FRANCAISMission d’aide au développement des économies rurales - History
1988-1999
-May 27th 1988, Belgium: MADERA is created in Brussels. Three stages rhythm the formation of the association. On June 6th 1980 in Paris is organised a meeting for Afghanistan. At the initiative, amongst others, of a small revolutionary communist party founded in 1974, the organisers of the rally protest against the soviet military intervention in Kabul and against the position of the PCF (French Communist Party) which approves the invasion of Afghanistan. A Movement of Solidarity with the Afghan Resistance (MSRA) is created and gives birth, in October 1981, to a political lobby, the BIA (International Bureau for Afghanistan) which, from Paris, aims to help the Afghan freedom fighters’ cause in Europe. The BIA ends with the withdrawal of the soviet troops in 1989, which doesn’t mean peace. Out of the ashes of the BIA is born MADERA: local humanitarian action replaces political action on an international scale. The first European boards of the organisation reflect various horizons, with former partners of the BIA, Belgian, Dutch, Norwegian and Swiss solidarity committees, as well as NGOs such as Oxfam and Terre des Hommes.
-1990, Pakistan: at the initiative of a new programs director, Bernard Delpeuch, MADERA opens an office in Peshawar. The organisation has to combine the head office in Paris, the Afghan mission directors in the field and the logistics team in Peshawar: not an easy task. Whilst Paris wants to guarantee quality programs, in Peshawar is extended the number of projects, employees and fund raising schemes…
-1992, Belgium: the European Community starts to regularly back MADERA. This dependency on institutional financing makes some members of the association fear a loss of its initial identity. Quoted in Jean-Pierre Turpin’s book, Camille Fabre (an administrator and former secretary of the BIA) notes that MADERA loses some it diversity with the departure of Terre des Hommes, Oxfam and the Dutch and Norwegian committees.
-Febuary 1996, Germany: with, amongst others, German Agro-action and the Sweedish Committee for Afghanistan, MADERA participates in the foundation of the Bonn Action Group, which aims to co-ordinate the pro-Afghanistan lobbying in Europe. This implies adopting a united strategy and no longer a competitive one as regards financial backers, as for example ACBAR (Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief), which unites some 75 international and local NGOs and channels about 85% of aid for Afghanistan.
-1996-2000, Afghanistan: MADERA opens a mission in Djalalabad and narrowly avoids being expelled from its offices in Pakistan thanks to the assistance of the French Embassy and ACBAR. ACBAR is precisely useful in negotiating the distribution of aid in the face of the arbitrary nature of the Taliban fundamentalists, who took power in Kabul on the 26th September 1996. In 1997, MADERA hires an expatriate woman, Pascale Micheau, to gain access to Afghan women despite the separation of sexes enforced by an Islamic regime. The work conditions remain difficult. In July 1998, all international NGO expatriates are expelled by the Taliban. Because it keeps running programs with the Pachtoun and the Hazara until August 1998, MADERA is accused of betraying the solidarity with other humanitarian workers and obeying the orders of the fundamentalists. Yet, considering its political past, the organisation certainly doesn’t approve the Islamists. Its implantation on the Taliban side in Afghanistan comes from the fact that it was already operational in Pachtoun zones before the arrival of the fundamentalists; MADERA is by the way also operational amidst the Hazara minority, close to the Shiite opposition.
