ICRC report on the visit to “Robbeneiland” (Robben Island) Prison on the 1st May, 1964, by Mr G. Hoffmann, Delegate General of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Africa

2016 ◽  
Vol 98 (903) ◽  
pp. 1067-1077
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
International Committee ◽  
Political Prisoners ◽  
Red Cross ◽  
Nelson Mandela ◽  
First Time ◽  
Robben Island

On 1 May 1964, Georg Hoffmann, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Delegate General in Africa, inspected Robben Island Prison, where some twenty days earlier Nelson Mandela was visited for the first time. Having access to political prisoners in apartheid South Africa, the ICRC sought to ensure that detainees lived in decent conditions and were treated humanely.

“Restoring hope where all hope was lost”: Nelson Mandela, the ICRC and the protection of political detainees in apartheid South Africa

2016 ◽  
Vol 98 (903) ◽  
pp. 799-829
Author(s):  
Andrew Thompson
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Cold War ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
African Country ◽  
International Committee ◽  
Red Cross ◽  
The Past ◽  
Nelson Mandela ◽  
The Cold War

AbstractAmidst the violent upheavals of the end of empire and the Cold War, international organizations developed a basic framework for holding State and non-State armed groups to account for their actions when taking prisoners. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) placed itself at the very centre of these developments, making detention visiting a cornerstone of its work. Nowhere was this growing preoccupation with the problem of protecting detainees more evident than apartheid South Africa, where the ICRC undertook more detention visits than in almost any other African country. During these visits the ICRC was drawn into an internationalized human rights dispute that severely tested its leadership and demonstrated the troubled rapport between humanitarianism and human rights. The problems seen in apartheid South Africa reflect today's dilemmas of how to protect political detainees in situations of extreme violence. We can look to the past to find solutions for today's political detainees − or “security detainees” as they are now more commonly called.

‘VOICES’, MEANING AND ‘HETEROGLOSSIA’ IN PRISONERS OF HOPE (1995)

2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 88-96
Author(s):  
Khatija Bibi Khan
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Documentary Film ◽  
Textual Analysis ◽  
Political Prisoners ◽  
The Future ◽  
Human Capacity ◽  
Robben Island ◽  
Former Inmates

The documentary film Prisoners of Hope (1995) is a heart-rending account of 1 250 former political prisoners in the notorious Robben Island prison in South Africa. The aim of this article is to explore the narratives of Prisoners of Hope and in the process capture its celebratory mood and reveal the contribution that the prisoners made towards the realisation of a free South Africa. The documentary features interviews with Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, Ahmed Kathrada and other former inmates as they recall and recount the atrocities perpetrated by defenders of the apartheid system and debate the future of South Africa with its ‘new’ political dispensation led by blacks. A textual analysis of Prisoners of Hope will enable one to explore the human capacity to resist, commit oneself to a single goal and live beyond the horrors and traumas of an oppressive and dehumanising system.

Santo Domingo-ICRC President in the Far East and Central America — Viet Nam — Yemen — Southern Rhodesia — Mission in Africa

1965 ◽  
Vol 5 (52) ◽  
pp. 351-360
Keyword(s):  
Far East ◽  
International Committee ◽  
Political Prisoners ◽  
Red Cross ◽  
Viet Nam ◽  
Santo Domingo ◽  
The Far East ◽  
Southern Rhodesia ◽  
The Government ◽  
National Reconstruction

The delegation of the International Committee of the Red Cross brought its aid to civilian and political prisoners.One of the ICRC representatives in Santo Domingo, Mr. Pierre Jequier, general delegate for Latin America, visited prisons of the “Constitutional Government” presided over by Colonel Francisco Caamano Deno and of the “Government of National Reconstruction” of General Antonio Imbert. There were no restrictions placed by either on visits.

