republic of South the war between Prussia and Sudan, the world’s newest country Austria. with one of the Movement’s newest National Societies, ratifi ed History in the making the 1949 Geneva Conventions Starting 8 May, the IFRC will and their Additional Protocols. launch an interactive, online Today, 166 countries have signed historical timeline showing the Conventions and both 1977 the creation and evolution Protocols, which trace directly of National Societies. Go to: back to the Convention created by www.ifrg.org/8May the founders of the Red Cross Red

Photo: ICRC archives Crescent Movement. Photo: Conor Ashleigh/IFRC

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RCRC_1.13_Eng+.indd 7 12.04.13 15:49 1870 Photo: ICRC archives

“To set off alone, or almost alone, without any technical knowledge and not knowing the , or at least speaking it very badly, to lay myself, fresh from the family hearth, open to all the hazards of camp life and to do it of my own free will was madness.” 22-year-old medical student Frédéric Ferrière, writing about his mission to the Franco-Prussian war in 1870. There, working in horrendous circumstances, he is treated with suspicion, taken prisoner and accused of being a spy. He also narrowly escapes execution. Many years later, he becomes vice president of the ICRC. Photo: Nick Danziger

• 150 years of humanitarian action • 150yearsofhuma 1870: Britain’s National Society July 1870: The Basel Agency assistance should war break out; 1875: The International for Aid to the Sick and Wounded is set up to provide fi rst-ever solidarity, whereby the Societies Committee sends its fi rst in War sends aid to both sides tracing services and other aid for undertake to establish mutual operational mission. The mission in the Franco-Prussian war, just sick and wounded soldiers. ties and to help each other; to Montenegro marked the one example of eff orts by early centralization, which implies fi rst time that the ICRC assisted National Societies to begin relief I 1875: Gustave Moynier that there is only one Society displaced populations and also work abroad. During the siege speaks of four basic working in each country, but whose helped establish a National Society. of Paris by the Prussians, Henry ‘principles’ which the activities extend throughout Dunant works with volunteers Movement’s Societies must the entire national territory; 1876: During its conflict with under fi re to distribute food observe: “Foresight, which and mutuality, in the sense that Russia, the Ottoman Empire and clothing. Meanwhile, the means that preparations care is given to all the wounded relief society adopts the red Prussians use hospital trains for should be made in advance, and the sick irrespective of their crescent as emblem for first-

the fi rst time. in peacetime, to provide nationality.” Photo: ICRC archives aid workers, sets up field

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RCRC_1.13_Eng+IRL.indd 8 18.04.13 18:28 The impulse to help

INCE THE MOVEMENT’S EARLIEST DAYS, the “We should be optimistic” impulse to help others has led ICRC, IFRC and Sayed Sarajuddin Sadat is an Afghan local staff mem- SNational Society delegates to head off , often ber at the Kunduz offi ce, where he runs economic by themselves, to struggle in complex and some- security programmes. He began working with the times dangerous situations. ICRC in the 1990s and has extensive experience with Today, humanitarians have an advantage over a variety of agencies. “National staff have the skills to their pioneering colleagues of earlier eras: the work in this environment, but even with increased red cross and red crescent emblems are now responsibilities we need expatriates for credibility,” widely known and respected, the rules of war at he says. least nominally protect humanitarian action, del- The proliferation of armed groups means work- egates receive formalized professional training ing more “indirectly”, he says, with local partners before heading to the fi eld and humanitarianism such as the Afghanistan Red Crescent or commu- has evolved into a profession. At the same time, “The ICRC continues nity groups in water and sanitation projects, for local staff with impressive humanitarian creden- example. tials off er a mix of local knowledge and technical to solidify its Despite the changes in humanitarian access expertise that greatly improves the eff ectiveness, reputation even over the years, Sarajuddin says the ICRC’s com- safety and reach of operations. mitment to enduring principles means it has Still, like early delegates such as Van de Velde, if we have limited maintained its effectiveness and credibility. Appia and Ferrière, today’s aid workers still deal with access. We should be “There have been many changes [in Afghanistan] many unknowns, dangers and new frontiers. The over the years, especially political, but ICRC poli- ICRC’s head of offi ce in Kunduz, northern Afghani- optimistic.” cies haven’t changed. Its neutrality, independence stan, Nicolas Lambert (pictured left), had a long Sayed Sarajuddin Sadat, and impartiality are accepted by the majority, history of working in confl ict zones prior to joining ICRC staff member in Kunduz, even the Taliban. I would say the ICRC continues the ICRC. But that doesn’t make the job any more Afghanistan to solidify its reputation even if we have limited predictable. access. We should be optimistic.” “The intensity, duration and organization of [ac- For Lambert, the long days of work far from tions by] armed groups fl uctuates and it’s not easy home are well worth it. “The work is rewarding, I to keep up with the shifting alliances,” says Lambert. always wanted to travel, discover new countries, “The needs are there but potential operations are but then I wanted to give something back to the hampered by the security situation. Even if we have communities I visited, so it’s become my chosen good contacts with an armed opposition group and career, my passion. Even though I am far from my receive the green light [to go ahead with an opera- family and my girlfriend, here we can really have tion], there are so many groups, one commander an impact.” ■

cannot often speak for the others.” Photo: Nick Danziger manitarian action • 150 years of humanitarian action • hospitals and converts ferries 1901: The fi rst Nobel Peace I Fast forward to hospital ships. Prize was awarded to Henry Today, there are Dunant and Frédéric Passy, more than 13 million 1880s: National Societies begin honouring two diff erent aspects volunteers worldwide to expand peacetime actions of the struggle against war: and many National in response to disasters: the the endeavour to limit the Societies themselves are Japanese Red Cross Society to suff ering of war victims through important international the slopes of Mount Bandai humanitarian action; and the humanitarian actors. after its eruption in 1888; the fi ght against war itself, or American Red Cross to forest pacifi sm. fi res, cyclones and fl oods; the to fl oods in

Paris and cholera in Marseilles. Photo: Ibrahim Malla/

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RCRC_1.13_Eng+IRL.indd 9 18.04.13 18:28 “He did not forget” HE IDEA WAS THERE AT THE INCEPTION, at the Just over a decade later, the idea was institutional- battle of Solferino, when Movement founder ized when ICRC created the Basel Agency to provide THenry Dunant came across a dying soldier who tracing services and other aid for sick and wounded wanted to send a message to his parents. “A young soldiers. At the outbreak of the First World War, corporal named Claudius Mazuet, some 20 years old, the ICRC created the International Prisoner of War with gentle expressive features, had a bullet in his left Agency in Geneva to help restore contact between side,” Dunant wrote in A Memory of Solferino. people separated by war. A year later in 1915, the Dunant promised to contact his parents and after ICRC conducted its fi rst-ever visit by a delegate to a returning to Geneva, “he did not forget the young prisoner of war camp. man who died in his arms,” wrote Caroline Moore- Almost 100 years later, mobile phone and inter- head in her book, Dunant’s Dream. “[He] traced net technology have revolutionized family tracing. his parents to Lyon, to number 3 Rue d’Alger, and Today, delegates and volunteers help people search told them what had happened to their only son.” for loved ones using mobile phones, satellite links Photo: Nick Danziger

• 150 years of humanitarian action • 150 years of huma 1906: The San Francisco fi rst aid. The Empress of , soldiers, and an equal number of earthquake proves the value an early patron of the Japan civilians, are killed. of American Red Cross trained Red Cross, creates the Empress personnel during peacetime. The Shôken Fund to support National August 1914: The ICRC Japanese Red Cross sends US$ Societies around the world. creates the International 152,000 to help quake victims. Prisoner of War Agency in 1914: First World War begins. Geneva’s Musée Rath. More Movement grows The so-called ‘War to End All than 1,200 volunteers work National Societies continue Wars’ engulfs Europe and parts of to restore contact between to expand disaster response Africa. The Movement responds people separated by war, activities during peacetime. By to the fi rst global confl ict with including prisoners of war, 1913, the had humanitarian action on many civilian internees and civilians

trained some 57,000 people in new fronts. Roughly 10 million in occupied territories. Photo: ICRC archives

