After more than a year of negotiations had enabled the ICRC to sign a headquarters agreement with the Ukrainian government on 5 December 1995, the Kyiv regional delegation was opened in January 1996. The delegation maintained contact with the authorities in the region with a view to promoting international humanitarian law and familiarizing them with ICRC activities, and offered the assistance of the ICRC's specialized Advisory Service in incorporating that law into national legislation. In Latvia and Lithuania, national working groups for the implementation of international humanitarian law were in progress, while Moldova set up the Moldova National Committee on Consultation and Coordination of Implementation of International Humanitarian Law in September 1996. In all three countries, participants in these bodies included the government ministries concerned and the National Red Cross Society. The topic was also given priority on several occasions during high-level contacts, for example when the President of Ukraine visited ICRC headquarters in March, accompanied by three government ministers. They were received by the ICRC President and a number of the organization's senior officials.

Presidential mission to the Baltic States

In September the ICRC President travelled to the Baltic States, accompanied by the regional delegate. He met the President, the Minister of Defence and the Permanent Under-Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Estonia, the President, the Minister for Foreign Affairs and the Secretary of State at the Ministry of Defence of Latvia, and the President and the Ministers of Defence, Foreign Affairs and Health of Lithuania. He was also received by the rectors of the universities of Riga, Tartu and Vilnius. His discussions with the authorities, besides being concerned with the implementation of international humanitarian law, centred on dissemination of that law among the armed forces and the ICRC's worldwide campaign against anti-personnel landmines. In meetings with the respective heads of the three Baltic National Societies, he reaffirmed the ICRC's support for their activities in dissemination and in the restoration of family links. The ICRC President's visit was given extensive media coverage.

Cooperation with the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence began with a view to promoting knowledge of the law of war among the armed forces. A programme to that effect was drawn up for 1997. At the request of the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces, a working group was set up, chaired by the head of the Legal Service of the Ministry of Defence. The delegation also established contact and made plans for future cooperation with the armed forces of Belarus, Latvia, Lithuania and Moldova. High-ranking officers of the armed forces of Belarus and Moldova took part in a seminar on the law of war organized by the ICRC Moscow delegation in September 1996.

Cooperation with the region's National Societies

The Kyiv delegation approached the Red Cross Societies in the region with a view to developing cooperation with them, mainly in dissemination and in restoring family links. To facilitate contact between National Society headquarters and the numerous local branches, and to enable the Red Cross Society of Ukraine to get in touch with a wider audience, the ICRC sponsored the publication of a newsletter. The first issue appeared at the end of the year. A first visit to the Society's Crimea branch in June gave the delegates the opportunity to organize a two-week training seminar for staff of over 20 local Red Cross branches. The seminar was also attended by representatives of the Ministry of Justice and health officials, as well as external speakers. The local branches of the Ukrainian National Society remained the focal point of the delegation's cooperation/dissemination work for the rest of the year. Apart from organizing a number of seminars, cooperation also included the provision of training and office materials.

Under formal cooperation agreements with the tracing services of the National Societies of Belarus, Estonia and Moldova, the ICRC provided training, technical advice and essential material support, including the financing of salaries. Tracing services in the other countries also received financial support from it. Much of the work of National Society tracing services in the region wa s still related to the Second World War. The ICRC stepped up its assistance to the Red Cross Society of Ukraine, as its tracing service faced a sharply increased workload in handling tens of thousands of attestations delivered by the International Tracing Service in Arolsen to enquirers in Ukraine.


IN 1996 THE ICRC:

- kept up its efforts to obtain access to the four detainees of the "Ilascu group", held since 1992 in Tiraspol, in the self-proclaimed "Dniestr Republic" in Moldova.

- arranged for a number of Ukrainians to be reunited with their families in Ukraine, from whom they had been separated as a result of the conflicts in the southern Caucasus and Afghanistan;

- transmitted Red Cross messages from three Ukrainian sailors held up in a port in Liberia to their families in Simferopol, who had been without news of them.

- gave a two-week seminar on cooperation and promotion of humanitarian law and principles for 25 local branches of the Red Cross Society of Ukraine in Yalta (Crimea), attended by some 40 participants;

- gave three one-week training seminars for over 150 participants from Kyiv town, Kyiv region and Uzhgorod local committees, as well as shorter events for senior staff;

- held a first summer seminar on Red Cross youth programmes in Minsk (Belarus) for 25 teachers and headmasters of schools involved in Red Cross activities;

- sponsored the publication of an internal Red Cross newsletter, of which 3,000 copies were printed at the end of the year, and supported the production of 30,000 calendars for 1997.

- organized seminars in Kyiv and Chisinau, in cooperation with the OSCE*, on implementation of humanitarian law. The seminar in Kyiv was attended by 30 participants, including noted specialists from Great Britain and Denmark, high-ranking Ukrainian ministerial officials, and representatives of the Cabinet, the security services, parliament, the Academy of Sciences, the Ukrainian lawyers' association and the National Society. Some 40 participants, including the Minister of Justice, the Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs and the Chairman of the Moldova Red Cross, attended the meeting in Chisinau;

- organized an introductory presentation on humanitarian law for the Chiefs of Staff of the Ukrainian armed forces and a series of seminars for over 180 officers and senior lecturers of the main military academies of the Ministry of Defence in Kyiv, Odessa and Kharkov;

- gave similar presentations in Belarus for the Ministry of Defence;

- held presentations for the Army Chiefs of Staff, Ministry of Defence and military training centres in Latvia and Lithuania;

- gave presentations on international humanitarian law at Kyiv university for future legal advisers, military interpreters and judges for military tribunals, with a view to having international humanitarian law incorporated into the university syllabus.


Note:

* OSCE: Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe