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“Restoring hope where all hope was lost”: Nelson Mandela, the ICRC and the protection of political detainees in apartheid South Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2017

Andrew Thompson
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Abstract

Amidst the violent upheavals of the end of empire and the Cold War, international organizations developed a basic framework for holding State and non-State armed groups to account for their actions when taking prisoners. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) placed itself at the very centre of these developments, making detention visiting a cornerstone of its work. Nowhere was this growing preoccupation with the problem of protecting detainees more evident than apartheid South Africa, where the ICRC undertook more detention visits than in almost any other African country. During these visits the ICRC was drawn into an internationalized human rights dispute that severely tested its leadership and demonstrated the troubled rapport between humanitarianism and human rights. The problems seen in apartheid South Africa reflect today's dilemmas of how to protect political detainees in situations of extreme violence. We can look to the past to find solutions for today's political detainees − or “security detainees” as they are now more commonly called.

Keywords

detention visitationSouth AfricaNelson MandelaICRCpolitical detaineeshumanitarian rights
Type
Overview of the humanitarian challenge
Information
International Review of the Red Cross , Volume 98 , Issue 903: Detention: Addressing the human cost , December 2016 , pp. 799 - 829
Copyright
Copyright © icrc 2017 

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References

1 On the detention practices of the United States specifically, see, for example, Forsythe, David P., The Politics of Prisoner Abuse: The United States and Enemy Prisoners after 9/11, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2011, pp. 1–10 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Benard, Cheryl, Connell, Edward, Thurston, Cathryn, Villamizar, Andres, Loredo, Elvira, Sullivan, Thomas and Goulka, Jermeiah, The Battle Behind the Wire: U.S. Prisoner and Detainee Operations from World War II to Iraq, RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, CA, 2011 Google Scholar.

2 This argument is developed at greater length in my forthcoming book, Humanitarianism on Trial. How a Global System of Aid and Development Emerged through the End of Empire.

3 For the key works, see Aeschlimann, Alain, “Protection of Detainees: ICRC Action behind Bars”, International Review of the Red Cross, Vol. 87, No. 857, 2005 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Armstrong, J. D., “The International Committee of the Red Cross and Political Prisoners”, International Organisation, Vol. 39, No. 4, 1985 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Moreillon, Jacques, Le Comité international de la Croix-Rouge et la protection des détenus politiques, Institut Henry Dunant and Editions l'Age d'Homme, Lausanne, 1973 Google Scholar.

4 “Political” rather than “security” detainees became the favoured terminology during the period under study. Political detainees were broadly defined as persons sentenced or detained for their political ideas as well as those detained for offences motivated by their political and ideological beliefs. Equally, the ICRC made it clear that the use of this term did not in any way affect the status given to detainees by the authorities and that the ICRC did not discuss with the authorities the reasons for the detention of those persons visited. See, for example, ICRC, Annual Report 1970, Geneva, 1971, p. 13, fn. 1.

5 Thompson, Andrew, “Humanitarian Principles Put to the Test: Challenges to Humanitarian Action during Decolonization”, International Review of the Red Cross, Vol. 97, No. 897/898, 2015, pp. 62–71 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 For a recent interpretation of apartheid South Africa, and why it survived so long, see Dubow, Saul, Apartheid, 1948–1994, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2014 Google Scholar.

7 While the apartheid government did not ratify the Additional Protocols, the ANC sent its president, Oliver Tambo, to Geneva in 1980 to make a declaration that the ANC would abide by them.

8 I am grateful to Pascal Daudin for underscoring this point. For an insightful essay on the concept of psychological torture, see Reyes, Hernán, “The Worst Scars Are in the Mind: Psychological Torture”, International Review of the Red Cross, Vol. 89, No. 867, 2007 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The awareness of psychological torture was to grow further during the next decade.

9 On this point, see Filippi, Natacha, “Institutional Violence and the Law in Apartheid South Africa”, Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History, Vol. 17, No. 3, 2016 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 Mandela, Nelson, Long Walk to Freedom, Abacus, London, 1995, p. 397 Google Scholar; and see pp. 493–494. See also the discussion of the effects of long-term isolation in Breytenbach, Breyten, The True Confessions of an Albino Terrorist, Faber & Faber, London, 1984, pp. 129–132 Google Scholar, which speaks of the “parts of you that are destroyed” and that “will never again be revived” – “this damage is permanent even though you learn to live with it, however well camouflaged”.

