NAC was founded in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan on December 27, 1979. For 40 years, NAC has worked in solidarity with the Afghan people.
NAC started as an activist member-led solidarity organization with many local committees and a relatively large number of members. No one knows how many because some local committees operated quite freely and independently from the board of the organization, and some never became memebers, even though they were active.
The overall goals were to evoke public opinion nationally and internationally against the Soviet invasion and to show solidarity with the Afghan people. Similar organizations arose in many countries, but the committees gained especially broad support in Sweden and Norway, which owes much of the credit to the fact that these organizations still exist, 40 years later.
The fact that Pakistan, under dictator Zia ul-Haq and the United States, eventually controlled international military support for extreme Islamist groups did not change the wave of sympathy. But for smaller organizations that were ostracized and banned, the result was often disastrous. Several recipients of support from NAC were killed in the early 80s. Secular and radical Afghans found it safest to align themselves with one of the 7 parties that Zia-ul Haq recognized (the Seven Party Alliance).
To obtain a residence permit with an approved refugee passport in Pakistan, Afghans had to be members of one of these parties. NAC never supported these parties with funds or money, but supported local leaders (usually commanders) instead as they could document activity to keep their areas free of government forces and their Soviet supporters, so that the local population could stay. The Seven Party Alliance, which had world recognition, consisted exclusively of Sunni parties. NAC did also support Shia leaders.
But the traditional protest days of March 8th and May 1st were also heavily influenced by the situation in Afghanistan. A well-known mujahedin commander took part in the March 8th event in Tromsø. Activists collected large sums during these years, which were handed over to various resistance groups and humanitarian efforts in Afghanistan, and to efforts for Afghan refugees in Pakistan. Every year, NAC organized an Afghanistan Week where invited Afghans traveled to solidarity events across the country.
Many Norwegian municipalities and county councils allocated money to NAC’s support work. Among other things, the Chairmanship of Harstad municipality decided to establish friendly cooperation with Afghanistan in 1980, for which the local committee in Harstad has much of the credit. The Harstad committee alone financed the construction of a school in the Paktia-province in the mid-1980s. For many years, the Rogaland County Council allocated a large sum to NAC’s work.
Annually, afghan resistance leaders and spokespersons came to Norway, and in the 1980s NAC arranged three major international hearings in Oslo (1983, 1986 and 1989) where Afghan torture victims, freed political prisoners, mujahedin leaders, international experts, historians, Norwegian politicians, and Afghanistan activists from various countries participated.
From the late 1980s, however, most of the local committees were closed, or went into hibernation. The development escalated in the early 90s after the Soviet withdrawal. Quite a few committees (Oslo among others) survived until the turn of the millennium. In recent years, it is primarily the Local Branch in Bergen that has maintained a high level of activity with, among other things, friendship schools and cooperation with trade unions.
When this member organization with few employees had to manage projects, great demands were made from the donor organizations and attention turned slowly but surely towards projects and funds. The activists who were concerned with the political side no longer had the organization to themselves. When the Soviet Union withdrew in 1989, the organization was involved in the projects and the operation of an ever-growing field office. The government of Najibullah, installed by the Soviet Union, was still in Kabul. The Seven Party Alliance demonstrated its incompetence to the world when it failed to take Kabul with united forces. Finally, it happened in May 1992, when several of Najibullah’s generals switched sides.
During these years, NAC struggled to find its place. When the mujahedin took over the government offices in Kabul, many local committees disappeared. What should be NAC’s purpose now? The Soviet Union was out. The country had got its government, but neighboring states such as Pakistan and Iran were deeply involved, the Soviet Union’s death struggle escalated beyond 1990, and the US looked at opportunities to withdraw. The solution was a formulation of goals that gave support to the Afghans’ struggle for independence and reconstruction.
The civil war that now broke out between some of the seven mujahedin parties after 1989, further eroded enthusiasm for spending leisure time supporting Afghanistan. The Afghans desperately wanted peace, then as now in 2020, but their leaders betrayed them and fought a war that left parts of (the until then fairly intact capital) Kabul in ruins.
While NAC in Norway struggled to adapt to a new era with a new main purpose, there was a great need for humanitarian aid in Afghanistan, and NAC was an important channel for the Norwegian authorities. Funding from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Norad increased towards a provisional peak around 1993-94. The number of employees, both Afghan and Norwegian, did also increase. The Oslo office was modestly staffed with two employees most of the time.
