007 annoys Red Cross

Press, 5 September 1987, Page 20

007 annoys Red Cross

From the “Economist’s” Switzerland correspondent

The International Committee of the Red Cross (1.C.R.C.) hopes to keep its symbol immaculate, and is angry with the most famous of British secret agents for conniving at its descration. In the latest James Bond film, “The Living Daylights,” the Red Cross is twice employed by the baddies. A cross-marked helicopter spirits a Soviet disinformer from his debriefing in an English country house. In a far longer sequence, dozens of red-crossed, jute-wrapped packages labelled as relief supplies turn out to be carrying opium from Afghanistan to the Soviet Union. (007 puts a bomb in one, then comes the suspense sequence.) According to the Geneva con-

ventions, misuse of the Red Cross symbol in times or zones of conflict is a war crime, and punishable as such. Recently, red crosses have been used on a contra helicopter in Nicaragua, and on an explosive-packed car blown up in Lebanon.

Peacetime abuses are commoner, and often tolerated. Nobody asks permission for redcrossing a first aid package, though national Red Cross societies complain swiftly if firms try to sell medicines by use of the symbol. In the case of “The Living Daylights," the American, British and Canadian national societies alerted the I.C.R.C. almost as soon as the film appeared. (Members of the august body are

presumably above such entertainment.) It seems to be the first large-scale international abuse of the symbol, and the first in a major motion picture.

The I.C.R.C. is not sure what to do. It would be difficult and unpopular to ask the courts in many countries to censor the film. The first advice to national Red Cross societies was to protest, then exploit the incident to publicise the symbol’s status.

The American Red Cross suggested asking James Bond’s producer, Mr Albert Broccoli, for damages. That could prove a better idea. A minute percentage of the film’s gross could save a lot of lives.

Copyright—The Economist