Follow-up: Red Cross condemns logo misuse

A brief statement issued by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) slammed the Colombian government for apparently misusing the logo during a July rescue mission. Colombian President Alvaro Uribe apologized last month to the ICRC over a “nervous soldier” who used the ICRC emblem during the mission. Yet a video leaked this week to the local media on the preparations for the operation revealed that the military purposefully used symbols of entities like the ICRC and Venezuelan-based TV network Telesur.

According to part of the communiqué from the Swiss-based ICRC:

"If authenticated, these images would clearly establish an improper use of the red cross emblem, which we deplore," said the ICRC's deputy director of operations, Dominik Stillhart. The use of the Red Cross, Red Crescent and red crystal emblems is governed by the Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols. These emblems may not be used by bodies or persons not entitled to do so under international humanitarian law. "We are in contact with the Colombian authorities to ask for further clarifications as to exactly what happened," said Stillhart.

The debate over the ICRC symbol has heightened already tight tensions between the Colombian and Swiss governments; last month, the Uribe administration accused Swiss diplomat Jean-Pierre Gontard, of giving a $500,000 ransom to the FARC guerillas. Swiss officials have flatly denied the charges and have backed Gontard.

Image- AFP (“Colombian TV footage showed a member of the army sporting the Red Cross emblem”)

Sources- AFP, Bloomberg, swissinfo.ch, BBC News, The Latin Americanist, ICRC.org