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Children of the World – Human Rights
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History

Enfants du Monde - Droits de l'Homme - History



1990-1999


-1991-1999, Haiti: EMDH stays after general Raoul Cédras’s coup against president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, while the United Nations stop their assistance programs, other NGOs leave the country and an embargo against the military dictatorship is implemented. In 1993, despite his close relations with Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a former priest gone into exile in the United States, Father Yves Buannic denounces economical sanctions that only harm civilians and not the junta. MDM, MSF and ACF soon express the same opinion; for this position, EMDH is warned by the European Union, its main financial backer, but its funds are not suspended. From 1999, EMDH withdraws from Haiti for lack of finding reliable partners to pursue its field actions.
 
-From 1995, Iraq: EMDH condemns the economical sanctions against Saddam Hussein’s regime, as they mostly penalise the civilians. The association therefore distributes medicine and food in this country, to which almost one quarter of its budget is dedicated in 2000. In 1999, EMDH charters a humanitarian plane for Baghdad, even if it implies violating the air embargo. Then, as an American attack is suspected, EMDH suspends its activities with street children in Baghdad in 2002. The following year, the organisation condemns the military intervention of the Coalition forces and worries about the eagerness of the American troops to supervise the humanitarian workers during their operations against Baghdad. In a joint release with MDM, PU, ACF, HI and Solidarités, on the 3rd of March 2003, EMDH claims its “refusal to subordinate its action in the field to a military authority which takes part in the fight”.
 
-From 1999, Sudan: EMDH only intervenes on the governmental side, that is in Wau, in the southern part at war, and in Khartoum, where the association helps women in jail. These women have fled the fights in the South, and, to survive in town, they brew and sell alcohol, contravening the prohibitions of the Koranic law in an Islamic regime.