[CPProt.net] A heritage under siege

[Reed Van Horth]

Paula Kotakis,
    Thank you for the inclusion of this article. It consists of facts, and
the opinions of the interviewed, not the interviewer. I appreciate that.
    In respect to your "Well here's a fact for you whining imperialist
oinkers" comment. I lived for many years in the middle east, among the
people, and among the treasures. I have an overwhelming perspective in this
very divisive issue because I have close personal friends on both sides of
the fence.
     When I said that I am not going to issue my "opinion" on the matter, it
is because my opinion is of no consequence in this particular forum. This is
not an opinion forum, like a chat-room. This is a forum for well-informed
articles like the one you submitted. Had this article been submitted
initially, I seriously doubt that the obvious uproar would have come about.
    I am not into personal insults, so I will not dignify yours with any
response other than, Thank you for your article.
    Reed Van Horth, Historian
Collection Privee de Peinture et de Sculpture

----- Original Message -----
From: "Paula Kotakis" <disi at igc.org>
To: <list at cpprot.net>
Sent: Monday, April 14, 2003 5:31 AM
Subject: [CPProt.net] A heritage under siege


> My apologies to those who received error messages when they
> tried to access the URL provided last hour. Here is the article in full.
>
> --Paula Kotakis
>
> Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875
> http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/633/hr2.htm
>
> A heritage under siege
>
>     Countless Iraqi historical monuments have already been
>     destroyed and we continue to hear more reports of damage.
>     Nevine El-Aref traces the steps taken, and not taken, to
>     preserve the country's heritage
>
> The United States, Great Britain and Iraq are signatories of The
> Hague Convention of 1954 for the protection of cultural property in
> the event of armed conflict. This stipulates that mankind should
> prevent, make impossible, and sanction any state or group of
> states from destroying, damaging, and desecrating the monuments
> of culture in the territory of another state. They should also ensure
> that national agencies should, as far as possible, exercise
> continued protection and maintenance of such property.
>
> Despite this, and the promise of the US military to be "as gentle as
> possible" concerning the some 4,000 specific sites of historical
> interest in Iraq, during the first week of the Third Gulf War American
> and British forces bombarded Iraq and news came of the complete
> destruction by missiles of the National Museum of Takrit on the
> outskirt of Baghdad.
>
> The aggressors justify their attack by claiming the Iraqis are using
> archaeological sites for their own military advantage. The Boston
> Globe reported that the Iraqi minister of antiquities was "helping
> them to do it". And, in a White House letter on the Internet,
> circulated on 2 January, Peter Grieve wrote: "War is serious
> business, more serious than Mesopotamian archaeology, I'm
> afraid. If some sites are given a protected status, guess where the
> Iraqis will set up bases? The radar installation near the palace of
> Sennacherib was probably put there on purpose."
>
> Three appeals were made before the commencement of the war.
> The first was by international scholars, the second by 18 Iraqi
> archaeologists, and the third by 15 of the world's leading museums
> and most prominent universities, including American. The first
> appeal was for the troops engaged in the war to spare Iraq's
> priceless antiquities and to remind them they were committed to
> respecting Iraq's cultural heritage. The second was to draw world
> attention to the richness of that heritage (see neighbouring story)
> and to fears that it could be plundered as a result of the war, as
> occurred during the 1991 Second Gulf War. The third appeal was to
> urge scholars to take steps to prevent the destruction of relics from
> one of the cradles of civilisation. These appeals, accompanied by a
> detailed report on the dangers facing Iraqi heritage written by
> MacGuire Gibson -- president of the American Association for
> Research in Baghdad -- which raised grave fears about the impact
> of sustained fighting on Iraqi's patrimony, were circulated on the
> Internet. The signatories called also on the international community
> to take on a post-war role in assisting in the protection of
> antiquities from looting, and themselves pledged to help the Iraqi
> Department of Antiquities to do its job.
>
> On Friday 28 March a declaration signed by more than 100
> distinguished American and European academics entitled "The
> grave danger to the priceless heritage of Iraq by military action"
> was published in the Science and Technology News Service. It
> called on all governments to respect the international protocol
> regarding the protection of cultural property in armed conflict. The
> signatories expressed their concern not only about the impact of
> bombs and artillery on historic buildings and archaeological sites,
> but also the looting that would inevitably follow any breakdown of
> law and order in the aftermath of war. A similar plea went out from
> the Blue Shield Organisation, which represents four international
> bodies for libraries, museums, archives and monuments.
