ブックタイトルThe Journal of Humanitarian Studies

概要

The Journal of Humanitarian Studies

Journal of Humanitarian Studies Vol. 4, 2015surgical hospital in Lokichokio, on the Kenyan side of the border. Initially planned for a capacity of 30beds, under a big tent, the hospital grew, at the peak of its operations, more than 10 years later, to a capacityof 600 beds, with an orthopaedic centre attached to it. On the relief side, the ICRC had to maintain a fleet of17 planes, from Sudan, Kenya and Uganda, to ferry supplies to Southern Sudan and evacuate the woundedto Lokichokio.The JRCS was one of the very first national Red Cross Societies, which came to the assistance of the ICRCin providing staff and equipment to help us cope with the situation there. Almost without interruption,JRCS staff has been working in Lokichokio, very far away from Japan on all accounts: geography, culture,climate, security, food, working conditions, environment etc., everything was different from Japan. TheSudanese patients were very intrigued by the Japanese nurses and doctors: they had never seen any Asianbefore and the male patients always wanted to marry the nurses, promising to give us numbers of cows andgoats to buy them and compensate us for the loss. Laughingly, we would answer that they should checkwith the nurses first but that for us, anyway, we would never sell them to anybody: these JRCS nurses weredoing wonders, in difficult conditions, to treat their patients.In-between, international NGOs and UN agencies came and settled in Lokichokio. At the peak of theoperation, this tiny village, where the WFP built a brand new airstrip, became the third busiest airport inKenya…After the conflict moved away from the border, the ICRC shifted its operation deep in Southern Sudan and,more than 20 years after its“temporary opening”, closed its hospital in Lokichokio.However, I am sure that the souvenir of the Japanese nurses remain alive within the walls of the building,now abandoned…I know a Japanese singer wrote a novel based on his song, to celebrate the dedication ofthe JRCS nurses and doctors of Lokichokio. This is well deserved but I believe that a film should tell theirstory, so that this memory would not only stay in Loki but would come back to Japan, borne by the warmwind, which continues to blow over the African bush, on the border between Kenya and Southern Sudan.A phantom in the villageYears later, after missions in Thailand, the Philippines, Sudan, Ethiopia, Southern Sudan and Mozambique,I had the chance to lead the ICRC delegation in Angola, during the time of the first, and failed, BicessePeace Agreement, which, in 1991, temporarily halted the civil war, between the UNITA rebel movement,controlling the Highlands (Planalto) and the South of the country, and the MPLA-led Government,controlling all major cities and the coastal areas.One of the conditions of the implementation of the peace agreement was the release of all prisoners capturedduring the conflict, which the ICRC was invited to verify and organize concretely, upon request from theUN, who was supervising the whole process, the Portuguese mediators, the US and Soviet observers (atthe beginning of the process, the USSR still existed) and with the agreement of both parties to the conflict(MPLA and UNITA) (1) . The ICRC has acquired a long expertise in detention activities, in organizing, sincealmost 100 years, regular visits to hundreds of thousands of internees, security detainees, prisoners of waretc. in dozens of countries, including, as we did, during the Angolan civil war, in the UNITA-held areas.This made the ICRC the most qualified institution for the verification of the release of prisoners.This is how I discovered the personal tragedies a civil war, a conflict internal to a country, inflict toits population: almost all high ranking people on each side had had relatives killed or taken prisonerby the other side during the hostilities. Families were divided along political lines, brothers had foughtagainst each other, other families were separated by conflict, with some members having had to seek refuge24人道研究ジャーナルVol. 4, 2015