page_title: International Committee of the Red Cross archives
section_title: Decolonisation and "Cold War"
hierarchical_section_title: International Committee of the Red Cross archives / History / Decolonisation and "Cold War"
caption_attribution_description: English: A letter from Commander Ernesto „Che“ Guevara on behalf of Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Geneva, dated 24 July 1958. It was written in the mountain range of the Sierra Maestra in southeast Cuba. Guevara, who signed as "Che", asked the ICRC to recognise the revolutionary movement as combatants and establish a presence, complaining about violations of the International Humanitarian Law (IHL) by the regime in Havana. - From the collections of the ICRC public archives (ACICR B AG 200060 | 001 - 008)- Photo taken and uploaded in the context of the International Archives Week 2020 of Wikimedia Switzerland, Austria and Germany and the Association of Swiss Archivists.
context_page_description: The archives of the International Committee of the Red Cross are based in Geneva and were founded in 1863 at the time of the ICRC's inception. It has the dual function to manage both current records and historical archives. The general historical archives are openly accessible to the general public up to 1975.
  Along with the ICRC Library, the archives are widely considered to be the greatest repository for records on International Humanitarian Law. They have been dubbed by some researchers as "the storehouses of sorrow", since they preserve the memory of many millions of victims of armed conflicts as
  "a legacy for mankind".
context_section_description: In 1946/47 the ICRC moved its headquarters from the Villa Moynier to the former Carlton Hotel, built in 1876. The neoclassical building on a hill above the Palace of Nations was provided to the organisation by the Canton of Geneva through a long-term lease. At the same time, the IHL expert Jean Pictet (1914-2002) - who hailed from a Geneva family owning Pictet & Cie bank and played a key role in drafting the 1949 Geneva Conventions for the protection of victims of war - created the Archives Division:
  "A general comprehensive filing plan was then adopted in 1950 – the so-called 'Pictet Plan', in reference to its creator, Jean Pictet, who was then director of the Division of General Affairs, which included the archives. The filing plan comprised both thematic and geographic referential numbering. It applied to the whole institution until 1972 and to the Archives Division until 1997."
  Meanwhile, the ICRC archives grew with the increase of conflicts during decolonisation and the so-called Cold War, which was a "hot war" in many places. They included:
  the French Indochina War (1946–1954);
  the 1948 Palestinian Exodus;
  the Korean War (1950–1953);
  the Suez Crisis and the Hungarian Revolution (1956);
  the Algerian War of Independence (1954–1962);
  the Congo Crisis (1960–1965);
  the Cuban Missile Crisis (1962)
  the North Yemen Civil War (1962–1970);
  In 1963, the ICRC received its third Nobel Peace Prize after 1917 and 1944, making it the recipient of the most awards up to now. Already three years ago, the Central PoW Agency had acquired a permanent status within the ICRC as the Central Tracing Agency. Thus it was prepared to expand its acitivites in more conflicts that broke out in subsquent years, particularly in:
  the Vietnam War (1964-1975);
  the Six-Day War of 1967;
  the Nigeria-Biafra War (1967–1970);
  the Greek junta (1967-1974);
  the coup d'état against President Salvador Allende in Chile (1973);
  the 1973 Yom Kippur War;
  the 1974 Cyprus conflict;
  the end of the Portuguese colonial empire in the wars of independence in Mozambique and Angola (1975); and
  the Cambodian genocide (1975-1979) and Cambodian–Vietnamese War (1978-1989)
  
  Until 1973, public access to records of the archives was generally barred, though the ICRC directorate could consider individual requests. It was 110 years after its inception that the ICRC Assembly as the governing body of the organisation formalised this case-by-case practise as a first step of opening up:
  "The system of ad hoc derogations allowing access to select archival materials was however denounced by researchers as being incoherent, partial and subjective. Furthermore, by the late 1970s and 1980s, the social mood began channelling growing criticism towards the ICRC’s perceived role and stance during the Second World War, specifically regarding the Nazi genocide and concentration camps. Voices were raised across society calling for accountability for the perceived lack of action by the ICRC, and for transparency in relation to its past. The institution’s reputation was being challenged from several angles. If prior to this the ICRC had managed its image by mostly keeping its archives out of the public arena, it seemed that maintaining its reputation depended on bringing them to the fore, albeit with due respect for confidentiality. In terms of public image, transparency was becoming a stronger tool than secrecy."
  In 1979, the ICRC created a precedent when it granted unlimited access to Jean-Claude Favez, professor at the University of Geneva, for his study about the role of the ICRC in the Holocaust. He only published his book in 1988, but it was groundbreaking both for Switzerland in general and the ICRC in particular. Just in the previous year, the former top-diplomat Cornelio Sommaruga had become the new ICRC President. He has been widely credited for leading the opening of the archives, which in 1984 had moved into a newly constructed seven-storey administrative office block next to the historical "Le Carlton" headquarters, symbolising the transition into a modern archival culture.
  Yet, despite So
caption: 1958 letter signed by Che Guevera on behalf of Fidel Castro to the ICRC asking for recognition of the revolutionary movement
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