assistance and more overt political and military support. The World
Muslim League (Rabitat al-Alam al-Islami) was one of the most
active of such organisations, but not far behind were charities such
as the Saudi Red Crescent.
Western Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs)
The outrage which met the Soviet invasion led to actions not only
by states, but by concerned individuals and non-governmental
organisations (Lorentz, 1987; Dupree, 1988b). For much of the
Soviet–Afghan war, the UN, constrained by the acceptance of the
communist regime’s credentials, was unable to undertake humani-
tarian actions in areas of the country beyond Kabul’s control. Non-
Governmental Organisations were not bound by similar constraints.
As a result, NGOs penetrated the Afghan countryside in large num-
bers, not only providing services to the Afghan population, but in
some cases also bearing witness as to what the Afghan population
had to endure at Soviet hands.
Particularly important in this respect were medical NGOs, such
as the French organisations Médecins Sans Frontières, Aide
Médicale Internationale, and Médecins du Monde. Building on the
work of earlier development programmes, they took up the task of
providing medical care in areas which otherwise would have had
no access to such services (O’Connor, 1994). Their work was by
no means free of risk, and in 1983 attracted widespread attention
when the Kabul regime managed to capture and put on trial a
young French doctor, Philippe Augoyard, who was working for
Aide Médicale Internationale. As in the case of the trial of the
Kabul University professors, the appalling image of the regime
which this projected to the wider world outweighed any possible
benefits from disrupting the medical relief programme, and faced
with an international outcry, the regime was ultimately obliged to
release Augoyard, who then wrote a damning memoir of his exper-
iences (Augoyard, 1985).
As well as those agencies specifically concerned with medical
aid, a range of bodies became involved in supplying assistance
The Development of Afghan Resistance 83