Coordinates	28°36′36″N77°13′48″N
name	1971
director	Amrit Sagar
producer	Amrit SagarMoti Sagar
writer	Piyush Mishra (Screenplay & Dialogue) Amrit Sagar
starring	Manoj BajpaiRavi KishanChitaranjan Giri Kumud MishraManav KaulDeepak DobriyalPiyush MishraVivek Mishra
music	Akash Sagar
cinematography	Chirantan Das
editing	Shyam K. Salgonkar
released	9 March 2007
runtime	160 min
country
language	Hindi }}

1971 is a 2007 Hindi war film directed by Amrit Sagar, and written by Piyush Mishra and Amrit Sagar, based on a true story of prisoners of war after the Indo-Pak war of 1971. The film features an ensemble cast of Manoj Bajpai, Ravi Kishan, Piyush Mishra, Deepak Dobriyal and others. At the National Film Award, it won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Hindi

The film is an account of the escape of six soldiers of the Indian Army taken as prisoners of war by Pakistan Army, during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971.

The film raises a pertinent question/issue that remains unresolved to this date: Why are Indian defense personnel still being held captive in Pakistan?

Plot summary

The Camp

The story takes place in Pakistan in 1977, six years after the 1971 Indo-Pakistan War. The scene opens to show a POW camp at an undisclosed location in Pakistan. Indian soldiers are holding a morning parade. As the Pakistanis Major Karamat and Colonel Sheriar Khan walk by, the Indians turn their backs on them in a gesture of disrespect. The cause for this disrespect is soon known as we see the Indian Major Suraj Singh (Manoj Bajpai) being called out of barrack Number 6 for interrogation by the Pakistanis. He is from the 18 Rajputana Rifles and was caught in the Uri sector in December 1971 as he ran out of ammunition. Before being brought to this camp, he was held in Kot Lakhpat, Lahore, where he was punished twice for attempting to escape. Now, he was put in barrack Number 6 as punishment for a third attempt. Colonel Sheriar Khan taunts him as to the condition of his fellow POWs in the barracks and asks him who else aided him in his escape attempt. Major Suraj Singh refuses to reveal his accomplices, and is sent back to barrack Number 6 for a few more days. He has already spent three days there.

We see some of the other POWs; Captain Kabir (Kumud Mishra), Captain Jacob (Ravi Kishan) and Pali discussing the camp in general. They wonder why the Indians, who were so far held in various jails all over Pakistan, have been brought to this camp. They take note of the fact that the camp is well-facilitated and that they are receiving good treatment as POWs. We also see Karamat and Khan discussing the inmates of barrack Number 6. The inmates are Indian POWs from the 1965 and 1971 wars who have lost their sanity. This is Major Suraj Singh's punishment; to be imprisoned in this part of the POW camp. Out of magnanimityColonel Sheriar Khan orders that Suraj be released the next morning.

Arrival Of More POWs

The next morning, an army truck is driving towards the camp. This truck has a few more Indian POWs. This group includes Flight Lieutenant Ram (Manav Kaul), Flight Lieutenant Gurtu (Deepak Dobriyal) and Colonel Puri. The Flight Lieutenants, being youngsters, are of a bright disposition, and look for something or the other to be cheerful about despite their being captive. When the truck stops at a side road and the POWs are allowed to relieve themselves, Ram and Gurtu contemplate the idea of jumping into the valley and running away. Then, they give up the idea, as they are too weak to do so. For consolation, they steal a guard's wallet and get a Pakistani army ID card.

They reach the camp and are introduced to the other inmates already present. No one has any idea as to the reason they were taken there.

Hope Against Hope

Major Suraj Singh and his men, especially Captain Kabir, Captain Jacob and Subedar Ahmed, keep their own spirits alive by caring for the broken souls in barrack Number 6, and by remembering their own kin back home. No matter how good the facilities in the camp, they are still prisoners and they hope to return home someday.

By asking the guards a few innocuous questions and putting their answers together, the POWs realize that they are in a place less than 200 km from the Indo-Pak border. (The place, it is revealed later, is Chaklala.) When Colonel Puri is told of this and the idea of an escape is put forward, he overrules it. His reasons are that perhaps they will finally be repatriated and that a failed attempt could result in all of them being killed.

The Reason

A jail in Multan is being examined by a joint delegation of the International Red Cross Society and the Pakistan Human Rights Commission. They are accompanied by some Indian ladies who claim that their kin are held prisoner. Their proof is that letters written by their missing kin bear the addresses of Pakistani jails. The women are being shown around by Colonel Shakoor, and they are distraught to see no trace of their loved ones here. The head of the Human Rights Commission, Sabeena Jahangir, signs a document stating that they are satisfied with the results of the search.

Here we understand the reason why the Indian POWs were brought to Chaklala: The Pakistani military/government bowed to international pressure and allowed the delegation to examine the jails. The POWs has to be hidden away in a secret camp for the duration of the delegation's visit in Pakistan.

The Repatriation And The Realization

Colonel Shakoor arrives at the Chaklala camp; he informs Colonel Puri and Major Singh that all the POWs will be repatriated. He also says that as there are some formalities to be fulfilled, they will have to remain there for nearly two months. The POWs are further informed that the same night they will be treated to an open-air screening of a recent popular movie followed by a banquet. Major Singh, Captain Kabir and Subedar Ahmed are distrustful of Colonel Shakoor's words, although the other prisoners celebrate their imminent return home.

That night, while the movie is being screened, Ahmed steals a newspaper from an army jeep and calls Major Singh and Captains Kabir and Jacob into the barracks. From reading the newspaper, they learn that General Zia Ul-Haq has overthrown Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in a military coup and formed a new government. Further, General Zia has stated that all Indian soldiers who were taken prisoner so far have been returned and, as proof, he has allowed the International Red Cross Society to inspect the Pakistani jails. Since no POW was found, General Zia has reasserted the Pakistani government's innocence in this matter. The four soldiers now understand the reason why they were taken to this camp. Also, that they were being provided with good facilities so that they would not think of escaping. Then, they realize that they are being overheard and discover that the eavesdroppers are Ram and Gurtu. They overpower them and are about to thrash the two, when the Flight Lieutenants inform them that they too wish to escape to India. They prove their willingness by producing the ID card they had stolen earlier.

The First Steps

The six soldiers decide to escape, and they must waste no time. They take two steps the same night. First, they request the Pakistanis for a group photo. This request is granted. Second, at the dinner, Ahmed attempts to strike Jacob, for which he is punished by Colonel Puri the next morning. When Ahmed refuses to bear out his punishment, Colonel Puri wishes to court-martial him. The POWs ask for the use of a barrack to serve as a courtroom, a request that is also granted.

The Pakistanis are preparing to celebrate the Pakistani Independence Day (14 August) by having a song performance by Ms. Sultana Khanum, a ghazal singer. The Indians, who wish to celebrate the Indian Independence Day (15 August), ask for fresh uniforms, paints to make an Indian flag and jaggery for making a sweet drink. The Pakistanis grant them all their requests in order to keep them pacified.

While the court martial is going on, Ram and Gurtu combine the paints to dye the uniforms in the colours of the Pakistani Army. Maj. Karamat is presiding over the court martial. Here, with Kabir as the prosecutor and Suraj as the defense, the would-be escapees impress upon Karamat that Puri hates Ahmed simply because he is a Muslim. This prompts Karamat into starting the proceedings to implant Ahmed as a spy in the Indian Army.

Initial Success

While Karamat is interviewing Ahmed to offer sending him back to India so that he can spy for the Pakistanis, Kabir and Jacob stealthily make their way to the camp periphery. They trigger the alarm and run back into the camp before they can be seen. The guards conclude that it must have been triggered by a wild animal. At this, Karamat switches off the alarm from the electricity room adjacent to his own office. Ahmed follows him like a dimwitted man and sees the location of the switch.

As Ahmed's repatriation formalities are being fulfilled, he manages to steal from Karamat's office the accessories and insignia that are present on Pakistani uniforms. Ahmed also learns that the electricity room houses the communications line and the power generator. He passes on this information to Suraj Singh and the others (Kabir, Jacob, Ram and Gurtu).

The plan is to create a stampede on the night of 14 August and escape under the pretext of escorting the ghazal singer out of the camp. But to cause a stampede, they need to detonate a bomb. For this, Ram and Gurtu go on a pickpocketing spree and bring back to Jacob (an explosives and topography expert) a lot of matchboxes. They remove the phosphorus heads of the matchsticks and make a crude bomb out of the combined match-heads. They intend to throw this bomb into the ammunitions room to create a blast. Once the bomb is ready, they tie it to the lower side of the floorboards to hide it.

The group photograph has been given to Colonel Puri. To steal it from him, Ram and Gurtu make an alcoholic drink out of the jaggery and soon many of the POWs are drunk. Colonel Puri is too drunk to notice the real reason behind the drinking session. The photo is stolen. Out of this, the face of Suraj Singh is cut out and stuck onto the stolen ID card.

The fake Pakistani uniforms are ready. So are the bomb and the ID card. The six men just have to wait for the song performance before starting their action. At this point, Suraj tells the others that the real intent of the mission is to alert the Indian authorities of the presence of Indian POWs in Pakistan. He also tells them that one or more of them may die while escaping and that their only consolation will be that they will have died as escapees instead of as prisoners.

The Breakout

While the floor is being cleaned with water that morning, the bomb gets soaked, but the escape team does not know this. As 14 August dawns, the six men wear two layers of uniforms; the Indian uniforms on top of the Pakistani ones. By evening, the ghazal singer is ready to give her song performance.

The senior Pakistani officers, including Shakoor and Karamat, are among the audience. The Indian POWs are allowed to sit as a separate audience to enjoy the songs. As the performance begins, Jacob and Kabir sneak away from the main POW group at separate times. Ahmed goes into Karamat's office, telling the guard that the Major has asked for his jacket. Once inside, he knocks the guard unconscious and through a side door lets in Kabir, who has changed into his Pakistani uniform. He goes into the electricity room to disconnect the communication lines and power lines. He cuts the communication lines first, then, as per the plan, he must wait for the blast before he can cut the power line.

Jacob reaches the crude bomb and realizes that it is now soaked. He tells Ahmed, who is now by his side, that the mission must be called off. Then he rushes off to stop Suraj. However, before Ahmed can stop Kabir, he impatiently cuts the power line, plunging the camp in darkness. Ahmed does the last thing left to him to save his friends. He runs to the ammunitions room, forces his way in, locks himself in and primes one of the grenades. In the few seconds before the blast, he closes his eyes and thinks of his family; his aged parents, his wife and his daughter whom he has never seen and who would now be six. The room blows up into a ball of fire.

The remaining five men carry out the plan as conceived. There is a stampede and a general confusion as the soldiers attempt to put out the fire. Suraj and his men escort the ghazal singer out of the camp in an army truck. A few Pakistani soldiers already inside the truck become their unwitting captives. The Indians are no longer POWs, they are now soldiers on a mission.

The Aftermath

At the camp, the Pakistani guards take a head count of the prisoners and, seeing six of them missing, including Suraj Singh, discover that an escape has taken place. They try to locate the truck escorting Sultana Khanum. They also alert Major Bilal Mallik (Piyush Mishra), who is in charge of a helicopter, to help in their search.

Meanwhile, the escape truck has gone on a highway to Abbottabad. At a lonely spot, the escapees decide to get rid of their captives. One of them tries to rush his captors and in a scuffle shoots Jacob in the stomach. Suraj and Kabir shoot the Pakistani dead. Jacob lies to his comrades, saying that the bullet has just grazed him. The escapees relieve the Pakistani soldiers of their weapons and wallets and knock them unconscious. They also hide the body of the dead soldier. They are about to render Sultana unconscious, when she says that she was once the head of the Pakistan Human Rights Commission. She says that she was aware of the Red Cross raids across Pakistan in search of the Indian POWs. She is sympathetic to the plight of the POWs and promises to misguide the search party if she is left unharmed. In a touching line, she says to Suraj, "Hamaare mulk se thhoda yakeen hee lekar jaao." ("If nothing else, at least take home some trust from our country.")

The Night

The escapees are in a different truck now. They remember the blast at the camp and understand that it was done by Ahmed. They have gone off the highway to Abbottabad and are on another one, which leads to Muzaffarabad. The search party, including Major Mallik, has reached the escape truck, where they find Sultana Khanum, who has been left unharmed. She says that the escapees were in plain clothes and were talking of going towards Islamabad. The searchers believe her and arrange for her to be sent to her home. However, Major Mallik notices that the military map is missing from the truck's dashboard. When he asks Colonel Shakoor if the escapees were in any way connected to the army, Shakoor answers that it does not matter and that the escaped prisoners have to be brought back. In the meanwhile, the Chaklala camp is hurriedly closed and the Indian POWs are moved out of there.

Major Mallik separates from the search party and heads out in his chopper to cover the highway to Muzaffarabad. At a checkpoint, the escapees, led by Suraj Singh, gain access with the help of the fake ID card. Suraj asks the guard the reason for the checkpoint and is told that there is a search on for six fugitives. From this, he understands that the Pakistanis do not want it to be known that the fugitives are actually POWs.

Sultana Khanum phones Sabeena Jahangir from a wayside hotel and informs her of the presence of Indian POWs in a camp in Chaklala. She says that she is ready to provide testimony to that effect.

By early dawn, the searchers converge at the military hospital in Abbottabad to glean information from the injured soldiers. Here, Colonel Sheriar Khan and Major Azzam Baig berate Major Karamat and Colonel Shakoor for letting the escape take place. When Major Mallik asks if the escapees are Indian POWs, they grudgingly tell him the truth, and he agrees to maintain the secrecy of the search. They then talk to an injured soldier, who tells them about the preparedness of the fugitives. When the soldier mentions that they even have an ID card, Major Mallik realizes that he had actually seen them passing through the checkpoint on the highway to Muzaffarabad. The searchers prepare to go there.

The Wild Chase At Muzaffarabad

On the morning of 15 August, the escapees arrive at Muzaffarabad. The truck-driver goes on his way, and the soldiers check into a hotel. Once inside the hotel room, Suraj instructs Ram and Gurtu to purchase some necessary medical items from the local stores. He then asks Jacob to plot out an escape route on the map they took off the first escape truck. He charts out a route going up to Baramulla, India. This route avoids the main highway and goes through hills and villages. The last twenty kilometres have to be covered on foot, because the heavy snowfall makes it impossible for any vehicle to pass. Jacob then collapses and the others realize that he was not merely grazed by the bullet, but that his gunshot wound was life threatening. Kabir holds him tightly while Suraj attempts to remove the bullet from his stomach.

Meanwhile, in the town, while Ram and Gurtu are purchasing medicines and painkillers for Jacob, Ram notices a military convoy approaching. The search party is here. He and Gurtu run to the hotel to warn the others. Although they were not seen by the searchers, the place is soon swarming with soldiers. In the hotel room, Jacob finds the pain unbearable and reaches for a pistol. Ram and Gurtu reach the room just in time to see him shoot himself in the head. Although the four men are stunned, they have no time to waste. They cover Jacob in a blanket, take the map and the bags, and flee through the window.

As they run through the side streets of the town, the Pakistanis are on their heels. When the fugitives reach the main street, they have to hide behind a truck as it is crowded with soldiers led by Colonel Shakoor. They cannot remain behind the truck for long, because the column of soldiers chasing them is getting closer. Then Ram spots a motorbike, he tells Suraj and the others to be ready to take it. Before they can stop him, he runs into Colonel Shakoor's view, shoots his guard and runs into a side-lane. As the soldiers run after him, the fugitives hide themselves under the tarpaulin of another truck, thereby escaping notice by the column that was chasing them. This column joins the other soldiers in the chase. As a straggler is attempting to start the motorbike, the escapees (Suraj, Kabir and Gurtu) run out of their hiding place, beat him unconscious and ride away on it.

Ram has taken control of an army jeep after killing a few soldiers, including Major Azzam Baig. He too has sustained a few bullet injuries, and is now leading the Pakistanis away from his friends. He now has only one pistol and one grenade for weapons. He leads the soldiers out of the town as far away as he can. The chasing convoy is led by Colonel Shakoor, who is berating his men to drive faster. Major Mallik is in the second jeep. Suddenly, Major Suraj Singh turns in from a dirt road and is riding next to the leading jeep. Colonel Shakoor stares into the faces of Suraj, Gurtu and Kabir. The jeep driver's face registers terror as he sees Kabir priming a grenade. Kabir lobs the grenade into the jeep as Suraj picks up speed and races away. In the next few seconds, the convoy comes to a standstill and Colonel Shakoor leaps out of his jeep. He runs a few steps and throws himself flat on the ground. The jeep explodes as the Indians race away. A stunned Major Mallik is unable to believe his eyes. The expression on his face sums up the scene: he did not expect the Indians to pull off a move like that.

