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arrangements for the release of the hostages.

NO. 179

Mr. Hay has

announced his decision to step down as ICRC President. We

welcome his successor, Mr. Cornelio Sommaruga, who has been

Secretary of State for Foreign Economic Affairs in the

Swiss Government.

--The third organization that enables us to work

multilaterally to aid refugees is the Intergovernmental

Committee for Migration (ICM), ably led by James L. Carlin,

a former distinguished foreign service officer. ICM was

founded in 1951 to provide safe, secure migration

assistance in the major movements of displaced persons and

refugees following the second World War and the communist

takeovers in Eastern Europe. Since that time it has helped

move nearly 4 million refugees and migrants throughout the

world. Today ICM serves as the lead organization for

medical processing and resettlement transportation for the

U.S. refugee admissions program. In recent years ICM has

been especially resourceful in aiding skilled migrants

originally from third-world countries to return to

productive positions in their homelands.

Benefits of Cooperation

In concrete terms, the benefits of cooperation are

obvious. While the United States has been the leading refugee

resettlement country in the past decade, other countries have

also made important contributions, in some cases overcoming