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RCRC_1.13_Eng+.indd 10 12.04.13 15:53 and the internet while a new ICRC Restoring Family Links website (www.familylinks.icrc.org) now helps people initiate their own searches. Still, most Red Cross messages are written on paper and hand delivered, carried into neighbourhoods on foot or bicycle by ICRC delegates or Red Cross Red Cres- cent volunteers. A volunteer for the Afghanistan Red Crescent, Saddiqa (left, photo page 10) reads messages with Mohammed Ali Hakim, the ICRC tracing offi cer, to make sure they contain nothing that would compromise the ICRC’s neutrality, independence and impartiality. Most of the letters are in Pashto, others are in Dari, Urdu or even English. “Some have fi ne drawings, they’re quite remarkable because they have been drawn with a biro [ballpoint pen],” notes Saddiqa. Messages like Photo: Nick Danziger these are then delivered by volunteers or staff such as Abdul Razaq, who has worked for many years on ‘At all times humanely treated’ the front line of Afghanistan’s confl icts including the War is hell. But as the above phrase from the 1929 Geneva Convention on the Treatment of Prisoners civil war in Kabul in the 1990s. “Rockets were falling of War implies, humanity can be maintained in the way those who are detained are treated by their everywhere, it was very dangerous. Every day I was captors. In this practice exercise by Afghan authorities recently, the ICRC was invited to observe and picking the dead and injured fi ghters and civilians off make comments relative to international humanitarian law. It is part of the comprehensive eff orts the streets.” the ICRC has been making during this confl ict, as in many others, to dialogue with all parties to the Today, Abdul says delivering Red Cross messages confl ict on issues of proper treatment of detainees, protection of civilian populations, use of weapons is one of his favourite duties. “It’s often overwhelm- that could cause indiscriminate death to civilians and many other issues. ing, people are so happy to receive news from a loved one. Sometimes they have gone missing, what the prison was built to hold, so half of them live they do not know what has happened to a son or a in makeshift tents in the main courtyard. In addition brother… and then you bring a message.” to meeting with detainees and delivering messages, Nothing replaces face-to-face contact, however. the ICRC has helped improve the prison’s health In Afghanistan, for example, the ICRC organizes bus clinic, upgraded latrines, installed a water tower and trips to Bagram Air Force Base for relatives of people begun a shelter that will cover part of the courtyard detained there and sets up video links to other US and protect detainees from strong sunlight and rain. military facilities such as the US Naval Base in Guan- Abdulrab Motmaen, the prison director, says the tanamo Bay, Cuba. ICRC’s help has transformed the quality of life in a way The ICRC’s work on behalf of people deprived of that the government cannot. Detainee Mohammed liberty has also evolved dramatically. In places such Hakim agrees, “Clean drinking water and the clinic as Takhar prison, a tough, basic facility in Afghani- have made an enormous diff erence to our lives.” ■ stan’s Taloqan province, the ICRC helps prison offi cials make basic conditions of detention more humane. Nick Danziger The population of 527 detainees is nearly four times Nick Danziger is a freelance journalist and photographer based in . manitarian action • 150 years of humanitarian action •

J January 1915: First-ever care for the wounded in 84 hospital its work during the First World countries created opportunities Fast forward visit by an ICRC delegate to trains and more than 3,000 hospitals. War. and roles for women in Red In 2011, roughly 46 per cent prisoners of war in Gardelegen Some 63,000 French personnel Cross relief work, such as this of newly recruited ICRC camp, . More than 10 served in hospitals, motorized February 1918: The ICRC appeals ambulance driver evacuating delegates were women. million prisoners of war are held surgical units and kitchens. When the to all warring countries to renounce the wounded from the front during the war. US entered the war in 1917, Red Cross the use of chemical weapons. lines. membership jumped from 300,000 1915: Poison gas used in trenches. to 20 million and the National Society April 1919: First ICRC visit to 1919: Marguerite Cramer recruited 20,000 nurses to serve with civilian detainees in Hungary. becomes the Committee’s Wartime mobilization American forces. fi rst woman member. Pauline National Societies expand I New roles for women Chaponnière-Chaix, Suzanne dramatically. In Germany, 250,000 1917: The ICRC receives the fi rst during war The conscription Ferrière and Zénaide Dessonnaz

men and women enrolled to provide of three Nobel Peace Prizes for of young men in many are the fi rst female delegates. Photo: ICRC archives

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RCRC_1.13_Eng+.indd 11 12.04.13 15:53 in the long run — building irrigation systems, pro- moting more resistant crops, helping pastoralists manage their livestock,” write two European Union Silent (EU) commissioners, Kristalina Georgieva and Andris Piebalgs (representing EU humanitarian assistance and development agencies respectively), in a joint editorial written for the Red Cross Red Crescent maga- zine web site: www.redcross.int Today, with funding from the European Com- killers mission’s Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection department (ECHO), the IFRC and 11 EU National HE IDEA OF ‘SILENT’ OR ‘FORGOTTEN’ DIS- Societies are carrying out 55 disaster preparedness ASTERS is not entirely new. Such terms were projects in partnership with host National Societies used as early as the 1930s when an increas- in 36 countries. They also jointly launched a public Hurricane Sandy T in the Caribbean ingly globalized League of Red Cross Societies (now awareness campaign about silent disasters, along 6.76% IFRC) began coping with more and more natural dis- with ten National Societies, in February (www.ifrc. asters around the globe. org/silentdisasters). Today, global awareness about major disasters is It’s a natural progression. In the 1970s and 1980s, almost instantaneous. In some cases, the people af- many donor nations and humanitarians began feel- fected use Skype, YouTube, Facebook or Twitter to ing frustrated by the cyclical repetition of disasters report as events unfold. in vulnerable areas. Many realized that natural disas- But because the majority of the earth’s popula- ters have as much to do with human development tion does not have smart phones and good internet patterns as weather patterns. “Some critics of relief connections, the so-called ‘CNN eff ect’ still applies: operations claim that their main goal is to return vic- Dengue outbreak in El Salvador events receiving sustained coverage with powerful tims to the status quo,” concluded one 1984 article 0.05% images get attention; the others fall off the radar to entitled Natural Disasters, Acts of god, or acts of man? become silent disasters. “Yet it is the status quo that makes them disaster- But ‘silent disaster’ is a strange term. Winds tear- prone and vulnerable.” ing the sheeting off a roof or water washing away an Some fear the humanitarian mandate could be entire house are anything but quiet to those aff ected. diluted or compromised if emergency relief organi- The silence is about what is heard — or not heard — zations take on too much or are aligned too closely in donor countries, especially in hard economic times. with government or development agendas. Others Given that reality, some donors and humanitar- argue that disaster preparedness must be a key part ian organizations consider that the way forward in of local, community development in a world where addressing these disasters is to invest in making vul- not all disasters are treated equally. nerable people less so when the next storm, quake Sometimes that unequal treatment plays out or drought hits. within one disaster. Take the case of Hurricane Sandy, “This is a substantial shift in mentality and practice, (see graphic) which slammed into the east coast of from distributing aid to drought-aff ected people in the in November, causing widespread order to survive until the next drought, to investing destruction and the death of 131 people. Coming • 150 years of humanitarian action • 150 years of huma November 1918: Armistice the American Red Cross, Henry Paris and sign the Articles of February 1921: The American Global Road Safety Partnership, is declared in the wake of war. Davison, leads an ambitious Association for a League of Red Red Cross reports that are key players in the United Many parts of Europe are plagued drive to unite post-war National Cross Societies, which would later approximately 20,000 children Nations Decade of Action for with hunger and diseases such Societies in allied countries. ICRC become the IFRC. The eff ort to die every year in road accidents Road Safety, 2011–2020. as typhus and infl uenza. As President Gustave Ador objects create the League leads to the in the United States. powers meet in Versailles for that principles of universality and inclusion of the National Red Cross 1921: The Leipzig War Crimes treaties of peace and armies are neutrality require that National Societies in the Covenant of the Fast forward Trials are held before Germany’s decommissioned, many ask what Societies in defeated countries League of Nations, which comes In 1999, the IFRC’s World Supreme Court to prosecute should be done with the relief must be included in the League. into force in January 1920. In just Disasters Report ranks road crimes committed during the organizations. Should they be a few years, the League of Red crashes as a major humanitarian First World War. The trials’ decommissioned or built up to May 1919: Leaders from National Cross Societies would include crisis, claiming 1.2 million lives scope was limited but they set meet post-war suff ering? The Societies from the Allied Powers National Societies from the per year. Eleven years later, the the stage for later international

chairman of the War Council of meet at the Regina Hotel in countries defeated in the war. IFRC and its hosted project, the war crimes tribunals. Photo: ICRC archives

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RCRC_1.13_Eng+IRL.indd 12 18.04.13 18:44 Hurricane Sandy in the USA received nine times the media coverage of 12 silent disasters combined

Percentage of total media coverage of 13 disasters around the world in late 2012 and early 2013. Source: A study commissioned by the IFRC and ECHO and conducted by Montreal-based Infl uence Communications as part of the Silent Disasters campaign.