The Sacrifice

The men on the bike catch up with Ram, who is relieved to see them safe. Gurtu asks innocently, "Listen, sir, is this the road to Delhi?" then tells him to watch where he is driving. But their victory is short-lived as they are attacked by a truck coming from the opposite direction. Although Kabir and Gurtu manage to shoot the driver of the truck and the shooters in its front, Suraj is forced to divert the bike into a ditch. Ram stops the jeep and watches his friends careening wildly downslope. They hit a rock and the bike cartwheels, then lands on Kabir's right leg. As the bike slides down the slope, it drags him with it. Suraj and Gurtu are lucky to survive with only a few scratches.

Ram is shot by the soldiers who are climbing out of the back of the truck. Gurtu is climbing upslope to rush to his aid with a furious Suraj attempting to stop him. Ram, still alive, sees the scene: Shakoor and Mallik have caught up and are driving towards him, the soldiers from the truck ahead are running towards him, and Gurtu and Suraj are dangerously close to revealing their position in the ditch. He quickly turns his jeep around and, with the soldiers still running after him, drives straight at Shakoor's vehicle. Mallik, seated next to Shakoor, orders the driver to stop and reverse. He is sure that Ram is playing a fresh new trick, while Shakoor wants to get closer to Ram so that he can shoot him dead. Ram slams into them at high speed, causing serious injury to Shakoor, the soldiers in Shakoor's truck and to himself. Shakoor, who is now unconscious, is laid on the ground as Mallik orders for an ambulance. Mallik then walks to Ram's jeep to see what he was trying to do.

Ram is bleeding profusely, he has a few breaths' worth of life left in him and he has primed a grenade. When Mallik sees the grenade, he shouts a warning for everyone to run away. As they all run away from the jeep, Mallik leading them, it explodes. In the ditch, Suraj and Gurtu see the explosion. Suraj covers Gurtu's mouth so that his cries cannot be heard by the men on the road. They watch the jeep and the truck go up in flames, then Suraj forcibly turns Gurtu around and they come back to the motorbike, which has Kabir still partially pinned underneath it. The blast has claimed many lives, including Colonel Shakoor's. As Mallik directs the rescue, Colonel Sheriar Khan catches up. Simultaneously, the fugitives get the bike upright and drive away.

The Intervention

While Mallik and Khan are directing the rescue, Sabeena Jahangir arrives there with the Red Cross delegates and questions Khan as to his lies regarding the Indian POWs. Mallik explains that this blast was the result of an accident involving two vehicles and that they are in no way connected to the POW issue. They go to the Muzaffarabad base, where in a closed room, Colonel Sheriar Khan is informed on the phone that a delegate has been sent to recall Sabeena Jahangir. When he expresses disbelief and frustration that the POW matter is now known, Mallik tells him that catching the POWs is now difficult. He says that in addition to being highly motivated, they are also military experts. He mentions Ram's suicide bombing of the trucks as proof of how far they are willing to go. But until the arrival of the delegate, he says, Colonel Sheriar Khan must keep Jahangir pacified. When Khan attempts to tell Jahangir that there is a misunderstanding regarding the accident and the blast, she says that the occurrence of one blast at Chaklala and within one day another one at Muzaffarabad is highly suspicious. She alleges that the Pakistani military have deceived the Red Cross and the Pakistani public by lying that there are no Indian POWs in the country. Just then, the High Commission delegate arrives and shows Jahangir an order to vacate the area immediately. She glares at Mallik and Khan, then leaves with her colleagues. As soon as she is gone, the soldiers spring into action resuming their search.

Saluting Fallen Comrades

However, this intervention has bought off valuable time for the escapees. They have gone on the route marked by Jacob and reached the point from where they have to go by foot. The bike is anyway out of petrol. While Suraj Singh throws the bike down a mountainside, Gurtu has leaned Kabir against a tree and is making three mounds in the snow; one for each man who died on this mission. Seeing this, Suraj points out that they sacrificed their lives for their battle, so they must be respected as martyrs. He, Kabir and Gurtu stand up and salute this memorial. Then, they walk on into the snow, Kabir being held up by the others.

The Cold Night

The Indian soldiers have reached a point where they must stop and wait until dark before resuming their journey. They risk being caught if they go any further while there is still light. Suraj and Gurtu tie a splint improvised out of twigs onto Kabir's fractured leg.

By nightfall, the Pakistanis have reached a stream where they retrieve the bike that was thrown down the mountain. Khan and Mallik disagree in their conclusions. While Khan is certain that the fugitives have died and that their bodies should be lying close by, Mallik thinks that they could have thrown the bike down the mountainside and continued on foot. Khan berates Mallik for overestimating the fugitives. Mallik steps aside, and while Khan continues the search in the vicinity, gives voice to his own thoughts: "When the bloody war was over, there was never any need to detain these soldiers. Not only have we incurred the curses of their kin, we have also created a nuisance for ourselves. If I say this aloud, I will be declared a traitor. If I don't, then this Pakistani conscience of mine will torment me for life."

Suraj awakens Gurtu and Kabir to continue their journey. Kabir is not able to move his leg. Suraj removes the shoe on his injured leg only to see that it has turned black. Kabir says that it is frostbite and that it will climb up his body. However, when he requests to be left behind, Suraj will not hear of it. He carries Kabir bodily on his back, and their trek continues. They can do nothing but walk on. They keep themselves sane by exchanging little jokes and talking about their hometowns. When Suraj stumbles under Kabir's weight, Kabir points out that this way a two-hour journey will stretch to six hours. Suraj will again hear none of it. Sometime later, Kabir tells Suraj that he respects him more than he would respect his own father. Suraj replies that in the army a senior officer is like a father anyway.

Unparalleled Heroism

It is dawn. The three soldiers have stopped to rest by the side of a path winding through the mountains. Kabir and Gurtu are asleep; Suraj is sitting huddled next to them. He sees something far below him in the valley. He rises, then wakes up Gurtu and asks him to take a look. They strain their eyes. They cannot believe what they are seeing. It is an Indian army outpost with the Indian Flag raised above it. They cheer, scream, and laugh in jubilation. But when Gurtu tries to rouse Kabir, he falls limply to one side. He is dead. With nothing else left to do, Suraj and Gurtu bury Kabir in the snow and walk on towards the Indian side of the border. It is about a few hundred yards away.

Suddenly they hear the sound of a helicopter. It carries Colonel Sheriar Khan and Major Bilal Mallik. As Khan fires at them with a machine gun, Mallik cautions him that they are too close to the Line Of Control (LOC). As Suraj and Gurtu attempt to run, they end up taking a few bullet wounds. Gurtu is shot in his leg, which disables him from standing up. The Indian soldiers at the outpost, who see the helicopter, think that the Pakistanis are starting a skirmish. They get ready to fire a rocket.

Gurtu crawls into a rock alcove and asks Suraj to proceed alone without him. Suraj replies that he has no family back home in India and that if he reaches home he will do so with his companions. Suraj then says that they must survive for the sake of their comrades who died in the escape and for the sake of those who are still prisoners. Meanwhile, Mallik mutinies against Khan and orders the pilot to turn the chopper around. The Indians fire a rocket at the chopper. As the helicopter turns around and flies away behind the mountains, the rocket explodes harmlessly on a mountainside. On the ground, Gurtu is unable to walk, so Suraj seats him against a rock. He promises to bring help from the Indian side.

Major Suraj Singh calls out to the Indians, but he has been a prisoner for six years. As he calls for help, his voice stammers and fails many times. The Indians simply do not or cannot hear him. Then suddenly gunshots are heard and Suraj collapses. A column of Pakistani soldiers is running towards the two fugitives. Suraj is shot badly. The Indian soldiers rush to their defensive positions. As Gurtu is still recovering from the shock, Suraj struggles to his feet. He tells Gurtu that he will be back with help even before the Pakistanis arrive. He is still the father figure his men loved him for being. The Pakistanis are rushing on, screaming obscenities. Suraj runs towards the Indian outpost. As the Pakistanis fire at him, the Indians, thinking that a skirmish is on, fire back at the Pakistanis. This pins them down considerably so their firing on Suraj does not have much effect. Then the Indian officer sees Suraj through his binoculars and orders his men to stop firing as he realizes that the Pakistanis were chasing a fugitive. Then the Pakistanis are able to come out into the open and fire at Suraj. He nevertheless runs as hard as he can. There is an explosion close to his feet, probably a land mine, and he is thrown forward to the ground by the force of the blast.

Gurtu is looking at Suraj over the distance. His face has a look of peace. Suraj has reached the Indian side. He slowly stands up and looks ahead. He is home. He looks at the soldiers and at the flag above them. He is too overcome by emotion to say even a word. The Indians see a man in Pakistani army uniform before them. Suraj raises his right hand as if reaching for the flag. Then the Pakistanis fire one shot, which goes through Suraj's heart. He falls to the ground and dies.

The Pakistani soldiers have reached the border. Khan and Mallik make their way to their head. The Indian officer shouts a question across the no-man's-land, asking what the matter is. Khan replies that the dead fugitive was a deserter from the Pakistani army who was court-martialled and had killed two civilians while escaping. He asks the Indians to search the dead man for an ID card, which should confirm his identity. The Indians find on Suraj's person the fake ID card, which had got him through the Pakistani check post. The officer grants permission for the Pakistanis to take away the corpse and warns them to be careful in future. As Suraj's body is dragged back to the Pakistani side, Mallik removes his beret in a gesture of respect to the man who, in his own way, did reach his country.

Epilogue

It is now 2007. The place is Multan Jail in Pakistan. We see an old man walking in the prison compound. He has made five little mounds of earth and he is putting a few flowers on them. He sits on the ground next to them and leafs through what was once Major Suraj Singh's prison diary. This old man is Gurtu. He now has only two motives in his life: to hope to return home and to keep alive the memory of his five friends.

Cast

Manoj Bajpai

Ravi Kishan

Piyush Mishra

Deepak Dobriyal

Chittaranjan Giri

Manav Kaul

Kumud Mishra

Gyan Prakash

Maj. Bikramjeet Singh

Sanjeev Wilson

References

External links

A Review of 1971

1971 - Review

1971 - Preview

1971 Review

Category:Hindi-language films Category:2007 films Category:Bollywood war films

mr:१९७१ (चित्रपट) pl:1971 (film)

Coordinates	28°36′36″N77°13′48″N
Conflict	Bangladesh Liberation War
Partof	Cold War
Date	26 March – 16 December 1971
Place	East Pakistan
Territory	East Pakistan secedes to become Bangladesh
Result	• Indian and Mukti Bahini victory against Pakistan • Subsequent independence of Bangladesh• Eastern Military High Command collapse • Disintegration of United Islamic Republic of Pakistan
Combatant1	East Pakistan ---- Mukti Bahini ---- India (joins the war on 3 December 1971)
Combatant2	West Pakistan ---- Pakistan Defence Forces
Commander1	General M A G Osmany
Commander2	20px LGen A.A.K. Niazi20px LGen Tikka Khan20px RAdm M. Shariff20px Air-CDRE Enamul Huq
Strength1	Bangladesh Forces: 175,000 India: 250,000
Strength2	Pakistan Combatant Forces: ~ 365,000 Para Military: ~250,000
Casualties1	Bangladesh Forces: 30,000India: 1,426 KIA 3,611 Wounded (Official)1,525 KIA 4,061 Wounded
Casualties2	Pakistan ~8,000 KIA ~10,000 WIA 91,000 POWs (56,694 Armed Forces 12,192 Paramilitary rest civilians)
Notes	Civilian death toll: 300,000–3,000,000 (estimates) }}

The Bangladesh Liberation War⁽ⁱ⁾ ( ''Muktijuddho'') was an armed conflict pitting East Pakistan and India against West Pakistan. The war resulted in the secession of East Pakistan, which became the independent nation of Bangladesh.

The war broke out on 26 March 1971 as army units directed by West Pakistan launched a military operation in East Pakistan against Bengali civilians, students, intelligentsia, and armed personnel who were demanding separation of the East from West Pakistan. Bengali military, paramilitary, and civilians formed the Mukti Bahini ( "Liberation Army") and used guerrilla warfare tactics to fight against the West Pakistan army. India provided economic, military and diplomatic support to the Mukti Bahini rebels, leading Pakistan to launch Operation Chengiz Khan, a pre-emptive attack on the western border of India which started the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971.

On 16 December 1971, the allied forces of the Indian army and the Mukti Bahini defeated the West Pakistani forces deployed in the East. The resulting surrender was the largest in number of prisoners of war since World War II.

Background

In August 1947, the Partition of British India gave birth to two new states; a secular state named India and an Islamic state named Pakistan. But Pakistan comprised two geographically and culturally separate areas to the east and the west of India. The western zone was popularly (and for a period of time, also officially) termed West Pakistan and the eastern zone (modern-day Bangladesh) was initially termed East Bengal and later, East Pakistan. Although the population of the two zones was close to equal, political power was concentrated in West Pakistan and it was widely perceived that East Pakistan was being exploited economically, leading to many grievances.

On 25 March 1971, rising political discontent and cultural nationalism in East Pakistan was met by brutal suppressive force from the ruling elite of the West Pakistan establishment in what came to be termed Operation Searchlight.

The violent crackdown by West Pakistan forces led to East Pakistan declaring its independence as the state of Bangladesh and to the start of civil war. The war led to a sea of refugees (estimated at the time to be about 10 million) flooding into the eastern provinces of India. Facing a mounting humanitarian and economic crisis, India started actively aiding and organising the Bangladeshi resistance army known as the Mukti Bahini.

East Pakistani grievances

Economic disparities

Although East Pakistan had a larger population, West Pakistan dominated the divided country politically and received more money from the common budget.

align="right" align="right" align="right" align="right" align="right"

Year	Spending on West Pakistan (in millions of Pakistani rupees)	Spending on East Pakistan (in millions of Pakistani rupees)	Amount spent on East as percentage of West
style="text-align:center;"	1950–55	11,290 ||	5,240	46.4
style="text-align:center;"	1955–60	16,550 ||	5,240	31.7
style="text-align:center;"	1960–65	33,550 ||	14,040	41.8
style="text-align:center;"	1965–70	51,950 ||	21,410	41.2
style="text-align:center;"	Total	113,340 ||	45,930	40.5

Political differences

Although East Pakistan accounted for a slight majority of the country's population, political power remained firmly in the hands of West Pakistanis. Since a straightforward system of representation based on population would have concentrated political power in East Pakistan, the West Pakistani establishment came up with the "One Unit" scheme, where all of West Pakistan was considered one province. This was solely to counterbalance the East wing's votes.

After the assassination of Liaquat Ali Khan, Pakistan's first prime minister, in 1951, political power began to be devolved to the President of Pakistan, and eventually, the military. The nominal elected chief executive, the Prime Minister, was frequently sacked by the establishment, acting through the President.

East Pakistanis noticed that whenever one of them, such as Khawaja Nazimuddin, Muhammad Ali Bogra, or Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy was elected Prime Minister of Pakistan, he were swiftly deposed by the largely West Pakistani establishment. The military dictatorships of Ayub Khan (27 October 1958 – 25 March 1969) and Yahya Khan (25 March 1969 – 20 December 1971), both West Pakistanis, only heightened such feelings.

The situation reached a climax when in 1970 the Awami League, the largest East Pakistani political party, led by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, won a landslide victory in the national elections. The party won 167 of the 169 seats allotted to East Pakistan, and thus a majority of the 313 seats in the National Assembly. This gave the Awami League the constitutional right to form a government. However, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (a Sindhi and former professor), the leader of the Pakistan Peoples Party, refused to allow Rahman to become the Prime Minister of Pakistan. Instead, he proposed the idea of having two Prime Ministers, one for each wing. The proposal elicited outrage in the east wing, already chafing under the other constitutional innovation, the "one unit scheme". Bhutto also refused to accept Rahman's Six Points. On 3 March 1971, the two leaders of the two wings along with the President General Yahya Khan met in Dhaka to decide the fate of the country. Talks failed and Sheikh Mujibur Rahman called for a nationwide strike. Bhutto feared a civil war, therefore, he sent his most trusted companion, dr. Mubashir Hassan. West Pakistanis believed that Bengalis were not "martially inclined" unlike Pashtuns and Punjabis; the "martial races" notion was dismissed as ridiculous and humiliating by Bengalis. Moreover, despite huge defence spending, East Pakistan received none of the benefits, such as contracts, purchasing and military support jobs. The Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 over Kashmir also highlighted the sense of military insecurity among Bengalis as only an under-strength infantry division and 15 combat aircraft without tank support were in East Pakistan to thwart any Indian retaliations during the conflict.

Language controversy

In 1948, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, Pakistan's first Governor-General, declared in Dhaka (then usually spelled Dacca in English) that "Urdu, and only Urdu" would be the common language for all of Pakistan. This proved highly controversial, since Urdu was a language that was only spoken in the West by Muhajirs and in the East by Biharis, although the Urdu language had been promoted as the ''lingua franca'' of Indian Muslims by political and religious leaders such as Sir Khwaja Salimullah, Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, Nawab Viqar-ul-Mulk and Maulvi Abdul Haq. The language was considered a vital element of the Islamic culture for Indian Muslims; Hindi and the Devanagari script were seen as fundamentals of Hindu culture. The majority groups in West Pakistan spoke Punjabi, while the Bengali language was spoken by the vast majority of East Pakistanis. The language controversy eventually reached a point where East Pakistan revolted while the other part of Pakistan remained calm even though Punjabi was spoken by the majority groups of West Pakistan. Several students and civilians lost their lives in a police crackdown on 21 February 1952. The day is revered in Bangladesh and in West Bengal as the Language Martyrs' Day. Later, in memory of the 1952 killings, UNESCO declared 21 February as the International Mother Language Day in 1999.