11 The best study of the lives and resistance of political prisoners incarcerated in apartheid South Africa remains that by Buntman, Fran Lisa, Robben Island and Prisoner Resistance to Apartheid, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2003 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 See, for example, the recent obituary of Andimba Toivo ya Toivo, the Namibian activist leader jailed for sixteen years on Robben Island, in The Times, 23 August 2017, p. 53; Lewin, Hugh, Bandiet: Seven Years in a South African Prison, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1976, p. 50 Google Scholar.

13 A helpful study spanning the period covered by this article is Jacques Moreillon, Moments with Madiba, May 2005, available at: www.nelsonmandela.org/news/entry/moments-with-madiba (all internet references were accessed in October 2017). Moreillon separates the ICRC visits to Robben Island into three periods: the Hoffmann period (1964–67), the Senn-Zuger period (1967–74), and subsequent visits from 1976 to 1992. Moreillon's own visits took place from 1973 to 1975, when the detainees on Robben Island were still engaged in hard labour.

14 For the relationship between humanitarianism and human rights, see Michael Geyer, “Humanitarianism and Human Rights: A Troubled Rapport”, and Andrew Thompson, “Humanitarian Interventions, Past and Present”, both in Klose, Fabian (ed.), The Emergence of Humanitarian Intervention: Ideas and Practice from the Nineteenth Century to the Present, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2016 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15 For this argument, see also Thompson, Andrew, “Unravelling the Relationships between Humanitarianism, Human Rights and Decolonization: Time for a Radical Rethink?”, in Thomas, Martin and Thompson, Andrew (eds), Oxford Handbook on the Ends of Empire, Oxford University Press, Oxford, forthcoming 2018 Google Scholar.

16 Godfrey Senn, “Note for the ICRC”, 8 October 1969, ICRC Archives, D AF RHODE 2 01-009. The request for a repeat visit was made by the ICRC in 1965 but not granted by the South African authorities for a further two years, the ICRC being unable to invoke any legal texts which would have given it the mandate to undertake such visits. A summary of and brief commentary on the series of ICRC visits from 1964 to 1986 is provided in Yolanda Probst, “Detention de Nelson Mandela”, 22 April 1994, ICRC Archives; and Yolanda Probst, “Les activités du CICR en Afrique du Sud de 1964 a 1984”, April 1985, ICRC Archives.

17 N. Mandela, above note 10, pp. 488–489.

18 They expressed their appreciation that Senn had listened carefully to their grievances and, through his attention to detail, secured valuable improvements in their conditions. However, they also noted that he was sometimes overly defensive in his manner. See, for example, the recollections of former South African detainees Philip Silwana, Isaac Saki Mafatshe, Denis Golberg, Joantahn Makwenkwe Mathe, Eddie Daniels, Bennie Ntoele, High Lewin Mark Shinners and Ahmed Mohamed Kathrada in ICRC, Commemorating 150 Years Since the Battle of Solferino, 24 June 1959–24 June 2009, Geneva, 2009, pp. 9, 10, 11, 12, 16, 18, 21, 22, 27. See also the separate memoirs of Daniels, Eddie, There & Back: Robben Island, 1964–1979, 3rd ed., CTP Book Printers, Cape Town, 2002, pp. 190–191 Google ScholarPubMed; H. Lewin, above note 12; Shityuwete, Helao, Never Follow the Wolf: The Autobiography of a Namibian Freedom Fighter, Kliptown Books, London, 1990, pp. 187, 194, 202–203 Google Scholar, 205, 215, 218, 225–226.

19 There is little biographical material on Senn in the ICRC Archives. My impressions of his character are formed from Senn's correspondence and from the mixed recollections of some of those ICRC delegates who knew of him.

20 Deming, Richard, Heroes of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Geneva, 1982, pp. 161–175 Google Scholar.

21 See, for example, G. Senn, “Note for the ICRC, for the Attention of P. Gaillard (Assistant Director)”, 8 October 1969, ICRC Archives, D AF RHODE 02.001.

