Her heart is all but broken. Dr Sybille Schnehage is the driving force behind one of the most successful aid projects in Afghanistan. She has earned the respect of Afghans of all political persuasions. But, betrayed by one of her closest friends and business associates, who used to call her 'Mother', her life has become a nightmare.

Dr Schnehage began her aid work in Afghanistan in 1994, during the civil war that followed the withdrawal of Soviet troops in 1989. She continued it when the Taliban were in power. Dr Schnehage was so well-respected that even the Taliban allowed local girls to attend the schools she had established in the rural northern province of Kunduz. She still has an official permit for the schoolgirls, signed by the Taliban leadership in Kandahar City. 

Radio Netherlands Worldwide interviewed Dr Schnehage in 2007 (see the article German aid worker wins Afghan hearts).

Award-winning projects
The grass roots projects run by her 'Katachel Association' - named after a village in Kunduz province - expanded steadily. In 2006 she won the Malalai Award, the highest Afghan state recognition for women. The funding for her projects came from a variety of sources including individual German donors, the Dutch government and an umbrella organisation called 'Women in Europe for a Common Future' (WECF).

Shadow bookkeeping
But late last year, her life's work all but fell apart. It turned out that her Afghan business manager, Dadgul Delawar, had been keeping shadow accounts ever since the aid projects began in 1994. "One document was meant for me, for the association. I trusted these documents", Sybille Schnehage told Radio Netherlands Worldwide. "But parallel to that, there were also the original documents, which he filed under his name." Much of the real estate she believed to have been registered in the name of the Katachel Association, had in fact been registered to Dadgul Delawar. She immediately broke all ties with him and filed suit to redress the issue.

Reconstructive surgery
Dadgul Delawar is not just another Afghan employee of a German aid organisation. His personal history is deeply entwined with that of the Katachel Association. In 1992, Dadgul was a young Mujaheddin fighter whose face was almost blown off by a Soviet grenade. Sybille Schnehage first met him in hospital and brought him back to Germany, where he underwent 40 operations to reconstruct his face. At times, he lived at the home of Dr Schnehage and her husband and became a close family friend. He told her about his home village, Katachel, and that is how the aid project began.

Physical threats
Sybille Schnehage is devastated that someone she regarded as being like a son betrayed her for personal gain from the onset. "This person betrayed me from the very beginning," she says. "It is an absolute horror I'm going through. It has almost broken my heart." But it did not end at business fraud. Dadgul recently threatened her personally, and a new local staff member working for Sybille Schnehage has been seriously injured in a bomb attack.

Properties
Dr Schnehage now spends much of her time trying to undo the real estate fraud. "At the moment proceedings have begun in Kunduz for the Afghan government to return these properties to me. I do not accept that he only gives me back my house. There are several other properties as well, which were built in part with public funds," Sybille Schnehage says.

Radio Netherlands Worldwide contacted the WECF, a long-time supporter of the Katachel Association. The organisation has put its financial contributions on hold pending the outcome of the legal proceedings in Kunduz. Chairwoman Sascha Gabizon: "It's very difficult for us to understand. We have known Dadgul for a long time now, and we could never have imagined that he would lie to his partner Sybille Schnehage, who saved him."

'Meticulously managed'
According to Sascha Gabizon, the WECF has looked into the 'shadow bookkeeping case' against Dadgul. "We immediately asked for all the financial documents, not only those of our own projects. We got them immediately," Sascha Gabizon told RNW. "We see that all the money we and other donors gave was very meticulously managed, it was always sent by bank transfer from Germany to Afghanistan. We have all the reports of everything that has been built, photographs of all the buildings which were constructed. We have shown this to our registered auditors, and we can find absolutely no fault on the German side of Katachel."

One question remains: why hasn't the Afghan government stepped in to straighten out the matter? It seems the least it could do for a recipient of the Malalai Award, and for a successful aid project that has garnered so much respect over the years.

Links:

Katachel e.V.
WECF