In West Pakistan, the movement was seen as a sectional uprising against Pakistani national interests and the founding ideology of Pakistan, the Two-Nation Theory. West Pakistani politicians considered Urdu a product of Indian Islamic culture, as Ayub Khan said, as late as 1967, "East Bengalis... still are under considerable Hindu culture and influence." But, the deaths led to bitter feelings among East Pakistanis, and they were a major factor in the push for independence.

Response to the 1970 cyclone

The 1970 Bhola cyclone made landfall on the East Pakistan coastline during the evening of 12 November, around the same time as a local high tide, killing an estimated 300,000 to 500,000 people. Though the exact death toll is not known, it is considered the deadliest tropical cyclone on record. A week after the landfall, President Khan conceded that his government had made "slips" and "mistakes" in its handling of the relief efforts due to a lack of understanding of the magnitude of the disaster.

A statement released by eleven political leaders in East Pakistan ten days after the cyclone hit charged the government with "gross neglect, callous and utter indifference". They also accused the president of playing down the magnitude of the problem in news coverage. On 19 November, students held a march in Dhaka protesting the slowness of the government response. Maulana Abdul Hamid Khan Bhashani addressed a rally of 50,000 people on 24 November, where he accused the president of inefficiency and demanded his resignation.

As the conflict between East and West Pakistan developed in March, the Dhaka offices of the two government organisations directly involved in relief efforts were closed for at least two weeks, first by a general strike and then by a ban on government work in East Pakistan by the Awami League. With this increase in tension, foreign personnel were evacuated over fears of violence. Relief work continued in the field, but long-term planning was curtailed. This conflict widened into the Bangladesh Liberation War in December and concluded with the creation of Bangladesh. This is one of the first times that a natural event helped to trigger a civil war.

Operation Searchlight

A planned military pacification carried out by the Pakistan Army – codenamed ''Operation Searchlight'' – started on 25 March to curb the Bengali nationalist movement by taking control of the major cities on 26 March, and then eliminating all opposition, political or military, within one month. Before the beginning of the operation, all foreign journalists were systematically deported from East Pakistan.

The main phase of Operation Searchlight ended with the fall of the last major town in Bengali hands in mid-May. The operation also began the 1971 Bangladesh atrocities. These systematic killings served only to enrage the Bengalis, which ultimately resulted in the secession of East Pakistan later in the same year. The international media and reference books in English have published casualty figures which vary greatly, from 5,000–35,000 in Dhaka, and 200,000–3,000,000 for Bangladesh as a whole, and the atrocities have been referred to as acts of genocide.

According to the Asia Times,

At a meeting of the military top brass, Yahya Khan declared: "Kill 3 million of them and the rest will eat out of our hands." Accordingly, on the night of 25 March, the Pakistani Army launched ''Operation Searchlight'' to "crush" Bengali resistance in which Bengali members of military services were disarmed and killed, students and the intelligentsia systematically liquidated and able-bodied Bengali males just picked up and gunned down.

Although the violence focused on the provincial capital, Dhaka, it also affected all parts of East Pakistan. Residential halls of the University of Dhaka were particularly targeted. The only Hindu residential hall – the Jagannath Hall – was destroyed by the Pakistani armed forces, and an estimated 600 to 700 of its residents were murdered. The Pakistani army denies any cold blooded killings at the university, though the Hamood-ur-Rehman commission in Pakistan concluded that overwhelming force was used at the university. This fact and the massacre at Jagannath Hall and nearby student dormitories of Dhaka University are corroborated by a videotape secretly filmed by Prof. Nurul Ullah of the East Pakistan Engineering University, whose residence was directly opposite the student dormitories.

Hindu areas suffered particularly heavy blows. By midnight, Dhaka was burning, especially the Hindu dominated eastern part of the city. ''Time'' magazine reported on 2 August 1971, "The Hindus, who account for three-fourths of the refugees and a majority of the dead, have borne the brunt of the Pakistani military hatred."

Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was arrested by the Pakistani Army. Yahya Khan appointed Brigadier (later General) Rahimuddin Khan to preside over a special tribunal prosecuting Mujib with multiple charges. The tribunal's sentence was never made public, but Yahya caused the verdict to be held in abeyance in any case. Other Awami League leaders were arrested as well, while a few fled Dhaka to avoid arrest. The Awami League was banned by General Yahya Khan.

Declaration of independence

The violence unleashed by the Pakistani forces on 25 March 1971, proved the last straw to the efforts to negotiate a settlement. Following these outrages, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman signed an official declaration that read:

''Today Bangladesh is a sovereign and independent country. On Thursday night, West Pakistani armed forces suddenly attacked the police barracks at Razarbagh and the EPR headquarters at Pilkhana in Dhaka. Many innocent and unarmed have been killed in Dhaka city and other places of Bangladesh. Violent clashes between E.P.R. and Police on the one hand and the armed forces of Pakistan on the other, are going on. The Bengalis are fighting the enemy with great courage for an independent Bangladesh. May Allah aid us in our fight for freedom. Joy Bangla.''

Sheikh Mujib also called upon the people to resist the occupation forces through a radio message. Mujib was arrested on the night of 25–26 March 1971 at about 1:30 am (as per Radio Pakistan's news on 29 March 1971).

A telegram containing the text of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's declaration reached some students in Chittagong. The message was translated to Bangla by Dr. Manjula Anwar. The students failed to secure permission from higher authorities to broadcast the message from the nearby Agrabad Station of Radio Pakistan. They crossed Kalurghat Bridge into an area controlled by an East Bengal Regiment under Major Ziaur Rahman. Bengali soldiers guarded the station as engineers prepared for transmission. At 19:45 hrs on 27 March 1971, Major Ziaur Rahman broadcast the announcement of the declaration of independence on behalf of Sheikh Mujibur. On 28 March Major Ziaur Rahman made another announcement,which was as follows:

''This is Shadhin Bangla Betar Kendro. I, Major Ziaur Rahman, at the direction of Bangobondhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, hereby declare that the independent People's Republic of Bangladesh has been established. At his direction, I have taken command as the temporary Head of the Republic. In the name of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, I call upon all Bengalis to rise against the attack by the West Pakistani Army. We shall fight to the last to free our Motherland. By the grace of Allah, victory is ours. Joy Bangla.'' Audio of Zia's announcement (interview – Belal Mohammed)

The Kalurghat Radio Station's transmission capability was limited. The message was picked up by a Japanese ship in Bay of Bengal. It was then re-transmitted by Radio Australia and later by the British Broadcasting Corporation.

M A Hannan, an Awami League leader from Chittagong, is said to have made the first announcement of the declaration of independence over the radio on 26 March 1971. There is controversy now as to when Major Zia gave his speech. BNP sources maintain that it was 26 March, and there was no message regarding declaration of independence from Mujibur Rahman. Pakistani sources, like Siddiq Salik in ''Witness to Surrender'' had written that he heard about Mujibor Rahman's message on the Radio while Operation Searchlight was going on, and Maj. Gen. Hakeem A. Qureshi in his book ''The 1971 Indo-Pak War: A Soldier's Narrative'', gives the date of Zia's speech as 27 March 1971.

26 March 1971 is considered the official Independence Day of Bangladesh, and the name Bangladesh was in effect henceforth. In July 1971, Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi openly referred to the former East Pakistan as Bangladesh. Some Pakistani and Indian officials continued to use the name "East Pakistan" until 16 December 1971.

Liberation war

March to June

At first resistance was spontaneous and disorganised, and was not expected to be prolonged. But when the Pakistani Army cracked down upon the population, resistance grew. The Mukti Bahini became increasingly active. The Pakistani military sought to quell them, but increasing numbers of Bengali soldiers defected to the underground "Bangladesh army". These Bengali units slowly merged into the Mukti Bahini and bolstered their weaponry with supplies from India. Pakistan responded by airlifting in two infantry divisions and reorganising their forces. They also raised paramilitary forces of Razakars, Al-Badrs and Al-Shams (who were mostly members of the Muslim League, the then government party and other Islamist groups), as well as other Bengalis who opposed independence, and Bihari Muslims who had settled during the time of partition.

On 17 April 1971, a provisional government was formed in Meherpur district in western Bangladesh bordering India with Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who was in prison in Pakistan, as President, Syed Nazrul Islam as Acting President, Tajuddin Ahmed as Prime Minister, and General Mohammad Ataul Ghani Osmany as Commander-in-Chief, Bangladesh Forces. As fighting grew between the occupation army and the Bengali Mukti Bahini an estimated 10 million Bengalis, sought refuge in the Indian states of Assam and West Bengal.

June – September

Bangladesh forces command was set up on 11 July, with Col. M A G Osmany as commander-in-chief (C-in-C) with the status of Cabinet Minister, Lt. Col. Abdur Rabb as chief of Staff (COS), Group Captain A K Khandker as Deputy Chief of Staff (DCOS) and Major A R Chowdhury as Assistant Chief of Staff (ACOS). Bangladesh was divided into Eleven Sectors each with a commander chosen from defected officers of the Pakistani army who joined the Mukti Bahini to conduct guerrilla operations and train fighters. Most of their training camps were situated near the border area and were operated with assistance from India. The 10th Sector was directly placed under the Commander in Chief (C-in-C) General Osmany and included the Naval Commandos and C-in-C's special force. Three brigades (11 Battalions) were raised for conventional warfare; a large guerrilla force (estimated at 100,000) was trained.

Guerrilla operations, which slackened during the training phase, picked up after August. Economic and military targets in Dhaka were attacked. The major success story was Operation Jackpot, in which naval commandos mined and blew up berthed ships in Chittagong on 16 August 1971. Pakistani reprisals claimed lives of thousands of civilians. The Indian army took over supplying the Mukti Bahini from the BSF. They organised six sectors for supplying the Bangladesh forces.

October – December

''Also See: ''Evolution of Pakistan Eastern Command plan'', Bangladesh 1971: Opposing Plans'', Pakistan Army Order of Battle December 1971'' and '' Mitro Bahini Order of Battle December 1971'' Bangladesh conventional forces attacked border outposts. Kamalpur, Belonia and Battle of Boyra are a few examples. 90 out of 370 BOPs fell to Bengali forces. Guerrilla attacks intensified, as did Pakistani and Razakar reprisals on civilian populations. Pakistani forces were reinforced by eight battalions from West Pakistan. The Bangladeshi independence fighters even managed to temporarily capture airstrips at Lalmonirhat and Shalutikar. Both of these were used for flying in supplies and arms from India. Pakistan sent another 5 battalions from West Pakistan as reinforcements.

Indian involvement

{| style="float:right; font-size:80%; border:1px solid #ddd; background:#fefefe; padding:3px; margin:1em;" | Major battles

Battle of Boyra

Battle of Garibpur

Battle of Dhalai

Battle of Hilli

Battle of Kushtia

|}

Wary of the growing involvement of India, the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) launched a pre-emptive strike on Indian Air Force bases on 3 December 1971. The attack was modelled on the Israeli Air Force's Operation Focus during the Six-Day War, and intended to neutralize the Indian Air Force planes on the ground. However, the plan failed to achieve the desired success since India had anticipated such an action. The strike was however seen as an open act of unprovoked aggression by India. This marked the official start of the Indo-Pakistani War.

As a response to the attack, both India and Pakistan formally acknowledged the ''existence of a state of war between the two countries'', even though neither government had formally issued a Declaration of War.

Three Indian corps were involved in the invasion of East Pakistan. They were supported by nearly three brigades of Mukti Bahini fighting alongside them, and many more fighting irregularly. This was far superior to the Pakistani army of three divisions. The Indians quickly overran the country, selectively engaging or bypassing heavily defended strongholds. Pakistani forces were unable to effectively counter the Indian attack, as they had been deployed in small units around the border to counter guerrilla attacks by the Mukti Bahini. Unable to defend Dhaka, the Pakistanis surrendered on 16 December 1971.

The speed of the Indian strategy can be gauged by the fact that one of the regiments of Indian army (7 Punjab now 8 Mechanised Inf Regiment) fought the liberation war along the Jessore and Khulna axis. They were newly converted to a mechanised regiment and it took them just 1 week to reach Khulna after capturing Jessore. Their losses were limited to just 2 newly acquired APCs (SKOT) from the Russians.

India's external intelligence agency, the RAW, played a crucial role in providing logistic support to the Mukti Bahini during the initial stages of the war. RAW's operations, in then East Pakistan, was the largest covert operation in the history of South Asia.

Pakistani response

Pakistan launched a number of armoured thrusts along India's western front in attempts to force Indian troops away from East Pakistan. Pakistan tried to fight back and boost the sagging morale by incorporating the Special Services Group commandos in sabotage and rescue missions.

The air and naval war

The Indian Air Force carried out several sorties against Pakistan, and within a week, IAF aircraft dominated the skies of East Pakistan. It achieved near-total air supremacy by the end of the first week as the entire Pakistani air contingent in the east, PAF No.14 Squadron, was grounded because of Indian airstrikes at Tejgaon, Kurmitolla, Lal Munir Hat and Shamsher Nagar. Sea Hawks from INS Vikrant also struck Chittagong, Barisal and Cox's Bazar, destroying the eastern wing of the Pakistan Navy and effectively blockading the East Pakistan ports, thereby cutting off any escape routes for the stranded Pakistani soldiers. The nascent Bangladesh Navy (comprising officers and sailors who defected from the Pakistani Navy) aided the Indians in the marine warfare, carrying out attacks, most notably Operation Jackpot.

United Nations Security Council involvement

Though the United Nations condemned the human rights violations during and following Operation Searchlight, it failed to defuse the situation politically before the start of the war.

Following Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's declaration of independence in March 1971, India undertook a world-wide campaign to drum up political, democratic and humanitarian support for the people of Bangladesh for their liberation struggle. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi made a whirlwind tour of a large number of countries in a bid to create awareness of the Pakistani atrocities against Bengalis. This effort was to prove vital later during the war, in framing the world's context of the war and to justify military action by India. Also, following Pakistan's defeat, it ensured prompt recognition of the newly independent state of Bangladesh.

Following India's entry into the war, Pakistan fearing certain defeat, made urgent appeals to the United Nations to intervene and force India to agree to a cease fire. The UN Security Council assembled on 4 December 1971 to discuss the hostilities in South Asia. After lengthy discussions on 7 December, the United States made a resolution for "immediate cease-fire and withdrawal of troops." While supported by the majority, the USSR vetoed the resolution twice. In light of the Pakistani atrocities against Bengalis, the United Kingdom and France abstained on the resolution.

On 12 December, with Pakistan facing imminent defeat, the United States requested that the Security Council be reconvened. Pakistan's Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was rushed to New York City to make the case for a resolution on the cease fire. The council continued deliberations for four days. By the time proposals were finalised, Pakistan's forces in the East had surrendered and the war had ended, making the measures merely academic. Bhutto, frustrated by the failure of the resolution and the inaction of the United Nations, ripped up his speech and left the council.

Most UN member nations were quick to recognize Bangladesh within months of its liberation.

Surrender and aftermath

On 16 December 1971, Lt. Gen A. A. K. Niazi, CO of Pakistan Army forces located in East Pakistan signed the Instrument of Surrender. At the time of surrender only a few countries had provided diplomatic recognition to the new nation. Over 90,000 Pakistani troops surrendered to the Indian forces making it the largest surrender since World War II. Bangladesh sought admission in the UN with most voting in its favour, but China vetoed this as Pakistan was its key ally. The United States, also a key ally of Pakistan, was one of the last nations to accord Bangladesh recognition. To ensure a smooth transition, in 1972 the Simla Agreement was signed between India and Pakistan. The treaty ensured that Pakistan recognised the independence of Bangladesh in exchange for the return of the Pakistani PoWs. India treated all the PoWs in strict accordance with the Geneva Convention, rule 1925. It released more than 90,000 Pakistani PoWs in five months.

Further, as a gesture of goodwill, nearly 200 soldiers who were sought for war crimes by Bengalis were also pardoned by India. The accord also gave back more than 13,000 km² of land that Indian troops had seized in West Pakistan during the war, though India retained a few strategic areas; most notably Kargil (which would in turn again be the focal point for a war between the two nations in 1999). This was done as a measure of promoting "lasting peace" and was acknowledged by many observers as a sign of maturity by India. But some in India felt that the treaty had been too lenient to Bhutto, who had pleaded for leniency, arguing that the fragile democracy in Pakistan would crumble if the accord was perceived as being overly harsh by Pakistanis.

