The ICRC negotiates all the time for kidnapped victims. Just last week rebels in Indonesia handed over 22 kidnap victims to the ICRC.
abovetopsecret.com
INDONESIA - Rebels release "prisoners"
On 15 May, a spokesman from the separatist rebel group Free Aceh Movement (GAM) in Aceh Province, Indonesia said the group handed over 22 "prisoners" to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). A GAM spokesman told Agence France Presse in Jakarta that GAM East Aceh operations commander handed the prisoners over in a forest near the district capital Langsa.
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There are other examples of intervention of the ICRC in kidnapping cases.
November 1, 1996, Sudan. A breakaway group of the Sudanese People's Liberation Army (SPLA) kidnapped three workers of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), including one U.S citizen. The rebels released the hostages on December 9 in exchange for ICRC supplies and a health survey of their camp.
us-israel.org
He said the gunmen attacked and seized the aid workers after their aircraft from Nairobi landed.
The victims were a Somali, an American, a South African, a Kenyan, a German, a Belgian, a French, two Swiss and a Norwegian. They represented the ICRC, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and the Somali Red Crescent.
Anselmo said he had no information about their whereabouts. But a diplomat familiar with the situation said the workers were seen alive on a road in the Mogadishu area about 1:30 p.m. (1030 GMT).
The Red Cross workers were coming to help with the organization's aid program in Somalia, which includes hospital and water-supply projects. Local Red Cross staff were waiting for them at the airstrip.
Norwegian Red Cross identified the kidnapped American as Ibrahim Ahmad, who was of Somali origin and had worked for about a year as an orthopedic engineer. He was under contract to the Norwegian Red Cross. The Norwegian national was identified as Ola Skuterud, 56.
In Oslo, Norway, Magne Barth, the director of international operations, indicated he knew who kidnapped the workers.
"There is contact with their elders," he said.
In Nairobi, Ali Mahdi Mohamed, a Somali warlord whose forces control north Mogadishu, said he did not know about the kidnapping.
"I don't know what happened. But if it's true, they will be released immediately," he said.
cgi.cnn.com
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There is also proof that the ICRC sets a double standard when it comes to American POWs.
Double standard
The detention of al Qaeda terrorists in Cuba has drawn an international outcry from numerous groups, including the International Committee of the Red Cross. Kim Gordon-Bates, ICRC spokesman in Geneva, said Feb. 9 that the decision by Mr. Bush to treat Taliban but not al Qaeda captives as prisoners of war did not go far enough.
"The ICRC stands by its position that people in a situation of international conflict are considered to be prisoners of war unless a competent tribunal decides otherwise," Mr. Gordon-Bates said.
ICRC officials are continuing to press the Pentagon to declare the al Qaeda captives POWs under the Geneva Convention, something the Bush administration is refusing to do in order to avoid legitimizing the terrorist group under an international convention.
Pentagon officials are said to be angered by the ICRC's public and private complaints.
One outraged official told us the Geneva-based ICRC vocally supported al Qaeda prisoners but made no similar complaints when the North Vietnamese communists denied prisoner of war status to captured U.S. military personnel in the 1960s and 1970s. American troops were forced by the Vietnamese to give press conferences before foreign journalists and the ICRC said nothing.
Yet the ICRC has complained that al Qaeda prisoners were improperly photographed in a holding area at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
"When captured U.S. servicemen were taken out of their prison cells by their captors on July 6, 1966, and marched through Hanoi streets, where they were kicked, spat upon, otherwise assaulted, and photographed, the ICRC said nothing," the official said.
Also, in 1991, when U.S. and coalition military personnel were captured by Iraqis during the Persian Gulf war, they were denied prisoner of war status. The ICRC was again silent.
So why are they complaining now?
"For this double standard, Congress, through the State Department, donates more than $100 million annually to the ICRC — 25 percent of its budget, and more than the next 10 donor nations combined," the official said.
gertzfile.com
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There is ample proof the ICRC has set a double standard when it comes to American POWs, just as there is ample proof the the ICRC does search for and try to negotiate release of kidnap victims.
The fact that neither one of us can find information about what the ICRC is doing about American POWs in Iraq is frustrating to say the least.
I think that is what concerns Karen.
I know it concerns me.
M |
