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(a) Swhere prisoners are retained, the reasons should be explained
to them, to the Protecting Power and to the International Red Cross Committee;
(a)
any prisoners still detained when a peace treaty is signed should be immediately returned to their own country, unless that treaty should include specific provisions to the contrary. (C. R. G. C. M(48)2, Item 15).
The International Red Cross Committee favour the prohibition of differences of treatment in selection for repatriation other than those based on sex, health or age; and also of the repatriation of any prisoners of war against their own will.
89. The first of the proposals referred to in paragraph 88 above, would prevent such selective repatriation as took place, as deliberate policy, after the Second World War, in which prisoners of war, regarded as sympathetic to the democratic way of life, were given priority.
90. With regard to the second proposal referred to in paragraph 88 above, the United Kingdom delegation at the 1947 Conference pointed out firmly that it would be most unfair to a Detaining Power to have to keep a prisoner of war who did not want to go back to his own country. The proposal to prohibit repatriation of prisoners of war against their will derives from the attitude adopted by some Governments towards certain repatriated prisoners of war; and it may be re-opened at a future Inter- national Conference. The question has wide political implications, and it is therefore desirable that the United Kingdom delegation to a future International Conference should have clear instructions on this issue, and that, if possible, those instructions should have been approved on high level. (See also paragraph 333 below).
91. by Committee recommend that the United Kingdom delegation to a future International Conference should firmly oppose the proposals referred to in paragraph 88 above. (U. R. G. C./m(48)12, Item 93).
92. Treatment of Women. The application of the Conventions to women was considered by a sub-Committee on which each of the Services' Nursing Services and Women's Services were represented and this Sub-Committee satisfied themselves that the proposed provisions of the Conventions were adequate, except on certain points of detail, which are dealt with in Part III (paragraphs 298, 354 and 383 below); but they called attention to the necessity for ensuring: -
(a)
(b)
that all members of these Services should, in war-time, be clothed in distinctive uniform and wear badges;
that notification to the adverse belligerents of the ranks, titles, uniforms and badges of these Services should be made as in the case of male forces;
and that the necessary machinery to ensure that these things were done, should be made ready in peace. These points were emphasised because Military
urses captured in liong-Kong and Singapore had great difficulty in establishing their military identity and status to the satisfaction of the Japanese. Canadian Military Nurses, who were in military uniform, wearing badges similar to those worn by the Canadian Army Medical Corps, had no such difficulty.
The Report of the Sub-Committee on the Treatment of women is
at Appendix D.
93. Parole.
As mentioned in paragraph 11 above there is no reference to the grant of Farole to prisoners of war in the 1929 Prisoners of War Convention; and the provisions of articles 10, il and 12 of the Regulations respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land annexed to the Hague Convention of lüth Uctober, 1907, are as follows:
"10.
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Prisoners of war may be set at laws of their country allow it, bound, on their personal honour,
17
Page 242. liberty on parole if the
and, in such cases, they are
scrupulously to fulfil,
940
both towards their own Government, and the Government by which they were made prisoners, the engagements they may have Bagaba.of 488