In 1985, the organization received 3.2 million NOK from the television collection in support of the Norwegian Children and Youth Council (LNU), and in 1986 NAC was awarded Operation Day’s Work (OD) together with the organization Afghanistan Aid. Fixed funding from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs also started from 1986. In 1991-92, NAC extended its work to Badakhshan, in the north-eastern part of the country. Schools were funded by NAC but built by local forces. Most of the schools are in operation to this day.
Norwegian school students have collected money for Afghanistan three times. Once via fundraising for the Norwegian Refugee Council (1981) and twice for NAC (1986 and 1996). It was a demanding task to carry out Operation Day’s Work in October 1996, after the Taliban had captured Kabul on the 26 of September the same year. NAC’s network of old activists and health workers was of great help when hundreds of schools had to be visited and given information about the projects and how these projects could be run in Taliban-controlled areas.
In the provinces of Ghazni and Badakhshan, tens of thousands of children have been educated in the 17-18 years that have passed since the first school books, blackboards, chalk boxes and salary bags were smuggled across the border from Pakistan. The help of Norwegian school pupils has contributed to securing education for Afghans in primary and secondary schools, high schools, teachers’ schools and women’s universities. The Operation Day’s Work money in 1996 went mainly to vocational training for ex-soldiers with the campaign “From war to knowledge”.
NAC became a partner with NORAD in 1989, and later that year became a partner with the organization “Women in the Third World” (later established as Forum for Women and Development, FOKUS). Since 1986, NAC has received contributions from a number of UN organisations, and has carried out vaccination campaigns and educational projects in collaboration with UNICEF, and the ‘work-for-food’ program with the UN World Food Programme (WFP). In 1988, the committee, with UNICEF support, established the first vaccination chain in Afghanistan outside the Soviet-controlled areas.
In 1996, NAC was again awarded the Operation Day’s Work fundraiser, and more than 20 million NOK was collected by Norwegian school children for, among other things, girls’ schools, teachers’ schools, vocational training and a teaching program for mining knowledge. The last projects financed by this collection ended in 2003. The aid was supposed to enter the country – to prevent new refugee flows.
While other organizations prioritized the refugees in the camps in Pakistan during the war, NAC’s guiding principle was that all aid should go directly to projects inside Afghanistan. Parts of the NAC support were given as seeds, various goods, woolen blankets and food, painstakingly transported over mountains and plains through the war zone on horses and donkeys to the western and northern extremes of the country, thousand kilometers from Peshawar, Pakistan. At the same time, vaccination, repair of irrigation systems, well digging, and other projects were carried out in Afghanistan.
When the Soviet Union withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989, the foundations were laid for a permanent hospital, and Chardiwal Hospital, later renamed Miraj, has been the cornerstone of NAC’s health work for 15 years. The hospital has since remained open continuously, also under the Taliban regime, and female doctors and nurses have worked there all along, despite the Taliban’s ban on women working outside the home.
From 1986, NAC had a permanent office in the Pakistani border city of Peshawar, and after the NAC’s relief and assistance programs had grown steadily until 1993, two regional offices were established in the southern Ghazni province and in the northeastern Badakhshan province, respectively. A third program area, East (for Kunar, Nuristan and Nangarhar provinces) was administered from Peshawar. The mainstays of the committee’s activities were still to be health and education, but an engineering staff was also built up to carry out, among other things, water projects, agricultural initiatives and road construction.
From the mid-1990s, NAC had an office in Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, but it was not until 2002 that the security situation allowed the main office to be moved from Peshawar, Pakistan, to Kabul.
In July 1988, the NAC’s local representative Astrid Morken (journalist in Adresseavisen) and administrator Saifurrahman were killed by a mine in Paktia province. After the Soviet invasion and the civil wars, Afghanistan is the most mined country in the world.
That Gorbatsjov was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990 was a heavy blow to many Afghans and friends of Afghanistan. Only after a bloody offensive in an attempt to win the then 5-year-old war did Gorbatsjov decide to pull out the remaining Soviet soldiers. When Gorbatsjov came to Norway to receive the award half a year later, in June 1991, he was met with protests.
Television viewers around the world saw nineteen-year-old Afghan Shalah Sultani, who stood a few meters from Gorbatsjov on the podium with yellow flowers and pictures of mutilated Afghan children, victims of Soviet bombing. Before she managed to reach Gorbatsjov she was taken care of by KGB guards and later Norwegian police. Later in the event, Gorbatsjov was interrupted by the NAC chairman at the time, Terje Skaufjord, who loudly reminded Gorbatsjov of his responsibility to remove the estimated 10 million mines left by them in Afghanistan.