Mongolia extreme cold 0.24%

Tajikistan earthquake Bangladesh tropical storm 0.09% 0.49% Hurricane Sandy in the US The Sahel Cambodia fl oods and 89.40% food insecurity food insecurity 1.29% 0.34%

Viet Nam hand, foot and mouth disease Uganda epidemics 0.07% 0.73% Ecuador fl oods 0.10%

Burundi returnees Fast forward ak from Tanzania In 1992, the Centre for or 0.12% % Research on the Epidemiology Southern Africa of Disasters (CRED) registers a food insecurity 0.31% total of 221 natural disasters. These disasters claim an at the tail off a presidential election in which climate 1,000 people and damaged or destroyed more than estimated 14,811 lives, aff ect change suddenly became an important issue, media 216,000 homes on the island of Mindanao in the 78 million people and cause attention was intense. Coverage of the hurricane’s im- Philippines. The IFRC, the Philippine Red Cross and economic losses totalling pact in the Bahamas, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, the ICRC provided relief to thousands. But the IFRC’s nearly US$ 70 billion. In 2011, Haiti and Jamaica was minimal, though the storm was US$ 17 million appeal for Bopha was still just 30 per CRED registers a total of 336 just as devastating (an estimated 137 people killed or cent funded in February, meaning it could provide natural disasters. These missing; massive damage to crops and homes). “We shelter repair materials to only 5,000 of the 15,000 disasters claim an estimated know our early warning systems are very good and families targeted. “This was a category 5 storm, the 31,105 lives, aff ect 209 they allow us to be well prepared, but we are simply largest on the scale,” says Necephor Mghendi, IFRC million people and cause not used to this loss of life,” said Luis Foyo Ceballos, head of operations in the Philippines. “If this disas- record-breaking economic secretary general of the Cuban Red Cross. ter does not warrant donor attention, the future for losses totalling nearly Similarly, ‘Super’ Typhoon Bopha killed more than survivors looks bleak.” ■ US$ 366 billion. manitarian action • 150 years of humanitarian action • August 1922: China is hit by a in many countries and typhoon and some 60,000 worldwide economic hardship people die. for many years. The United States withdraws all overseas J September 1923: The aid, crippling many Red Cross Japanese cities of Tokyo and overseas relief eff orts. Yokohama are devastated by the Great Kanto earthquake which I 1931: The Huang He River claims 99,000–143,000 lives. (also known as the Huang Ho or Yellow River) in China fl oods October 1929: The US stock some 104,000 square km market crashes, causing (40,000 square miles) and more

fi nancial collapse in institutions than a million people are killed. Photo: ICRC archives

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RCRC_1.13_Eng+IRL.indd 13 18.04.13 18:45 ROM THE OUTSET of the Second World War, the Movement began a mobilization to Fmatch the scale of the confl ict. The fi rst major initiative came on behalf of hundreds of thousands March to of refugees who fl ed the German invasion of Po- land and the Russian invasion of Finland in 1939. As more countries fell to the Axis powers, the chal- lenge became how to get aid to populations under occupation. With their Geneva secretariats in neutral Switzer- the brink land, the ICRC and the League (now IFRC) negotiated complex deals to get scarce supplies from Switzer- I The Second World War losing the chance to save any lives at all. The Ger- land or various seaports to people in desperate need. provoked the largest Red Cross man Red Cross, meanwhile, had fallen completely In 1940, the ICRC and League formed a Joint Relief Red Crescent mobilization up under Nazi control. It was one of the greatest tests to that time. Switzerland’s Commission, which delivered more than 160 million of the Movement’s application of neutrality during neutrality was critical in allowing tons of supplies between 1941 and 1946. Building massive shipments of aid, confl ict and, by most accounts, it was its greatest on its tracing work in the First World War, the ICRC such as the supplies stockpiled failure. In response, the German Red Cross has created the Central Prisoner of War Agency, which at a warehouse in Geneva, launched extensive public research of its wartime delivered some 36 million parcels and exchanged throughout the confl ict. However, history and the ICRC would also open its war-era the country’s neutrality was roughly 130 million letters between prisoners of war records to independent historians. In 1997, it for- one reason the ICRC did not and their families. adequately condemn German mally apologized. One of the ICRC’s most eminent Despite the heroic scale and the personal brav- atrocities in concentration camps historians, François Bugnion, concluded that the ery of thousands of Movement workers, it was also such as Auschwitz, pictured record refl ects the organization’s “failure to assert a dark time for humanitarianism. Nazi authorities below in 1947. its right of humanitarian action on behalf of civil- denied, limited or allowed extremely controlled ac- ians in the occupied areas or those deported to the cess to prisoner of war camps, Jewish ghettos and death camps”. concentration camps. The ICRC debated whether “Its failure as an institution to fi rmly oppose Nazi or not to issue a public denunciation based on what persecution was only slightly mitigated by the he- delegates were learning at the camps. But given roic actions of some of its delegates who helped

Photo: Karen Margrethe Sommer/ICRC the attitude of German authorities, they risked

• 150 years of humanitarian action • 150yearsofhuma 1936 The Spanish Civil War: of bombing in cities during the by Nazi Germany; the abuse Disaster relief continues: The ICRC opens offi ces in both Second World War. of prisoners in prisoner of Even though much of Europe nationalist and republican war camps in Europe and and the Pacifi c was in the grip strongholds. During much of I 1939 Second World War: the Pacifi c; mass aerial of war, large-scale relief eff orts the confl ict, the distinction This truly global confl ict takes bombardment; and, fi nally, the continue for victims of natural between combatants and humanitarian assistance to an fi rst use of nuclear weapons. In disaster, including earthquakes non-combatants is ignored entirely new level, bringing total, by 1945, some 50 million in Chile and Turkey. and civilians bear the brunt of the number of people helped people are estimated to have reprisals and bombardments. into millions. The confl ict also died due to the war. 1943: Switzerland maintains The air raid on Guernica marks produces the greatest threats a precarious neutrality, with the beginning of a new era to humanitarian principles and German troops stationed in of aerial bombardment that the greatest losses of civilian the French mountains close to

presages the indiscriminate use life: the genocide perpetrated Photo: ICRC archives Geneva.

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RCRC_1.13_Eng+IRL.indd 14 18.04.13 18:28 Photo: ICRC archives those facing extermination,” he wrote, adding that ICRC historical documents of the time refl ect “an im- A report from hell pression of helplessness”. “Even the members of the “In spite of the working outside, the people all have a pallid, Committee who declared themselves most clearly in ashen complexion… Each internee in KZ [a unit within the favour of an appeal recognized that it would change camp], man or woman, is wearing canvas with big, faded nothing, that the ICRC would be unable to stop the blue-grey stripes. The number is marked on the right arm. All march to the brink.” the shaven heads give the impression from a distance of an From the ruins of this fi rst truly global confl ict astonishing similarity. Seen up close, bare-headed or with a came a ray of hope: the creation of the Fourth Ge- beret tipped toward the front, they have remarkable intelligence. neva Convention in 1949, which the ICRC helped to Without moving their heads, their eyes regard us with curiosity.” write and which, for the fi rst time, protected civil- — From the mission report of an ICRC delegate who visited camps ians during confl ict. The ICRC has made numerous and ghettos during the Second World War. In one chilling report, he appeals during confl icts for the protection of civil- describes hearing of shower rooms being used to gas internees. But ians based on both the 1949 Conventions and the this fact could not be proven, he reported. two new protocols added in 1977. Today, the Move- ment plays a leading role in global eff orts for a treaty banning the use of nuclear weapons based on the Conventions’ call to protect civilian populations. The German Red Cross was re-established as an inde- pendent entity after the Second World War and this year also celebrates its 150th anniversary. ■ manitarian action • 150 years of humanitarian action • I August 1945: Atomic November 1945: The trials of 1949: The experience of the bombs drop on Hiroshima and leading Nazi fi gures begin in Second World War brings Nagasaki. Japan Red Cross Nuremberg. They are followed about the Geneva Conventions doctors and nurses respond; fi rst by similar tribunals in Europe of 1949, of which the fourth ICRC delegate in Hiroshima, Fritz and East Asia that set the stage convention stipulates, Bilfi nger, reports, “Conditions for the International Criminal for the fi rst time, specifi c appalling...city wiped out.” Court and the ad hoc war crimes protections for civilians during Marcel Junod, a medical doctor tribunals in the 1990s. international confl ict. and ICRC delegate already on a relief mission, is one of the fi rst 1946: The board of governors foreigners to travel to Hiroshima of the League of Red Cross after the atom bomb was Societies (now IFRC) confi rms

dropped. Photo: ICRC archives four Fundamental Principles.