Reaction in West Pakistan to the war

Reaction to the defeat and dismemberment of half the nation was a shocking loss to top military and civilians alike. No one had expected that they would lose the formal war in under a fortnight and there was also anger at what was perceived as a meek surrender of the army in East Pakistan. Yahya Khan's dictatorship collapsed and gave way to Bhutto who took the opportunity to rise to power. General Niazi, who surrendered along with 93,000 troops, was viewed with suspicion and hatred upon his return to Pakistan. He was shunned and branded a traitor. The war also exposed the shortcomings of Pakistan's declared strategic doctrine that the "defence of East Pakistan lay in West Pakistan". Pakistan also failed to gather international support, and found itself fighting a lone battle with only the USA providing any external help. This further embittered the Pakistanis who had faced the worst military defeat of an army in decades.

The debacle immediately prompted an enquiry headed by Justice Hamoodur Rahman. Called the Hamoodur Rahman Commission, it was initially suppressed by Bhutto as it put the military in a poor light. When it was declassified, it showed many failings from the strategic to the tactical levels. It also condemned the atrocities and the war crimes committed by the armed forces. It confirmed the looting, rapes and the killings by the Pakistan Army and their local agents although the figures are far lower than the ones quoted by Bangladesh. According to Bangladeshi sources, 200,000 women were raped and over 3 million people were killed, while the Rahman Commission report in Pakistan claimed 26,000 died and the rapes were in the hundreds. However, the army's role in splintering Pakistan after its greatest military debacle was largely ignored by successive Pakistani governments.

Atrocities

During the war there were widespread killings and other atrocities – including the displacement of civilians in Bangladesh (East Pakistan at the time) and widespread violations of human rights – carried out by the Pakistan Army with support from political and religious militias, beginning with the start of Operation Searchlight on 25 March 1971. Bangladeshi authorities claim that three million people were killed, while the Hamoodur Rahman Commission, an official Pakistan Government investigation, put the figure as low as 26,000 civilian casualties. The international media and reference books in English have also published figures which vary greatly from 200,000 to 3,000,000 for Bangladesh as a whole. A further eight to ten million people fled the country to seek safety in India.

A large section of the intellectual community of Bangladesh were murdered, mostly by the Al-Shams and Al-Badr forces, at the instruction of the Pakistani Army. Just 2 days before the surrender, on 14 December 1971, Pakistan Army and Razakar militia (local collaborators) picked up at least 100 physicians, professors, writers and engineers in Dhaka, and murdered them, leaving the dead bodies in a mass grave. There are many mass graves in Bangladesh, and as years pass, more are being discovered (such as one in an old well near a mosque in Dhaka, located in the non-Bengali region of the city, which was discovered in August 1999). The first night of war on Bengalis, which is documented in telegrams from the American Consulate in Dhaka to the United States State Department, saw indiscriminate killings of students of Dhaka University and other civilians. Numerous women were tortured, raped and killed during the war; the exact numbers are not known and are a subject of debate. Bangladeshi sources cite a figure of 200,000 women raped, giving birth to thousands of war babies. The Pakistan Army also kept numerous Bengali women as sex-slaves inside the Dhaka Cantonment. Most of the girls were captured from Dhaka University and private homes. There was significant sectarian violence not only perpetrated and encouraged by the Pakistani army, but also by Bengali nationalists against non-Bengali minorities, especially Biharis.

On 16 December 2002, the George Washington University's National Security Archive published a collection of declassified documents, consisting mostly of communications between US embassy officials and United States Information Service centres in Dhaka and India, and officials in Washington DC. These documents show that US officials working in diplomatic institutions within Bangladesh used the terms ''selective genocide'' and ''genocide'' (see The Blood Telegram) to describe events they had knowledge of at the time. ''Genocide'' is the term that is still used to describe the event in almost every major publication and newspaper in Bangladesh, although elsewhere, particularly in Pakistan, the actual death toll, motives, extent, and destructive impact of the actions of the Pakistani forces are disputed.

Foreign reaction

USA and USSR

The United States supported Pakistan both politically and materially. U.S. President Richard Nixon denied getting involved in the situation, saying that it was an internal matter of Pakistan. But when Pakistan's defeat seemed certain, Nixon sent the aircraft carrier USS ''Enterprise'' to the Bay of Bengal, a move deemed by the Indians as a nuclear threat. ''Enterprise'' arrived on station on 11 December 1971. On 6 and 13 December, the Soviet Navy dispatched two groups of ships, armed with nuclear missiles, from Vladivostok; they trailed U.S. Task Force 74 in the Indian Ocean from 18 December until 7 January 1972.

Nixon and Henry Kissinger feared Soviet expansion into South and Southeast Asia. Pakistan was a close ally of the People's Republic of China, with whom Nixon had been negotiating a ''rapprochement'' and which he intended to visit in February 1972. Nixon feared that an Indian invasion of West Pakistan would mean total Soviet domination of the region, and that it would seriously undermine the global position of the United States and the regional position of America's new tacit ally, China. In order to demonstrate to China the ''bona fides'' of the United States as an ally, and in direct violation of the US Congress-imposed sanctions on Pakistan, Nixon sent military supplies to Pakistan and routed them through Jordan and Iran, while also encouraging China to increase its arms supplies to Pakistan.

The Nixon administration also ignored reports it received of the genocidal activities of the Pakistani Army in East Pakistan, most notably the Blood telegram.

The Soviet Union supported Bangladesh and Indian armies, as well as the Mukti Bahini during the war, recognising that the independence of Bangladesh would weaken the position of its rivals – the United States and China. It gave assurances to India that if a confrontation with the United States or China developed, the USSR would take countermeasures. This was enshrined in the Indo-Soviet friendship treaty signed in August 1971. The Soviets also sent a nuclear submarine to ward off the threat posed by USS ''Enterprise'' in the Indian Ocean.

At the end of the war, the Warsaw Pact countries were among the first to recognize Bangladesh. The Soviet Union accorded recognition to Bangladesh on 25 January 1972. The United States delayed recognition for some months, before according it in April 1972.

China

As a long-standing ally of Pakistan, the People's Republic of China reacted with alarm to the evolving situation in East Pakistan and the prospect of India invading West Pakistan and Pakistani-controlled Kashmir. Believing that just such an Indian attack was imminent, Nixon encouraged China to mobilise its armed forces along its border with India to discourage it. The Chinese did not, however, respond to this encouragement, because unlike the 1962 Sino-Indian War when India was caught entirely unawares, this time the Indian Army was prepared and had deployed eight mountain divisions to the Sino-Indian border to guard against such an eventuality. China instead threw its weight behind demands for an immediate ceasefire.

China was also among the last countries to recognize independent Bangladesh, refusing to do so until 8 October 1975.

See also

Recipients of Bangladeshi military awards in 1971

Artistic depictions of Bangladesh Liberation War

Timeline of the Bangladesh War

Mukti Bahini

Liberation War Museum

Footnotes

References

Pierre Stephen and Robert Payne: ''Massacre'', Macmillan, New York, (1973). ISBN 0-02-595240-4

Christopher Hitchens "The Trials of Henry Kissinger", Verso (2001). ISBN 1-85984-631-9

Library of Congress Country Studies

Further reading

External links

Category:Secession in Pakistan Category:Civil wars involving the states and peoples of Asia Category:Civil wars post-1945 Category:Religion-based civil wars Category:History of Bangladesh Category:History of Pakistan Category:Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 Category:War crimes in Bangladesh Category:Surrenders Category:Wars involving Bangladesh Category:1971 in India Category:Military history of Bangladesh

bn:বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ de:Bangladesch-Krieg es:Guerra de Liberación de Bangladés fa:جنگ آزادی‌بخش بنگلادش fr:Guerre de libération du Bangladesh hi:बांग्लादेश मुक्ति युद्ध bpy:বাংলাদেশর ৱাইসাঙনির লালফাম id:Perang Kemerdekaan Bangladesh it:Guerra di liberazione bengalese lt:Bangladešo išsivadavimo karas mr:बांगलादेशाचे स्वातंत्र्ययुद्ध ja:バングラデシュ独立戦争 no:Den bangladeshiske frigjøringskrigen pl:Wojna o niepodległość Bangladeszu pt:Guerra de Independência de Bangladesh ru:Война за независимость Бангладеш simple:Bangladesh Liberation War fi:Bangladeshin itsenäisyyssota sv:Bangladeshs befrielsekrig ta:வங்காளதேச விடுதலைப் போர் tr:Bangladeş Kurtuluş Savaşı uk:Війна за незалежність Бангладеш ur:جنگ آزادی بنگلہ دیش zh:孟加拉国解放战争

Coordinates	28°36′36″N77°13′48″N
non-profit name	International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement
non-profit logo	200pxThe Red Cross and Red Crescent emblems, the symbols from which the movement derives its name.
non-profit type	Non-governmental organization
founded date	1863
founder	Henry Dunant
location	Geneva, Switzerland
area served	Worldwide
focus	Humanitarian
method	Aid
revenue	US$ 3.6 billion (2010)
num volunteers	97 million
homepage	redcross.int
footnotes	}}

The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is an international humanitarian movement with approximately 97 million volunteers, members and staff worldwide which was founded to protect human life and health, to ensure respect for all human beings, and to prevent and alleviate human suffering, without any discrimination based on nationality, race, sex, religious beliefs, class or political opinions.

The movement consists of several distinct organizations that are legally independent from each other, but are united within the movement through common basic principles, objectives, symbols, statutes and governing organs. The movement's parts are:

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is a private humanitarian institution founded in 1863 in Geneva, Switzerland, by Henry Dunant. Its 25-member committee has a unique authority under international humanitarian law to protect the life and dignity of the victims of international and internal armed conflicts. The ICRC was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on three occasions (in 1917, 1944 and 1963). The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) was founded in 1919 and today it coordinates activities between the 187 National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies within the Movement. On an international level, the Federation leads and organizes, in close cooperation with the National Societies, relief assistance missions responding to large-scale emergencies. The International Federation Secretariat is based in Geneva, Switzerland. In 1963, the Federation (then known as the League of Red Cross Societies) was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize jointly with the ICRC.

National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies exist in nearly every country in the world. Currently 186 National Societies are recognized by the ICRC and admitted as full members of the Federation. Each entity works in its home country according to the principles of international humanitarian law and the statutes of the international Movement. Depending on their specific circumstances and capacities, National Societies can take on additional humanitarian tasks that are not directly defined by international humanitarian law or the mandates of the international Movement. In many countries, they are tightly linked to the respective national health care system by providing emergency medical services.

History of Movement

The International Committee of the Red Cross

Solferino, Jean-Henri Dunant and the foundation of the ICRC

Until the middle of the 19th century, there were no organized and/or well-established army nursing systems for casualties and no safe and protected institutions to accommodate and treat those who were wounded on the battlefield. In June 1859, the Swiss businessman Jean-Henri Dunant traveled to Italy to meet French emperor Napoléon III with the intention of discussing difficulties in conducting business in Algeria, at that time occupied by France. When he arrived in the small town of Solferino on the evening of June 24, he witnessed the Battle of Solferino, an engagement in the Austro-Sardinian War. In a single day, about 40,000 soldiers on both sides died or were left wounded on the field. Jean-Henri Dunant was shocked by the terrible aftermath of the battle, the suffering of the wounded soldiers, and the near-total lack of medical attendance and basic care. He completely abandoned the original intent of his trip and for several days he devoted himself to helping with the treatment and care for the wounded. He succeeded in organizing an overwhelming level of relief assistance by motivating the local villagers to aid without discrimination.

Back in his home in Geneva, he decided to write a book entitled ''A Memory of Solferino'' which he published with his own money in 1862. He sent copies of the book to leading political and military figures throughout Europe. In addition to penning a vivid description of his experiences in Solferino in 1859, he explicitly advocated the formation of national voluntary relief organizations to help nurse wounded soldiers in the case of war. In addition, he called for the development of international treaties to guarantee the protection of neutral medics and field hospitals for soldiers wounded on the battlefield.

On February 9, 1863, in Geneva, Jean-Henri Dunant founded the "Committee of the Five" (together with four other leading figures from well-known Geneva families) as an investigatory commission of the Geneva Society for Public Welfare. Their aim was to examine the feasibility of Dunant's ideas and to organize an international conference about their possible implementation. The members of this committee, aside from Dunant himself, were Gustave Moynier, lawyer and chairman of the Geneva Society for Public Welfare; physician Louis Appia, who had significant experience working as a field surgeon; Appia's friend and colleague Théodore Maunoir, from the Geneva Hygiene and Health Commission; and Guillaume-Henri Dufour, a Swiss Army general of great renown. Eight days later, the five men decided to rename the committee to the "International Committee for Relief to the Wounded". In October (26–29) 1863, the international conference organized by the committee was held in Geneva to develop possible measures to improve medical services on the battlefield. The conference was attended by 36 individuals: eighteen official delegates from national governments, six delegates from other non-governmental organizations, seven non-official foreign delegates, and the five members of the International Committee. The states and kingdoms represented by official delegates were: France Hesse-Kassel Sweden-Norway Among the proposals written in the final resolutions of the conference, adopted on October 29, 1863, were:

The foundation of national relief societies for wounded soldiers;

Neutrality and protection for wounded soldiers;

The utilization of volunteer forces for relief assistance on the battlefield;

The organization of additional conferences to enact these concepts in legally binding international treaties;

The introduction of a common distinctive protection symbol for medical personnel in the field, namely a white armlet bearing a red cross.

Only one year later, the Swiss government invited the governments of all European countries, as well as the United States, Brazil, and Mexico, to attend an official diplomatic conference. Sixteen countries sent a total of twenty-six delegates to Geneva. On August 22, 1864, the conference adopted the first Geneva Convention "for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded in Armies in the Field". Representatives of 12 states and kingdoms signed the convention: Baden, Belgium, Denmark, France, Hesse, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Prussia, Switzerland, Spain, and Württemberg. The convention contained ten articles, establishing for the first time legally binding rules guaranteeing neutrality and protection for wounded soldiers, field medical personnel, and specific humanitarian institutions in an armed conflict. Furthermore, the convention defined two specific requirements for recognition of a national relief society by the International Committee:

The national society must be recognized by its own national government as a relief society according to the convention,

The national government of the respective country must be a state party to the Geneva Convention.

Directly following the establishment of the Geneva Convention, the first national societies were founded in Belgium, Denmark, France, Oldenburg, Prussia, Spain, and Württemberg. Also in 1864, Louis Appia and Charles van de Velde, a captain of the Dutch Army, became the first independent and neutral delegates to work under the symbol of the Red Cross in an armed conflict. Three years later in 1867, the first International Conference of National Aid Societies for the Nursing of the War Wounded was convened.

Also in 1867, Jean-Henri Dunant was forced to declare bankruptcy due to business failures in Algeria, partly because he had neglected his business interests during his tireless activities for the International Committee. Controversy surrounding Dunant's business dealings and the resulting negative public opinion, combined with an ongoing conflict with Gustave Moynier, led to Dunant's expulsion from his position as a member and secretary. He was charged with fraudulent bankruptcy and a warrant for his arrest was issued. Thus, he was forced to leave Geneva and never returned to his home city. In the following years, national societies were founded in nearly every country in Europe. In 1876, the committee adopted the name "International Committee of the Red Cross" (ICRC), which is still its official designation today. Five years later, the American Red Cross was founded through the efforts of Clara Barton. More and more countries signed the Geneva Convention and began to respect it in practice during armed conflicts. In a rather short period of time, the Red Cross gained huge momentum as an internationally respected movement, and the national societies became increasingly popular as a venue for volunteer work.

When the first Nobel Peace Prize was awarded in 1901, the Norwegian Nobel Committee opted to give it jointly to Jean-Henri Dunant and Frédéric Passy, a leading international pacifist. More significant than the honor of the prize itself, the official congratulation from the International Committee of the Red Cross marked the overdue rehabilitation of Jean-Henri Dunant and represented a tribute to his key role in the formation of the Red Cross. Dunant died nine years later in the small Swiss health resort of Heiden. Only two months earlier his long-standing adversary Gustave Moynier had also died, leaving a mark in the history of the Committee as its longest-serving president ever.

In 1906, the 1864 Geneva Convention was revised for the first time. One year later, the Hague Convention X, adopted at the Second International Peace Conference in The Hague, extended the scope of the Geneva Convention to naval warfare. Shortly before the beginning of the First World War in 1914, 50 years after the foundation of the ICRC and the adoption of the first Geneva Convention, there were already 45 national relief societies throughout the world. The movement had extended itself beyond Europe and North America to Central and South America (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Mexico, Peru, El Salvador, Uruguay, Venezuela), Asia (the Republic of China, Japan, Korea, Siam), and Africa (Union of South Africa).