UN Peacekeeping Operations: Applicability of International Humanitarian Law and Responsibility for Operations-Related Damage

2000 ◽  
Vol 94 (2) ◽  
pp. 406-412 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daphna Shraga
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
International Committee ◽  
Red Cross ◽  
International Humanitarian Law ◽  
Humanitarian Law ◽  
Peacekeeping Operations ◽  
Geneva Conventions ◽  
Un Peacekeeping ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
First Time

In the five decades that followed the Korea operation, where for the first time the United Nations commander agreed, at the request of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), to abide by the humanitarian provisions of the Geneva Conventions, few UN operations lent themselves to the applicability of international humanitarian law

Revisiting the Memory of Solferino: Knowledge Production and the Laws of War

2021 ◽  
pp. 256-275
Author(s):  
Eyal Benvenisti ◽  
Doreen Lustig
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Agenda Setting ◽  
International Committee ◽  
Red Cross ◽  
Laws Of War ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
First Time

During the course of the second half of the 19th century, the rules regulating the conduct of armies during hostilities were internationally codified for the first time. The conventional narrative attributes the codification of the laws of war to the campaign of civil society, especially that of the founders of the Red Cross—Henry Dunant and Gustav Moynier. In what follows, we problematize this narrative and trace the construction of this knowledge. We explore how the leading figures of the Red Cross, who were aware of the shortcomings of their project, were nonetheless invested in narrating its history as a history of success. Their struggle to control the narrative would eventually confer the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) with considerable interpretive and agenda-setting authority in the realm of the laws of war. We dwell on the meaning of this conscious exercise in knowledge production and its normative ramifications.

Middle East — Tanzania — Senegal — Moçambique — South Africa — Botswana, Lesotho, Ngwane — Hong Kong — Yemen

1969 ◽  
Vol 9 (95) ◽  
pp. 87-92
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Hong Kong ◽  
Middle East ◽  
International Committee ◽  
Suez Canal ◽  
Red Cross ◽  
Tel Aviv

Reuniting of families.—In spite of increased tension in the Middle East, the International Committee of the Red Cross has managed, through its delegations in Cairo and Tel Aviv, to get 143 persons across the Suez canal. This “reuniting of families” operation took place on December 30 at el Qantara.

The Declaration of the Rights of the Child

1963 ◽  
Vol 3 (26) ◽  
pp. 227-233
Author(s):  
Andrée Morier
Keyword(s):  
Vice President ◽  
International Committee ◽  
Red Cross ◽  
International Union ◽  
Rights Of The Child ◽  
Final Draft ◽  
Save The Children ◽  
To Come ◽  
First Time ◽  
Declaration Of Geneva

At the time when the Centenary of the Red Cross is about to be celebrated, it would be fitting to remember the rôle so many members and officers of the International Committee of the Red Cross have played in the drafting and the proclamation of the Rights of the Child. This declaration called the Declaration of Geneva was proclaimed forty years ago by the Council of the “Save the Children International Union” (SCIU). It was on May 17, 1923, that the final draft in five brief clauses was adopted. It is to be recalled that at that time the ICRC and the SCIU worked in close co-operation. Indeed, it was Dr. Frédéric Ferrière's report (then Vice-President of the ICRC) on the disastrous situation in which children lived in Vienna which incited Eglantyne Jebb to come to Geneva for the first time.

“How to Free Your Prisoner”

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Padraic Kenney
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
World War I ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
International Committee ◽  
Prisoners Of War ◽  
Political Prisoners ◽  
Red Cross ◽  
Amnesty International ◽  
Late Twentieth

Though political prisoners are almost always incarcerated for national causes, they became the focus of international support in the twentieth century. The earliest attention was from diaspora communities of supporters, for example, among the Irish or among socialists. The International Committee of the Red Cross began with a focus on prisoners of war, expanding to political prisoners after World War I. The New York–based International Committee for Political Prisoners pioneered a nonpartisan approach to political prisoners. Like Amnesty International forty years later, it was an advocate for those who did not engage in violence. New kinds of prisoner assistance in the late twentieth century proved to be building blocks of post-transition civil society.

The International Committee in the Yemen

1963 ◽  
Vol 3 (24) ◽  
pp. 146-148
Keyword(s):  
International Committee ◽  
Red Cross ◽  
Geneva Conventions ◽  
First Time

A mission of the International Committee of the Red Cross has recently stayed in Sanaa. This is the first time that representatives of the ICRC have visited the capital of the Yemen, where they were given a warm and friendly welcome.The delegates of the ICRC, Mr. Roger Du Pasquier and Mr. Joseph Gasser, were received by Marshal Abdallah Sallal, President of the Arab Republic of the Yemen, who undertook to have the principles of the Geneva Conventions respected. The Chief of State in principle agreed to transmit to Geneva lists of prisoners taken by his troops.

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