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RCRC_1.13_Eng+IRL.indd 15 18.04.13 18:28 A humanitarian adventure

T’S A STARTLING SIGHT. A massive foot seems to but static. Visitors will have a chance to engage descend from a darkened sky, stepping over im- with many exhibits: in one case, they can play an Iages of people aff ected by disaster and confl ict interactive game that simulates the complexities that are projected on the fl oor below. Around the of a natural disaster response. Faced with various room, small plaques display humanity’s attempts scenarios, players make choices, take action and through time to rein in oppression, help the des- see the potential results. titute or enforce honourable conduct during war: A walk through the museum will also bring visi- from Babylon’s Code of Hammurabi (circa 1750 BC) tors face to face — quite literally — with people to the 1949 Geneva Conventions and their Addi- aff ected by confl ict and natural disaster. In the Hall tional Protocols of 1977. of Witnesses, life-sized projections of real people This bold, monumental image is one of many touched by confl ict, natural disaster or humanitar- evocative scenes featured in the newly reopened ian intervention tell their stories. International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum, One of them is a former child soldier from where the many, often confl icting sides of human Sudan, Emmanuel Jal, who speaks of how at fi rst he nature are on display. wanted to avenge the violence perpetrated against The giant foot, for example, could symbolize his family. Then a humanitarian worker sent him many things: the power of oppression or of the en- to school and he regained some of his forgotten during strength of humanity. “A huge foot could humanity, he tells visitors. “I started rapping and be one that crushes others, or one that runs, fragile starting taking songs very seriously. Finally, the sky and barefoot, for survival,” says Gringo Cardia, one seemed less dark and I could rediscover a little of of three architects chosen to create the museum’s my childhood.” three new spaces. Along the way, visitors will also meet a war crimes Under the banner, ‘The humanitarian ad- prosecutor, a landmine victim who runs ICRC’s or- venture’, the new exhibits are an initiation into thopaedic centre in Kabul, an economic migrant contemporary humanitarian action intended to struggling to feed her family, a journalist detained instil a sense of hope and human resilience and a for six years at the US Naval Station at Guantanamo feeling that even small actions can make a differ- Bay, Cuba and a young woman orphaned by the ence. Indeed, the museum experience is anything genocide in Rwanda, among others. • 150 years of humanitarian action • 150 years of huma

April 1950: The ICRC issues J 1950-1953 The Korean 100,000 people who fl ed to a statement urging countries war: The fi rst major confl ict of neighbouring countries. to prohibit the use of nuclear the cold war also heralds an era energy for purposes of warfare: of nuclear standoff between I 1955: Jean Pictet, a key “The protection of the human superpowers. author and architect for person against mass destruction ICRC’s work on the 1949 is intimately bound up with the 1954 The war of Algeria: Geneva Conventions, defi nes principle which gave rise to the During this war of and analyses the values and Red Cross: the individual who decolonialization, the ICRC principles that defi ne the Red takes no part in fi ghting, or who makes contact with national Cross Red Crescent Movement. is put ‘hors de combat’, must be liberation movements His commentary still shapes respected and protected.” while the IFRC launches two how the Fundamental Principles

Photo: ICRC archives appeals, in 1956 and 1957, for are applied today.

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RCRC_1.13_Eng+IRL.indd 16 26.04.13 12:57 Photo: Alain Germond manitarian action • 150 years of humanitarian action • Fast forward 1955 The Viet Nam war: 1956: The Soviet Union era leads to the creation of A light moment from a key drafter What begins as a colonial war crushes an uprising in many new National Societies, of the 1949 Geneva Conventions: for independence from France Hungary. The League (now with the League (now IFRC) “I was once accused of drawing up later becomes a proxy war IFRC) responds as Hungarian expanding to 100 members. conventions that were too long. between the Soviet Union and refugees flee into Austria and So I said, all right, I’ll do it in two the United States that escalates Yugoslavia. Within a year it articles. Article one: in case of war, in the 1960s and ends with is managing 50,000 refugees all men will behave like angels. US withdrawal and a peace in 44 camps. Meanwhile, Article two: this convention only treaty in 1973. The Viet Nam National Societies in the Test your knowledge has one article.” war would become the longest Middle East respond to the Take the Red Cross Red Jean Pictet, lead author of the Geneva lasting and deadliest cold war- Arab–Israeli war while a Crescent Movement history Conventions for the ICRC, quoted in The era confl ict. period of decolonization in quiz at: www.redcross.int

Photo: ICRC archives Guardian newspaper in 1999. the post Second World War

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RCRC_1.13_Eng+.indd 17 12.04.13 15:54 J Some of the museum’s new exhibits put visitors in the middle of humanitarian action. Here, museum visitors can play a game in which they make decisions in response to a complex natural disaster. Photo: Alain Germond

Exhibition of humanity Pierre Zoelly. Narrow, vertical blades of wood line up The radical rethinking of the museum began in along the curving walls to create a ribbon of ‘living 2006. Museum director Roger Mayou and his staff matter’ which threads through corridors and rooms brought people throughout the Red Cross Red Cres- that contain few right angles or straight lines. cent Movement together with leading thinkers in Each thematic area, meanwhile, has a unique feel. the museum fi eld to explore ideas and identify key Japanese architect Shigeru Ban, who has used tough, themes. Ultimately, they would select three archi- recycled paper tubing to build everything from tects from three continents (Africa, South America bridges to short-term emergency shelters was chosen and Asia) to design the three main thematic spaces: to design the exhibit Reducing Natural Risks. To Defend Human Dignity, Restoring Family Links “We have built temporary lodgings, some and Reducing Natural Risks. Meanwhile, the mu- schools and churches in the refugee camps in Af- seum chose a leading Swiss architecture fi rm, atelier rica and in the zones stricken by natural disasters oï, to coordinate and collaborate with the museum using recycled tubes of paper,” he says. “In the on several of the key common spaces. museum, the tubes are arranged in organic curves The museum’s architecture is itself an engaging and waves reminiscent of a forest or wetlands — it experience. Though not everything in the museum gives a sense of organic fl exibility, of strength and has changed (long-time patrons will remember resilience. many of the same artifacts and some well-loved ele- “We used these same paper tubes to construct ments), a new organic touch has been added to the the walls and ceiling, to create a space that is warm powerful concrete-based, 1980s design of architect and organic,” says Ban. “We hope that this will allow • 150 years of humanitarian action • 150 years of huma I 1962 Confl ict in Yemen: 1963: The Movement celebrates 1967: The Arab-Israeli Six-Day 1968 The Biafran war: Armed confl ict breaks out after its 100th anniversary. The Nobel war brings about the fi rst International media put the the overthrow of the Imamate Peace Prize is awarded to the permanent delegation of the spotlight on the Biafran war and in the north of the country. The IFRC and ICRC on the occasion of ICRC in the Middle East and its the Movement launches into ICRC responds and, over the the Movement’s centenary. role of neutral intermediary in action as the confl ict becomes years, delegates provide medical hostage negotiations emerges. a turning point in the evolution assistance, visit prisoners of 1965: The Movement’s seven of humanitarian aid delivery. war on both sides and act as a Fundamental Principles as they 1968: The ICRC founds fi rst Largely due to the Biafran neutral intermediary. stand today are unanimously orthopaedic facility in the Yemeni experience, some ICRC staff adopted in 1965 by the 20th city of Sana’a. This later expands leave in subsequent years to International Conference of the to fi ve facilities, subsequently create Médecins sans Frontières. Red Cross and Red Crescent. handed over to Yemeni

Photo: ICRC archives authorities.