The ICRC during World War I

With the outbreak of World War I, the ICRC found itself confronted with enormous challenges that it could handle only by working closely with the national Red Cross societies. Red Cross nurses from around the world, including the United States and Japan, came to support the medical services of the armed forces of the European countries involved in the war. On October 15, 1914, immediately after the start of the war, the ICRC set up its International Prisoners-of-War (POW) Agency, which had about 1,200 mostly volunteer staff members by the end of 1914. By the end of the war, the Agency had transferred about 20 million letters and messages, 1.9 million parcels, and about 18 million Swiss francs in monetary donations to POWs of all affected countries. Furthermore, due to the intervention of the Agency, about 200,000 prisoners were exchanged between the warring parties, released from captivity and returned to their home country. The organizational card index of the Agency accumulated about 7 million records from 1914 to 1923, each card representing an individual prisoner or missing person. The card index led to the identification of about 2 million POWs and the ability to contact their families. The complete index is on loan today from the ICRC to the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum in Geneva. The right to access the index is still strictly restricted to the ICRC. During the entire war, the ICRC monitored warring parties’ compliance with the Geneva Conventions of the 1907 revision and forwarded complaints about violations to the respective country. When chemical weapons were used in this war for the first time in history, the ICRC vigorously protested against this new type of warfare. Even without having a mandate from the Geneva Conventions, the ICRC tried to ameliorate the suffering of civil populations. In territories that were officially designated as "occupied territories," the ICRC could assist the civilian population on the basis of the Hague Convention's "Laws and Customs of War on Land" of 1907. This convention was also the legal basis for the ICRC's work for prisoners of war. In addition to the work of the International Prisoner-of-War Agency as described above this included inspection visits to POW camps. A total of 524 camps throughout Europe were visited by 41 delegates from the ICRC until the end of the war.

Between 1916 and 1918, the ICRC published a number of postcards with scenes from the POW camps. The pictures showed the prisoners in day-to-day activities such as the distribution of letters from home. The intention of the ICRC was to provide the families of the prisoners with some hope and solace and to alleviate their uncertainties about the fate of their loved ones. After the end of the war, the ICRC organized the return of about 420,000 prisoners to their home countries. In 1920, the task of repatriation was handed over to the newly founded League of Nations, which appointed the Norwegian diplomat and scientist Fridtjof Nansen as its "High Commissioner for Repatriation of the War Prisoners." His legal mandate was later extended to support and care for war refugees and displaced persons when his office became that of the League of Nations "High Commissioner for Refugees." Nansen, who invented the ''Nansen passport'' for stateless refugees and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1922, appointed two delegates from the ICRC as his deputies.

A year before the end of the war, the ICRC received the 1917 Nobel Peace Prize for its outstanding wartime work. It was the only Nobel Peace Prize awarded in the period from 1914 to 1918. In 1923, the International Committee of the Red Cross adopted a change in its policy regarding the selection of new members. Until then, only citizens from the city of Geneva could serve in the Committee. This limitation was expanded to include Swiss citizens. As a direct consequence of World War I, an additional protocol to the Geneva Convention was adopted in 1925 which outlawed the use of suffocating or poisonous gases and biological agents as weapons. Four years later, the original Convention was revised and the second Geneva Convention "relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War" was established. The events of World War I and the respective activities of the ICRC significantly increased the reputation and authority of the Committee among the international community and led to an extension of its competencies.

As early as in 1934, a draft proposal for an additional convention for the protection of the civil population during an armed conflict was adopted by the International Red Cross Conference. Unfortunately, most governments had little interest in implementing this convention, and it was thus prevented from entering into force before the beginning of World War II.

The ICRC and World War II

The legal basis of the work of the ICRC during World War II were the Geneva Conventions in their 1929 revision. The activities of the Committee were similar to those during World War I: visiting and monitoring POW camps, organizing relief assistance for civilian populations, and administering the exchange of messages regarding prisoners and missing persons. By the end of the war, 179 delegates had conducted 12,750 visits to POW camps in 41 countries. The Central Information Agency on Prisoners-of-War (''Zentralauskunftsstelle für Kriegsgefangene'') had a staff of 3,000, the card index tracking prisoners contained 45 million cards, and 120 million messages were exchanged by the Agency. One major obstacle was that the Nazi-controlled German Red Cross refused to cooperate with the Geneva statutes including blatant violations such as the deportation of Jews from Germany and the mass murders conducted in the Nazi concentration camps. Moreover, two other main parties to the conflict, the Soviet Union and Japan, were not party to the 1929 Geneva Conventions and were not legally required to follow the rules of the conventions.

During the war, the ICRC was unable to obtain an agreement with Nazi Germany about the treatment of detainees in concentration camps, and it eventually abandoned applying pressure in order to avoid disrupting its work with POWs. The ICRC was also unable to obtain a response to reliable information about the extermination camps and the mass killing of European Jews, Roma, et al. After November 1943, the ICRC achieved permission to send parcels to concentration camp detainees with known names and locations. Because the notices of receipt for these parcels were often signed by other inmates, the ICRC managed to register the identities of about 105,000 detainees in the concentration camps and delivered about 1.1 million parcels, primarily to the camps Dachau, Buchenwald, Ravensbrück, and Sachsenhausen.

It is known that Swiss army officer Maurice Rossel during World War II had been sent to Berlin as a delegate of the International Red Cross, as such he visited Auschwitz 1943 and Theresienstadt 1944. Claude Lanzmann recorded his experiences in 1979, producing a documentary entitled ''Visitor from the living''.

thumb|left|Marcel Junod, delegate of the ICRC, visiting [[Prisoner of War|POWs in Germany.>(© Benoit Junod, Switzerland)]]

On March 12, 1945, ICRC president Jacob Burckhardt received a message from SS General Ernst Kaltenbrunner accepting the ICRC's demand to allow delegates to visit the concentration camps. This agreement was bound by the condition that these delegates would have to stay in the camps until the end of the war. Ten delegates, among them Louis Haefliger (Camp Mauthausen), Paul Dunant (Camp Theresienstadt) and Victor Maurer (Camp Dachau), accepted the assignment and visited the camps. Louis Haefliger prevented the forceful eviction or blasting of Mauthausen-Gusen by alerting American troops, thereby saving the lives of about 60,000 inmates. His actions were condemned by the ICRC because they were deemed as acting unduly on his own authority and risking the ICRC's neutrality. Only in 1990, his reputation was finally rehabilitated by ICRC president Cornelio Sommaruga.

Another example of great humanitarian spirit was Friedrich Born (1903–1963), an ICRC delegate in Budapest who saved the lives of about 11,000 to 15,000 Jewish people in Hungary. Marcel Junod (1904–1961), a physician from Geneva, was another famous delegate during the Second World War. An account of his experiences, which included being one of the first foreigners to visit Hiroshima after the atomic bomb was dropped, can be found in the book ''Warrior without Weapons''.

In 1944, the ICRC received its second Nobel Peace Prize. As in World War I, it received the only Peace Prize awarded during the main period of war, 1939 to 1945. At the end of the war, the ICRC worked with national Red Cross societies to organize relief assistance to those countries most severely affected. In 1948, the Committee published a report reviewing its war-era activities from September 1, 1939 to June 30, 1947. Since January 1996, the ICRC archive for this period has been open to academic and public research.

The ICRC after the Second World War

On August 12, 1949, further revisions to the existing two Geneva Conventions were adopted. An additional convention "for the Amelioration of the Condition of Wounded, Sick and Shipwrecked Members of Armed Forces at Sea", now called the second Geneva Convention, was brought under the Geneva Convention umbrella as a successor to the 1907 Hague Convention X. The 1929 Geneva convention "relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War" may have been the second Geneva Convention from a historical point of view (because it was actually formulated in Geneva), but after 1949 it came to be called the third Convention because it came later chronologically than the Hague Convention. Reacting to the experience of World War II, the Fourth Geneva Convention, a new Convention "relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War," was established. Also, the additional protocols of June 8, 1977 were intended to make the conventions apply to internal conflicts such as civil wars. Today, the four conventions and their added protocols contain more than 600 articles, a remarkable expansion when compared to the mere 10 articles in the first 1864 convention.

In celebration of its centennial in 1963, the ICRC, together with the League of Red Cross Societies, received its third Nobel Peace Prize. Since 1993, non-Swiss individuals have been allowed to serve as Committee delegates abroad, a task which was previously restricted to Swiss citizens. Indeed, since then, the share of staff without Swiss citizenship has increased to about 35%.

On October 16, 1990, the UN General Assembly decided to grant the ICRC observer status for its assembly sessions and sub-committee meetings, the first observer status given to a private organization. The resolution was jointly proposed by 138 member states and introduced by the Italian ambassador, Vieri Traxler, in memory of the organization's origins in the Battle of Solferino. An agreement with the Swiss government signed on March 19, 1993, affirmed the already long-standing policy of full independence of the Committee from any possible interference by Switzerland. The agreement protects the full sanctity of all ICRC property in Switzerland including its headquarters and archive, grants members and staff legal immunity, exempts the ICRC from all taxes and fees, guarantees the protected and duty-free transfer of goods, services, and money, provides the ICRC with secure communication privileges at the same level as foreign embassies, and simplifies Committee travel in and out of Switzerland.

At the end of the Cold War, the ICRC's work actually became more dangerous. In the 1990s, more delegates lost their lives than at any point in its history, especially when working in local and internal armed conflicts. These incidents often demonstrated a lack of respect for the rules of the Geneva Conventions and their protection symbols. Among the slain delegates were:

Frédéric Maurice. He died on May 19, 1992 at the age of 39, one day after a Red Cross transport he was escorting was attacked in the Bosnian city of Sarajevo.

Fernanda Calado (Spain), Ingeborg Foss (Norway), Nancy Malloy (Canada), Gunnhild Myklebust (Norway), Sheryl Thayer (New Zealand), and Hans Elkerbout (Netherlands). They were murdered at point-blank range while sleeping in the early hours of December 17, 1996 in the ICRC field hospital in the Chechen city of Nowije Atagi near Grozny. Their murderers have never been caught and there was no apparent motive for the killings.

Rita Fox (Switzerland), Véronique Saro (Democratic Republic of Congo, formerly Zaire), Julio Delgado (Colombia), Unen Ufoirworth (DR Congo), Aduwe Boboli (DR Congo), and Jean Molokabonge (DR Congo). On April 26, 2001, they were en route with two cars on a relief mission in the northeast of the Democratic Republic of Congo when they came under fatal fire from unknown attackers.

Ricardo Munguia (El Salvador). He was working as a water engineer in Afghanistan and travelling with local colleagues when their car on March 27, 2003 was stopped by unknown armed men. He was killed execution-style at point-blank range while his colleagues were allowed to escape. He died at the age of 39.

Vatche Arslanian (Canada). Since 2001, he worked as a logistics coordinator for the ICRC mission in Iraq. He died when he was travelling through Baghdad together with members of the Iraqi Red Crescent. On April 8, 2003 their car accidentally came into the cross fire of fighting in the city.

Nadisha Yasassri Ranmuthu (Sri Lanka). He was killed by unknown attackers on July 22, 2003 when his car was fired upon near the city of Hilla in the south of Baghdad.

Afghanistan

ICRC is active in the Afghanistan conflict areas and has set up six physical rehabilitation centers to help landmine victims. Their support extends to the national and international armed forces, civilians and the armed opposition. They regularly visit detainees under the custody of the Afghan government and the international armed forces, but have also occasionally had access since 2009 to people detained by the Taliban. They have provided basic first aid training and aid kits to both the Afghan security forces and Taliban members because, according to an ICRC spokesperson, "ICRC's constitution stipulates that all parties harmed by warfare will be treated as fairly as possible".

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC)

History

In 1919, representatives from the national Red Cross societies of Britain, France, Italy, Japan, and the US came together in Paris to found the "League of Red Cross Societies". The original idea was Henry Davison's, then president of the American Red Cross. This move, led by the American Red Cross, expanded the international activities of the Red Cross movement beyond the strict mission of the ICRC to include relief assistance in response to emergency situations which were not caused by war (such as man-made or natural disasters). The ARC already had great disaster relief mission experience extending back to its foundation.

The formation of the League, as an additional international Red Cross organization alongside the ICRC, was not without controversy for a number of reasons. The ICRC had, to some extent, valid concerns about a possible rivalry between both organizations. The foundation of the League was seen as an attempt to undermine the leadership position of the ICRC within the movement and to gradually transfer most of its tasks and competencies to a multilateral institution. In addition to that, all founding members of the League were national societies from countries of the Entente or from associated partners of the Entente. The original statutes of the League from May 1919 contained further regulations which gave the five founding societies a privileged status and, due to the efforts of Henry P. Davison, the right to permanently exclude the national Red Cross societies from the countries of the Central Powers, namely Germany, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria and Turkey, and in addition to that the national Red Cross society of Russia. These rules were contrary to the Red Cross principles of universality and equality among all national societies, a situation which furthered the concerns of the ICRC.

The first relief assistance mission organized by the League was an aid mission for the victims of a famine and subsequent typhus epidemic in Poland. Only five years after its foundation, the League had already issued 47 donation appeals for missions in 34 countries, an impressive indication of the need for this type of Red Cross work. The total sum raised by these appeals reached 685 million Swiss Francs, which were used to bring emergency supplies to the victims of famines in Russia, Germany, and Albania; earthquakes in Chile, Persia, Japan, Colombia, Ecuador, Costa Rica, and Turkey; and refugee flows in Greece and Turkey. The first large-scale disaster mission of the League came after the 1923 earthquake in Japan which killed about 200,000 people and left countless more wounded and without shelter. Due to the League's coordination, the Red Cross society of Japan received goods from its sister societies reaching a total worth of about $100 million. Another important new field initiated by the League was the creation of youth Red Cross organizations within the national societies.

A joint mission of the ICRC and the League in the Russian Civil War from 1917 to 1922 marked the first time the movement was involved in an internal conflict, although still without an explicit mandate from the Geneva Conventions. The League, with support from more than 25 national societies, organized assistance missions and the distribution of food and other aid goods for civil populations affected by hunger and disease. The ICRC worked with the Russian Red Cross society and later the society of the Soviet Union, constantly emphasizing the ICRC's neutrality. In 1928, the "International Council" was founded to coordinate cooperation between the ICRC and the League, a task which was later taken over by the "Standing Commission". In the same year, a common statute for the movement was adopted for the first time, defining the respective roles of the ICRC and the League within the movement.

During the Abyssinian war between Ethiopia and Italy from 1935 to 1936, the League contributed aid supplies worth about 1.7 million Swiss Francs. Because the Italian fascist regime under Benito Mussolini refused any cooperation with the Red Cross, these goods were delivered solely to Ethiopia. During the war, an estimated 29 people lost their lives while being under explicit protection of the Red Cross symbol, most of them due to attacks by the Italian Army. During the Civil War in Spain from 1936 to 1939 the League once again joined forces with the ICRC with the support of 41 national societies. In 1939 on the brink of the Second World War, the League relocated its headquarters from Paris to Geneva to take advantage of Swiss neutrality.

In 1952, the 1928 common statute of the movement was revised for the first time. Also, the period of decolonization from 1960 to 1970 was marked by a huge jump in the number of recognized national Red Cross and Red Crescent societies. By the end of the 1960s, there were more than 100 societies around the world. On December 10, 1963, the Federation and the ICRC received the Nobel Peace Prize. In 1983, the League was renamed to the "League of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies" to reflect the growing number of national societies operating under the Red Crescent symbol. Three years later, the seven basic principles of the movement as adopted in 1965 were incorporated into its statutes. The name of the League was changed again in 1991 to its current official designation the "International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies". In 1997, the ICRC and the IFRC signed the Seville Agreement which further defined the responsibilities of both organizations within the movement. In 2004, the IFRC began its largest mission to date after the tsunami disaster in South Asia. More than 40 national societies have worked with more than 22,000 volunteers to bring relief to the countless victims left without food and shelter and endangered by the risk of epidemics.

Presidents of the IFRC

As of November 2009, the president of the IFRC is Tadateru Konoe (Japanese Red Cross). The vice presidents are Paul Bierch (Kenya), Jaslin Uriah Salmon (Jamaica), Mohamed El Maadid (Qatar) and Bengt Westerberg (Sweden).

Former presidents (until 1977 titled "Chairman") have been:

1919–1922: Henry Davison (U.S.)

1922–1935: John Barton Payne (U.S.)

1935–1938: Cary Travers Grayson (U.S.)

1938–1944: Norman Davis (U.S.)

1944–1945: Jean de Muralt (Switzerland)

1945–1950: Basil O'Connor (U.S.)

1950–1959: Emil Sandström (Sweden)

1959–1965: John MacAulay (Canada)

1965–1977: José Barroso Chávez (Mexico)

1977–1981: Adetunji Adefarasin (Nigeria)

1981–1987: Enrique de la Mata (Spain)

1987–1997: Mario Enrique Villarroel Lander (Venezuela)

1997–2000: Astrid Nøklebye Heiberg (Norway)

2001–2009: Juan Manuel del Toro y Rivera (Spain)

2009– : Tadateru Konoé (Japan)

Activities

Organization of the Movement

Altogether, there are about 97 million people worldwide who serve with the ICRC, the International Federation, and the National Societies.

The 1965 International Conference in Vienna adopted seven basic principles which should be shared by all parts of the Movement, and they were added to the official statutes of the Movement in 1986.

