Prince Mired of Jordan at GICHD offices overlooking Geneva
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Israel’s commando attack on six ships have grabbed world attention this week. Last week it was North Korea’s torpedoes.
Amid the gloomy talk of wars and fighting, one man was quietly but forcefully convincing military and political leaders to take one step in the other direction, away from the tools of war.
Prince Mired Raad Zeid Al Hussein of Jordan was in Geneva last week as the convention president’s special envoy on the universalization of the Mine Ban Convention, en route to Washington, DC, where he spent the last week of May meeting with several top US officials.
His task: convince the US and 38 other states to sign the treaty, to which 156 other nations have agreed to be bound since the convention entered into force in 1999. The Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention is also known as the Ottawa Convention.
Several countries, including the US, are “coming closer”, he believes. “Having the US would be great. Others would come on board. It would create a media stir.
“There’s not a country we see that doesn’t ask about the US.”
Prince Mired of Jordan in Washington to encourage the US to sign the Ottawa Convention to ban landmines
The US could do enormous good by taking a leadership role and signing, he believes. “This is a walk in the park, compared to Start [the lengthy Start talks with Russia, in Geneva, to reduce nuclear warheads], and a golden opportunity for the US to show the world its goodwill,” he told GenevaLunch during an interview at the Geneva International Centre for Humanitarian Demining (GICHD) where the secretariat of the Convention is housed in.
Prince Mired will provide an update on his Washington and other visits when he reports back 21 June in Geneva to the Standing Committee on the General Status and Operation of the Convention.
Myriad reasons for not signing
The reasons for not signing are specific to each country. But a common thread, he says, is that “leadership is not engaged. There is a lack of awareness, really, of being uninformed. One only has to see and deal with victims to understand the importance of this. People see this less, maybe, in the US” than in other countries.
He had just returned from a visit to Laos before coming to Geneva.
“Laos has taken a leadership role in Asia on cluster munitions and there is widespread hope that it would do the same with respect to anti-personnel mines. The country is enjoying the benefit of being recognized for taking a leading role.” Additional benefits would no doubt flow to Laos should it accede to the AP Mine Ban Convention, he believes.
Step by step means progress
China, like the US, is a large country that has not signed, but “China has taken a number of steps – it has participated and made significant strides.” Russia, with fighting hot spots, is more reluctant, but Prince Mired says “the important thing is to take the next step.”
The Oslo Conference on Armed Violence poster depicts conflict and hope
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Each year almost half a million people die as a result of armed violence not related to war, while an additional 250,000 die in armed conflicts. Add to these figures the fact that 60% of homicides in the world involve small arms and light weapons and you can see why armed violence is being called an epidemic of global proportions.
Armed violence, according to Norway’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jonas Gahr Store, is a barrier to development, causes human rights violations, fosters impunity and undermines trust in public institutions.
The Minister made the remarks in the framework of the Oslo Conference on Armed Violence. Due to a Europe-wide air travel ban last month, an abbreviated Conference was held in Geneva instead of Norway.
Store joined the President of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), UN high level representatives, and representatives of 60 countries and civil society, to promote adoption of the “Oslo Commitments,” a set of five actions geared to stop violence and foster progress towards the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG). Armed violence globally poses a significant challenge to achieving the goals outlined by the international community in 2000.
The actions to be adopted by states include a better measurement and monitoring of armed violence, appropriate recognition of victims’ rights, improving international cooperation and assistance, and adopting a comprehensive approach to violence prevention.
El Salvador, a country that has struggled against armed violence during the past three decades is one of many to embrace these actions.
Henry Campos speaking in Geneva about the situation in El Salvador
“We have been affected by civil war, by the repatriation of hundreds of street gang members coming from the US who introduced criminal violence to our streets, and by the spilling over our borders of drug trafficking violence that originates in neighboring countries,” said Henry Campos El Salvador’s Vice Minister of Justice and Security.
This Central American nation has taken steps to, according to Campos, “keep moving this agenda forward regardless of who’s in power.”