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RCRC_1.13_Eng+.indd 18 12.04.13 15:54 us to sweep away the prejudice that says paper is a weak material.” In Restoring Family Links, architect Diébédo Francis Kéré from Burkina Faso uses metal and concrete to create natural forms that evoke the human need to stay connected to our roots in the midst of events that tear us from the family and natural world. The intrin- sic link between the family, the roots and the natural elements are underlined throughout the exposition,” he says. One example are the tree-like structures that display Red Cross messages: from the trunk of a con- crete pylon, branch-like metal pipes support frames displaying hand-written notes or pictures drawn with ballpoint pens. Elsewhere, the sense of the organic and the human touch is expressed in the technicolour of the digital age. A collaboration between the museum, the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne and the École cantonale d’art de Lausanne, the exhibit Colours of Dignity, is a wall-sized, interactive touch screen of sorts that shows how even small actions, in this case the simple human touch, can create spectacular reac- tions. To the architect Cardia, who created the space where Colours of Dignity is displayed, the exhibit will “make people refl ect on how they act in the world and how they can help others”. ■

L A sketch by architect Diébédo Francis Kéré shows his vision to create a tower, made from concrete and hemp fi bres to evoke the feel of a traditional hut used in central Africa. The tower walls are used to show photographs of children orphaned during the Rwandan genocide. Illustration: © Diébédo Francis Kéré I Kéré also used support pylons to display Red Cross messages from around the world. Photo: Alain Germond manitarian action • 150 years of humanitarian action • The Biafran war is “often presented as the opening moment “The modern ICRC was precisely of a new phase in the history of humanitarianism”, writes Marie- born in Africa, at the end of the Luce Desgrandschamps in a special edition of the International 1960s, on the smoking ruins of Review of the Red Cross dedicated to 150 years of humanitarian Biafra,” says ICRC delegate Jean- action. The post-colonial civil war raises a number of challenges Marc Bornet in Between Enemy for the ICRC, an organization still rebuilding itself after the Lines, Delegate of the ICRC, 1972- Second World War and not fully prepared to mount a massive 2003. “It was there that the new and complex operation, she writes. Problems with logistics, ICRC was carried from the baptismal an insuffi cient number of adequately trained delegates and font to a new humanitarian era on problems communicating with other organizations, governments the occasion of putting into action a and armed groups lead to numerous lessons learnt and reforms. gigantic operation to save hundreds One overall result is increased professionalization and greater of thousands of victims of the civil

eff orts to better coordinate humanitarian aid delivery. Photo: ICRC archives war in Nigeria.”

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RCRC_1.13_Eng+IRL.indd 19 18.04.13 18:28 Photo: Nick Danziger “I can do anything”

OR MANY WOMEN injured or widowed dur- from a suicide bomb left her partially blinded and ing war, the physical wounds are only one without arms, and without a husband. The loss of a Fpart in a cascading series of consequences breadwinner means she’s unable to provide for her that aff ect the survival of entire families. In the family. “It’s not enough, but I cope with the many case of Wahida (pictured right in black), a blast diffi culties,’’ she says of the money and clothes • 150 years of humanitarian action • 150yearsofhuma I 1975: ICRC begins its fi rst role as neutral intermediary Trends Frequent disasters actions in Latin America during between government forces Internal debate among National “The 1970s was a decade of an era of dictatorship and and armed groups. Meanwhile, Red Cross and Red Crescent frequent disasters with the confl ict. Over the next decade, the region’s National Societies begins to question League [now IFRC] issuing over ICRC would work with National Societies, some of which were what they see as an antiquated 200 appeals, more than it had Societies to bring health care founded within decades of model of humanitarian done in the entire period from to remote communities, make the Movement’s inception assistance based on European 1945 to 1969. In 1970, there regular representations to (Peru in 1879; Argentina in attitudes of paternal charity were 16 international appeals”, authorities concerning more 1881, for example) built their rather than partnership with according to Beyond confl ict. than 2,000 ‘disappeared’ in competencies and played a aff ected populations, according Argentina, visit thousands of critical role in responding to the to Beyond confl ict, a history of political detainees in Bolivia needs of disaster- and confl ict- the IFRC.

and Chile, and take on a greater Photo: IFRC aff ected communities.

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RCRC_1.13_Eng+IRL.indd 20 18.04.13 18:29 she receives from the ICRC orthopaedic centre. “Without the 3,000 afghanis [US$ 60], my children A pyramid of health wouldn’t go to school, we wouldn’t be able to eat It was at the Thai-Cambodian border in 1979, where more than 1 or buy clothes.” million refugees had gathered in refugee camps, that a doctor For young women and girls, a war injury can named Pierre Perrin came up with what he called ‘the health affect everything — education, prospects for pyramid’ — an idea that helped change the way the ICRC marriage, their ability to work or contribute to responds to emergencies. their households. “I was 17, feeling depressed,” At the top of the pyramid are ‘curative’ medical CURATIVE CARE says Farzana, who lost her leg when she was 3 interventions generally done at a fi eld hospital when PUBLIC HEALTH years old. “I stayed at home.” When she learned people are already sick or injured. In the middle about ICRC vocational training in tailoring, she are public health measures such as vaccinations NUTRITION SANITATION signed up and then qualified for an ICRC micro- or distribution of medicines, while the

loan through which she received 15,000 afghanis foundation of the pyramid is two key building TRAINING PROGRAMME (US$ 300). “I bought a sewing machine for 10,000 blocks: nutrition and sanitation. afghanis and paid for a desk and some cloth. I paid A persistent advocate whose mission reports were often adorned with humorous cartoons and the loan back in 18 months and then applied for a detailed, hand-drawn charts, Perrin wrote that the sanitation situation in the camps was precarious second loan.” Today, Farzana trains other women and that medical interventions would not save lives on their own. “It is hopeless to take care only of sick starting out in the tailoring trade and she owns people if nothing else is done for the sanitation in a camp at the same time,” Perrin wrote in one of his the shop where she works. “I don’t pay rent! I sup- many reports at the time. port my whole family.” The health pyramid was part of shift in thinking that helped move emergency aid response in the The path to recovery is often long, painful and 1980s towards a broader public health orientation. It also set the stage for the creation, 30 years ago arduous. The gentle yet confident gestures of Ka- this June, of a small team that would become ICRC’s water and habitat unit, now an integral part of ICRC rima and Rahima, physiotherapists in the women’s operations. Impressed by the work of water engineers working along the Thai-Cambodian border — side of the ICRC orthopaedic centre, help many cli- from the Australian and Red Cross Societies in particular — the head of ICRC’s medical ents take important steps back towards normalcy. operations at the time would hire, for the fi rst time, a sanitation engineer and a nutritionist to be part of Karima has a special reason to be empathetic. future medical interventions. For more, see www.redcross.int. She was 12 years old when four bullets pierced

her knee, requiring immediate amputation and a prosthesis. But it is not just about physical and economic self-reliance. It’s helping people get back the power to live their lives — even with limitations. “I was so surprised when I reached the centre to see so many disabled people living normally,” says 19-year-old Niloufar (opposite page left), para- lysed due to a gunshot wound. “Up to then, I was depressed,” she recalls. “I am now another person, not the Niloufar of before. I can do anything. I am

Photo: Nick Danziger strong, I am powerful.” ■ manitarian action • 150 years of humanitarian action • I 1975: Civil war breaks out been challenged by diff erent 1977: Governments adopt to rehabilitation of those in Lebanon. Lasting until 1990, actors, usually on the basis Protocols I and II additional to wounded by war that would the war has a devastating of religion but at times due the Geneva Conventions, which grow throughout the 1980s. In humanitarian and economic to the profi le of an individual include provisions to protect 1983, the Special Fund for the impact. Around 200,000 people volunteer,” the report states. civilians from indiscriminate Disabled extends the work to die and 1 million are wounded. “However, after years of these attacks and which extend post-confl ict or non-confl ict volunteers demonstrating protections under international settings. Fast forward Photo: Marko Kokic/ICRC their adherence to the humanitarian law during non- In 2012, a joint report by the a reputation of impartiality Fundamental Principles, they international civil confl icts. December 1979: The Soviet , ICRC and and neutrality despite appear to have contributed Union invades Afghanistan. British Red Cross concludes a very fractured society. signifi cantly to the [Lebanese 1979: The ICRC creates the Lebanese Red Cross has “Historically, the personal Red Cross’] reputation of its physical rehabilitation over time successfully built acceptance of individuals has neutrality and impartiality.” programme, a commitment

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RCRC_1.13_Eng+IRL.indd 21 18.04.13 18:29 “If we have water, we have everything”