22 N. Mandela, above note 10, p. 489.

23 A detailed record of Senn's visit, including a note of his interview with Nelson Mandela on 8 April 1967, can be found in “1967 Robben Island Prison Visit”, ICRC Archives, D AF RHODE 2.02.004, from which much of the detail in the rest of this and the following two paragraphs are drawn. For the records of the ICRC's Dr Simon Burkhardt, and for the ICRC's subsequent report to South Africa's minister of foreign affairs, Dr Hilgard Muller, see ICRC Archives, D AF RHODE 02.005.

24 See, for example, Permanent Representative of South African Mission to Roger Gallopin, Executive Director of ICRC, 1 February 1967 (Confidential), ICRC Archives, D AF RHODE 02.001; G. Senn to A. Tschiffeli, 2 January 1969, ICRC Archives, D AF RHODE 02.002. And see interviews with Mr D. Ernst, 21 October 1966; I. Heymann, 14–15 October 1967; J. D. Mutumbula, 1 February 1966; Jatoria Hermann, undated; and J. Nashivela, 7 November 1966, ICRC Archives, D AF RHODE 02.004.

25 Director of Legal Affairs for the ICRC to P. C. Pelser, Minister of Justice, Pretoria, 27 June 1968. See also the remarks of Senn to A. Tschiffeli, 21 January 1969, ICRC Archives, D AF RHODE 2 02.002, regarding the April 1967 visits, when “a great number of political detainees interviewed alleged mistreatments often bordering on torture by the Special Branch of the South African Police during interrogation in order to obtain confessions”.

26 G. Senn to General Steyn, 14 December 1968, ICRC Archives, D AF RHODE 2 01.009. Senn was quoting Colonel I. C. Schutte, the liaison officer of the South African Prisons Department.

27 Report on visit to political prisoners in maximum security prison on Robben Island by Dr P. Zuger, accompanied by Dr F. Vulliet and Mr G. C. Senn, 8–10 May 1969, ICRC Archives, D AF RHODE 2 02-005.

28 See, for example, N. Mandela, above note 10, p. 474. Breytenbach recalls how a letter not arriving on time or a visit interrupted could ruin a prisoner's entire month: see B. Breytenbach, above note 10, p. 150.

29 N. Mandela, above note 10, p. 560.

30 Ibid., pp. 458–459, 479–480, 544.

31 Ibid., p. 482: “our eyes streamed and our faces became fixed in a permanent squint”.

32 Tuberculosis and dental care remained issues of concern a decade later.

33 A good account of prison diet is provided in B. Breytenbach, above note 10, pp. 146–148.

34 For an important and influential study on the scale of the violence inflicted by decolonization and its far-reaching consequences for both colonizer and colonized, see Thomas, Martin, Fight or Flight: Britain, France and Their Roads from Empire, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2014 Google ScholarPubMed.

35 For two of the most insightful case studies on detention during decolonization, see McCracken, John, “In the Shadow of Mau Mau: Detainees and Detention Camps during Nyasaland's State of Emergency”, Journal of Southern African Studies, Vol. 37, No. 3, 2011 Google Scholar; Munochiveyi, Munyaradzi Bryn, “The Political Lives of Rhodesian Detainees during Zimbabwe's Liberation Struggle”, International Journal of African Historical Studies, Vol. 46, No. 2, 2013 Google Scholar.

36 See, for example, the remarks of Joshua Nkomo, the leader and founder of Zimbabwe's African People's Union, who was jailed for ten years by Rhodesia's white minority government: “The objective [of detention] was to cut us off from the world, to make it forget us and us forget it.” Nkomo, Joshua, The Story of My Life, Methuen, London, 1984, p. 130 Google Scholar.

37 I am grateful to Frank Schmidt for these points, which emerged from correspondence with the author in July–August 2017.

38 For this phrase, see Pictet, Jean, “Special Study: The Need to Restore the Laws and Customs relating to Armed Conflicts”, Review of the International Commission of Jurists, No. 1, March 1969, p. 34 Google Scholar.

39 Particularly as reproduced and confirmed in 1928 and 1952 by the Statutes of the International Red Cross. From 1863 until 1915 the ICRC worked without any kind of statutes, which were created for the whole Red Cross Movement after the First World War. Because States had agreed to these statutes, through the International Conference of the Red Cross, they provided a quasi-legal basis for humanitarian action, including in situations of “internal strife”.

