The work of the Red Cross in the Congo — The International Committeee of the Red Cross has continued to assist persons under detention in the Congo, by visiting on March 1 the eight Belgian soldiers who were taken prisoner in January after crossing the Congo frontier, coming from Ruanda-Urundi. The delegate of the ICRC was allowed to speak with them, to hand over correspondence and to give them a few comforts.

In ancient times some of the great commanders were accompanied on their campaigns by their personal doctors. The Romans had at least one doctor for each cohort (about 500 to 600 men), and a legion, which consisted of ten cohorts, had a medicus legionis, probably a sort of chief medical officer. At the time of the Crusades, the Sultan Saladin gave an example of humanity by authorizing the doctors of the adverse party to care for the Christian prisoners and then to return through the lines. Arab doctors treated Saint Louis. But it was not until the sixteenth century that an organized medical service was started in European armies. It was still, however, sadly inadequate.

La Croix-Bouge — le Comité international de la Croix-Eouge plus spécialement — a souvent été critiquée, depuis la fin de la dernière guerre, et cela de côtés très différents, pour n'avoir pas résolument renoncé à son devoir traditionnel de service en temps de guerre, à la preparation de ce service humanitaire, etpour n'avoir pas tourné son attention exclusivement vers les œuvres de paix, seules légitimes et justifiées, selon l'opinion de quelques-uns, à une époque ou l'éventualité de conflits armés paraissait peu probable, sinon définitivement écartée.

Only the members of the armed forces of a Party to a conflict (other than medical personnel, chaplains and military personnel engaged in civil defence) are combatants (Hague Regulations, Art. 1 and 3; P. I, Art. 43 and 67).

Combatants are entitled to take direct part in the hostilities (P. I, Art. 43), i.e. to commit acts of war which are intended by their nature or their purpose to hit specifically the combatants and other military objectives of the enemy armed forces.

Any combatant who falls into the power of an adverse Party is a prisoner of war (P. I, Art. 4).

The founders of the Red Cross did not seek to establish their work on the elements of a doctrine. They referred to a concept of the world which was common to them all and which did not appear to need any explanation. They were impelled by the emotions which Henry Dunant's revelations and proposals had raised in them. Their purpose was to “take into serious consideration the idea proposed in the conclusions of the book entitled “A Memory of Solférino”, namely the foundation of Societies for the Relief of Wounded Soldiers and the addition of a corps of medical volunteers to the belligerent armies”, and their concern was “how” to put that idea into practice rather than “why”. It is true that those conclusions contained in embryo a whole set of guiding principles which were not formally stated until much later; but they appeared then as a necessary condition for the application of the initial decisions rather than as their source.

Como desde hace cierto tiempo se está pensando en una posible revisión de los Estatutos de la Cruz Roja Internacional de 1952 y del Acuerdo entre el CICR y la Liga de 1969–1974, la Revista Internacional consideró que sería interesante y útil pedir al señor André Durand, ex delegado del CICR e historiador, autor del segundo tomo «De Sarajevo á Hiroshima», de la Historia del Comité Internacional de la Cruz Roja, que escribiera un artículo sobre la historia de los Estatutos y del Acuerdo. El lector encontrará en ese trabajo los acontecimientos, las diversas concepciones y las experiencias vividas por nuestros predecesores, que motivaron el origen y marcaron las sucesivas etapas de la redacción y la evolución de esos textos.

Los primeros estatutos de la Cruz Roja Internacional datan de 1928. Hasta esa fecha, la obra internacional de la Cruz Roja no disponía de una constitución.

For the National Society, Red Cross Day has become the occasion of a general assembly at which its members, friends and government representatives gather. This happened again this year, and Dr. Victor Laroche, President of the Haiti Red Cross, outlined the institution's activities during 1970–1971. First-aid certificates were then presented to schoolchildren and to members of some army corps who had attended first-aid and life-saving courses. The ceremony closed with demonstrations by first-aid brigades.

(1) The present Rules govern access to the ICRC's archives, which comprise:

• the archives of the ICRC's decision-making bodies;

• the archives of Committee members;

• the archives of the various units at headquarters;

• the archives of individual delegations;

• archival material from other sources which are kept at the ICRC.