ELICATELY BALANCED on the top rungs of a rickety bamboo ladder, Abdul Hamid (left) Dgrapples with electric wires that will supply Seh Darak with energy and bring power to pumps provid- ing critically needed clean water. The head of the community development council, Hamid also donated a parcel of land so that the ICRC could drill the last of fi ve boreholes to bring water to this neighbourhood on the outskirts of Kunduz, a city of some 250,000 people in the far north of Afghanistan. It’s vital work as more than two-thirds of the wells feeding Kunduz are in Seh Darak. But it’s precarious. Here at the edge of town, the last mud-brick homes meet fi elds (known as the ‘badlands’) that extend to the horizon. Beyond, it’s too dangerous for humanitar- ian workers to venture. Years of insecurity have meant four generators, nec- essary to draw water, have stood idle. Eventually the Photo: Nick Danziger community came to the ICRC, which agreed to repair • 150 years of humanitarian action • 150 years of huma September 1980: The May 1985: A major cyclone hits 1984: A BBC report shocks the world with devastating pictures Iran- war begins. Later the Bay of Bengal and almost 1 of people, including many children, starving to death in . to become the 20th century’s million people lose their homes. Describing the situation as an “apocalypse”, the report leads longest conventional war, the Then Mexico City is rocked by a to a storm of media interest and an unprecedented global confl ict is compared to the major earthquake, which kills humanitarian response to famine in Africa, including a concert First World War. It is marked by more than 600 people. And in organized by rock musician Bob Geldof. Turnover of aid at the trench warfare, hand-to-hand November, the Nevado del Ruiz League of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (now IFRC) combat with bayonets, human volcano in Colombia erupts, doubles as operations and delegations expand dramatically. waves across the ‘no-man’s entombing 23,000 people in Despite enormous logistics problems and the lack of capacity to land’ separating forces, use mud and debris and turning a coordinate operations of this magnitude, the ICRC, the League of mustard gas and chemical once fertile valley into a lunar and National Societies saved many lives through large-scale food weapons, and the death of at landscape. distribution, health services and water delivery, among other

least half a million combatants. Photo: Catherine Peduzzi/ICRC

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RCRC_1.13_Eng+.indd 22 12.04.13 15:55 the generators and made provisions to protect them. Water for all The new boreholes and electrical connections — Access to water is not only protected under international humanitarian law. Along with sanitation, along with 12 kilometres of new pipe — will benefi t it’s also a fundamental human right, according to a United Nations resolution adopted in 2010. around 11,000 people. Still, roughly 1 billion people lack access to safe water and more than 3 billion — nearly half of the world’s population — do not have adequate sanitation. Spare parts and expertise When a storm, fl ood or earthquake breaks up water and sanitation systems, this defi ciency can In many parts of Afghanistan, water is pumped by be even more deadly. Starting in the early 1990s, the IFRC began deploying Emergency Response hand. But when pumps break, local communities Units — teams of people with the expertise and equipment needed to serve various levels of don’t always have the parts they need and it’s too need (from 15,000 people in rural areas to 50,000 people in urban settings). The IFRC and National dangerous for staff with expertise and tools to go Societies have also been working with global partners, as well as local and national authorities, to out to repair them. In this case, the ICRC invites local expand access to sanitation and safe water for vulnerable communities — before disaster strikes. engineers to its offi ce in Kunduz for training and While progress is being made, there are still massive gaps. In 2012, a Joint Monitoring Project help in fi nding the spare parts. by the World Health Organization and UNICEF reported that a Millennium Development Goal to “We have had a water pump on the corner of our increase people’s access to improved water sources is on course to be met by 2015. But the goal street for 20 years, but it has broken 20 times,” says of reducing by half the number of people without basic sanitation will fall short, largely because Abdul Hakim, a truck driver, mechanic and water com- sanitation projects are not as enthusiastically funded as water supply projects. “Governments, mittee member in Ze Khel, Kunduz. “It gets used so donors and humanitarian actors must all ensure sanitation activities are at least as well funded as heavily, it’s not surprising.” water supply,” says IFRC Secretary General Bekele Geleta. “We must get the balance right.” Now a local engineer has fi xed the pump in Ze Khel with spare parts and additional training from the ICRC. In this way, nearly a third of 430 scheduled hand-pump repairs have been carried out, an example of the ways humanitarians sometimes must use ‘indirect’ or ‘re- mote’ assistance with local partners in areas where access is not possible.

Essential to survival Because water is essential to survival, access to water is aff orded special protection under international humanitarian law. But when fi ghting destroys water systems — or renders the construction and repair too costly or risky — the consequences are serious. every child has suff ered serious stomach pains and L For displaced populations during The village of Deh Bala is a good example. Halfway diarrhoea. emergencies, such as those living in up a rocky mountainside, more than two kilometres Now, trenches are being dug for pipes that will bring this camp in Myanmar, clean water is critical to survival. Movement of pipe brings clean water from a spring to a cement water directly to the village below. “There are no clinics, workers and volunteers built safe and stone water tank, where, on a recent afternoon, no doctors and no [pharmacies],” says Bashir, an ICRC toilets, dug new wells and created exuberant girls, boys and men have beaming smiles. engineer running the project. “So aprotecting natural water distribution systems that “Water is our biggest problem: we need our health fi rst source, rather than letting people drink directly from provide more than 8,000 litres a day and foremost,” one of them says. “If we have [clean] open water channels, immediately alters their stand- to the camp’s population. water we have everything.” A quick survey reveals ard and quality of life.” ■ Photo: Andreas von Weissenberg/IFRC manitarian action • 150 years of humanitarian action • things. The global outpouring of support and media coverage April 1986: The Chernobyl African Red Cross) as a protest October 1988: The International are followed by intense scrutiny of the overall humanitarian nuclear power plant in against apartheid. The decision is Red Cross and Red Crescent response. Much of the aid, channelled through the Ethiopian Ukraine, then part of the Soviet derided by some as a weakening Museum opens in Geneva. government, did not reach starving people in rebel territory Union, melts down, releasing of the principles of universality and some argued the aid prolonged the war by bolstering the radioactive particles that spread and neutrality, while applauded 1989: The Wall comes government. In 1986, an independent inquiry found that the over much of western USSR and by others. down and the Soviet Union League did better than most organizations and “many who are Europe. collapses. Many in the West are alive today would have perished without the Red Cross Red May 1988: The Soviet Union optimistic that the end of the cold Crescent interventions”. But it also concluded that the League, October 1986: The International begins its withdrawal from war will lead to a ‘peace dividend’. already overwhelmed with disaster operations in the early Conference of the Red Cross and Afghanistan. 1980s, was overextended and needed to focus on building its Red Crescent votes to suspend capacity for multiple large-scale interventions. the South African government delegation (but not the South

ISSUE 1 . 2013 | RED CROSS RED CRESCENT | 23

RCRC_1.13_Eng+.indd 23 12.04.13 15:55 Horror to hope

S A PRECOCIOUS CHILD OF 7 at the start of the Nigerian civil war in the late 1960s, I became, Alike my father, obsessed with radio news. Each morning, as Papa shaved, he set his transistor radio to A child refugee during the Biafran war, Okey Ndibe (right) is Radio Biafra. I was supposed to be engaged in some now a novelist and a writer on African aff airs. He off ers his chore, like washing plates, minding my ever-crying views on humanity as part of the Red Cross Red Crescent’s baby brother or sweeping the compound. Instead, I ongoing series on the seven Fundamental Principles. always installed myself near Papa and his radio. Photo: Okey Ndibe • 150 years of humanitarian action • 150 years of huma I War in Europe vie for control, the population Red Crescent Societies meets in The fall of the Berlin Wall, the suff ers displacement and Budapest, Hungary and decides collapse of the Soviet Union and famine. In 1992, the United to become the International the end of the cold war lead to States leads a coalition of Federation of Red Cross and Red new confl icts. After 45 years peacekeepers to restore order Crescent Societies (IFRC). of peace in Europe, war breaks and bring humanitarian out in the . Movement relief — one of the fi rst times 1993: The International eff orts focus on assisting those an international military Criminal Tribunal for the Former aff ected by war and economic 1991 Second Gulf War: annexation of Kuwait. intervention was so closely Yugoslavia (ICTY) is founded

collapse in many former Eastern Photo: Reuters/Chris Helgren, courtesy www.alertnet.org The United Nations authorizes linked with humanitarian ends. by the United Nations to deal Bloc countries. a coalition of 34 nations, led by 1991: Somalia’s civil war breaks with war crimes that took the United States, to go to war out after the fall of its military November 1991: Birth of the place during the confl icts in the against Iraq in response to its government. As armed groups IFRC. The League of Red Cross and Balkans.