40 ICRC Memorandum, Michel Veuthey, Geneva, 14 January 1988.

41 Jacques Moreillon to Edward Ndlovu, 16 August 1974, ICRC Archives, B AG 252, 231-002. Ndlovu was the national secretary of Zimbabwe's African People's Union.

42 Georges Willemin and Roger Heacock under the direction of Freymond, Jacques, The International Committee of the Red Cross, Martinus Nijhoff, Boston, MA, 1984, pp. 46–48 Google Scholar.

43 Ibid., pp. 46–48; Pierre Gassmann, “Politique de cooperation du CICR en Afrique”, 23 July 1991.

44 ICRC, Annual Report 1968, Geneva, 1969, pp. 102–103. Many of them were “honorary delegates”.

45 A. Thompson, above note 5, pp. 53–62.

46 See, for example, B. Breytenbach, above note 10, pp. 199–200.

47 For Amnesty in this period, see Buchanan, Tom, “Amnesty International in Crisis, 1966–7”, Twentieth Century British History, Vol. 15, No. 3, 2004 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Clark, Ann Marie, Diplomacy of Conscience: Amnesty International and the Changing of Human Rights Norms, Princeton, NJ, 2001, pp. 3–19 Google Scholar; Ennals, Martin, “Amnesty International and Human Rights” in Willetts, Peter (ed.), Pressure Groups in the Global System, 1982, pp. 63–74 Google Scholar; Power, Jonathan, Like Water on a Stone: The Story of Amnesty International, Allen Lane, London, 2001, pp. 126–132 Google Scholar.

48 Clark, Ann Marie, Diplomacy of Conscience: Amnesty and Changing Human Rights Norms, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 2001, p. 14 Google Scholar.

49 International, Amnesty, Amnesty International, 1961–76: A Chronology, London, 1976, p. 5 Google Scholar.

50 P. Benenson to C. Pilloud, 22 January 1963, 3 April 1963 and 25 April 1963, ICRC Archives, B AG 225 006-016.

51 There is necessary qualification to this remark: at the 10th International Conference of the Red Cross in 1921, the ICRC had received a “semi-legal mandate” to act in civil wars. Yet this decision was rarely referred to later when the ICRC enquired into the legal basis of detention visiting because the situations the organization faced fell below the threshold of full-blown civil wars and were more likely to be described as “internal strife”, “public emergencies” or the like.

52 For the reports of these Expert Committees, see ICRC Archives, B AG 225 000-001/002/003/007/013/016.

53 “Etude sur les activités du CICR en faveur des détenus politiques”, 4 January 1973 to 8 March 1974, chaired by Laurent Marti, Assistant Director of Operations, with proposals delivered to the ICRC Assembly in 1974, ICRC Archives, B AG 225 000-034.01.

54 N. Filippi, above note 9.

55 Van Rensburg was later removed from Robben Island when the Liberal MP Helen Suzman threatened to raise his case in parliament. See N. Mandela, above note 10, pp. 513–515: “His job was to make our lives as wretched as possible” (p. 514).

56 See above note 16.

57 On this point, see ICRC, Annual Report 1969, Geneva, 1970, p. 19; Annual Report 1970, Geneva, 1971, p. 13; and Annual Report 1976, Geneva, 1977, p. 18.

58 P. Gaillard, Assistant Director of the ICRC, to Dr Hilgard Muller, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 23 July 1969, ICRC Archives, D AF RHODE 2 02.001.

59 See, for example, H. R. T. Oxley, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Rhodesia, to F. Perez, ICRC, 3 January 1978, “Rapport Mission Moreillon Rhodesie, 16–23 avril 1978”, ICRC Archives, B AG 231-001.

60 As late as 1977, the ICRC was still agonizing over the publication of reports by detaining powers which “inevitably led to public and political controversy and could only have a negative effect on the ICRC's long-standing reputation … and ultimately its credibility and effectiveness as a neutral and impartial humanitarian organisation”: see Alexandre Hay to J. T. Kruger, 10 November 1978, ICRC Archives, D AF RHODE 02.001.

