Daniel Eiffe is the operations officer for the non-governmental organization Norwegian People's Aid (NPA), which operates in southern Sudan in support of John Garang's Sudenese People's Liberation Army.
The NPA's support of the SPLA has been so lurid as to cause it to be "fired" by the Norwegian government, which had funneled aid money for the famine victims in southern Sudan through the NPA. However, the Norwegian People's Aid continues to receive large amounts of money from the U.S. Agency for International Development, up to $25 million annually, according to its own literature.
Norway was forced to suspend all aid to NPA following an official report certifying that the NPA has been assisting the war efforts of of the SPLA for at least the last ten years. This report was conducted by the Danish COWI Konsult, a consulting firm used by the United Nations. The COWI Konsult report stated that two Norwegian organizations, NPA and Church Emergency AID (Kirkens Noedhjelp), have contributed to prolonging the war in southern Sudan through pumping aid (food, medical care, transport facilities) to Garang's SPLA.
The report states: "The NPA has provided the SPLA soldiers with food, put cars and houses under SPLA's disposal, and built schools for the children of the SPLA officers," as reported in the May 20 Aktuelt newspaper. The report further states that the NPA is "more preoccupied with treating wounded soldiers at the front than providing care for the civilian population." "To establish a field hospital close to the front is something you do when your main concern is military progress," COWI charged.
According to Aktuelt, "The [COWI] report also puts big question marks over Norsh Folkehjelp's [NPA] positive information about the work in Sudan, provided to people who donate money and to Norway's media. When put under greater scrutiny the reports have turned out to be unsatisfactory and full of wrong conclusions. Norsh Kokehjelp's work in the south of Sudan is led from the organization's office in Nairobi, that for the past years has been very turbulent, with the dismissal of two leaders, debts of millions, accusations of corruption and bitter feuds among the staff."
To these charges, NPA Chief of Information Iva Christiansen effectively pleaded guilty, saying: "The report makes soldiarity work a problem and strives for neutrality in the aid work. We have never been neutral in the conflict in southern Sudan, we openly support the SPLA," as reported in the May 20 Aftenposten. "The SPLA guerrillas are in control of the areas where the civilians are suffering, and without their permission it would be impossible for us to operate there."
Eiffe himself operates out of Wilson Airport in Nairobi, Kenya, and has a forward base at Lokichoggio, Kenya, along the border with Sudan. Even in July, after the scandals around the NPA had exploded in Norway, Winter's U.S. Committee for Refugees brought Eiffe to Washington to lobby for money, a stance that was endorsed in July 29 hearings by the Africa Subcommittee of the House of Representatives, in which Assistant Secretary of State Susan Rice called for funding non-governmental organizations operating outside of the United Nations' Operation Lifeline--a clear reference to the NPA.
The NPA was founded by the Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions in 1939 and has been active in southern Sudan since 1986. Despite its "leftist" profile, it has been cooperating closely with "right-wing" Christian fundamentalist groups led by Baroness Caroline Cox's British-based Christian Solidarity International. The NPA's relationship with the group around Mossad agent Michael Harari could date back to its support for the Nicaraguan Sandinistas in their struggle against dictator Anastasio Somoza in the 1970s.
Their relationship to the SPLA could be related to the fact that the public spokesman of the SPLA, Monsour Khalid, was the vice-chairman of the so-called Brundtland Commission, founded in 1987 by Gro Harlem Brundtland, former Prime Minister of Norway, who now holds a high position in the United Nations.
The NPA literature claims that they only deal with the SRRA, which is suppose to be the "humanitarian aid" organization of the SPLA. Although considered a relief organization, they do not hide their politics. In a commentary in the Norwegian daily Aftenposten on Sept. 29, 1998, the secretary general of the NPA, Halle Joern Hanssen, stated in clear terms that his organization is "political" and its main goal is to support the war efforts of John Garang and his Sudanese People's Liberation Movement. Hanssen attacked all other international aid agencies that are active in Sudan, including the international Operation Lifeline Sudan (OLS) and the United Nations, for working "under the dictates of the Khartoum regime." "We have chosen a totally diffrent position," wrote Hanssen, who prefers to work in the "liberated areas."
This position was official reasserted at the meeting of NPA's national board on Sept. 13:
"Since 1986-87, we have, therefore, chosen to take sides in the conflict in southern Sudan through both our practical work and through the political expressions and impressions that we have marked. We have sided by the oppressed people of southern Sudan against the oppressors in Khartoum who are represented by a brutal military dictatorship. Our main cooperation partner is the SPRA, which is, again, the humanitarian aid organisation of the SPLM. Simultaneously, we have established a strong and continued contact with the leadership of the SPLM and the SPLA. This contact and trust is totally necessary for our practical activities in the field in the liberated areas."
The NPA was not only accused of aiding and abetting the military wing of the SPLA, but also for "keeping the conflict going" in southern Sudan--the conflict that has cost more than 1 million lives. According to the Aktuelt daily, "It has increased the hostilities between different groups in the country. Partly by actively supporting certain factions, and partly by operating in certain parts of the country."
Eiffe wants this war to widen, and for this reason is working to keep the SPLA alive after the defeat of its latest attempt to seize East Equatoria.