>
> The Arab Archaeologists Union, headed by Ali Radwan, former
> dean of the faculty of archaeology at Cairo University, sent an
> official letter to the secretary-general of the Arab League, Amr
> Moussa, appealing to him and to all Arab and foreign countries to
> stop the Anglo-American aggression which would result in the
> destruction of the birthplace of ancient civilisation.
>
> Last Sunday, in an open letter to UNESCO's Head Koichiro
> Matsuura, the head of ALESCO, the Tunis-based Arab League's
> body for education, culture and science, Mongi Bousnina,
> expressed concern at "the scale of the damage done to Iraq's
> cultural heritage since the start of the aggression". He urged the
> UNESCO chief to "remind the invading powers of the utmost
> urgency of their duties and obligations to conform to international
> conventions" on the protection of cultural assets in the event of
> war. He also urged the UN Security Council and the Council of
> Europe to "act in order to end this aggression on one of the richest
> and most ancient parts of humanity's cultural heritage".
>
> The Egyptian Permanent Antiquities Committee has also
> condemned the destruction of the archaeological sites in Iraq.
>
> Jaber Khalil Ibrahim, president of the National Office of Antiquities
> in Iraq, declared: "We will continue to do all we can to protect the
> archaeological sites of our country. Before the war started we took
> steps to protect our museums and sites by packing the objects
> and placing them in safe underground storage areas, and by
> identifying historical buildings by placing big placards on them
> declaring them to be 'Museums' and 'UNESCO-protected' property."
>
> In an effort to protect the contents of the National Museum of
> Baghdad, which boasts the country's largest archaeological
> collection and is located a few metres from the Ministry of Culture
> and Information, Iraq's Ministry of Antiquities took several
> precautions. They enclosed the building with sand bags and buried
> treasures beneath ground level. However, it has not passed
> unobserved that the bombardment could cause craters as deep as
> 30 metres.
>
> Gibson, who has led archaeological digs in Iraq since 1964 and
> who heads a consortium of about 30 museums and universities in
> the United States, went on an inspection tour last January in order
> to document sites in Iraq. He recorded some 4,000, which include
> mediaeval mosques, madrassas, churches, and other historical
> buildings dating from various eras. Many of these are in central
> Baghdad, including the ninth-century Great Shrine of Al-Mutawakkil
> on the outskirts of the city. Others are in the area lying between
> the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Before this tour, the Pentagon had
> listed a mere 150 sites of archaeological importance.
>
> Since the commencement of the war, and according to the Iraqi
> representative of UNESCO, the Takrit National Museum with its
> collection of Islamic objects which date back to the time of
> Salaheddin is not the only building destroyed. Two governmental
> palaces of historical value, which date from the Abbassid era, as
> well as the Zohour (flower) Palace and its Royal Museum, which
> tells the history of the monarchy in Iraq with a collection of official
> royal wearing apparel, queens' robes, and personal possessions
> and utilitarian objects, have also collapsed under the weight of the
> bombardment and been transformed into mounds of rubble.
>
> The 13th-century University of Al-Mustansriya, a 16th-century
> revered Shi'ite mosque called Al- Kadhimain, and the Arch of
> Cetesiphon in Baghdad have also been hit.
>
> On day 14 of the war, Information Minister Mohamed Said Al-
> Sahhaf, addressing the Shi'a community on Iraq's satellite TV
> channel, announced that the aggressors (referring to Anglo-
> American forces)in Najaf had bombarded an area close to the
> mausoleums of both Imam Ali Ibn Abi Taleb, the cousin and son-in-
> law of Prophet Mohamed, and Imam Al-Hussein, his grandson, as
> well asthe shrine of his brother Al-Abbassi. The bombs had shaken
> the ground beneath them and weakened their foundations, and
> threatened the holy buildings with collapse.
>
> It has been rumoured that the National Museum of Baghdad, which
> houses treasures dating from 700 BC to 1000 AD, has been heavily
> targeted by US bombs. However, as the telephone connection to
> Baghdad is down nothing mire has been heard and the current
> state of the museum is not clear.
>
> Saleh Lamei, member of ICOMOS (International Council of
> Monuments and Sites) said: "The risk is not only to existing
> monuments and museums, but to thousands of archaeological
> sites, many not yet excavated, which lie buried and could be
> devastated because the armies are fighting on Iraqi territory using
> bulldozers and heavy artillery. The identity of the nation depends on
> its cultural heritage. By destroying such evidence, thousands of
> years of civilisation have been lost." Lamei drew attention to
> another danger: following the destruction, sites would be open to
> the activities of looters and antiquities smugglers. "It would become
> a free market for illegal activities. This was what happened in
> Baghdad in 1991, when priceless items made their way out of the
> country and were put up for sale at Ebay's Auction House in the
> USA."