61 For the unfolding conflict, see G. Senn to C. Pilloud, 21 February 1968; “Extract from ICRC letter to South African Minister of Foreign Affairs”, 27 June 1968, contained in letter from G. Senn 10 July 1968; “Note on Interview with the South African Prime Minister, Cape Town, 2/5/1967”, along with newspaper cuttings from the Gazette de Lausanne, 11 October 1967; Cape Argus, 8 April 1967; and Christian Action, 13 April 1967, ICRC Archives, D AF RHODE 02.002.

62 It is, however, worth noting that a subsequent report of the International Defence and Aid Fund – considered a more radical organization – incorporated sections of the Hoffmann report as supporting evidence of ill-treatment in South Africa's prisons. See “South African Prisons and the Red Cross Investigation”, signed by Dennis Brutus, UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) Archives, SO 234 (13–3), April 1967–July 1967.

63 For the background to the UN's involvement in South Africa's liberation struggles, see, especially, Reddy, Enuga S., “The United Nations and the Struggle for Liberation in South Africa”, in South African Democracy Education Trust, The Road to Democracy in South Africa, Vol. 3: International Solidarity, Part 1, UNISA Press, Pretoria, 2008, pp. 41–120 Google Scholar.

64 A. Thompson, above note 15.

65 CHR, “Organisation of the Work of the Ad Hoc Study Group: Note by the Secretary-General”, 1 September 1967, UNHRC Archives, SO 234 (15).

66 The Working Group was the result of a UN resolution adopted on 6 March 1967. The UN side of this story was for the first time pieced together after a special access request was granted to see the relevant archives: see UNHRC Archives, SO 234, March 1967–December 1969. As far as I am aware, this is the first time these archives have been consulted. See also G. Senn to C. Pilloud, 21 February 1968, ICRC Archives, D AF RHODE 2 02.002.

67 ICRC, Annual Report 1967, Geneva, 1968, p. 29.

68 Access was not in fact unrestricted at this time. See M. I. Botha, South African Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the UN, to U Thant, UN Secretary-General, 13 April 1967 and 17 April 1967, UNHRC Archives, SO 234 (13–1), March 1967–December 1969. Botha's very carefully worded letters referred to the fact that “reports have been issued and statements made by these independent persons” without saying anything about their actual contents.

69 See A. Thompson, above note 5, pp. 68–71.

70 See Marc Schreiner to Curtis Roosevelt, Chief NGO Section, ECOSOC, 17 November 1967, UNHRC Archives, SO 234 (13–3), July 1967–December 1967; Samuel Gonard to U Thant, 27 June 1967, copy in Claire Howe to Charles Hogan, 11 July 1967, UNHRC Archives, SO 234 (13–3), April 1967–July 1967.

71 Curtis Roosevelt to Marc Schreiner, 17 November 1967, UNHRC Archives, SO 234 (13–3), July 1967–December 1967. C. Pilloud at the ICRC had confirmed that the Red Cross did want its letter to the secretary-general of 27 June 1967 circulated to members of the Social Committee of ECOSOC when it met in the spring of 1968.

72 J. Moreillon, above note 13, pp. 117–118.

73 The year was 1987: ibid., p. 120. The first time was in Vietnam.

74 Alexandre Hay to James T Kruger, South African Minister of Justice, Police and Prisons, 10 November 1978, ICRC Archives, D AF RHODE 02.001.

75 Ibid.; J. Moreillon, above note 13, pp. 118–119. The detainees in question were held under Section 10 of the Internal Security Act. After the ICRC's visiting practices – and their advantages – were explained to them, they let the ICRC proceed.

76 N. Mandela, above note 10, p. 492.

77 For favoured techniques, see B. Breytenbach, above note 10, pp. 226–227.

78 N. Mandela, above note 10, pp. 492–493; H. Shityuwete, above note 18, pp. 229–230.

79 M. Naville to Hilgard Muller, 28 June 1973, ICRC Archives, D AF RHODE 02.002.

80 The premium placed by the ICRC on its proximity to victims – and whether such proximity was positive and consequential – made it vital to demonstrate results. Godfrey Senn understood this only too well, emphasizing the need for longer visits, extensive interviews and thorough inspections. He insisted that Geneva take greater care in drafting covering letters accompanying delegate reports, and he was much exercised by the loose phrasing which allowed the South African authorities to twist the contents of these letters and to charge the ICRC with not understanding the situation with which it was dealing.