Suite aux allégations mettant en cause quelques-uns de ses délégués pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale, parues dans la presse au cours de l'été 1996, le CICR s'était engagé à faire toute la lumière sur cette période de son passé. Ces allégations étaient fondées sur un certain nombre d'observations enregistrées par des agents de l'Office of Strategie Services (OSS) américain; elles laissaient entendre que des délégués avaient eu un comportementpeu compatible avec le mandat humanitaire du CICR.

¿Cómo luchar contra los múltiples atentados contra la dignidad humana? Esta dolorosa cuestión se plantea hoy a escala planetaria. No ha dejado de confirmarse, por lo demás, desde hace 75 años, es decir, desde la creación de la Sociedad de las Naciones y de la Organización Internacional del Trabajo. La historia de nuestro siglo, marcado por una sucesión de guerras y de crisis económicas, no cesa de recordarnos su urgencia. El problema adquiere hoy una nueva dimensión en muchos Estados y organizaciones internacionales. En este contexto se inscribe el objetivo estratégico de la Federación Internacional de Sociedades de la Cruz Roja y de la Media Luna Roja de «mejorar la situación de las personas más vulnerables»

El Consejo Ejecutivo de la Liga de Sociedades de la Cruz Roja y de la Media Luna Roja celebró su 23ª reunión en Ginebra, los días 20 y 21 de abril de 1989, presidida por el señor Mario Villarroel, presidente de la Liga.

En su alocución, el presidente expresó su esperanza de que el 70º aniversario de la fundación de la Liga y el «Gesto Humanitario» celebrado el mes de mayo en el marco del 125. ° aniversario del Movimiento incitarán a las Sociedades Nacionales a continuar el desarrollo del Movimiento con el mismo espíritu de paz que animó a sus fundadores.

Seguidamente, el secretario general, señor Pär Stenbäck, presentó un informe sobre las actividades de la Secretaría desde octubre de 1988, destacando las operaciones de socorro y el desarrollo de las Sociedades Nacionales.

Les agents chimiques de guerre ont été utilisés à grande échelle pour la première fois pendant la Première Guerre mondiale. Employés sur tous les fronts principaux, ils ont fait un nombre sans précédent de victimes, de sorte que dès la fin du conflit, des efforts ont été entrepris pour interdire cette nouvelle arme. C'est à la Société des Nations (SDN) que fut confiée la responsabilité de rédiger les textes de droit spécifiques, preuve que le problème était considéré comme un sujet de préoccupation pour le monde entier, et non pas pour les seuls vainqueurs de la guerre.

To crown the feature on humanitarian assistance published in the May-June 1992 issue of the Review, we now present the text of a lecture given by ICRC President Cornelio Sommaruga in several European cities in recent months, among them Freiburg im Breisgau, Como, Oslo and Paris.

Le CICR s'interroge depuis longtemps sur le comportement des combattants en temps de guerre, en particulier sur les paramètres qui interviennent dans le respect ou la violation des normes élémentaires du droit des conflits armés. La violence inhérente à la guerre induit-elle nécessairement une montée aux extrêmes? La guerre est-elle par définition criminogène? Est-elle inéluctablement accompagnée d'un cortège d'atrocités ?

As a post-war emergency assistance operation, the ICRC, at the end of February, submitted to the Government of the People's Republic of Angola (RPA) a six-month medico-social programme to supplement the humanitarian activities which it had been carrying on for several months. In a letter on 13 April, the Angolan Prime Minister, Mr. Lopo do Nascimento, informed the ICRC of the Angolan Government's wish for assistance programmes for the Angolan people to be conducted by national agencies and particularly through the National Red Cross Society which was then being organized.

The last few years have been a momentous period in the life of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. One milestone was the adoption of its new Statutes by the Twenty-fifth International Conference of the Red Cross (Geneva, October 1986). Furthermore, the increasingly universal nature of the Movement and the desire to present a united front in the face of the changes and upheavals taking place in the modern world, and the “solidarity of image” which exists between the various components of the Movement and which was stressed in Resolution No. 8 of the Council of Delegates (Rio de Janeiro, November 1987), have all had an appreciable influence on the Movement's information policy—and hence that of the ICRC.