Like El Salvador, many nations consumed by daily armed violence do not have the sole means to effectively fight its impact, thus the importance of international assistance.
The history of the Mara Salvatruchas, a transnational street gang responsible for spreading violent crime in El Salvador, is a prime example of how armed violence may impede national development. Firearm violence costs the Salvadorian state 11% of the annual GDP, more than twice the budget for education and health.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The eight ICRC (International Red Cross) workers kidnapped 9 April were released unharmed Friday 16 April, the Geneva-based humanitarian agency announced. One Swiss and seven Congolese workers were taken in southern Kivu in the Democratic Republic of Congo but released with help from the United Nations Mission.
UN peacekeeper killed in north of country
ICRC operations in the DRC (map, ©2010, ICRC)
Update 11:30 Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - One Swiss worker and seven other members of an ICRC (International Red Cross) team have reportedly been kidnapped in South Kivu by Mai-Mai rebels, according to AFP news agency, which says it has confirmation from the ICRC’s regional office in DR Congo. The group was returning from a mission when they were taken, but their motive is not yet known and they appear not to have asked for a ransom.
Title: Exhibit: Humanity in war
Location: Geneva
Link out: Click here
Description: Exceptional tour with ICRC delegates on Sunday 18 April 2010 at 11:00 and 14:30. Free guided tour in English on Sunday 25 April at 11:00. This exhibition is a photographic account of war over the last 150 years. From the American Civil War to the conflicts at the beginning of the 21st century.
Start Date: 2010-03-31
End Date: 2010-07-25
Geneva UN and Red Cross groups work on sanitation, health problems
Installing a water reservoir in the women's prison at Petion-Ville. (photo: ©2010 ICRC/M. Kokic/ht-e-00577)
Work for cash, UNDP programme, Haiti 2010 (photo: ©2010 UNDP on flickr)
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The arrest of 10 Americans accompanying a busload of children being illegally carried out of Haiti and into the Dominican Republic 30 January by a US religious organization has raised fears that children may be separated from members of their family who survived the 12 January earthquake in the country. Two Geneva-based groups, the ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross) and the Geneva office of Unicef, are active in the fight to ensure that children do not become victims of a new Haitian disaster, child trafficking, whether they are orphans or not.
The arrests come as fears are reportedly rising among Haitians of the ancient loup-garou, similar to a werewolf but a predator of children’s spirits, according to the Washington Post.
ICRC’s tracing service, usually deployed in times of conflict, is working closely with the Haitian Red Cross to re-establish family links. Working with lists provided by hospitals and first aid stations, the workers collate information to get families back together. ICRC says almost 1,500 people have been able to make “safe and well” phone calls. So far, it has a list of 25,600 names on its site www.icrc.org/familylinks.
The UN Children’s Fund (Unicef) concentrates on reuniting children with their families.
Title: Chappatte exhibit, Liebeskind talk
Location: Société de Lecture, Geneva
Description: Opening of exhibit of Patrick Chappatte\’s cartoons from 2009 (to 28 March) at 18:00, with lecture by Alexandre Liebeskind, personal consul to Int. Red Cross president, on Obama\’s first year, humanitarian issues. Patrick Chappatte’s cartoons appear regularly in GenevaLunch.
Start Time: 18:00
Date: 2010-02-02
End Time: 21:00
UNHCR calls on countries to stop repatriating Haitians
Red Cross offers advice on burying dead
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) -The International Red Cross (ICRC) opened a missing person’s site following the Haiti earthquake, Family Links, Wednesday evening 13 January. It has registered 14,000 messages in less than two days, says Robert Zmmerman, deputy head of the ICRC Central Tracing Agency and Protection Division in Geneva. The ICRC is working closely with the Haitian Red Cross Society, as well as several other national societies, to connect those who are missing, or knowledge of them, and their families.
At the moment there are”primarily two users,” Zimmerman told GenevaLunch. “People outside Haiti and those who are able to register, to make themselves known.” But he adds, this is obviously limiting as long as communication lines are down. Many people “won’t be able to register themselves so we have people, our colleagues, who are feeding in information about the injured” or dead as they find it – in hospitals and on the streets in Haiti. “This is being set up right now, on the spot, but we don’t have details yet for how this is going to go. We’re faced with the same communications problems with our own staff.”
