FRANCAISNorwegian People’s Aid - History
1990-1999
-1992, Cambodia: NPA starts its first mine clearance programme.
-1993, Mozambique: NPA begins a mine clearance programme to enable the return of refugees after the signature of a peace treaty between the government and the guerrilla forces in Rome in December 1992.
-From 1994, Cuba: hostile to the American embargo against the “Marxist” regime of Fidel Castro, NPA starts to co-operate with the authorities. The political objective is to “accompany the Cuban project in maintaining its main social and economic achievements and exploring no neo-liberal ways of overcoming the crisis”.
-1995-2004, Iraq: in the North of the country, which is de facto autonomous, NPA starts in 1995 a mine clearance programme which has to be suspended for a few months in 1997 because of the fighting between the two main parties in the region, the Democratic Party of Kurdistan and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. Due to a lack of funds, the operations are progressively shut down or handed over to the local authorities in 2001. In March 2003, NPA then disapproves the American military intervention and opposes plans to send Norwegian troops to Iraq without the backing of the United Nations. After the fall of Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship, NPA starts again mine and explosive clearance work around Baghdad in July 2003. Due to insecurity, the organisation eventually withdraws its expatriates and closes its operations in April 2004.
-Since 1996, Ecuador: after an earthquake in the region of Cotopaxi, NPA promotes development projects and the participation of the indigenous population in local government bodies in the mountain municipalities of Cotacahi, Saquisilí, and Guamote. The organisation supports the Confederación de Nacionalidades y Pueblos Indígenas (CONAIE) and a project which aims at drafting and promulgating legislation to secure the constitutional right of Indians to land ownership.
-Since 1997, Laos: in co-operation with the communist government in Vientiane, NPA defuses old bombs dropped by the United Stated on the Ho Chi Minh Trail, a complex web of different jungle paths that Hanoi used to supply its guerrillas with arms during the Vietnamese war.
-1998, Eritrea: NPA helps people displaced by the border war with Ethiopia. The organisation works in co-operation with the government in Asmara, i.e. the EPLF (Eritrean People’s Liberation Front) that it helped when this former guerrilla fought for independence before 1991. Hence, according to Bernard Jacquemart, who was working in Eritrea for the French NGO Médecins du Monde at this time, NPA does not contest the official number of displaced persons given by the authorities, who multiply the figures tenfold in order to attract and control humanitarian aid.