Humanity

Impartiality

Neutrality

Independence

Voluntary Service

Unity

Universality

The International Conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent, which occurs once every four years, is the highest institutional body of the Movement. It gathers delegations from all of the national societies as well as from the ICRC, the IFRC and the signatory states to the Geneva Conventions. In between the conferences, the Standing Commission acts as the supreme body and supervises implementation of and compliance with the resolutions of the conference. In addition, the Standing Commission coordinates the cooperation between the ICRC and the IFRC. It consists of two representatives from the ICRC (including its president), two from the IFRC (including its president), and five individuals who are elected by the International Conference. The Standing Commission convenes every six months on average. Moreover, a convention of the Council of Delegates of the Movement takes place every two years in the course of the conferences of the General Assembly of the International Federation. The Council of Delegates plans and coordinates joint activities for the Movement.

Activities and Organization of the ICRC

The mission of the ICRC and its responsibilities within the Movement

The official mission of the ICRC as an impartial, neutral, and independent organization is to stand for the protection of the life and dignity of victims of international and internal armed conflicts. According to the 1997 Seville Agreement, it is the "Lead Agency" of the Movement in conflicts. The core tasks of the Committee, which are derived from the Geneva Conventions and its own statutes, are the following:

to monitor compliance of warring parties with the Geneva Conventions

to organize nursing and care for those who are wounded on the battlefield

to supervise the treatment of prisoners of war

to help with the search for missing persons in an armed conflict (tracing service)

to organize protection and care for civil populations

to arbitrate between warring parties in an armed conflict

Legal status and organization

The ICRC is headquartered in the Swiss city of Geneva and has external offices in about 80 countries. It has about 12,000 staff members worldwide, about 800 of them working in its Geneva headquarters, 1,200 expatriates with about half of them serving as delegates managing its international missions and the other half being specialists like doctors, agronomists, engineers or interpreters, and about 10,000 members of individual national societies working on site. Contrary to popular belief, the ICRC is not a non-governmental organization in the most common sense of the term, nor is it an international organization. As it limits its members (a process called cooptation) to Swiss nationals only, it does not have a policy of open and unrestricted membership for individuals like other legally defined NGOs. The word "international" in its name does not refer to its membership but to the worldwide scope of its activities as defined by the Geneva Conventions. The ICRC has special privileges and legal immunities in many countries, based on national law in these countries or through agreements between the Committee and respective national governments. According to Swiss law, the ICRC is defined as a private association. According to its statutes it consists of 15 to 25 Swiss-citizen members, which it coopts for a period of four years. There is no limit to the number of terms an individual member can have although a three-quarters majority of all members is required for re-election after the third term.

The leading organs of the ICRC are the Directorate and the Assembly. The Directorate is the executive body of the Committee. It consists of a General Director and five directors in the areas of "Operations", "Human Resources", "Resources and Operational Support", "Communication", and "International Law and Cooperation within the Movement". The members of the Directorate are appointed by the Assembly to serve for four years. The Assembly, consisting of all of the members of the Committee, convenes on a regular basis and is responsible for defining aims, guidelines, and strategies and for supervising the financial matters of the Committee. The president of the Assembly is also the president of the Committee as a whole. Furthermore, the Assembly elects a five member Assembly Council which has the authority to decide on behalf of the full Assembly in some matters. The Council is also responsible for organizing the Assembly meetings and for facilitating communication between the Assembly and the Directorate.

Due to Geneva's location in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, the ICRC usually acts under its French name ''Comité international de la Croix-Rouge'' (CICR). The official symbol of the ICRC is the Red Cross on white background with the words "COMITE INTERNATIONAL GENEVE" circling the cross.

Funding and financial matters

The 2009 budget of the ICRC amounts more than 1 billion Swiss Francs. Most of that money comes from the States, including Switzerland in its capacity as the depositary state of the Geneva Conventions, from national Red Cross societies, the signatory states of the Geneva Conventions, and from international organizations like the European Union. All payments to the ICRC are voluntary and are received as donations based on two types of appeals issued by the Committee: an annual ''Headquarters Appeal'' to cover its internal costs and ''Emergency Appeals'' for its individual missions.

The ICRC is asking donors for more than 1.1 billion Swiss francs to fund its work in 2010. Afghanistan is projected to become the ICRC’s biggest humanitarian operation (at 86 million Swiss francs, an 18% increase over the initial 2009 budget), followed by Iraq (85 million francs) and Sudan (76 million francs). The initial 2010 field budget for medical activities of 132 million francs represents an increase of 12 million francs over 2009.

Activities and organization of the International Federation

The Mission of the IFRC and its responsibilities within the Movement

The IFRC coordinates cooperation between national Red Cross and Red Crescent societies throughout the world and supports the foundation of new national societies in countries where no official society exists. On the international stage, the IFRC organizes and leads relief assistance missions after emergencies such as natural disasters, manmade disasters, epidemics, mass refugee flights, and other emergencies. As per the 1997 Seville Agreement, the IFRC is the Lead Agency of the Movement in any emergency situation which does not take place as part of an armed conflict. The IFRC cooperates with the national societies of those countries affected – each called the ''Operating National Society'' (ONS) – as well as the national societies of other countries willing to offer assistance – called ''Participating National Societies'' (PNS). Among the 187 national societies admitted to the General Assembly of the International Federation as full members or observers, about 25–30 regularly work as PNS in other countries. The most active of those are the American Red Cross, the British Red Cross, the German Red Cross, and the Red Cross societies of Sweden and Norway. Another major mission of the IFRC which has gained attention in recent years is its commitment to work towards a codified, worldwide ban on the use of land mines and to bring medical, psychological, and social support for people injured by land mines.

The tasks of the IFRC can therefore be summarized as follows:

to promote humanitarian principles and values

to provide relief assistance in emergency situations of large magnitude, such as natural disasters

to support the national societies with disaster preparedness through the education of voluntary members and the provision of equipment and relief supplies

to support local health care projects

to support the national societies with youth-related activities

Legal status and organization

The IFRC has its headquarters in Geneva. It also runs five zone offices (Africa, Americas, Asia Pacific, Europe, Middle East-North Africa), 14 permanent regional offices and has about 350 delegates in more than 60 delegations around the world. The legal basis for the work of the IFRC is its constitution. The executive body of the IFRC is a secretariat, led by a Secretary General. The secretariat is supported by five divisions including "Programme Services", "Humanitarian values and humanitarian diplomacy", "National Society and Knowledge Development" and "Governance and Management Services".

The highest decision making body of the IFRC is its General Assembly, which convenes every two years with delegates from all of the national societies. Among other tasks, the General Assembly elects the Secretary General. Between the convening of General Assemblies, the Governing Board is the leading body of the IFRC. It has the authority to make decisions for the IFRC in a number of areas. The Governing Board consists of the president and the vice presidents of the IFRC, the chairpersons of the Finance and Youth Commissions, and twenty elected representatives from national societies.

The symbol of the IFRC is the combination of the Red Cross (left) and Red Crescent (right) on a white background surrounded by a red rectangular frame.

Funding and financial matters

The main parts of the budget of the IFRC are funded by contributions from the national societies which are members of the IFRC and through revenues from its investments. The exact amount of contributions from each member society is established by the Finance Commission and approved by the General Assembly. Any additional funding, especially for unforeseen expenses for relief assistance missions, is raised by ''"appeals"'' published by the IFRC and comes for voluntary donations by national societies, governments, other organizations, corporations, and individuals.

National societies within the Movement

Official Recognition of a national society

National Red Cross and Red Crescent societies exist in nearly every country in the world. Within their home country, they take on the duties and responsibilities of a national relief society as defined by International Humanitarian Law. Within the Movement, the ICRC is responsible for legally recognizing a relief society as an official national Red Cross or Red Crescent society. The exact rules for recognition are defined in the statutes of the Movement. Article 4 of these statutes contains the ''"Conditions for recognition of National Societies."''

: ''In order to be recognized in terms of Article 5, paragraph 2 b) as a National Society, the Society shall meet the following conditions:''

:#''Be constituted on the territory of an independent State where the Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field is in force.'' :#''Be the only National Red Cross or Red Crescent Society of the said State and be directed by a central body which shall alone be competent to represent it in its dealings with other components of the Movement.'' :#''Be duly recognized by the legal government of its country on the basis of the Geneva Conventions and of the national legislation as a voluntary aid society, auxiliary to the public authorities in the humanitarian field.'' :#''Have an autonomous status which allows it to operate in conformity with the Fundamental Principles of the Movement.'' :#''Use the name and emblem of the Red Cross or Red Crescent in conformity with the Geneva Conventions.'' :#''Be so organized as to be able to fulfill the tasks defined in its own statutes, including the preparation in peace time for its statutory tasks in case of armed conflict.'' :#''Extend its activities to the entire territory of the State.'' :#''Recruit its voluntary members and its staff without consideration of race, sex, class, religion or political opinions.'' :#''Adhere to the present Statutes, share in the fellowship which unites the components of the Movement and co-operate with them.'' :#''Respect the Fundamental Principles of the Movement and be guided in its work by the principles of international humanitarian law.''

After recognition by the ICRC, a national society is admitted as a member to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent societies. However some National Societies have severely objected to the recognition and admission process by claiming its unfair execution by ICRC and IFRC as in the process of recognition of North Cyprus Red Crescent. Although there are two national societies, namely North Cyprus Red Crescent Society and Cyrprus Red Cross, in the two countries existing in the Island and Cyprus Red Cross has no accessibility to North, ICRC declared its will to recognize Cyprus Red Cross.

Activities of national societies on a national and international stage

Despite formal independence regarding its organizational structure and work, each national society is still bound by the laws of its home country. In many countries, national Red Cross and Red Crescent societies enjoy exceptional privileges due to agreements with their governments or specific "Red Cross Laws" granting full independence as required by the International Movement. The duties and responsibilities of a national society as defined by International Humanitarian Law and the statutes of the Movement include humanitarian aid in armed conflicts and emergency crises such as natural disasters. Depending on their respective human, technical, financial, and organizational resources, many national societies take on additional humanitarian tasks within their home countries such as Blood donation services or acting as civilian Emergency Medical Service (EMS) providers. The ICRC and the International Federation cooperate with the national societies in their international missions, especially with human, material, and financial resources and organizing on-site logistics.

History of the emblems

Emblems in use

The Red Cross

The Red Cross emblem was officially approved in Geneva in 1863.

The Red Cross flag is not to be confused with the St George's Cross which is on the flag of England, Barcelona, Freiburg, and several other places. In order to avoid this confusion the protected symbol is sometimes referred to as the "Greek Red Cross"; that term is also used in United States law to describe the Red Cross. The red cross of the St George cross extends to the edge of the flag, whereas the red cross on the Red Cross flag does not.

The Red Cross flag is often confused with the Flag of Switzerland which is the opposite of it. In 1906, to put an end to the argument of Turkey that the flag took its roots from Christianity, it was decided to promote officially the idea that the Red Cross flag had been formed by reversing the federal colours of Switzerland, although no clear evidence of this origin had ever been found.

The Red Crescent

The Red Crescent emblem was first used by ICRC volunteers during the armed conflict between the Ottoman Empire and Russia (1877–1878). The symbol was officially adopted in 1929, and so far 33 Islamic states have recognized it.

The Red Crystal

On December 8, 2005, partly in response to growing pressure to accommodate Magen David Adom as a full member of the Red Cross and Red Crescent movement, a new emblem (officially the Third Protocol Emblem, but more commonly known as the Red Crystal) was adopted by an amendment of the Geneva Conventions known as Protocol III.

Recognized emblems in disuse

The Red Lion and Sun

The Red Lion and Sun Society of Iran was established in 1922 and admitted to the Red Cross and Red Crescent movement in 1923. However, some report the symbol was introduced at Geneva in 1864 as a counter example to the crescent and cross used by two of Iran's rivals, the Ottoman and the Russian empires. Though that claim is inconsistent with the Red Crescent's history, that history also suggests that the Red Lion and Sun, like the Red Crescent, may have been conceived during the 1877–1878 war between Russia and Turkey.

In 1980, because of the association of the emblem with the Shah, the newly proclaimed Islamic Republic of Iran replaced the Red Lion and Sun with the Red Crescent, consistent with most other Muslim nations. Though the Red Lion and Sun has now fallen into disuse, Iran has in the past reserved the right to take it up again at any time; the Geneva Conventions continue to recognize it as an official emblem, and that status was confirmed by Protocol III in 2005 even as it added the Red Crystal.

Unrecognized emblems

The Red Star of David (Magen David Adom)

For over 50 years, Israel requested the addition of a red Star of David, arguing that since Christian and Muslim emblems were recognized, the corresponding Jewish emblem should be as well. This emblem has been used since 1935 by Magen David Adom (MDA), or Red Star of David, the national first-aid society of Israel, but it is still not recognized by the Geneva Conventions as a protected symbol.

The Red Cross and Red Crescent movement repeatedly rejected Israel's request over the years, stating that the Red Cross emblem was not meant to represent Christianity but was a color reversal of the Swiss flag, and also that if Jews (or another group) were to be given another emblem, there would be no end to the number of religious or other groups claiming an emblem for themselves, although the movement recognised the Muslim Red Crescent. They reasoned that a proliferation of red symbols would detract from the original intention of the Red Cross emblem, which was to be a single emblem to mark vehicles and buildings protected on humanitarian grounds.

Certain Arab nations, such as Syria, also protested the entry of MDA into the Red Cross movement, making consensus impossible for a time. However, from 2000 to 2006 the American Red Cross withheld its dues (a total of $42 million) to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) because of IFRC's refusal to admit MDA; this ultimately led to the creation of the Red Crystal emblem and the admission of MDA on June 22, 2006.

The Red Star of David is not recognized as a protected symbol outside Israel; instead the MDA uses the Red Crystal emblem during international operations in order to ensure protection. Depending on the circumstances, it may place the Red Star of David inside the Red Crystal, or use the Red Crystal alone.

Criticism

The Australian TV network ABC and the indigenous rights group Friends of Peoples Close to Nature released a documentary called ''Blood on the Cross'' that alleges the involvement of the Red Cross with the British military in conducting a massacre in the Southern Highlands of West Papua in connection with the WWF hostage crisis of May 1996. Following the broadcast of the documentary, the Red Cross announced publicly that it would appoint an individual outside the organization to investigate the allegations made in the film and any responsibility on its part. The report categorically states that the Red Cross personnel accused of involvement were proven not to have been present; that a white helicopter was probably used in a military operation, but the helicopter was not a Red Cross helicopter, and must have been painted by one of several military organizations operating in the region at the time, possibly including the British military, although no hard evidence was found for this; and that the Red Cross should have responded more quickly and thoroughly to investigate the allegations than it did.

Allegations of poor governance and concern over accountability and transparency within certain national societies have led to high profile resignations.

