FRANCAISComité inter-mouvements auprès des évacués - History
1970-1979
-1970, France: the CIMADE takes part in the creation of the association France Terre d’Asile (“French Land of Asylum”). A kind of division of labour is soon instituted: the CIMADE deals with refugees coming in France, and France Terre d’Asile is in charge of lobbying and defending asylum rights.
-1973-2000, Chile: the CIMADE facilitates the evacuation of opponents to General Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship. With the democratic transition and the return of the military in barracks from 1990, the CIMADE also supports the association Vamos Mujer, which works for the professional rehabilitation of former female political prisoners.
-1974, France: the CIMADE decides to stop sending expatriates to developing countries. Local partners take over. That same year, the Committee supervises the creation of Union Solidarity Mutual Aid from its mission in Dakar, which was registered as a Senegalese association since 1961. In Alger, the CIMADE had also reduced its presence after 1963. Out of the CSSA (Christian Service Committee in Algeria), it supports in 1974 the beginnings of a Committee of co-operation and service in Algeria which deals with migrants from inner Africa, and which will become a local NGO around 1979.
-From 1976, France: the CIMADE reviews its Constitution to fight against racism and the exploitation of people. In 1977, it starts supporting associations of the African diasporas, first from Mali, then Senegal. In 1980, for instance, it helps the creation in France of the ALDA (Association for Linking and Developing Agnam), a group of Senegalese migrants. In 1983, it also takes part in the launchings of AMADE (Malian Association for Development) and the URCAK (Regional Union of Farming Co-operatives of Kayes). There will be more: the ARKF (Association of Kaniagan Citizens in France) and the CAMSEL (Multi-function Farming Co-operative of Selingué) in Mali; the ADO (Association for the Development of Ourossogui) in Senegal.
-Since 1977, Lebanon: while the civil war gains importance, the CIMADE starts supporting the Lebanese Social Movement, created in 1957 by the catholic Greek bishop of Beirut, Grégoire Haddad, who will be appointed to Tyr as his militant character is not appreciated by the ecclesiastical hierarchy. Later on, the CIMADE helps the Movement for Human Rights, launched in 1988 after the Lebanese Social Movement, and aimed at promoting marriage and harmonious relations between religious communities. In the Palestinian refugee camps of Aïn el-Helweh, Chatila, Rachidieh, Borj el-Shemali and el-Bass, the CIMADE also works through two local organisations: Beit Atfal as Somoud, which assists families of the fighters, and Najdeh, which supports deprived women since 1977.
-1979, Cambodia: with the invasion of the Vietnamese army, the end of Pol Pot’s regime shows the extent of the Khmer Rouge genocide and prompts the CIMADE to get involved in this country. Yet on the 27th of December 1979, in the Quotidien du Médecin’s daily newspaper in Paris, Doctor Xavier Emmanuelli, the president of MSF, denounces the way the CIMADE, CCFD and SPF collaborate with the Heng Samrin’s government established by the Vietnamese in Phnom Penh. Those were the only French NGOs to be admitted into the Democratic Republic of Kampuchea, but they work for one side only, and they do not help the Khmer refugees on the Thai border.