81 Address by Jacques Moreillon, Delegate-General for Africa, 23 May 1975, ICRC Archives, B AG 225 231–004.

82 The “four walls” doctrine (editor's translation). “Etude sur les activités des détenus politiques, séminaires de mai et septembre 1973”, chaired by Laurent Marti, ICRC Archives, B AG 225 000-034.01; Séminaire “détenus politiques” à l'institut Henry-Dunant, 14 September 1973 to 4 January 1974, ICRC Archives, B AG 225 000-034.02; “La question des mauvais traitement et la doctrine dite des quatre murs”, chaired by Laurent Marti, 6 June 1969–4 December 1969, ICRC Archives, B AG 225 000-027.

83 “The Rule of Law in International Affairs”, summary of a statement made by Sean MacBride, Secretary-General of the International Commission of Jurists, at a meeting of the European-Atlantic Group, London, 25 April 1966, Archive of the International Commission of Jurists, Box 97/2.

84 This is the key point to emerge from Buntman's Robben Island and Prisoner Resistance, above note 11.

85 Breytenbach is among the most forthright on this point, yet by no means alone: see B. Breytenbach, above note 10, p. 206.

86 Only in 1978 was all work in the quarry finally stopped. This was announced in early 1977: see N. Mandela, above note 10, p. 581.

87 For greater detail on the securing of these concessions, see J. Moreillon, above note 13, pp. 71–97.

88 Minister of Prisons, Pretoria, to the President of the ICRC, 10 November 1977, ICRC Archives, D AF RHODE 02.001.

89 H. Lewin, above note 12, p. 86. Lewin was sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment in Pretoria in 1964 for a number of offences under the South African Sabotage Act. He went on to remark of visits: “everything seems to depend on them, everything seems to move towards them, your whole being becomes involved in the fact of the impending visit as the only point of focus”.

90 Ibid., p. 88.

91 This began in 1978 with the compromise of permitting prisoners to start their own radio news service. See N. Mandela, above note 10, p. 595; J. Moreillon, above note 13, p. 119.

92 Ibid., pp. 119–120. See also report on visit to political prisoners in maximum security prison on Robben Island by Dr P. Zuger, accompanied by Dr F. Vulliet and G. Senn, 8–10 May 1969, ICRC Archives, D AF RHODE 2 2.005.

93 M. Geyer, above note 14. A useful commentary on the relationship between humanitarianism and human rights, albeit more weighted toward the inherent tensions between the two concepts, is also provided in Barnett, Michael, Empire of Humanity: A History of Humanitarianism, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY, 2011 Google Scholar.

94 For critiques of humanitarianism from a human rights perspective, see Loane, Geoff and Moyroud, Céline (eds), Tracing the Unintended Consequences of Humanitarian Assistance: The Case of Sudan, Baden Baden, Nomos, 2001 Google Scholar; Wilson, R. A. (ed.), Human Rights, Culture and Context: Anthropological Perspectives, London, Pluto Press, London, 1997 Google Scholar.

95 See, for example, Moses, A. Dirk, “The United Nations, Humanitarianism and Human Rights: War Crimes/Genocide Trials for Pakistani Soldiers in Bangladesh, 1971–74”, in Hoffmann, Stefan Ludwig (ed.), Human Rights in the Twentieth Century, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2011, p. 277 Google Scholar.

96 For two of the more insightful studies of the premises of these concepts, see Bourke, Joanna, What It Means to be Human: Reflections from 1791 to the Present, Virago, London, 2011 Google Scholar; Wilson, Richard and Brown, Richard (eds), Humanitarianism and Suffering: The Mobilisation of Empathy, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2009 Google Scholar.

97 I am grateful to Jacques Moreillon and Frank Schmidt for advice on this point, provided during correspondence with the author in July–August 2017. The exception alluded to is hinted at yet not quite substantiated in the ICRC Archives.

98 On the literary dimensions of human rights activism, see Gready, Paul, Writing as Resistance: Life Stories of Imprisonment, Exile and Homecoming from Apartheid South Africa, Lexington Books, Lanham, MD, 2003 Google Scholar.

