FRANCAISAction Contre la Faim - History
1990-1999
-From September 1991, Sierra Leone: as war from neighbouring Liberia tears the country apart, ACF finds itself running programmes in the hinterland held by the guerrillas of the RUF (Revolutionary United front). From Makeni to Kenema, from Bo to Kabala, such a position raises suspicion from the peace-keeping forces of the Ecomog (Economic Community of West African States’ Monitoring Group), which patrol along the coast. To guarantee its neutrality, ACF communicates to the Ecomog its radio contacts with the RUF. The organisation then has to negotiate its programmes with Ahmed Tejan Kabbah, the elected president reinstated in Freetown by the Ecomog in March 1998. The latter wishes to promote free food distributions so as to win the favours of the population, be it at the risk of ruining the local agriculture. After having briefly evacuated Freetown, looted by the RUF in January 1999, ACF manages to work again on the governmental side as well as with the rebels. At the peak of the fighting, in June 2000, some teams are withdrawn from guerrillas’ strongholds. But contrarily to American NGOs like CARE, CRS and World Vision, which stay on the coast, ACF volunteers return six months later despite the embargo imposed by the United Nations and the British peace-keeping forces who henceforth secure the capital city.
-From March 1993, Somalia: after the withdrawal of MSF, racketed by warlords, ACF carries on its programmes in Mogadishu despite the accidental bombing of its offices by the American troops of the United Nations Operation in Somalia (UNOSOM), on June 17th 1993, and the kidnapping of a volunteer, Rudy Mark, who is held captive by bandits for thirty-seven days in 1995. While the UN blue helmets leave the country in March 1995, ACF is one of the last international NGOs to remain in the capital city, both in Northern and Southern districts. To ensure its safety, it has to pay local fighters and, under the threat of retaliation, continues to pay the salaries of local employees who robbed the organisation. In the light of the difficulties in moving around even with armed escorts, ACF can’t check the effective realisation of its sanitation programmes for the displaced persons in Mogadishu; only its medical interventions during the cholera epidemics in the rainy season are truly controlled. After the kidnapping of three other expatriates at the beginning of 2000, the organisation eventually withdraws to Kenya. But ACF is also active in other regions of Somalia. In collaboration with the French army within UNOSOM, it first organises, between May and October 1993, the hydraulic rehabilitation of Bur Hakaba, which is evacuated after a grenade is thrown at one of its installations. In 1999, ACF opens an office in Luuq, an Islamic stronghold that the organisation has to leave temporarily in March 2003 owing to the worsening of fighting.
-1994-1995, Rwanda: having intervened after the genocide, ACF is expelled from Kigali in December 1995 because the Rwandese Patriotic Front’s government wants to regain control of the numerous humanitarian organisations in the country.
-28 February 1995, Spain: Acción contra el hambre is launched in Madrid under the presidency of Jorge Semprun.
-From September 1995, Afghanistan: ACF starts some programmes in Kabul, which falls in the hands of the Taliban fundamentalists on the 26th September 1996. The new regime imposes a strict application of the Koranic law, Sharia, and tries to separate men and women within medical structures. On the 6th September 1997, a decree from the ministry of Health compels women to be treated in only one hospital in Kabul, Rabia Balkhi, which is not completely functional. After negotiations led by the Red Cross and various NGOs, the Taliban do allow women into other hospitals of Kabul. But they imprison for five weeks two expatriates and five Afghan employees of ACF, who are accused of going around with women. And in April 1998, the authorities, trying to control the recruitment of local staff and to select those who benefit from the aid, compel the international NGOs to regroup in a district of the capital where they will be more easily watched over. ACF expatriates are finally expelled from the country on the 20th of July 1998, as they refuse to accept an agreement signed between the Taliban and the United Nations on the 14th of May, which discriminates against women. With its Afghan employees the organisation then attempts to keep up some of its programmes in Kabul from Peshawar in Pakistan. The American bombings against Ossama Bin Laden’s camps do not make things easier, and in August all the NGO expatriates in Afghanistan have to be evacuated anyway. Over the next few months, ACF negotiates with great difficulty its return to Afghanistan trying not to compromise its freedom of access to the victims or the choice of its collaborators, especially regarding women employees. The organisation, which must pay salaries to the minister of Health and looks on helplessly at the side-tracking of aid, does refuse to settle entry fees to get into refugee camps created by the Taliban at Herat. Quoted by journalist Olivier Weber, an ACF nutritionist, Charlotte Dufour, questions the choice to remain in Afghanistan, at the risk of being “brought to feed soldiers”: “does one have more influence by denouncing and then being forced to evacuate the country? Or does one have more chance in having a real impact on the Afghan population by adopting a low profile, helping a few thousand children, assisting families, opening regions to the outside world? In each situation, there is a choice to be made, and I think that as far as Afghanistan is concerned, our role was not to denounce – it wouldn’t have led to the collapse of the Taliban regime anyway… Other organisations could have done that”. Actually, ACF manages to work alongside the fundamentalists as well as the Hazara minority or the armed opposition of Ahmed Shah Massoud, whose Panchir valley is supplied with food by crossing the front line thanks to a cease-fire twice a week. Yet on July 11th 2001, all the international NGOs in Kabul are ordered to stop hiring Afghan female personnel. After the September 11th terrorist attacks in New York, it is left to the local employees to continue the ACF programmes whilst the Americans bomb the country in retaliation. From Uzbekistan, ACF-France teams come back to Afghanistan via Mazar-i-Charif in December 2001. Despite the fall of the Taliban regime, the situation remains tense. On January 29th 2003, an explosive charge is thrown at the ACF office in Kandahar, causing only material damage. In a joint press release with MDM, ACTED, AFRANE, AMI, EMDH, HI, Solidarités and MADERA, ACF states its concern as to the participation of reservists of the American army in Provisional Reconstruction Teams; such confusion is apt to make true humanitarian workers pass for soldiers in the eyes of the population. After the assassination of a Red Cross delegate, shot in cold blood by Islamists in Tirin Khot north of Kandahar on March 27th 2003, the expatriate personnel of ACF is sent back to Herat and Kabul for security reasons.
-From April 1996, Liberia: after the rebels loot the humanitarian equipment in the capital city, ACF starts with Oxfam and SCF an operation to share out the work zones and the programmes, to set up a common security policy and to write joint press releases denouncing the warlords’ abuses. This operation is not led by the United Nations and is considered to be an original attempt to co-ordinate various NGOs.
-From September 1997, Russia: active in Chechnya since November 1995, ACF is forced to interrupt its activities for security reasons in September 1997, after the kidnapping in Grozny of two volunteers, Michael Penrose and Frederic Malardeau, held captive for twenty-six days in 1996. From December 1997, ACF operates only from the refugee camps in neighbouring Ingushetia.
-January 1998-March 2000, North Korea: in the northern province of Hamgyong, ACF begins a food distribution programme but notes that malnutrition persists in governmental nurseries within which the beneficiaries are carefully selected by the authorities. Lack of free access to the real victims urges the organisation to withdraw from North Korea two years later. It also denounces the United Nations agencies who decide to stay on. Largely financed by the United States, the World Food Programme (WFP) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) are accused of running a “political operation” aiming to exchange humanitarian aid for the halt of North Korea’s military nuclear programme, be it at the cost of relieving the Pyongyang dictatorship of its social responsibilities.
-1999, ex-Yugoslavia: on March 22nd 1999, ACF evacuates Kosovo because of the NATO (Northern Alliance Treaty Organisation) bombings against the Serb troops. The organisation returns to Kosovo in June after a cease-fire is signed.