People seeking information about persons missing in Haiti are advised to use the Family Links site. The list can be viewed publicly.
Haiti earthquake, the aftermath (Photo: Matthew Marek/American Red Cross)
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Several organizations based in Switzerland are spearheading much of the relief effort in Haiti, and they are appealing to the public for funds. Aid has begun pouring into the country, more than 30 hours after the 7.0 scale earthquake that ravaged the capital, Port-au-Prince.
If you live in the Lake Geneva area and you would like to contribute to funds going to Haiti, here is a GenevaLunch selection of key groups, with fund appeals and explanations about their work in the area on their web sites:
Danger sign for landmines
Updated 17:20 Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The goal of the Cartagena Summit on a Mine-free World, meeting in Colombia 29 November to 4 December, is to eradicate the suffering caused by anti-personnel mines once and for all.
Colombia has had the dubious distinction until recently of being the country with the most casualties from anti-personnel mines. It was overtaken by Afghanistan in 2009. Colombia alone counts 8,081 casualties of landmines since 1990, but it also has 6,285 survivors, people who have lost a limb. Landmines caused almost 5,200 casualties worldwide in 2008, one-third of them children. The 2009 Landmine Monitor Report points out that deaths from landmines are steadily decreasing, down from an average of 7,300 a year for the previous 10 years. Landmine ban groups are keen to get rid of the mines but they are also focusing more on helping survivors.
In Colombia, too, the number of casualties has been falling: 777 deaths in 2008, compared to 895 the previous year.
In Colombia, rebel groups such as Farc and the ELN, as well as paramilitary groups, have planted anti-personnel mines on an estimated 60 percent of the territory. Insurgents increasingly finance themselves through the drugs trade, reported Human Rights Watch in a section on Colombia in its World Report 2009, published in January. They have been invading peripheral regions in the south of the country on the border with Ecuador, ejecting the indigenous populations, and protecting their territories from army incursions by the simple means of sowing anti-personnel mines, many home-made and attractive to children.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A French agronomist working for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Chad was abducted Tuesday 10 November near village of Kawa, eastern Chad, where ICRC has a primary health care assistance programme. The ICRC says Laurent Maurice was taken by several armed men, but does not know their motives nor their identities.
Update 12:10 Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The US intends to negotiate a legally binding protocol on cluster munitions under the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW), says Harold Hongju Koh, legal advisor to the US Department of State.
Gereida camp Darfur, Sudan. ©ICRC/B. Heger
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The fate of Gauthier Lefevre, 35, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) delegate abducted 22 October in the west Darfur region of Sudan, is still uncertain, according to Daniel Duvillard, ICRC’s chief of operations for Eastern Africa, in an interview 29 October.
ICRC confirms that it has received a ransom request, but as a matter of policy it does not pay ransoms. It is using all the channels at its disposal to obtain the release of Lefevre, and insists with his captors that his physical integrity be ensured. ICRC officials managed to speak to him two days after his capture, and he confirmed that he was being well treated.
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The International Olympic Committee was bestowed observer status at the UN General Assembly in New York, USA Monday, 19 October, in recognition of the IOC’s efforts to promote the UN’s Millenium Development Goals and the importance of sports in promoting development and peace.
Observer status is a privilege given to non-member states – currently only the Vatican is a non-member – and non-governmental organizations, like the International Red Cross. Observers may speak, but cannot vote or introduce resolutions.
Montreux, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Coordinated international response to a bioterrorist attack was simulated in Montreux 7 and 8 September in an exercise code-named Black Ice II, according to the Swiss Department of Foreign Affairs. The exercise simulated an attack resulting in a pneumonic plague epidemic, and tested the institutional response to such an attack in order to better prepare for the real thing.