Austerity and lower budgets were followed by strong pressure from the Foreign Ministry and the embassy in Islamabad that the committee had to wind up its projects in Badakhshan for several reasons. It was too far and expensive to travel there. The province was not particularly devastated by war, but “just” very poor (which was downright wrong). The UD grants were linked to emergency aid and reconstruction. In addition, criticism was directed at the fact that the committee worked in the province with the largest opium production, and that we could thus indirectly, albeit involuntarily, contribute to financing someone who was engaged in this illegal business.
Norad, for its part, criticized the committee for being an almost unilaterally self-implementing organization that used its own employees, including engineers, to carry out the projects. This was now considered to be an outdated way of working in the aid context. Other Norwegian organizations had by this time switched to a higher degree of support functions for Afghan NGOs, in some cases created by themselves, or local recipients. Incidentally, this debate has continued until today, and the committee has largely continued to operate as an implementing organisation.
The term Integrated Rural Development (IRD) did also appare on the agenda in the 90s. NAC’s extensive Ministry of Foreign Affairs-supported seminar “From Aid during Times of War to Aid for Reconstruction and Development” with a hundred or so participants from international and Afghan organizations and universities, as well as political and diplomatic actors at an Islamabad hotel in December 1991, was early on in pointing out The IRD approach. This successful seminar was probably part of why the Ministry of Foreign Affairs increased its support for the committee in the early 1990s.
Due to strong support from a skilled OD organization, a good information campaign from the committee as well as a (still) extensive network of old Afghanistan activists and Afghanistan connoisseurs, who traveled around and gave lectures in hundreds of schools, the collection went very well. The belief that the money under the auspices of NAC would reach the planned vocational training for young Afghans, teacher training and a number of other projects in Ghazni, Badakhshan and Ningarhar was present.
But even if the organization passed this test, other problems arose. In the winter of 1997, ominous reports from the auditor pointed to the fact that NAC was bankrupt. The equity was used up. This year’s contribution from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Norad rarely came until well into the spring, even early summer. Unused funds from the previous year, on the other hand, had to be relentlessly repaid. This was not the last time the committee experienced this discomfort. But back then, in 1997, it turned out not to be true. Fortunately, it was a big calculation error, but also a reminder that the NAC’s foundation was not solid enough.
The following year, the organization again showed its ability to draw on its members and old activist networks, when a powerful earthquake in February 1998 killed 3500 people in Takhar in northern Afghanistan. A fundraiser raised significant sums for affected families and reconstruction. The local branch in Bergen was particularly active.
In the 90s, especially the latter part, many Afghan refugees with Hazara identity came to Norway. The Hazara minority suffered particularly under the Taliban rule, cf. the Yakawlang massacre in 2001. Many of them were granted residency, but a group of approximately 100 Hazaras were claimed by the UDI to be Pakistanis in 1997. This became an extensive media issue.
The Oslo branch of NAC got involved strongly with information campaigns, demonstrations and meetings, with great commitment from both members and interested parties. A hearing was also held on the Hazara issue, but not formally in the name of the Afghanistan Committee. The Gholam family with parents and several children came into focus, when the UDI had decided to deport them to Pakistan on the grounds that they were Pakistani citizens. When the family arrived in Karachi on 16 May 1997, none of them were allowed inside. The family was immediately sent back to Norway. Pakistani authorities determined that they were not Pakistanis. On 17 May in the middle of the day, the family arrived in Oslo, and immediately became part of the national day celebrations.
The politicians, especially from the center parties led by Kjell Magne Bondevik, almost stood in a queue to sign NAC’s call for Gholam and the other Hazara families to be granted residence in Norway. After the election in September, which Bondevik and co won, the whistle eventually took on a different sound. To make a long story short, the vast majority of the Hazara families were nevertheless granted residence, including Gholam.
All events related to Afghan refugees and pressure on the authorities gave the Oslo branch great attention, interest and a number of members. The same thing happened again from 7 October 2001 when NAC protested against the US bombing of Afghanistan.
Far more innocent Afghans were killed by American bombs and cluster weapons than the number of Americans killed on 11 September 2001. NAC’s appeal against bombing received broad support from cultural figures and politicians, led by Liv Ullmann. 137 authors signed. NAC organized a torchlight procession on 13 October, together with 50 organisations. The activity was great and so was the attention around NAC. Several extra issues of the committee’s magazine Afghanistannytt (the committee’s organ and membership offer which entered into force in 2010) were published.
