FRANCAISNorwegian People’s Aid - Comments
2) The way it works
-Through its close connections with trades unions and the political Left in Oslo, NPA often acts jointly with the State and receives financial and logistical support from the Government, for example through the Norwegian army lending its lorries. Since 1994 in Norway, the organisation manages for the Immigration Department a transit centre to accommodate asylum seekers at the international airport of Oslo. Abroad, it also intervenes in war-torn countries where peace negotiations are led by the Norwegian diplomatic service, as in Sri Lanka, Sudan and Palestine.
-A progressive agency, NPA doesn’t believe in the possibility of being neutral in war zones and has often decided to work on one side only, as in Lebanon, Nicaragua, Sudan and Ethiopia. Linked to LO’s International Committee to support the Labour Movement (Arbeiderbevegelsens Internasjonale Støttekomité), the organisation claims to be political. According to an internal document, “it is not possible to be neutral if the organisation is to work in areas of conflict. Not taking stand against oppression is also to take sides”. Hence the organisation was nicknamed “Norwegian People’s Army” as it openly supported the Kurdish resistance in Iraq, the Tibetans in China, the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organisation) in occupied territories, the ANC in South-Africa, the SWAPO in Namibia, the SPLA in Sudan and the political movements struggling against conservative dictatorships in South America in the 1970s.
-Such a position facilitates access to guerrilla zones. It also has the advantage of allowing the population to own and evaluate aid programmes. “Solidarity, as stated in the principles adopted by NPA’s General Assembly in June 2003, is the opposite of charity. Whilst charity implies that the giver has control over the recipient, solidarity means showing respect for the partners’ integrity and their right to set their own conditions”. But on the field, independent observers note that NPA is sometimes very voluntarist. In Lumasi Camp in Ngara, Tanzania, in 1995, Johan Pottier reports for instance that the NGO labelled refugees as lacking initiative and denied Rwandese mothers the ability to foster unaccompanied minors. Working with political groups also means that NPA always risks to legitimise violence and forces which are not necessarily representative and can divert humanitarian logistics to military ends, as in Sudan or Sri Lanka. Furthermore, the organisation often misses the point, for it cannot help the victims on the “other” side. In Sudan, for instance, it worked only with the rebels in the South and so was not allowed by the Government to relieve suffering in the West when the crisis started in Darfur in 2003.