© British Red Cross/Ash Sweeting/af-
Geneva, Switzerland and Washington DC (GenevaLunch) – The US military has begun a policy of handing over to the International Red Cross (ICRC) the names of detainees held in two camps in Iraq and Afghanistan, the New York Times reports. ICRC has broad access to all detainees held by the US military, but two camps that are part of the US Defense Department’s Special Operations programme are off-limits, until the detainees are formally transferred to a prison in either country. The military name for the camps is “temporary screening sites”, camps in which high-level combat detainees are interrogated. The new policy affects about 30 to 40 prisoners at any time in camps at Balad, Iraq and Bagram air force base in Afghanistan, according to the newspaper, which cites unnamed sources.
Update 11:00 Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The third hostage taken by rebels in the southern Philippines six months ago was released early Sunday 12 July Manila time, the ICRC (International Red Cross)) has announced. Eugenio Vagni, an Italian citizen, was freed after 179 days in captivity and the ICRC says that although he is tired “given the circumstances [he] is doing remarkably well.” His fellow hostages and ICRC employees Mary Jean Lacaba and Andreas Notter were released in April.
Photo: Gaya Mageswaran/International Federation, © International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The horrors of the battle of Solferino 150 years ago 24 June brought into being the international Red Cross and Red Crescent movement, based in Geneva. To mark the day, Swiss media have been focusing on numerous events taking place in the region:
Le Temps mentions the week-long celebrations organized by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), and highlights the coming together of volunteers of the 186 national Red Cross and Red Crescent societies at Solferino, in Italy. Three hundred young people will retrace Henri Dunant’s trip back to Geneva from Solferino: Dunant was the Geneva businessman who witnessed the battle and returned home determined to help change things.
TSR reports that starting 22 June at ICRC headquarters 20 runners will run a relay in 20km stages all the way to Solferino, where they will join the hundreds of volunteers from the national societies. TSR also mentions that Geneva’s jet d’eau fountain was illuminated in red Wednesday, 24 June.
The Tribune de Genève details the relay race to Solferino from Geneva, and notes that 12 of the runners are ICRC staff members. They arrive Saturday 26 June.
Swissinfo commemorates the occasion with a special section that includes photos and background articles on the Red Cross in the news.
Geneva is the headquarters of both the ICRC, which offers its services in instances of armed conflict, and of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), which coordinates the activities of the 186 individual national societies. The IFRC has its own page for the events being commemorated.
Solferino would have been just another bloody battle to be forgotten in northern Italy 150 years ago, but for the fact that it moved one man, Dunant, to start something that has helped untold victims of warfare since then. Geneva’s Dunant saw the battle of Solferino, 24 June 1859, that pitted French and Piedmontese forces against the Austrians, and then helped to organize assistance to the abandoned wounded on the battlefield.
He went away with the germ of an idea that brought into being the Red Cross and Red Crescent movement and won him the first Nobel Peace prize in 1901.
Shadu, age 3, has lost his mother, DR Congo (image: ICRC June 2009, P Yazdi)
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – More than half of the civilians directly touched by the world’s eight major conflicts have been displaced, and half say they have lost contact with a family member. One in five have lost their livelihood.
These are some of the findings of a statistical and interview set of surveys ordered by the International Red Cross (ICRC), based in Geneva, to ascertain the extent to which civilians today are affected by major conflicts.
The greatest fears mentioned by people surveyed:
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - A team from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) delegation in Lima, Peru traveled to the Amazon areas where protests by indigenous peoples turned deadly violent 5 June. Native groups blocking the main highway to the coast had been violently attacked by police forces sent to open the road. In retaliation, dozens of policemen held by the natives elsewhere were killed in cold blood. It was the country’s most serious violence since the end of the war with the Shining Path rebels in the 1980s and 1990s.
Among the dead are 24 policemen and 10 natives. Some human rights groups have accused the police of covering up more deaths of natives, Luis Jaime Cisneros of Agence France-Presse in Peru told GenevaLunch.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Several international aid agencies working with internally displaced people (IDPs) in northwest Pakistan have called for a more rapid deployment of funds in order to help the estimated 2.4 million (IDPs) who fled fighting in the Swat valley in May 2009, even as more arrive daily from the conflict areas. Most of the IDPs have found shelter not in camps but with friends and family. This hospitality is now being sorely tested as more and more families are arriving at camps, says the UNHCR (UN High Commissioner for Refugees).
