Norwegian Peoples Aid – Norsk Folkehjelp – celebrates its 75th Anniversary today. This is an impressive organisation, engaged in an extraordinary way in promoting human rights and social and economic well-being in countries that are particularly in need of global solidarity. In many ways it is very Norwegian, reflecting the deep sense of justice and solidarity so prevalent in its home country.
I say all of this because over the years, as responsible for UNI Commerce Global Union, worked so closely with our Norwegian friends, Norwegian Peoples Aid and others. This was in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where we helped to rebuild civil society after the devastating war in the 1990s, and did our best to support the reconciliation process between people in the different parts of this badly torn country.
Mostar in Bosnia and Herzegovina suffered heavily from the war. Land mines were still all over the place when we came there for the fist time in January 1997, and relations between population groups, separated by the river, were tense. Norsk Folkehjelp did a lot for bringing back a sense of normalcy in the life of this historical town, also together with Norway’s commerce and office workers’ trade union HK.
Our work went far beyond that of an ordinary project, thanks above all to Norway’s commerce and office workers’ trade union Handel og Kontor – HKiN.
The project description will be a separate story, or rather many stories. It ranged from building up viable trade unions which are doing a remarkable job today, to bringing kids from divided Mostar to play football – soccer – in the world’s largest tournament, in Oslo. To do this in the middle of a major and bitter Norwegian airline strike, where both the pilots and the company agreed to fly in the teams for free, is something that will always stay with me as a superb expression of solidarity and responsibility.
I really don’t wonder why my friend Suleiman Hrle, at the time trade union confederation president in Sarajevo, said that they should raise a statue of HK President Sure Arntzen. This was when my friend Sture had convinced Norway’s Prime Minister Thorbjörn Jagland about the need to help the country’s workers to rebuild their union house, Dom Sindikata. It had received over 100 artillery hits during the siege of the Bosnian capital.
Sture Arntzen, President of Norway’s commerce and office workers’ trade union HK, speaks at one of our first meetings with Bosnian trade unionists. Until Norway helped renovate this building badly damaged by artillery during the siege of Sarajevo, conditions for the unions and their people were pretty bad. The project that we started in 1996 was done under the banner of FIET, predecessor of UNI Global Union.
From the start, the HK engagement was a broad one. Board members and representatives from union locals got personally involved, and very broad activities developed in various parts of the country. The other Nordic countries joined in, Denmark, Finland, Iceland and Sweden.
Very remarkably, it was not only the unions but also the commerce sector employers who joined the efforts. The major project to rebuild the work of the leading commerce college in Sarajevo, destroyed completely during the war, would not have happened without the strong engagement of the CEO of Denmark’s commerce employers Sören B. Henriksen.
Todays Dom Sindikata hosts most of the country’s trade unions, among them the commerce union. The young people that run this union are doing an impressive job under still very difficult conditions, with high unemployment and continued insecurity about the future. The support from Norway has been and still is decisive for their continued existence and success.
Still, this solidarity action was very much about Sture and his friends in HK and Norway in general. Their engagement continues, which we saw so clearly and concretely also during the terrible floods in Bosnia and Herzegovina last spring. Our friends in Sarajevo – Mersiha, Fikret, Nerma and others – traveled under difficult conditions both in the federation and the serb republic, bringing urgently needed concrete help to working people and their families.
So Norwegian Peoples Aid? They were always there, involved. Much of what was done and is done would never have been possible without their assistance.
I was so impressed of their work on mine clearing, and on them very concretely helping to build up the necessities of life in so many communities that seemed forgotten by the outside world. Nobody was too small or too insignificant to help and support for our Norwegian friends.
The 75th Anniversary of this great organisation is a good opportunity to say thank you, and to send warm congratulations to them and our Norwegian trade union friends in HK, friends with a golden heart.