Doctors Without Borders: Humanitarian Quests, Impossible Dreams of Médecins Sans Frontières

5. The Return of MSF Greece

CHAPTER FIVE The Return of MSF Greece MSF Greece was reintegrated through a prolonged, incremental process, which began at a meeting of the International Council in Barcelona on November 22–24, 2002, where two MSF members appointed to go on a “fact-finding mission ” to Greece presented their report. The aim was “to assess whether we feel confident to start negotiations with the former MSF Greece.”1 The report found that “the former MSF Greece see themselves as MSF [and] followers of the same rules and principles,” and wanted to have access again to “the support that comes with being a part of a movement.” MSF Greece was active both inside and outside of Greece, and in keeping with MSF’s policies, eighty percent of its funds came from private money, rather than governmental sources of any kind. However, it lacked emergency capacity. Moreover, “Mozambique and India [where MSF Greece had sent teams] were quite painful experiences for them in that respect (too small for any impact), they seem to have reached a limit in the number of projects they can manage due to lack of experience and means [of] logistical support.” The report focused on the tension between “humanitarian action and the pressure of [Greek] civil society” on MSF Greece, despite the fact that “they The Return of MSF Greece 89 believed they were more independent than any other Greek NGO.” “The key is that as part of the conditions for [their] re-integration, a debate needs to be held with them on the political aspects of humanitarianism.” The report attributed Greece’s defiant decision to go into Kosovo largely to three “key people” in MSF Greece at the time—especially to Odysseas Boudouris . Since these people were now gone, the present seemed to be “the right time to open up a dialogue with former MSF Greece.” At the end of the discussion, a “resolution on the former MSF Greece section ” was drawn up and unanimously accepted: The IC decides to open up a dialogue with the former MSF Greece section to look into the possibility of a future reintegration of the former section as a member of MSF–International. The IC states the following clear non-negotiable conditions for a future membership in the movement: 1. The former MSF–Greece must share with the movement a thorough critical analysis of their actions in Kosovo during spring 1999, and their position on other major crises. 2. The operations carried out by the former MSF–Greece section, if to be continued , must be fully incorporated in one of the current five operational directorates of MSF as stated in the International Council resolution on future growth and operationality of MSF. 3. The former MSF–Greece must accept that the legal ownership of the name Médecins Sans Frontières, the acronym MSF, its Greek translation and the logo both inside Greece and internationally belongs exclusively to MSF– International, which is a common obligation of the partner sections. The IC asks the International Office and the executive to appoint two people from MSF to discuss a possible reintegration of the former MSF–Greece section. The commission should report back to the IC no later than November 2003. It was not until January 13, 2007, that MSF Greece was fully readmitted into MSF International, as an operational cell, with MSF Spain, in the Operational Center Barcelona Athens (OCBA). This occurred at the close of a “Kosovo debate ” that took place at an Extraordinary General Assembly meeting of the Greek section, which was also attended by the president and the secretarygeneral of the International Council and representatives from a number of other MSF sections.2 The debate was the last of the agreed-upon prerequisites for MSF Greece’s reincorporation into the international movement to be fulfilled. 90 Growing Pains The Kosovo Debate The tone of the Kosovo meeting was set by Jean-Michel Piedagnel, executive director of MSF UK, in his role as the facilitator of the debate. This was “not a trial,” Piedagnel insisted. Rather, it was an opportunity to “move away from black and white positions,” to analyze the “big internal and international crisis ” that had occurred, with “the maturity to move on” that now existed.3 Jean-Hervé Bradol, MSF France’s director of operations at the time of the Kosovo crisis, laid out the main points the debate should address. Had the decision to expel MSF Greece...