NAC was in the front line in support of the approximately 100 Afghans on hunger strike at Oslo Cathedral in the summer of 2006, and the following year when the asylum march with 45 Afghan asylum seekers went from Trondheim to Oslo in the summer of 2007.
These large actions with many participants indicate that our activities in connection with war and asylum matters aroused commitment and interest in NAC. It is not possible to arouse the commitment of a wider group of people around aid work in a similar way, despite all the positive things that can be said about it.
The truth is that in the years after the Soviet Union withdrew in 1989, NAC could never have survived as an organization if it had used its resources – not least the employees and volunteers here in Oslo – to only pursue political issues, even if it is in the committee’s best spirit: solidarity. It is a choice that was made. The committee tries to maintain its solidarity profile by combining aid work with being an active critic of Norway and the international community when the interests of the Afghan people are not taken care of, or Afghan lives are not taken into account.
The hearing in 2010 in connection with the committee’s 30th anniversary with the participation of Afghan parliamentarians was important, not least for the contact between Afghan and Norwegian parliamentarians. The organisation’s very thorough and critical analysis of the government-appointed committee’s Afghanistan report in 2014 was important. Since 2015, NAC has organized Afghanistan Week, where the spotlight is on Afghan conditions and where Afghans living in Norway have an important place.
For many years, there has been good cooperation with young Afghans who have held events under the committee’s auspices, and contributed to the foundation of the storytelling group “Unpolished”. Without becoming an actor that commits itself to individual destinies, NAC has stood firm in its view that forced returns of vulnerable groups to an Afghanistan that is increasingly characterized by war should not be carried out. NAC’s members have assisted repatriated Afghan refugees, and reported concretely on the security situation for returned refugees in various parts of the country.
NAC has also several times made political protests and statements, against both the Taliban and the American bombing in 2001 and later. From and including 2003, NAC received a framework agreement with NORAD which means that 10% of the amount must be collected by the organization itself. Therefore, there has been a greater focus on collecting money to finance the projects in Afghanistan, although NAC has never developed into a fundraising organisation.
The American invasion in October 2001, followed by military contributions from Norway and other NATO countries, quickly broke the Taliban’s armed forces. The military dominance both on the ground, in international politics and in the media presented NAC with severe challenges.
In the wake of the military effort with nearly 150,000 soldiers, there was a flood of newly established NGOs and aid organisations. In short time, NAC lost large parts of its staff in Badakhshan to both American and European organizations. Several had worked for the committee since its establishment in Badakhshan in 1991, including in the establishment of the tree planting project with a nursery in Keshim from 1997.
Others paid far better. NAC has never been a leader on high wages. Before 2001, there was few others than NAC and Afghan Aid in this northeastern province. It can be added that 10 years later the situation was about the same. Many of the organizations were fly-by-night, born out of enthusiasm for Afghan freedom – especially women’s, but without long-term funding or a credible strategy.
At the committee’s head office in Peshawar too, there was some turnover, but the loyalty the majority of the employees showed to their employer was impressive, also when the main operations were moved to Kabul in 2002. That the Norwegian authorities, as well as the UN system and newly established Afghan authorities eventually came with new systems and new requirements for the NGOs that wanted to be involved in the reconstruction of the country, was challenging. (In this context small) NAC participated in tender rounds to lead the entire development of health and education in provinces, and ran the primary health service for the population in two districts of Ghazni for 8 years.
Another complicating factor concerned the relationship with the continuing military dominance. From many countries, military activity and humanitarian aid went almost hand in hand. Norwegian military authorities complained that they were not allowed to provide humanitarian aid when they were established in the “Norwegian” province of Faryab.
All the Norwegian aid organizations (NRC, Norwegian Church Aid, Red Cross, NAC) were adamant that the two had to be sharply separated. Allowing the military to deliver humanitarian aid could be life-threatening for the recipients, who could then be accused of collaborating with the enemy, for example by the Taliban. In 2009, the hospital supported by NAC in Ghazni was raided by American and Polish soldiers who wanted access to patient lists for their Taliban hunt. Similar things never happened in the Taliban-controlled era before 2001. NAC protested and took up the matter locally in Afghanistan and with the Minister for Foreign Affairs.
