Taliban --- Thank you Katlego for this very interesting link. I was Delegate General of the ICRC for Asia between 1990 and 2002, in charge, among other things, of Afghanistan. I also negotiated the opening of the ICRC delegation in Afghanistan in 1986-7. Why do I say this? Because in 1986, Mullah Omar (who became later the head of the Taliban movement), was an obscur Mudjaheddin commander who had been very badly injured in combat against the Soviet army. He was operated in the ICRC surgical hospital in Quetta (Pakistan) and recovered. This is the reason why, when the "Emirate of Afghanistan" promulgated in 1996 a law banning the emblem of the cross from the territory of Afghanistan, fine prints at the bottom of the page read: this does not apply to the emblem of the ICRC". And this is one of the reasons why the ICRC has been reasonably successful in its negotiations with the Talibans between 1996 and 2001! A knowledge of recent history helps a lot in Humanitarian Diplomacy negotiations.

Source author: Jean-Michel Monod jmmonod@yahoo.com