Marc
Blaser
Marc Blaser profile's picture
Angola

I want to be the light and flame that blaze in the hearts of those who still walk this earth.

- Janne Furch-Allers

We remember Marc Blaser

Marc Blaser was born on 2 December 1964 in Bern. He went to grade school and high school in Bern, completing his secondary studies in 1985 at the age of 20. He liked travelling – he visited various countries in North America and Europe, not to mention Kenya, in his youth – and enjoyed playing sports and the clarinet. He also shared a passion for shortwave radio with his father: they both earned their licence in 1982, after which they immediately bought their own transmitter. Marc learned Morse code and even taught a six-month course on it for the Swiss army while still in high school. He enjoyed the camaraderie of the shortwave community, and one of his peers encouraged him to use his skills at the ICRC. Looking to fill a four-month gap before starting his military service, Marc applied for work there in February 1985.


Marc was hired by the ICRC for a four-month mission to Angola starting in October 1985. He was the youngest of the organization’s 70 expatriate employees in the country, and one of four radio operators. He and his three colleagues were responsible for radio communications among the ICRC’s six sites in Angola. Marc’s first posting was to Luanda, where he had to master Morse code in French so that he could quickly translate piles of telegrams written in that language. He then went to Huambo, where he set up radio equipment and made trips to various outposts to do technical repairs. Light-hearted by nature, Marc quickly came to be appreciated among his colleagues for his kindness and professional skills. He loved to be of help and cherished the opportunity to get away from his desk from time to time.


Marc’s next stop was the port city of Lobito, the main entry point for the relief supplies that the ICRC shipped to Angola. Given the unreliability of the country’s train service, much of this aid was forwarded by air to destinations around the country, and radio communications were a crucial part of that process. Marc enjoyed his work, and in a letter to his supervisor expressed interest in doing a future mission. But on 16 December 1985, a couple of weeks after his 21st birthday, Marc was shot and killed near Lobito in an apparent robbery attempt.


In keeping with the humanitarian impulse that drove Marc, his parents responded to his death by setting up a charitable foundation in his name. Since building its first school in Togo in 1987, the Marc Blaser Foundation has branched out and now runs projects in the areas of nutrition, health and education in 12 countries. The foundation’s roots keep spreading, and Marc’s legacy lives on.

The ICRC in
Angola, 1985

In 1985 the bulk of the ICRC’s worldwide operations was in Africa. More than 200 expatriate staff – almost half its global figure – were spread across 24 different delegations and subdelegations. A significant proportion were in Angola, a country torn apart by civil war since gaining its independence from Portugal in November 1975. The conflict was between the communist People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) and the anti-communist National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), both of which were originally anticolonial movements. The fighting evolved into a complex conflict: the MPLA was allied with the South West Africa People’s Organisation (SWAPO), backed by the USSR and Cuba and in control of the government, while UNITA had the active military support of South Africa and the backing of the United States. In 1985 the ICRC continued to assist people fleeing the fighting between government and UNITA forces in the central highlands and the south-east of the country, as well as those uprooted by the sporadic hostilities between Angolan and South African government forces in the south. The ICRC had upwards of 70 expatriate staff and 800 local staff in Angola and ran its operations out of the main delegation in Luanda and subdelegations in Huambo, Kuito, Lobito, Lubano and Namibe. This allowed the organization to pursue its multipronged campaign of delivering food and drugs, orthopaedic services, medical treatment and training, and tracing services. The ICRC continued to experience various headwinds in its work, including security threats and limited access to government-held detainees, not to mention the logistical challenges posed by the local transport infrastructure. In the upper highlands, unreliable road and rail connections led the organization to deliver its assistance by air: heavy cargo planes brought supplies from the ports – Lobito and Namibe – to various intermediate destinations, from which a number of light aircraft then carried the supplies to towns around the region. The widespread use of aircraft depended on effective radio communications, which in turn required experts like Marc Blaser.

Memories

Lobito Angola 1985
13 January 2023
ICRC
2022 Report on the Marc Blaser Foundation created by his parents Silvia and Hans Blaser with life insurance money.
You can activate the English subtitle.
22 December 2022
ICRC

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