From 2005, Norway was given responsibility for leading the NATO forces in the Faryab province. The establishment of the Norwegian PRT unit (Provisional Reconstruction Team) in the provincial capital of Meymaneh had consequences for aid work, and NAC came under strong pressure to establish projects in the province. This was a difficult dilemma because the committee needed new projects and was concerned with the principles of not operating under a Norwegian military presence, which was not so easily reconciled. For several reasons, the committee first established itself in Faryab in 2015 after the Norwegian forces withdrew in 2014.
However, in 2010 NAC does not have a clear position on the current war. Many members are opposed to wars and demand that Norwegian forces are withdrawn. Others believe that NAC should not have a firm stance here, but focus on the needs in Afghanistan. Some sympathize with the Afghan government, and have seen ISAF to a greater extent as a buffer against the Taliban.
The concept of solidarity has become difficult to define, and the work to keep a member organization going has been given less space. Aid and development are now in the main seat. Nevertheless, NAC has provided for debate and a critical spotlight on Norwegian and international civil and military involvement in Afghanistan.
In 2007, the board and the newly appointed Secretary General had to ascertain that NAC had reached a crisis. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Norad had been the main donors in previous years, alongside contributions from the World Food Program and other organizations in Kabul. A restructuring of Norwegian aid administration led to the funds for Afghanistan being administered from the Norwegian Embassy in Kabul, and the added value of transferring administration funds to the committee’s head office in Oslo was questioned. In addition, Norad put its foot down as a result of the committee’s inability to contribute a 10% deductible for several years, which was a permanent requirement for Norad support.
Was this the end? The chairman suggested dividing the organization into a foundation with responsibility for the programme, and a member organization with a purely informational purpose. An extraordinary national meeting was to decide on a reorganization as people feared that the Oslo office would be closed down. A counter-proposal was put forward to create a program committee that would be responsible for aid projects, and an information committee that would be responsible for information activities, but both were to be subordinated to a board in which the local committee in Bergen and the women’s committee also were represented.
There was a clear majority in favor of a continued membership-based and united organisation, despite the almost impossible financial situation. A strong argument was the importance of solidarity with Afghanistan, and the important work carried out by NAC’s staff in Afghanistan.
Volunteers and employees entered into a dialogue with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and were promised two years’ operating support for the office in Norway. The program committee, which consisted of people with considerable aid expertise, as well as experience and knowledge from Afghanistan, assisted the land office with the development of a new program for integrated rural development. At the same time, the organization in Kabul was reorganized into a more modern structure, and a new manager was hired in Kabul.
Increased professional aid capacity in combination with strong commitment from members and volunteers laid the foundation for professionalization and program development, which led to increased support from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Norad, as well as international donors. The program for natural resource management was extended to disaster prevention and preparedness. Midwifery education was expanded to include public health nurses and nurses, at a total of 5 schools. The rural development program was extended to Faryab, in addition to Badakhshan and Ghazni. And a systematic capacity-building program for inclusive education was initiated, which laid the foundations for a strengthening and development of education.
Although large amounts of money were allocated, Norway took the lead and used an approximately 50-50 distribution on military and civilian aid, the planning was too poor, and funds were misused to buy goodwill from the local population in areas where the countries conducted military operations. Already in 2005, the Taliban were back and established themselves on Afghan soil, at the same time as Norway got established in Faryab.
NATO’s response to unrest was often bombing, military attacks on the ground and thus new destruction, and loss of civilian life. Those who experienced being exposed to this were subsequently far more receptive to the Taliban’s approaches. As the years went by, were little or no form of organized aid manifested itself in large parts of Afghanistan, this also contributed to the strengthening of the opposition.
NAC has been able to remain in areas where there have been changing regimes because the projects and the work and the involvement of the local population have been trusted locally. Relying on foreign or Afghan military power to operate would be unthinkable.
NAC has maintained its role as a critic of human rights abuses and arbitrary military use of force, where civilians have been the victims. This has not always been as popular in Norway, especially not in the years when Norway had military forces in the country. (We still have that, but it concerns special forces that assist the Afghan security forces in Kabul).
Today, NAC continues to work to contribute to a peaceful Afghanistan, free from poverty, where people in the countryside gain increased power and influence, and value equality and diversity.
Our aim is to support the Afghan people in the development of a peaceful, democratic and egalitarian society, where human rights are respected. Through various development programmes, where the environment and sustainability are central, NAC will work to raise the quality of life for people in the Afghan countryside.
Our mission to the Norwegian public is to be a gathering point for the knowledge, interest and commitment to Afghanistan that exists in Norway. We shall promote Afghan voices and perspectives in the Norwegian public debate, and work for an informed and responsible policy towards Afghanistan.
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