>
> The historian Dan Cruickshank, who specialises in architecture,
> claimed on a BBC double- documentary produced when the Iraqi
> Ministry of Information invited a British film crew to visit the
> country's "lost cities" that the remains of Babylon would be "in the
> firing line". He argued in the programme that "defence" was
> determined to avoid "another Dresden", the mediaeval German city
> destroyed by Allied bombing in 1945.
>
> A spokesman declined to comment on potential targets, but a well-
> placed source said: "During the Gulf War, we went to great lengths
> to avoid hitting important sites, and 'smart' bombs have reduced
> collateral damage." Nevertheless, the fact remains that the ancient
> city of Ur did sustain damage during the 1991 war, which, he
> declared, was a casualty of Saddam's decision to site an air base
> there.
>
> In his column in the daily Al-Ahram newspaper, Zahi Hawass, the
> first under-secretary of state in the Ministry of Culture and the
> secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA),
> commented: "When the Taliban set about destroying the great rock-
> hewn statues of Buddha in Afghanistan, the world was up in arms.
> America led the campaign of criticism against them through
> UNESCO and the international media. The Taliban were accused of
> being morons who willfully destroyed monuments. But now,"
> Hawass went on, "it is the Americans who are destroying a
> heritage with the use of high-tech military equipment, and where
> are UNESCO, ICOMOS, or the international museums? Where are
> the experts and the defenders of culture while the Iraqi heritage is
> being desecrated?"
>
> Hawass told Al-Ahram Weekly he was worried that, as the war
> continued, "many of Iraq's archaeological sites will fall into oblivion,
> and how will American professors of archaeology explain to their
> students that the Americans destroyed a rich ancient civilisation in
> the Third Gulf War?"
>
> An appeal for the preservation of Iraq's heritage was made on behalf
> of scholars before the outbreak of war by Mounir Bushnaqi, head of
> the World Heritage Organisation (WHO) who said that UNESCO
> and WHO had provided the American army with comprehensive
> information regarding the actual location of Iraq's archaeological
> sites and museum, as well as the sites on the World Heritage List,
> so that they would have all the necessary information on what to
> avoid. Bushnaqi added that UNESCO had urged the US to take all
> possible steps "to protect and preserve the outstandingly rich Iraqi
> heritage for the benefit of future generations".
>
> "We have received many assurances by the US delegation that
> they have taken into account all the information we have provided
> on the museums and sites," he continued.
>
> "But," Mohamed Abdel-Maqsoud, an SCA representative in
> UNESCO said angrily, "while there was a call for an urgent meeting
> among UNESCO representatives to stop the Taliban desecration
> and to restore the damaged statue, such a call has not been made
> for Iraq. Are not its monuments as important? Why do they not call
> for an international appeal to save them, or call for an urgent
> meeting to discuss the situation?"
>
> Abdel-Maqsoud told the Weekly that two weeks ago, when the war
> started, he was in Paris attending a periodical UNESCO meeting.
> "Nobody bothered to mention the destruction of Iraq's heritage, or
> even issue any statement of condemnation," he pointed out. "If
> UNESCO, WHO and the international community keep silent and
> no action is taken the missiles could threaten other archaeological
> sites, in Syria, Jordan, Iran and Turkey.
>
> "During the third and fourth days of the war, two missiles missed
> their mark and one hit a public bus in Syria where 100 civilians
> died, and the second hit the Iraqi-Iranian border, fortunately without
> causing any casualties. What else could be hit with stray rockets?
> I blame UNESCO and WHO for their unclear policy. Both
> organisations apparently see, hear and speak no evil. UNESCO's
> head must call for a halt to the armed conflict."
>
> On the brighter side, Lamei said that all the signatories of the
> appeals were willing to help in the restoration of Iraq's destroyed
> monuments after the end of the war, whether by providing
> specialists or helping to raise funds for restoration.
>
> "As soon as the situation permits, we will evaluate and prepare an
> action plan," Bushnaqi said. "Our feelings are that this heritage
> belongs not only to Iraqis. It is the heritage of all humanity."
>
> C a p t i o n : Mosque and mausoleum of Al-Abbas in Najaf, the
> foundation of which have been seriously undermined
>
> © Copyright Al-Ahram Weekly. All rights reserved
>
> Al-Ahram Weekly Online : 10 -16 April 2003 (Issue No. 633)
> Located at: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/633/hr2.htm
>
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