The crescent, the cross and now the crystal. The Red Cross is hoping to add an additional symbol to the cross and crescent, a red crystal frame tilted on edge against a white background.
A special meeting will be held in Switzerland in December of the 192 countries, party to the Geneva Conventions.
These countries will then be asked to approve the symbol. There is expected to be a wide show of support for the ratification.
The Red Cross will use the symbol in regions where either the cross or crescent, both symbols of neutrality, may be mistaken for religious insignia and consequently endanger the lives of workers.
"In a place like the Congo where there are many different factions and communications are weak, people could mistake our signs,'' Ian Piper, spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross told Gulf News from Geneva last night.
"The crystal may open up an opportunity to negotiate locally with people on the ground for safe passage for our workers and supplies.''
It is not the Red Cross that is overseeing the process of ratification but the Swiss Government which will organise the December conference where a substantial majority are expected to vote in favour.
"It is not just a simple democratic vote of 50 per cent plus one,'' Piper said.
"It has to be carried by a two-thirds majority. Providing this is achieved it has to be ratified and that will take about six months. So we are looking at about next summer before it is officially used.''
The introduction is in response to the growing attacks on aid workers in recent years and the bombing of the Red Cross building in Baghdad.
The Red Cross, the reverse of the Swiss flag, was adopted as a symbol of neutrality to identify medics and ambulances in war zones in 1863.
Thirteen years later the Ottoman Empire opted to use the Red Crescent as its equivalent symbol of neutrality during the Russo-Turkish war.
The empty white space in the red crystal is not redundant design.
Some countries refuse to recognise both existing symbols. As a way around this they could place their symbols inside the white space, surrounded by the borders of the crystal.
The Red Cross has emphasised that its two existing symbols will be used on a normal day-to-day basis. The crystal will be used only in exceptional circumstances where it will help the Red Cross to carry out its functions.
ORIGIN
Organisation born out of battle trauma
The Red Cross idea was born in 1859, when Henry Dunant, a young Swiss man, came upon the scene of a bloody battle in Solferino, Italy, between the armies of imperial Austria and the Franco-Sardinian alliance.
Some 40,000 men lay dead or dying and the wounded were lacking medical attention.
Dunant organised local people to bind the soldiers' wounds and to feed and comfort them. On his return, he called for the creation of national relief societies to assist those wounded in war.
"Would there not be some means, during a period of peace and calm, of forming relief societies whose object would be to have the wounded cared for in time of war by enthusiastic, devoted volunteers, fully qualified for the task?" he wrote.
The Red Cross was born in 1863 when five Geneva men, including Dunant, set up the International Committee for Relief to the Wounded, later to become the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Gulf News