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) visited Mingora in Pakistan’s Swat valley again today 3 June to evaluate the needs of the civilian population remaining in the area.
Simon Schorno, an ICRC delegate now at its Geneva headquarters, who recently returned from the area told GenevaLunch that ICRC is seeking agreement from the parties to the conflict to set up a a sub-delegation in Mingora, scene of much fighting in the last two weeks. It hopes to reach agreement shortly.
Hans Erni with Yolanda Rojal, president of the Swiss foreign press association in Lucerne 16 May 2009
Hans Erni
Lucerne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Hans Erni, Swiss artist who celebrated his 100th birthday in February, has been named Swiss Personality of the Year 2008-2009 by the Foreign Press Association, which is based in Geneva.
Erni Saturday evening 16 May welcomed a small group of journalists to his museum next to the Swiss Transportation Museum in Lucerne, his hometown. He spoke passionately for 30 minutes, focusing on his continuing work to promote peace.
The artist’s new wall fresco, a series of ceramic panels that plea for peace, is currently being installed to cover 60 metres of cement wall at the United Nations building in Geneva. It will be unveiled 6 June in a public ceremony.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has tried to reach civilians and wounded for nine consecutive days in the area of intense fighting in Sri Lanka’s northeast. It appealed again Monday 18 May to the government of Sri Lanka to facilitate access.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – “Our staff are witnessing an unimaginable humanitarian catastrophe,” ICRC (International Red Cross) Director of operations, Pierre Kraehenbuehl, said in a statement 14 May from the organization’s headquarters in Geneva. “Despite high-level assurances, the lack of security on the ground means that our sea operations continue to be stalled, and this is unacceptable. No humanitarian organization can help them in the current circumstances. People are left to their own devices.”
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A local International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) employee and his mother were killed 13 May by an army shell, reports Le Temps, in the crowded and dangerous northeast corner of Sri Lanka, where government troops are battling Tamil Tigers.
A ferry boat contracted by ICRC to take essential food and medicine to the safe area and evacuate those civilians most at risk, especially the wounded, women and children, was unable to beach Monday 12 May due to the dangerous situation, according to Paul Castella, ICRC chief delegate in Colombo. The ICRC has called for a ceasefire to allow civilians trapped by the fighting to leave.
Andreas Notter (image © 2009 T Gassmann, ICRC)
Geneva, Switzerland (TSR, Fre and ICRC) – Swiss ICRC (International Red Cross) employee Andreas Notter, back in Switzerland after he escaped his captors in the Philippines 19 April, told journalists at a press conference today that he was not freed by force by the Philippines army, one of the stories circulating about his move to freedom.
Updated 10:10 Philippines and Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Andreas Notter, Swiss ICRC (International Red Cross) worker in the Philippines who has been hostage for three months, was freed by government soldiers who attacked the town on the island of Sulu where he and Italian ICRC employee Eugenio Vagni have been held by rebels. (Ed. note: click on image to view map larger. Sulu is in southwestern Philippines.) The ICRC in Geneva confirmed the news Saturday morning 18 April but provided no details.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Philippines media ABS-CBN News reports late Tuesday 31 March that Sulu Governor Abdusakur Tan says no beheadings of ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross) staff happened Tuesday despite the 14:00 deadline being passed. ABS-CBN says this matches reports from its sources. The Abu Sayyaf rebel group has threatened to behead one of the hostages it took 15 January.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Two international organizations based in Geneva have issued urgent appeals to the captors of their employees to release them unharmed. Rebels in the Philippines, who are holding three ICRC (International Red Cross) employees, including Swiss Andreas Notter, are threatening to decapitate one of them if the army does not leave the area where they are held. Tuesday morning the UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) told the kidnappers of John Solecki in Pakstan that they are entirely responsible for his health, expressing concern over the lack of news in the past two weeks.