99 Dudai, Ron, “A to Z of Abuses: State of the Art in Global Human Rights Monitoring”, Development and Change, Vol. 38, No. 6, 2007 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

100 For an overview of recent debates, see Cmiel, Kenneth, “Review Essay: The Recent History of Human Rights”, American Historical Review, Vol. 109, No. 1, 2004 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ballinger, Pamela, “The History of Human Rights: The Big Bang of an Emerging Field or Flash in the Pan?”, New Global Studies, Vol. 6, No. 3, 2012 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For the spirited if ultimately unconvincing argument that the 1970s was the “breakthrough decade” for human rights, see Moyn, Samuel, The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 2010 Google Scholar; Eckel, Jan and Moyn, Samuel (eds), The Breakthrough: Human Rights in the 1970s, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, PA, 2014 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

101 On this point, see O'Sullivan, Kevin, “The Search for Justice: NGOs in Britain and Ireland and the New International Economic Order, 1968–82”, Humanity: An International Journal of Human Rights, Humanitarianism, and Development, Vol. 6, No. 1, 2015 Google Scholar.

102 For some of the harder-hitting press coverage at the time, see “America's Day of Shame”, The Independent, 10 December 2014, and accompanying articles on pp. 4–6; “UK Must Reveal Truth on Torture, Say Critics”, The Guardian, 11 December 2014, and accompanying articles on pp. 14–15, 41.

103 “Report on Allegations of Torture in Brazil, London, September 1972”, cited in “Human Rights in the World: Torture Continues”, Review of the International Commission of Jurists, No. 10, June 1973, pp. 10–12. See also Amnesty International, above note 49, p. 12; Larsen, Egon, A Flame in Barbed Wire: The Story of Amnesty International, London, Muller, 1978, p. 71 Google Scholar.

104 See, especially, Kelly, Tobias, This Side of Silence: Human Rights, Torture, and the Recognition of Cruelty, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, PA, 2012 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The quote is from Moyn, Samuel, Human Rights and the Uses of History, Verso, London, 2014, p. 103 Google Scholar.

105 See, for example, H. Shityuwete, above note 18, pp. 215–216, 225–226, 229–230.

106 N. Mandela, above note 10, p. 487. Breytenbach, while in Pollsmoor Prison, similarly felt that the authorities had no choice but to make concessions as by that (relatively late) stage, “everybody was scared of the repercussions if Mandela complained to the Red Cross”: B. Breytenbach, above note 10, p. 304.

107 Ibid., p. 206: “they never wavered in their commitment to justice and in their patiently pursued efforts to obtain more humane conditions for those prisoners they were allowed to see”.

108 Ibid., p. 273.

109 N. Mandela, above note 10, p. 535.

110 Ibid., p. 544.

111 See, for example, A. Thompson, above note 15.

112 See, for example, G.Ferris, Elizabeth, The Politics of Protection: The Limits of Humanitarian Action, Brookings Institution Press, Washington, DC, 2011, pp. 59 Google Scholar ff. For a specific manifestation of the problem, see the case surrounding the capture and detention of Mr Tarek Hassan: “This Week in Strasbourg: A Roundup of the European Court of Human Rights Case Law”, European Courts, 21 September 2014, available at: http://europeancourts.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/this-week-in-strasbourg-roundup-of_21.html.

113 Kenny, Karen, When Needs Are Rights: An Overview of UN Efforts to Integrate Human Rights in Humanitarian Action, Occasional Paper No. 38, Institute for International Studies, Brown University, Providence, RI, 2000 Google Scholar.

114 There is a large literature on the notion of a “responsibility to protect”, or “R2P” as it is sometimes called. For a selection of the key texts, see Bellamy, Alex J., Responsibility to Protect: The Global Effort to End Mass Atrocities, Polity, Cambridge, 2009 Google Scholar; Evans, Gareth, The Responsibility to Protect: Ending Mass Atrocity Crimes Once and for All, Brookings Institution Press, Washington, DC, 2009 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Manuel Fröhlich, “The Responsibility to Protect: Foundation, Transformation, and Application of an Emerging Norm”, in F. Klose (ed.), above note 14, pp. 299–230; and Hehir, Aidan, The Responsibility to Protect: Rhetoric, Reality and the Future of Humanitarian Intervention, Palgrave, London, 2012 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

115 Heaney, Seamus, “Doubletake”, in The Cure at Troy, Faber & Faber, 1990 Google Scholar.