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RCRC_1.13_Eng+.indd 24 12.04.13 15:55 Much of the bulletin of Radio Biafra was fevered Rwanda’s three-month orgy of killings produced propaganda delivered in impassioned language. It another infamous subtext: the understanding that often reported how “gallant Biafran soldiers” had memory, the act of remembering, can be turned “wiped off ” or “vanquished enemy forces”. into the deepest cut. Some exterminators often Sadly for my father, and for me, Radio Biafra did killed members of a family save one. The spared not enjoy a monopoly. The British Broadcasting woman or man, girl or boy was then told that he or Corporation, Voice of America and, on occasion, she was deliberately allowed to live in order to bear Radio Nigeria had few if any accounts of Biafran the burden of remembering. soldiers’ gallant exploits. They brought instead A few years ago, I saw a TV documentary that fo- constant news about “Federal troops” dislodging cused on the plight of women in the perennial crisis “rebel soldiers”. in the [Democratic Republic of the] Congo. Witness Wars are a menace to truth and they discount after witness shared horror stories of how she was any shared sense of humanity. The cruellest thing raped, by government soldiers or rebel forces — and about war is not the number of the dead or in- often by both. jured. Far more grievous is the certainty in the There was no question that the savage experi- mind of a people at war that their very human ence tormented them. Perhaps it had disfi gured identity is under siege. It’s my hunch that my par- their psyches the same way that hunger misshaped ents and many other Biafrans had come to believe the physique of millions of Biafran children, their that, in the eyes of the ‘enemy’, they had ceased legs like fleshless spikes, stomachs distended, to be human. necks thin, the hair on their big, veined heads dis- It’s also natural that besieged Biafrans began to coloured and fl imsy. Their violators had counted view the ‘enemy’ as less than human. The men who these women as less than human — and these dropped huge, exploding metallic eggs at us from have perhaps also concluded that these men were swift, low-fl ying jets (or who blocked access to food no more than beasts. and medicine) could not be human. In 1994, much of the world stood awestruck as 800,000 Rwandans perished in a few months — in one of the gravest genocidal rages of recent times. New challenges As in Nigeria, the Rwandan media helped shape — Warring parties and governments increasingly seek to and escalate — the tragedy. win ‘the hearts and minds’ of local populations through

Photo: H.D. Finck/ICRC The subsequent trial and conviction by an development and humanitarian assistance. In working international tribunal of two owners of Radio closely with those agencies, some humanitarian Télévision Libre des Milles Collines, as well as actors in a sense become instruments for the agenda other media owners who incited hatred and of politicians and military forces, rather than neutral violence, is a verdict on the media’s ability to dis- and independent humanitarian actors. Meanwhile, figure the ‘other’, whether on ethnic, religious or military forces in some cases begin direct humanitarian some other grounds. Such disfigurement must be assistance. As distinctions between relief and politics challenged, for it often precedes, intensifies or become blurred, new problems related to security arise encourages the deployment of violence against as belligerents increasingly see humanitarians as agents marked victims. of the opposing forces. manitarian action • 150 years of humanitarian action • July 1994 Rwandan genocide: and other violations of following the takeover of the I 1997: Rwanda’s invasion of Over the course of roughly 100 international humanitarian and Srebrenica enclave by the Zaire in search of Hutu militias, days, somewhere between human rights law in Rwanda Bosnian Serb army in July 1995. boosts Congolese rebels who 500,000 and 1 million people, and neighbouring countries. then capture Kinshasa and install mostly ethnic Tutsis, are killed Fast forward Laurent Kabila as president. — almost 20 per cent of the 1994: The IFRC obtains Since 1996, the ICTY has indicted The country is renamed the country’s population. international observer status at 161 people. ICRC lawyers Democratic Republic of the the United Nations. believe that tribunals such as Congo. Civil war follows with November 1994: The United those set up for the former each side backed by diff erent Nations Security Council creates 1996: The ICTY hands down its Yugoslavia herald a major neighbouring countries. an international tribunal for fi rst judgment, against a soldier step in the implementation judging people presumed in the Bosnian Serb army who of international

responsible for acts of genocide participated in mass executions humanitarian law. Photo: IFRC

ISSUE 1 . 2013 | RED CROSS RED CRESCENT | 25

RCRC_1.13_Eng+.indd 25 12.04.13 15:57 Humanity United States, and killed 20 children, some teachers The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, born of a desire to bring and a principal. The sickening event took place 35 assistance without discrimination to the wounded on the battlefield, endeavours, in its minutes from my own home, also in Connecticut. international and national capacity, to prevent and alleviate human suffering wherever it Even this survivor of war was left speechless, my may be found. Its purpose is to protect life and health and to ensure respect for the human emotions topsy-turvy. being. It promotes mutual understanding, friendship, cooperation and lasting peace amongst all peoples. A vital force The human capacity for being inhumane — com- pounded by nature’s fecundity in spawning Prosecution of sexual crimes as war crimes or disasters — points to one implication: the Red Cross acts of genocide in the tribunals set up to deal with and Red Crescent Movement will always be a busy atrocities in Yugoslavia and Rwanda have brought and vital force. some measure of hope towards holding genocide As a child during the Biafran war, I saw that instigators and perpetrators to account. These trials Red Cross ideal of basic humanity at work when and the precedents they set constitute a diff erent, I accompanied my parents to relief centres in salutary form of memory. The legal principles that search of food, medicines, clothes and other mandate civilized, life-respecting standards, and items. Sometimes, the number of the needy was the international tribunals that enforce them, are an so vast that we went away empty-handed. On essential part of retributive or restorative remem- such occasions, my parents’ grief was palpable. bering. It meant that they and their five children would This is the paradox of human history: on the one face days, even weeks, of hunger. Even so, there hand, the arc has been towards enlightenment, was always a sense of undying hope — and it was freedom, the evolution of humanitarian princi- tied to the presence of the Red Cross and other ples and technical wizardry. On the other, it has relief agencies. arced toward oppression, violence, xenophobia, Today, the Nigerian Red Cross Society still the stigmatization of the ‘other’ and ever-more brings succour to the suffering, be it first aid in efficient and clever means of killing. In the last 20 villages beset with inter-tribal violence or tend- years, for example, the world has witnessed costly ing to victims of car crashes. And the dastardly conflicts in such locations as Bosnia, Lebanon, acts of shooting children at a school in Connecti- Your turn , Somalia, Sudan and Syria. Some have cut or a camp in Norway continue to activate a What does the principle been sectarian wars, pitting one faith against deeply human, noble and beautiful response. It’s of humanity mean to another. Some have been driven by ethnic jingo- what this principle is about — a veritable way of you? What are the biggest ism, ideological fanaticism or crude nationalist waging beauty in the midst of a war. And it’s a threats and challenges passions. Others have occasioned the dehumani- first step towards giving all victims of war, vio- facing this principle today? zation of minorities or mutual degradation by lence or natural woes a restored sense of their Write a 400-word story combatants. human dignity. ■ or essay. We will consider And even in times of peace, our sense of common your response for our series. humanity can be shattered. A few months ago, a Okey Ndibe Submit at: [email protected] well-armed young man walked into an elementary Okey Ndibe is a writer and professor of literature at Trinity College [primary] school in Newtown, Connecticut, in the in Hartford, Connecticut, USA. • 150 years of humanitarian action • 150yearsofhuma 1997: To improve coordination and transfer of anti-personnel October 2001 War in at the Guantanamo Bay Naval of Saddam Hussein, which the and cooperation, the mines) is adopted. Afghanistan: Base in Cuba. ICRC delegates begin United States contends has Movement signs the Seville The United States, United visiting detainees. developed weapons of mass Agreement to specify who September 2001: In a Kingdom and France join the destruction. takes the lead (IFRC, ICRC or coordinated set of attacks, a group Afghan group Northern Alliance February 2003: War in Darfur National Societies) in various calling itself al-Qaeda hijacks to topple the Taliban regime begins as two armed groups New awareness types of fi eld operations. four planes, fl ying them into that is believed to have hosted seek independence from Sudan, In the early 2000s, the ICRC New York’s World Trade Towers al-Qaeda training camps leading to massive civilian begins paying more attention 1997: After years of work by the and the Pentagon in Washington initiating the ‘9-11’ attacks. casualties, displacement and to those targeted by sexual ICRC, Movement partners and DC. Another plane crashes in chronic food insecurity. violence during armed confl icts. other organizations, the Ottawa Pennsylvania. In response, the January 2002: The fi rst detainees Treaty (which prohibits of the United States administration arrive at the detention facility March 2003: War in Iraq is I December 2004: An

use, stockpiling, production announces a global ‘war on terror’. established by the United States launched to topple the regime earthquake off the western coast Photo: IFRC

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RCRC_1.13_Eng+.indd 26 12.04.13 15:57 J Myanmar Red Cross volunteers came from around the country to provide neutral and impartial assistance in communities aff ected by violence with teams working in medical clinics, building toilets and wells, and distributing drinking water, food, blankets and hygiene kits. Their eff orts were supported by the IFRC, the ICRC and various National Societies. Photo: Andreas von Weissenberg/IFRC “I became a Red Cross volunteer just after the crisis here. People lost everything. I knew I wanted to help and so did my friends; now we are all volunteers.”