See also

Accountable Fundraising

Crveni Krst concentration camp, logor Crveni Krst (Red Cross Camp)

Emblems of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement

First Aid Convention Europe

International Committee of the Red Cross

International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies

List of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies

Red Swastika Society

Roerich Pact

References

Further reading

Books

David P. Forsythe: ''Humanitarian Politics: The International Committee of the Red Cross.'' Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore 1978, ISBN 0-8018-1983-0

Henry Dunant: ''A Memory of Solferino.'' ICRC, Geneva 1986, ISBN 2-88145-006-7

Jean-Claude Favez, ''The Red Cross and the Holocaust'', Cambridge University Press 1999

Hans Haug: ''Humanity for All: The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.'' Henry Dunant Institute, Geneva in association with Paul Haupt Publishers, Bern 1993, ISBN 3-258-04719-7

Georges Willemin, Roger Heacock: ''International Organization and the Evolution of World Society. Volume 2: The International Committee of the Red Cross.'' Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, Boston 1984, ISBN 90-247-3064-3

Pierre Boissier: ''History of the International Committee of the Red Cross. Volume I: From Solferino to Tsushima.'' Henry Dunant Institute, Geneva 1985, ISBN 2-88044-012-2

André Durand: ''History of the International Committee of the Red Cross. Volume II: From Sarajevo to Hiroshima.'' Henry Dunant Institute, Geneva 1984, ISBN 2-88044-009-2

International Committee of the Red Cross: ''Handbook of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.'' 13th edition, ICRC, Geneva 1994, ISBN 2-88145-074-1

John F. Hutchinson: ''Champions of Charity: War and the Rise of the Red Cross.'' Westview Press, Boulder 1997, ISBN 0-8133-3367-9

Caroline Moorehead: ''Dunant's Dream: War, Switzerland and the History of the Red Cross.'' HarperCollins, London 1998, ISBN 0-00-255141-1 (Hardcover edition); HarperCollins, London 1999, ISBN 0-00-638883-3 (Paperback edition)

François Bugnion: ''The International Committee of the Red Cross and the Protection of War Victims.'' ICRC & Macmillan (ref. 0503), Geneva 2003, ISBN 0-333-74771-2

Angela Bennett: ''The Geneva Convention: The Hidden Origins of the Red Cross.'' Sutton Publishing, Gloucestershire 2005, ISBN 0-7509-4147-2

David P. Forsythe: ''The Humanitarians: The International Committee of the Red Cross.'' Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2005, ISBN 0-521-61281-0

Florence Farmborough: ''With the Armies of the Tsar: A Nurse at the Russian Front 1914-1918.'' Stein and Day., New York. 1975. ISBN 0-8128-1793-1

Journal articles

François Bugnion: ''The emblem of the Red Cross: a brief history.'' ICRC (ref. 0316), Geneva 1977

Jean-Philippe Lavoyer, Louis Maresca: ''The Role of the ICRC in the Development of International Humanitarian Law.'' In: ''International Negotiation.'' 4(3)/1999. Brill Academic Publishers, p. 503–527, ISSN 1382-340X

Neville Wylie: ''The Sound of Silence: The History of the International Committee of the Red Cross as Past and Present.'' In: ''Diplomacy and Statecraft.'' 13(4)/2002. Routledge/ Taylor & Francis, p. 186–204, ISSN 0959-2296

David P. Forsythe: "The International Committee of the Red Cross and International Humanitarian Law." In: ''Humanitäres Völkerrecht - Informationsschriften. The Journal of International Law of Peace and Armed Conflict.'' 2/2003, German Red Cross and Institute for International Law of Peace and Armed Conflict, p. 64–77, ISSN 0937-5414

François Bugnion: ''Towards a comprehensive Solution to the Question of the Emblem.'' Revised 4th edition. ICRC (ref. 0778), Geneva 2006

Red Cross reps. visit Armenian captives in Azerbaijan

External links

International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)

International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC)

Our world. Your move. (ICRC-IFRC)

Red Cross Red Crescent(magazine of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement)

Standing Commission of the Red Cross and Red Crescent

International Conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent

Category:1863 establishments Category:Aftermath of war Category:International organizations Category:International volunteer organizations Category:Missing people organizations

ab:Аџьар Ҟаҧшь ar:جمعية الصليب والهلال الأحمر an:Cruz Roya az:Beynəlxalq Qırmızı Xaç və Qırmızı Aypara Hərəkatı bn:আন্তর্জাতিক রেড ক্রস ও রেড ক্রিসেন্ট আন্দোলন be:Міжнародны рух Чырвонага Крыжа і Чырвонага Паўмесяца be-x-old:Міжнародны рух Чырвонага Крыжа і Чырвонага Паўмесяца bs:Međunarodni pokret Crveni krst i Crveni polumjesec br:Luskad Etrebroadel ar Groaz Ruz hag ar C'hreskloar Ruz bg:Червен кръст ca:Creu Roja cs:Mezinárodní červený kříž cy:Mudiad Rhyngwladol y Groes Goch a'r Cilgant Coch da:Røde Kors de:Internationale Rotkreuz- und Rothalbmond-Bewegung et:Rahvusvaheline Punane Rist el:Διεθνές Κίνημα Ερυθρού Σταυρού και Ερυθράς Ημισελήνου es:Cruz Roja eo:Ruĝa Kruco ext:Crus Colorá eu:Gurutze Gorria fa:نهضت بین‌المللی صلیب سرخ و هلال احمر hif:International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement fr:Mouvement international de la Croix-Rouge et du Croissant-Rouge gl:Movemento Internacional da Cruz Vermella e da Media Lúa Vermella ko:국제 적십자·적신월 운동 hi:इंटरनेशनल रेड क्रॉस एवं रेड क्रेसेन्ट मोवमेंट hr:Međunarodni Crveni križ id:Gerakan Internasional Palang Merah dan Bulan Sabit Merah is:Rauði krossinn it:Croce Rossa e Mezzaluna Rossa Internazionale he:הצלב האדום ka:წითელი ჯვრისა და წითელი ნახევარმთვარის საერთაშორისო მოძრაობა kk:Қызыл крест және қызыл ай халықаралық қозғалысы sw:Shirika za msalaba mwekundu na hilali nyekundu la:Internationalis Crucis Rubrae Falcisque Rubrae Motus lv:Starptautiskā Sarkanā Krusta un Sarkanā Pusmēness kustība lt:Tarptautinis Raudonojo Kryžiaus ir Raudonojo Pusmėnulio Judėjimas hu:Nemzetközi Vöröskereszt mk:Црвен Крст и Црвена Полумесечина ml:റെഡ്ക്രോസ് mr:आंतरराष्ट्रीय रेड क्रॉस व रेड क्रिसेंट चळवळ arz:الصليب الأحمر ms:Persatuan Palang Merah dan Bulan Sabit Merah Antarabangsa my:ကမ္ဘာ့ကြက်ခြေနီနေ့ nl:Rode Kruis new:अन्तरराष्ट्रीय रेडक्रस् व रेड क्रेसेन्ट मुभमेन्ट ja:赤十字社 no:Røde Kors nn:Raudekrossen nrm:Rouoge Crouaix oc:Crotz Roja pnb:رتہ کراس pl:Międzynarodowy Ruch Czerwonego Krzyża i Czerwonego Półksiężyca pt:Movimento Internacional da Cruz Vermelha e do Crescente Vermelho ro:Mișcarea Internațională de Cruce Roșie și Semilună Roșie rue:Міджінародный рух Червеного Хреста і Червеного Півмісяця ru:Международное движение Красного Креста и Красного Полумесяца simple:International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement sk:Červený kríž sl:Rdeči križ so:Hay'ada laanqayrta cas sr:Црвени крст sh:Crveni križ fi:Punaisen Ristin ja Punaisen Puolikuun kansainvälinen liike sv:Röda Korset ta:பன்னாட்டு செஞ்சிலுவை மற்றும் செம்பிறை இயக்கம் te:రెడ్‌క్రాస్ th:กาชาด tr:Uluslararası Kızılhaç ve Kızılay Hareketi uk:Міжнародний рух Червоного Хреста і Червоного Півмісяця ur:ریڈ کراس vi:Phong trào Chữ thập đỏ và Trăng lưỡi liềm đỏ quốc tế fiu-vro:Riikevaihõlinõ Verevä Risti ja Verevä Puulkuu Liikminõ wa:Federåcion des soces del Rodje Croes et do Rodje Crexhant war:Gios Kanasoran han Pula nga Krus ngan Pula nga Bulan yi:רויטער קרייץ bat-smg:Tarptautėnis Rauduonuoje Krīžiaus ė Rauduonuoje Posmienole Jodiejėms zh:国际红十字与红新月运动

Coordinates	28°36′36″N77°13′48″N
name	Muddy Waters| image Muddy_Waters_(blues_musician).jpg
landscape	yes
background	solo_singer
birth name	McKinley Morganfield
born	April 04, 1913Issaquena County, Mississippi, United States
died	April 30, 1983Westmont, Illinois, United States
instrument	Vocals, guitar, harmonica.
genre	Blues, Chicago blues, country blues, electric blues
occupation	Singer, songwriter, guitarist, bandleader
years active	1941 – 1982
label	Aristocrat, Chess, Testament
website	www.muddywaters.com
notable instruments	Gibson Les PaulFender Telecaster }}

McKinley Morganfield (April 4, 1913April 30, 1983), known as Muddy Waters, was an American blues musician, generally considered the "father of modern Chicago blues". He was a major inspiration for the British blues explosion in the 1960s, Muddy was ranked #17 in ''Rolling Stone'' magazine's list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.

Early life

Although in his later years Muddy usually said that he was born in Rolling Fork, Mississippi in 1915, he was actually born at Jug's Corner in neighboring Issaquena County, Mississippi in 1913. Recent research has uncovered documentation showing that in the 1930s and 1940s he reported his birth year as 1913 on both his marriage license and musicians' union card. A 1955 interview in the ''Chicago Defender'' is the earliest claim of 1915 as his year of birth, which he continued to use in interviews from that point onward. The 1920 census lists him as five years old as of March 6, 1920, suggesting that his birth year may have been 1914. The Social Security Death Index, relying on the Social Security card application submitted after his move to Chicago in the mid 1940s, lists him as being born April 4, 1915. Muddy's gravestone lists his birth year as 1915.

His grandmother Della Grant raised him after his mother died shortly after his birth. His fondness for playing in mud earned him the nickname "Muddy" at an early age. He then changed it to "Muddy Water" and finally "Muddy Waters". The actual shack where Muddy Waters lived in his youth on Stovall Plantation is now located at the Delta Blues Museum at 1 Blues Alley in Clarksdale, Mississippi. He started out on harmonica but by age seventeen he was playing the guitar at parties emulating two blues artists who were extremely popular in the south, Son House and Robert Johnson. "His thick heavy voice, the dark coloration of his tone and his firm, almost solid, personality were all clearly derived from House," wrote music critic Peter Guralnick in ''Feel Like Going Home'', "but the embellishments which he added, the imaginative slide technique and more agile rhythms, were closer to Johnson."

On November 20, 1932 Muddy married Mabel Berry; Robert Nighthawk played guitar at the wedding, and the party reportedly got so wild the floor fell in. Mabel left Muddy three years later when Muddy's first child was born; the child's mother was Leola Spain, sixteen years old, (Leola later used her maiden name Brown), "married to a man named Steven" and "going with a guy named Tucker". Leola was the only one of his girlfriends with whom Muddy would stay in touch throughout his life; they never married. By the time he finally cut out for Chicago in 1943, there was another Mrs. Morganfield left behind, a girl called Sallie Ann.

Early career

In 1940, Muddy moved to Chicago for the first time. He played with Silas Green a year later, and then returned to Mississippi. In the early part of the decade he ran a juke joint, complete with gambling, moonshine and a jukebox; he also performed music there himself. In the summer of 1941 Alan Lomax went to Stovall, Mississippi, on behalf of the Library of Congress to record various country blues musicians. "He brought his stuff down and recorded me right in my house," Muddy recalled in ''Rolling Stone'', "and when he played back the first song I sounded just like anybody's records. Man, you don't know how I felt that Saturday afternoon when I heard that voice and it was my own voice. Later on he sent me two copies of the pressing and a check for twenty bucks, and I carried that record up to the corner and put it on the jukebox. Just played it and played it and said, 'I can do it, I can do it.'" Lomax came back in July 1942 to record Muddy again. Both sessions were eventually released as ''Down On Stovall's Plantation'' on the Testament label.

In 1943, Muddy headed back to Chicago with the hope of becoming a full-time professional musician. He lived with a relative for a short period while driving a truck and working in a factory by day and performing at night. Big Bill Broonzy, one of the leading bluesmen in Chicago at the time, helped Muddy break into the very competitive market by allowing him to open for his shows in the rowdy clubs. In 1945, Muddy's uncle Joe Grant gave him his first electric guitar which enabled him to be heard above the noisy crowds.

In 1946, he recorded some tunes for Mayo Williams at Columbia but they were not released at the time. Later that year he began recording for Aristocrat Records, a newly-formed label run by two brothers, Leonard and Phil Chess. In 1947, he played guitar with Sunnyland Slim on piano on the cuts "Gypsy Woman" and "Little Anna Mae." These were also shelved, but in 1948 "I Can't Be Satisfied" and "I Feel Like Going Home" became big hits and his popularity in clubs began to take off. Soon after, Aristocrat changed their label name to Chess Records and Muddy's signature tune "Rollin' Stone" also became a smash hit.

Commercial success

Initially, the Chess brothers would not allow Muddy to use his own musicians in the recording studio; instead he was provided with a backing bass by Ernest "Big" Crawford, or by musicians assembled specifically for the recording session, including "Baby Face" Leroy Foster and Johnny Jones. Gradually Chess relented, and by September 1953 he was recording with one of the most acclaimed blues groups in history: Little Walter Jacobs on harmonica; Jimmy Rogers on guitar; Elga Edmonds (a.k.a. Elgin Evans) on drums; Otis Spann on piano. The band recorded a series of blues classics during the early 1950s, some with the help of bassist/songwriter Willie Dixon, including "Hoochie Coochie Man" (Number 8 on the R&B; charts), "I Just Want to Make Love to You" (Number 4), and "I'm Ready". These three were "the most macho songs in his repertoire," wrote Robert Palmer in ''Rolling Stone''. "Muddy would never have composed anything so unsubtle. But they gave him a succession of showstoppers and an image, which were important for a bluesman trying to break out of the grind of local gigs into national prominence."

Muddy, along with his former harmonica player Little Walter Jacobs and recent southern transplant Howlin' Wolf, reigned over the early 1950s Chicago blues scene, his band becoming a proving ground for some of the city's best blues talent. While Little Walter continued a collaborative relationship long after he left Muddy's band in 1952, appearing on most of Muddy's classic recordings throughout the 1950s, Muddy developed a long-running, generally good-natured rivalry with Wolf. The success of Muddy's ensemble paved the way for others in his group to break away and enjoy their own solo careers. In 1952 Little Walter left when his single "Juke" became a hit, and in 1955 Rogers quit to work exclusively with his own band, which had been a sideline until that time. Although he continued working with Muddy's band, Otis Spann enjoyed a solo career and many releases under his own name beginning in the mid-1950s.

England and low profile

Muddy headed to England in 1958 and shocked audiences (whose only previous exposure to blues had come via the acoustic folk/blues sounds of acts such as Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee and Big Bill Broonzy) with his loud, amplified electric guitar and thunderous beat. His performance at the 1960 Newport Jazz Festival, recorded and released as his first live album, ''At Newport 1960'', helped turn on a whole new generation to Muddy's sound. He expressed dismay when he realized that members of his own race were turning their backs on the genre while a white audience had shown increasing respect for the blues.

However, for the better part of twenty years (since his last big hit in 1956, "I'm Ready") Muddy was put on the back shelf by the Chess label and recorded albums with various "popular" themes: ''Brass And The Blues'', ''Electric Mud'', etc. In 1967, he joined forces with Bo Diddley, Little Walter and Howlin' Wolf to record the ''Super Blues'' and ''The Super Super Blues Band'' pair of albums of Chess blues standards. In 1972 he went back to England to record ''The London Muddy Waters Sessions'' with Rory Gallagher, Steve Winwood, Rick Grech and Mitch Mitchell — but their playing was not up to his standards. "These boys are top musicians, they can play with me, put the book before 'em and play it, you know," he told Guralnick. "But that ain't what I need to sell my people, it ain't the Muddy Waters sound. An' if you change my sound, then you gonna change the whole man."

Muddy's sound was basically Delta blues electrified, but his use of microtones, in both his vocals and slide playing, made it extremely difficult to duplicate and follow correctly. "When I play on the stage with my band, I have to get in there with my guitar and try to bring the sound down to me. But no sooner than I quit playing, it goes back to another, different sound. My blues look so simple, so easy to do, but it's not. They say my blues is the hardest blues in the world to play."

Comeback

Muddy's long-time wife Geneva died of cancer on March 15, 1973. A devastated Muddy was taken to a doctor and told to quit smoking, which he did. Gaining custody of some of his "outside kids", he moved them into his home, eventually buying a new house in Westmont, Illinois. Another teenage daughter turned up while on tour in New Orleans; Big Bill Morganfield was introduced to his Dad after a gig in Florida. Florida was also where Muddy met his future wife, the 19-year-old Marva Jean Brooks whom he nicknamed "Sunshine".

On November 25, 1976, Muddy Waters performed at The Band's farewell concert at Winterland in San Francisco. The concert was released as both a record and a film, ''The Last Waltz'', featuring a performance of "Mannish Boy" with Paul Butterfield on harmonica.

In 1977 Johnny Winter convinced his label, Blue Sky, to sign Muddy, the beginning of a fruitful partnership. His "comeback" LP, ''Hard Again'', was recorded in just two days and was a return to the original Chicago sound he had created 25 years earlier, thanks to Winter's production. Former sideman James Cotton contributed harmonica on the Grammy Award-winning album and a brief but well-received tour followed.

The Muddy Waters Blues Band at the time included guitarists Sammy Lawhorn, Bob Margolin and Luther Johnson, pianist Pinetop Perkins, harmonica player Jerry Portnoy, bassist Calvin "Fuzz" Jones and drummer Willie "Big Eyes" Smith. On "Hard Again", Winter played guitar in addition to producing; Muddy asked James Cotton to play harp on the session, and Cotton brought his own bassist Charles Calmese. According to Margolin's liner notes, Muddy did not play guitar during these sessions. The album covers a broad spectrum of styles, from the opening of "Mannish Boy", with shouts and hollers throughout, to the old-style Delta blues of "I Can't Be Satisfied", with a National Steel solo by Winter, to Cotton's screeching intro to "The Blues Had a Baby", to the moaning closer "Little Girl". Its live feel harks back to the Chess Records days, and it evokes a feeling of intimacy and cooperative musicianship. The expanded reissue includes one bonus track, a remake of the 1950s single "Walking Through the Park". The other outtakes from the album sessions appear on ''King Bee''. Margolin's notes state that the reissued album was remastered but that remixing was not considered to be necessary. ''Hard Again'' was the first studio collaboration between Muddy and Winter, who produced his final four albums, the others being ''I'm Ready'', ''King Bee'', and ''Muddy "Mississippi" Waters - Live'', for Blue Sky, a Columbia Records subsidiary.

In 1978 Winter recruited two of Muddy's cohorts from the early '50s, Big Walter Horton and Jimmy Rogers, and brought in the rest of his touring band at the time (harmonica player Jerry Portnoy, guitarist Luther "Guitar Junior" Johnson, and bassist Calvin Jones) to record ''I'm Ready'' which came close to the critical and commercial success of ''Hard Again''.

