On February 17, 1863, the Committee of five members appointed some days previously by the Public Welfare Society of Geneva to study the conclusions of a recently published work, A Memory of Solferino, met in Geneva. The International Committee of the Red Cross, because the Committee was soon to take this name, was born.

The International Committee of the Red Cross wishes to thank the large number of persons who have responded to its appeal and have come here to celebrate the hundredth anniversary of its foundation.

Mr. Pierre Boissier will shortly be describing to you how this work began, reminding you how much the whole world owes to the five men of Geneva who created the Red Cross. Did they not accomplish, with astonishing courage and tenacity, the two great ideas of their colleague Henry Dunant: the declaration of legal principles leading, on the one hand, to the protection of the victims of war and, on the other hand, to the forming of National Societies whose task it was to assist the Army Medical Services in the theatre of hostilities ? Furthermore, by constituting themselves as an International Committee, they foresaw that it could carry out the dual role of a neutral and impartial body which would propagate and develop humanitarian law and also send delegates to places in which fighting was taking place who would see to the application of this law. The principles and the action would thus be complementary.

The Russians say that one must not go to Tula with a samovar, because it is there that samovars are made. The English avoid taking coals to Newcastle. In the same way, the Dutch would not go to Gouda with a clay pipe. To speak about the Red Cross before an assembly such as this, composed of loyal friends of the International Committee and distinguished servants of the institution, is rather like flying in the face of the wise counsel of so many nations. In such tricky circumstances, I have only one recourse and that is to take refuge in a past as distant as possible. Fortunately, the Centenary which we are celebrating today invites me to do just that. It was in fact a century and a day ago that five gentlemen, as unlike each other as it is possible to be, met together for the first time.

A large number of National Red Cross Societies and their federative body, the League, have associated themselves with the founder institution of the Red Cross in a tribute of recognition to the members of the Committee of Five, whose energy and powerful imagination brought about the birth, on February 17, 1863, of a movement which today is universally heard and respected.

Mr. S. Gonard, former Colonel commanding an Army Corps, Vice-President of the International Committee of the Red Cross, returned on February 25 from a short mission to Algiers, where, accompanied by Mr. Roger Vust, resident delegate, and Mr. Jacques de Heller, assistant-delegate, he had a series of talks with Mr. Ben Bella, President of the Algerian Government, and with several of his ministers. These talks dealt with the ways in which wil^be carried out the forthcoming tasks entrusted in Algeria to the ICRC, which will visit persons detained for acts committed in connection with the recent conflict and will attempt to discover the fate of those who have disappeared since the cease-fire.

A mission of the International Committee of the Red Cross has recently stayed in Sanaa. This is the first time that representatives of the ICRC have visited the capital of the Yemen, where they were given a warm and friendly welcome.

The delegates of the ICRC, Mr. Roger Du Pasquier and Mr. Joseph Gasser, were received by Marshal Abdallah Sallal, President of the Arab Republic of the Yemen, who undertook to have the principles of the Geneva Conventions respected. The Chief of State in principle agreed to transmit to Geneva lists of prisoners taken by his troops.

The Indian Red Cross has recently sent the ICRC Central Tracing Agency a further list of Indian prisoners in Chinese hands with the information that 1,131 prisoners had been captured by Chinese troops up to November 16, 1962. 2,188 Indian soldiers were captured subsequent to this date and the Chinese Red Cross has begun sending the relevant lists. To these figures must be added 716 wounded and sick handed over to the Indian Red Cross, with the bodies of 13 other Indians. More than 3,000 Indian troops would still appear to be detained by China.

The General Navigation Company of Lake Léman in Lausanne has honoured the work of the Red Cross by naming its newest vessel after the author of A Memory of Solferino. The Company chose the date of the Centenary of the foundation of the ICRC for the naming of the boat, and a ceremony took place at Ouchy shipyard on February 17, 1963, before a large crowd.