K Myat Sanda Khine, 19, speaking about how she and others mobilized after inter- communal violence tore through her home city.

Movement in Myanmar Nineteen-year-old Myat Sanda Khine had just enrolled at Sittwe University when inter-communal violence tore through her home city, leaving dozens dead, thousands injured and entire villages burnt to the ground. The violence, between Rakhine and Muslim communities, left more than 100,000 people displaced in Rakhine state. To read more about Sanda’s story, recent advances in humanitarian access in Myanmar, and how the Movement is facing the challenge of bringing impartial assistance to all, see our web site: www.redcross.int. Photo: Andres von Weissenberg/IFRC manitarian action • 150 years of humanitarian action • of Sumatra, Indonesia causes killing 1,800 people and causing Fast forward humanitarian activities a tsunami that kills more than more than US$ 80 billion in New ICRC President Peter here”. 230,000 people in 13 countries. damage. Maurer becomes the fi rst The humanitarian response is ICRC president to visit May 2008: The Convention on immediate and massive. The June 2007: ICRC President Myanmar. He said the visit, Cluster Munitions is adopted. It scale, and the diversity of groups Jakob Kellenberger issues a along with government prohibits the use, transfer and and agencies coming to help, rare public denunciation of commitments to allow stockpiling of cluster bombs, also leads to many problems with the government of Myanmar greater access to detainees which scatter small ‘bomblets’ coordination and allegations of for violations of international and communities aff ected over a wide area, often injuring waste. humanitarian law against by fi ghting, off ers “a civilians for years to come. detainees and civilians. new chapter in both our August 2005: Hurricane Katrina relationship with Myanmar slams into the US Gulf Coast, government and in our

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• 150 years of humanitarian action • 150 years of hum

J January 2010: A major and help target food, water becomes known as the ‘Arab leading to an explosion that earthquake hits Haiti, and shelter relief. The IFRC Spring’ uprisings that lead causes the heaviest level of destroying much of Port- and Haitian Red Cross team up to revolution in Egypt and nuclear contamination since au-Prince, killing more than with mobile phone providers conflicts in Libya and Syria. the Chernobyl disaster. 300,000 people and leaving to issue hurricane warnings more than 1 million people and sanitation messages to March 2011: An earthquake 17 February 2013: The without homes. A major relief thousands of people. off the coast of Japan’s Movement celebrates the effort is launched and some north-east Tohoku region 150th anniversary of the US$ 4 billion pledged for January 2011: A campaign of creates a tsunami that wipes creation of the ICRC and the reconstruction. Dubbed the protest and civil disobedience, out several coastal cities and official birth of the Red Cross first ‘digital disaster’, internet fuelled by social media, leads claims more than 15,000 Red Crescent Movement. and mobile phone technology to the ouster of Tunisia’s lives. The tsunami breaches

Photo: Tania Frankel/American Red Cross are used to recover victims president, sparking what the Fukushima nuclear plant,

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RCRC_1.13_Eng+.indd 28 12.04.13 15:57 ICRC materials are available from the International Committee of the Red Cross, 19 avenue de la Paix, CH-1202 Geneva, Switzerland. www.icrc.org Resources IFRC materials are available from the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, P. O. Box 372, CH-1211 Geneva 19, Switzerland. www.ifrc.org PUBLICATIONS MEDIA medical services throughout Lebanon — in circumstances 150 Years of Goma since mid-November 2012. complicated by armed confl ict, humanitarian action Second in our four-part series on internal disturbances and DR Congo. Movement celebrations of the other emergencies, and by the Available in English and French ICRC’s 150th anniversary do existence of groups with a broad not just focus on the past. In range of religious affi liations. fact, the ICRC is using the Silent disasters Available in English occasion to spark a global IFRC 2013 A comfortable, happy family eats conversation about present and dinner while in the corner of the Haiti earthquake future humanitarian challenges. dining room, a woman stands Three-year progress To help get the discussion shivering and wet. The woman report going, the ICRC is offering cries out for help but the family IFRC 2013 conversation points via a new continues to eat, not hearing her Millions of lives were shattered internet resource at www.icrc. pleas. This provocative image by the 2010 earthquake but the org. Among other things, the comes from a new video and TV Haitian population has shown 150 Years of Humanitarian spot that is part of IFRC’s campaign incredible resilience. This report Action campaign site includes Building resilient — with 11 European National spans Red Cross Red Crescent an interactive historical communities in a Societies and the European Union operations from January 2010 to timeline, links to recordings — to bring attention to so called changing climate November 2012, with a focus on of debates and discussions silent or under-reported disasters. IFRC 2012 the third year of operations. During about humanitarian challenges, To see the full range of videos in the Climate change poses formidable the past 12 months, programmes and an archive room where silent disasters campaign, visit the challenges to the humanitarian have continued to help people photos, letters, videos and audio IFRC’s YouTube channel. community. This brochure to leave camps and regain their interviews from past actions highlights key facts and principles independence and the Red Cross around the world can be seen, of the IFRC’s and National Red Crescent has worked hand in listened to or downloaded. Treaties and commentaries Societies’ responses to this hand with local communities. Available in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, database and national changing situation. Available in English, French and Spanish Portuguese and Spanish implementation database Available in Arabic, English, French and Spanish — December 2012 DR Congo: war surgery ICRC 2013 Principles in action — healing the horror This CD version includes two in Lebanon ICRC 2013 databases. The database of national ICRC 2013 In the Kivus, the ICRC is evacuating implementation measures provides Using examples provided by war wounded and helping examples of legislation and the Lebanese Red Cross, this with heavy surgical operations. jurisprudence from countries around case study demonstrates how Emergency treatment is restricted the world. The other database crucial the application of the by limited access to confl ict zones, is a compilation of international Fundamental Principles, in a devastated primary health-care humanitarian law treaties and tandem with uniform strategies network and direct threats to both documents showing the current based on the Safer Access wounded and medical staff . Despite status of signatures and ratifi cations. Framework, has been in these challenges, more than 200 The CD is updated periodically for making it safer for the National war wounded have received the databases. m Society to provide emergency treatment by ICRC surgical teams in Available in English Investing in Africa Maternal, newborn and Summary of the Geneva African solutions to child health framework Conventions of August Africa’s challenges IFRC 2013 1949 and their Additional IFRC 2012 This framework provides guidance Protocols At a time when Africa has become and direction to National Societies, ICRC 2012 synonymous with growth and their programme managers and all This summary for all categories of opportunity, leaders of the Red Cross other parties involved in the planning, readers off ers a straightforward, Red Crescent in Africa met in Addis design and implementation of concise explanation of the Geneva Ababa to promote investing in the programmes and interventions in Conventions of August 1949 and continent and its people. African maternal, reproductive, newborn and their Additional Protocols of 1977 National Societies are eager to look child health. and 2005. The summary also includes Available in English beyond dependency on foreign reference to all relevant articles. aid and take control of their own Available in Arabic, English, French, Portuguese development. and Spanish Available in English and French

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‘The Tree of Humanity’ This colorful engraving created for an exposition in Berne, Switzerland in 1914 depicts three main branches in the evolution of the Movement’s humanitarian action at the time: The signatories of the Geneva Convention are shown on the left branch, the work of the ICRC is described on the middle branch, and the creation of National Societies is shown on the right. From the ICRC archives.

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