The comeback continued in 1979 with the lauded LP ''Muddy "Mississippi" Waters Live''. "Muddy was loose for this one," wrote Jas Obrecht in ''Guitar Player'', "and the result is the next best thing to being ringside at one of his foot-thumping, head-nodding, downhome blues shows." On the album, Muddy is accompanied by his touring band, augmented by Johnny Winter on guitar. The set list contains most of his biggest hits, and the album has an energetic feel. ''King Bee'' the following year concluded Waters' reign at Blue Sky, and these last four LPs turned out to be his biggest-selling albums ever. ''King Bee'' was the last album Muddy Waters recorded. Coming last in a trio of studio outings produced by Johnny Winter, it is also a mixed bag. During the sessions for ''King Bee'', Muddy, his manager and his band were involved in a dispute over money. According to the liner notes by Bob Margolin, the conflict arose from Muddy's health being on the wane and consequently playing fewer engagements. The bandmembers wanted more money for each of the fewer gigs they did play in order to make ends meet. Ultimately a split occurred and the entire band quit. Because of the tensions in the studio preceding the split, Winter felt the sessions had not produced enough solid material to yield an entire album. He subsequently filled out ''King Bee'' with outtakes from earlier Blue Sky sessions and the cover photograph was by David Michael Kennedy. For the listener, ''King Bee'' is a leaner and meaner record. Less of the good-time exuberance present on the previous two outings is present here. The title track, "Mean Old Frisco", "Sad Sad Day", and "I Feel Like Going Home", are all blues with ensemble work. The Sony Legacy issue features completely remastered sound and Margolin's notes, and also hosts two bonus tracks from the ''King Bee'' sessions that Winter did not see fit to release the first time.

In 1981, Muddy Waters was invited to perform at ChicagoFest, the city's top outdoor music festival. He was joined onstage by Johnny Winter — who had successfully produced his most recent albums — and played classics like “Mannish Boy,” “Trouble No More” and “Mojo Working” to a new generation of fans. This historic performance was made available on DVD in 2009 by Shout! Factory.

In 1982, declining health dramatically curtailed Muddy's performance schedule. Muddy Waters' last public performance took place when he sat in with Eric Clapton's band at a Clapton concert in Florida in autumn of 1982.

Death

On April 30, 1983 Muddy Waters died in his sleep from heart failure, at his home in Westmont, Illinois. At his funeral at Restvale Cemetery in Alsip, Illinois, throngs of blues musicians and fans showed up to pay tribute to one of the true originals of the art form. "Muddy was a master of just the right notes," John P. Hammond, told ''Guitar World'' magazine. "It was profound guitar playing, deep and simple... more country blues transposed to the electric guitar, the kind of playing that enhanced the lyrics, gave profundity to the words themselves." Two years after his death, Chicago honored him by designating the one-block section between 900 and 1000 E. 43rd Street near his former home on the south side "Honorary Muddy Waters Drive" The Chicago suburb of Westmont, where Waters lived the last decade of his life, named a section of Cass Avenue near his home "Honorary Muddy Waters Way". Following Waters' death, fellow blues musician B.B. King (who was hugely influenced by Waters) told ''Guitar World'', "It's going to be years and years before most people realize how greatly he contributed to American music". Attesting to the historic place of Muddy Waters in the development of the blues in Mississippi, a Mississippi Blues Trail marker has been placed in Clarksdale, Mississippi by the Mississippi Blues Commission designating the site of Muddy Waters' cabin to commemorate his importance.

Influence

His influence is tremendous, over a variety of music genres: blues, rhythm and blues, rock 'n' roll, hard rock, folk, jazz, and country. He also helped Chuck Berry get his first record contract.

His 1958 tour of England marked possibly the first time amplified, modern urban blues was heard there, although on his first tour he was the only one amplified. His backing was provided by Englishman Chris Barber's trad jazz group. (One critic retreated to the toilets to write his review because he found the band so loud).

The Rolling Stones named themselves after his 1950 song "Rollin' Stone", (also known as "Catfish Blues", which Jimi Hendrix covered as well). Hendrix recalled "the first guitar player I was aware of was Muddy Waters. I first heard him as a little boy and it scared me to death". Cream covered "Rollin' and Tumblin'" on their 1966 debut album ''Fresh Cream'', as Eric Clapton was a big fan of Muddy Waters when he was growing up, and his music influenced Clapton's music career. The song was also covered by Canned Heat at the legendary Monterey Pop Festival and later adapted by Bob Dylan on the album ''Modern Times''. One of Led Zeppelin's biggest hits, "Whole Lotta Love", is lyrically based upon the Muddy Waters hit "You Need Love", written by Willie Dixon. Dixon wrote some of Muddy Waters' most famous songs, including "I Just Want to Make Love to You" (a big radio hit for Etta James, as well as the 1970s rock band Foghat), "Hoochie Coochie Man", which The Allman Brothers Band famously covered, and "I'm Ready", which was covered by Humble Pie. In 1993, Paul Rodgers released the album ''Muddy Water Blues: A Tribute to Muddy Waters'', on which he covered a number of Muddy Waters songs, including "Louisiana Blues", "Rollin' Stone", "Hoochie Coochie Man" and "I'm Ready" (among others) in collaboration with a number of famous guitarists such as Brian May and Jeff Beck.

Angus Young of the rock group AC/DC has cited Muddy Waters as one of his influences. The song title "You Shook Me All Night Long" came from lyrics of the Muddy Waters song "You Shook Me", written by Willie Dixon and J. B. Lenoir. Earl Hooker first recorded it as an instrumental which was then overdubbed with vocals by Muddy Waters in 1962. Led Zeppelin also covered this song on their debut album ''Led Zeppelin''.

Muddy Waters' songs have been featured in long-time fan's Martin Scorsese's movies, including ''The Color of Money'', '' Goodfellas'' and ''Casino''. Muddy Waters' 1970s recording of his mid-'50s hit "Mannish Boy" (a.k.a. "I'm A Man") was used in ''Goodfellas'' and the hit film ''Risky Business'', and also features in the rockumentary The Last Waltz.

The song Come Together by The Beatles references Muddy Waters. "He roller coaster/he got Muddy Waters."

Screenwriter David Simon has written an unproduced teleplay about Muddy Waters' life.

The 2006 Family Guy episode "Saving Private Brian" includes a parody of Muddy Waters trying to pass a kidney stone; his screams of pain form a call and response with the Chicago blues band in his bathroom.

In 2008, Jeffrey Wright portrayed Muddy in the biopic ''Cadillac Records'', a film about the rise and fall of Chess Records and the lives of its recording artists. A second 2008 film about Leonard Chess and Chess Records, ''Who Do You Love'', also covers Muddy's time at Chess Records.

In the 2009 film The Boat that Rocked about pirate radio in the UK, the cryptic message that late night DJ Bob gives to Carl to give to Carl's mother is "Muddy Waters Rocks."

In 1990, the television show Doogie Howser, M.D. showed an episode called "Doogie Sings the Blues" with the main character, Blind Otis Lemon based on Muddy Waters, with references of his influence on the Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin, along with the performance of "Got My Mojo Working" by Blind Otis Lemon. He is also referred to as the original "Hoochie Coochie Man".

Awards and recognitions

Grammy Awards

! Year	! Category	! Title	! Genre	! Label	! Result
		''They Call Me Muddy Waters''		MCA Records	winner
	Best Ethnic or Traditional Folk Recording	''The London Muddy Waters Session''	folk	MCA/Chess	winner
	Best Ethnic or Traditional Folk Recording	''The Muddy Waters Woodstock Album''	folk	MCA/Chess	winner
	Best Ethnic or Traditional Folk Recording	''[[Hard Again''	folk	Blue Sky	winner
	Best Ethnic or Traditional Folk Recording	''I'm Ready''	folk	Blue Sky	winner
	Best Ethnic or Traditional Folk Recording	''Muddy "Mississippi" Waters Live''	folk	Blue Sky	winner

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame listed four songs of Muddy Waters of the 500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll.

! Year Recorded	! Title
1950	Rollin' Stone
1954	Hoochie Coochie Man
1955	Mannish Boy
1957	Got My Mojo Working

The Blues Foundation Awards

! Year	! Category	! Title	! Result
1994	Reissue Album of the Year	''The Complete Plantation Recordings''	Winner
1995	Reissue Album of the Year	''One More Mile ''	Winner
2000	Traditional Blues Album of the Year	''The Lost Tapes of Muddy Waters''	Winner
2002	Historical Blues Album of the Year	''Fathers and Sons''	Winner
2006	Historical Album of the Year	''Hoochie Coochie Man: Complete Chess Recordings, Volume 2, 1952–1958''	Winner

Inductions

! Year Inducted	! Title
1980
1987	Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
1992	Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award

U.S. Postage Stamp

! Year	! Stamp	! USA	! Note
1994	29 cents Commemorative stamp		Photo

Partial discography

Charting and notable singles

Muddy Waters released approximately sixty singles (120 "sides") during his career, sixteen of which made the charts. These were issued on Chess Records, except for his 1941 recordings for the Library of Congress and his 1947 – early 1950 singles, which were issued on Aristocrat Records. The chart information is the peak position the single reached on the Billboard R&B; chart. {|class="wikitable" |- ! style="width:40px;"| Year ! style="width:470px;"| Title ! Chart no. |- | rowspan="2" | 1941 | "Country Blues" | — |- | "I Be's Troubled" | — |- | rowspan="2" | 1948 | "(I Feel Like) Going Home" | 11 |- | "I Can't Be Satisfied" | — |- | rowspan="4" | 1950 | "Rollin' and Tumblin'" | — |- | "Rollin' Stone" | — |- | "Walkin' Blues" | — |- | "Louisiana Blues" | 10 |- | rowspan="3" | 1951 | "Long Distance Call" | 8 |- | "Honey Bee" | 10 |- | "Still a Fool" | 9 |- | rowspan="2" | 1952 | "She Moves Me" | 10 |- | "Standing Around Crying" | — |- | rowspan="3" | 1953 | "Turn the Lamp Down Low (Baby Please Don't Go)" | — |- | "Blow Wind Blow" | — |- | "Mad Love (I Want You to Love Me)" | 6 |- | rowspan="3" | 1954 | "I'm Your Hoochie Coochie Man" | 3 |- | "Just Make Love to Me (I Just Want to Make Love to You)" | 4 |- | "I'm Ready" | 4 |- | rowspan="3" | 1955 | "I Want to Be Loved" | — |- | "Manish Boy" aka "Mannish Boy" | 5 |- | "Sugar Sweet" | 11 |- | rowspan="6" | 1956 | "Trouble No More" | 7 |- | "Forty Days and Forty Nights" | 7 |- | "Don't Go No Farther" | 9 |- | "Just to Be with You" | — |- | "Rock Me" | — |- | "Got My Mojo Working" | — |- | 1957 | "I Live the Life I Love (I Love the Life I Live)" | — |- | rowspan="2" | 1958 | "She's Nineteen Years Old" | — |- | "Close to You" | 9 |- | 1959 | "I Feel So Good" | — |- | rowspan="2" | 1962 | "You Shook Me" | — |- | "You Need Love" | — |- | rowspan="2" | 1964 | "The Same Thing" | — |- | "You Can't Lose What You Ain't Never Had" | — |} Muddy Waters also recorded several singles as a sideman with Jimmy Rogers, Little Walter, Junior Wells, Sonny Boy Williamson II, Otis Spann, and others.

Selected albums

Muddy Waters released about thirty albums during his career, including compilation albums. After his death in 1983, numerous compilation and live albums have been released by a number of record companies (allmusic lists over 200 compilations). The following lists most of the albums released during his career and the more recent and available compilations released after his death. {|class="wikitable" |- ! style="width:40px;"| Year ! style="width:470px;"| Title ! Label |- | 1958 | ''The Best of Muddy Waters'' | Chess |- | rowspan="2" | 1960 | ''Muddy Waters sings Big Bill Broonzy'' | Chess |- | ''At Newport 1960'' | Chess |- | 1964 | ''Folk Singer'' | Chess |- | rowspan="2" | 1966 | ''The Real Folk Blues'' | Chess |- | ''Down on Stovall's Plantation: His First Recordings'' | Testament |- | rowspan="2" | 1967 | ''Muddy, Brass and the Blues'' | Chess |- | ''More Real Folk Blues'' | Chess |- | 1968 | ''Electric Mud'' | Cadet Concept |- | rowspan="3" | 1969 | ''After the Rain'' | Cadet Concept |- | ''Fathers and Sons'' | Chess |- | ''Sail On'' | Chess |- | rowspan="2" | 1971 | ''They Call Me Muddy Waters'' | Chess |- | ''Live (at Mr. Kelley's)'' | Chess |- | 1972 | ''The London Muddy Waters Sessions'' | Chess |- | rowspan="2" | 1973 | ''Can't Get No Grindin''' | Chess |- | ''"Unk" in Funk'' | Chess |- | 1975 | ''The Muddy Waters Woodstock Album'' | Chess |- | 1977 | ''Hard Again'' | Blue Sky |- | 1978 | ''I'm Ready'' | Blue Sky |- | 1979 | ''Muddy "Mississippi" Waters - Live'' | Blue Sky |- | 1981 | ''King Bee'' | Blue Sky |- | 1989 | ''The Chess Box'' | MCA/Chess |- | 1993 | ''The Complete Plantation Recordings'' | MCA/Chess |- | 1994 | ''One More Mile'' | MCA/Chess |- | rowspan="3" | 2000 | ''Rollin' Stone: The Golden Anniversary Collection'' (Chess Masters 1947–1952) | MCA/Chess |- | ''The Lost Tapes'' | Blind Pig |- | ''The Essential Collection'' | Universal/Spectrum |- | rowspan="2" | 2001 | ''Muddy Waters 1941–1946'' | Document |- | ''The Anthology (1947–1972)'' | MCA/Chess |- | 2004 | ''Hoochie Coochie Man: Complete Chess Masters, Vol. 2: 1952–1958'' | Hip-O Select/Chess |- | 2006 | ''The Definitive Collection'' | Geffen/Chess |- | 2007 | ''Breakin' It Up, Breakin' It Down'' (Muddy Waters, Johnny Winter, & James Cotton) | Epic/Legacy |- | 2009 | ''Authorized Bootleg: Live at the Fillmore Auditorium November 4–6, 1966'' | Geffen/Chess |}

Notes

References

''Can't Be Satisfied: The Life and Times of Muddy Waters'' by Robert Gordon, 2002, 432 pp. ISBN 0-316-32849-9

''Muddy Waters: The Mojo Man'' by Sandra B. Tooze, 1997, 383 pp. ISBN 1-55022-296-1

''Muddy Waters: Deep Blues'' by Muddy Waters, 1995, 183 pp. ISBN 0-7935-0955-6

''Muddy Waters: Deep Blues and Good News'' by Dave Rubin, Muddy Waters ISBN 0-7935-6501-4

''Bossmen: Bill Monroe and Muddy Waters'' by James R. Rooney, 1991, 163 pp. ISBN 0-306-80427-1

External links

Official website

"Muddy Waters." '' Mississippi Writers and Musicians.''

Muddy Waters entry at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

PBS ''American Masters'' documentary

Muddy Waters Biography – Center Stage Chicago

Muddy Waters article from ''Mudcat Café''

1980 Induction into Blues Foundation Hall of Fame

Review of ''Breakin' It Up Breakin' It Down'' CD

The Complete Muddy Waters Discography

Category:1913 births Category:1983 deaths Category:Chicago blues musicians Category:Electric blues musicians Category:Delta blues musicians Category:Blues revival musicians Category:African American guitarists Category:African American singer-songwriters Category:American blues musicians Category:American blues singer-songwriters Category:American blues guitarists Category:American male singers Category:Blues Hall of Fame inductees Category:Blues musicians from Mississippi Category:American buskers Category:Grammy Award winners Category:Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners Category:People from Clarksdale, Mississippi Category:People from Issaquena County, Mississippi Category:People from St. Louis, Missouri Category:Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees Category:Slide guitarists Category:Lead guitarists Category:Sun Records artists Category:Chess Records artists Category:Mississippi Blues Trail Category:Blues rock musicians

be-x-old:Мадзьдзі Ўотэрс bg:Мъди Уотърс ca:Muddy Waters cs:Muddy Waters da:Muddy Waters de:Muddy Waters es:Muddy Waters eu:Muddy Waters fa:مادی واترز fr:Muddy Waters fy:Muddy Waters hr:Muddy Waters io:Muddy Waters it:Muddy Waters he:מאדי ווטרס hu:Muddy Waters nl:Muddy Waters ja:マディ・ウォーターズ no:Muddy Waters oc:Muddy Waters pl:Muddy Waters pt:Muddy Waters ru:Мадди Уотерс sc:Muddy Waters simple:Muddy Waters sr:Мади Вотерс fi:Muddy Waters sv:Muddy Waters tr:Muddy Waters uk:Мадді Вотерс