This is Robert Cohen with the VOA Special English DevelopmentReport.
The sign of the red cross and redcrescent is meant to offer neutrality and protection to victims ofwar. It is also supposed to protect the humanitarian workers whocome to their aid. These emblems of the International Red Cross andRed Crescent Movement date back more than one-hundred years.
The first Geneva Convention in Switzerland in eighteen-sixty-fourapproved a red cross on a white background. In eighteen-seventy-six,the Ottoman Empire used the emblem of a red crescent during its warwith Russia. That emblem became recognized in thenineteen-twenty-nine Geneva Convention. So was the emblem of the redlion and sun of Persia. Today, only the red cross and red crescentare in use.
Rules to define how the emblems can be used are in thenineteen-forty-nine Geneva Convention. Medical workers, hospitalsand aid stations, and emergency vehicles are permitted to use anemblem for protection.
But the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement saysits emblem is under increasing attack by extremists and armedgroups. Officials say some people link it to Christianity ornational causes.
The movement has proposed to create a third emblem. More thanone-thousand-five-hundred representatives approved a resolution onthis issue at a conference in Geneva earlier this month.
Officials say they hope the action will speed the admission ofmore groups as full members of the movement. These currently usenational emblems. Israel’s Magen David [DAH-veed] Adom is the mostdebated case. The emergency medical service uses a red, six-pointedStar of David.
Officials say the third emblem, whatever it is, must have theability to be used in unlimited ways around the world. The presidentof the International Committee of the Red Cross says it must be freeof any religious or national connections.
The efforts have been delayed by the renewal ofIsraeli-Palestinian violence in two-thousand. Calls for a thirdemblem have increased since the bombing of the Red Crossheadquarters in Baghdad in October. Twelve people were killed.
To add a new emblem, Switzerland would need to call a conferenceof all one-hundred-eighty-eight nations that have signed the GenevaConvention.
This VOA Special English Development Report was written by JillMoss. This is Robert Cohen.