To speak on the theme “Solidarity and Protection of Political Detainees” is unquestionably a difficult undertaking. Today, in 1980, the problem of so-called “political” detainees is one of the most controversial of issues and also one that has become heavily politicized. It is no easy matter to discern any truly universal solidarity concerning such a problem.

In the years of transition and change between 1918 and 1939, the only constant was the contrast with the turmoil of the world wars which preceded and followed that period. In this passage from one world conflict to the next, three stages, not only in the evolution of the world but also in that of the ICRC, may he distinguished.

The International Committee learned with great sorrow of the passing away on 25 April, at the age of eighty-three, of Lady Angela, Dowager Countess of Limerick, Vice-President of the British Red Cross Society and former Chairman of the Standing Commission of the International Red Cross from 1965 to 1973.

Indian Prime Minister, Mrs. Indira Gandhi, visited on May 6 the headquarters of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva following her address to the Assembly of the World Health Organization.

The Government of Grenada, in a letter dated 25 March 1981 addressed to the Swiss Federal Council and received on 13 April 1981, confirmed its participation in the four Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949 for the protection of the victims of war, pursuant to their ratifification by the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

On 8 May 1981, the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs sent to the States Parties to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949 a notification concerning Protocol I adopted on 10 June 1977:

The Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, not having received from the States concerned, within the period of 90 days, any objection to its proposal, dated 20 January 1981, to make a correction to the authentic French and Spanish texts of Protocol I, where an error had been found, has made the proposed correction in the authentic French and Spanish texts of article 59, paragraph 2, first sentence.

The ICRC delegation in Chad was re-opened in N'Djamena on 1 March 1981. Previously, since December 1980, the delegates working in N'Djamena had to cross over to Kousseri on the Cameroon side of the Chari River every evening, for safety.