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4. I asked Mr Reid what he thought were going to be the main issues at the 25th International Conference of the Red Cross in Geneva in October. As general issues he identified the following:
(a) regionalisation the LRCS has remained virtually unchanged since its creation in 1919 when it was exclusively an American and European organisation. He felt that the non-aligned members will be looking to increase the say in the workings of the movement. This might eventually lead to the regionalisation, ie splitting into blocs, of the LRCS along the lines of the WHO, He did not see this as an entirely bad development and, indeed, saw some benefit in holding regional conferences.
(b) Islamicisation of the Red Crescent Societies which might lead to difficulties at the international level, particularly with reference to International Humanitarian Law.
(c) Health for All by 2000 he felt that this would be the main East/West battleground. A hobby horse of the East bloc who had plenty of doctors to send to developing countries but no money or grain to give towards relief assistance.
(d) Development he saw this as the main North/South issue, ie the linkage of emergency relief with development programmes aimed at attacking the root causes of the emergency.
For the Commission on Humanitarian Law he saw the main issues to be as follows:
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(a) the defintion of a refugee.
(b) the implementation of the Conventions and Additional Protocols, particularly in those areas where the system was not working, eg Iran/Iraq where fanaticism overruled humanitarina concerns, and Sri Lanka where the Government refused to allow the ICRC to negotiate the release of a Briton held captive by the Tamil separatists because of the fear that to do so would imply some recognition of the Tamil groups at an international level.
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(c) Identification of ambulance transport.
(d) Torture.
(e) Anti-piracy measures.
(f) Disarmament and weapons of mass destruction.
For the General Commission he saw the main issues as follows:
(a) Use of the Red Cross emblem (see meeting with Mr Adams). Linked with this was the problem of Israel's membership. At present they only have observer status (as does the PLO) but they would wish to join the LRCS. The main difficulties with this are that national societies are supposed to be self-financed whereas the Israeli society gets most of its funds from outside Israel and the Israeli society's insistence that they use the Red Hand of David
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