The preservation of Cultural Heritage, Dr Irina Bokova, Director General of UNESCO. EUROPE LECTURE 2016
By Steven van Hoogstraten.
The Director General of UNESCO, Dr. Irina Bokova, spoke on Monday 13 June 2016 in the Kloosterkerk to a high profile audience of some 300 persons on the growing threats to cultural treasures in times of armed conflict. Her speech was the Europe Lecture 2016, organised by the Europe Lecture Foundation and supported by Europa Nostra and the Netherlands’ National Commission for UNESCO . Proceedings were opened by Ms. Ingrid van Engelshoven (vice mayor of the Hague) and closed by HRH Princess Laurentien of the Netherlands.
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DG Irina Bokova said that conflicts are changing shape today – culture and identities have moved to the frontline of new wars. She discussed strategies to respond to what she calls “cultural cleansing”, to deliberate destruction of culture and illicit trafficking of cultural property, which according to UN is linked to the financing of terrorism.
Ms. Irina Bokova emphasized the importance of the respect for diversity in culture, and stressed how national identity is linked to and derived from cultural and religious buildings and objects. Recent wars in Iraq and Syria had led to the destruction or severe damage of heritage sites (Palmyra, Mosul, Aleppo) , and had given rise to looting and smuggling of valuable art pieces which are later sold on the illegal markets. One of the most visible destructions had been the bridge in Mostar in the former Yougoslavia. This bridge, which was iconic for binding different communities together, had been rebuild with the help of UNESCO. Hwever, she explained that such rebuilding can only be done with the help and involvement of the locsl population.
Ms. Bokova indicated that the destruction of cultural heritage in times of war – prohibited by the Hague Convention of 1954 – is directly linked to the themes of Peace and Justice . Cultural pillage has been declared a war crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, in its article 8. The recent resolution of the Security Council nr 2199 on the financing of terrorism officially bans the trade in cultural goods from Iraq and Syria, and calls on UNESCO and Interpol to lead this fight . Ms Bokova said that this will be an important basis for stronger and more concerted world action to fight the unnecessary loss of cultural identity.
The involvement of the Security Council demonstrated in her eyes that cultural heritage has also become a humanitarian and a security issue. UNESCO is at present “connecting the dots “ between peace operations, humanitarian emergency responses and other actions taken for heritage preservation. This is an important task not only for Unesco but also for other stakeholders, she felt, as the subject of cultural heritage should not be seen in isolation. “The destruction of heritage is inseperable from the persecution of people” Irina Bokova stated.
The President of the International Criminal Court , Ms. Silvia Fernandez de Gurmendi, was asked to reply to the speech . She echoed the role the ICC can play under the provisions of the Rome Statute to punish those who destroy important cultural or religious monuments. The intentional destruction of cultural properties is at the heart of the accusations in a case which will start in late August. This is the so called Al Mahdi case, concerning the destruction of historical monuments in Timbuktu, Mali. In fact this will not be the first time that the relation between cultural destruction and the concept of war crimes is at issue. The International Tribunal for the Former Yougoslavia ( ICTY) had already set an example, in declaring the shelling and destruction of the old Town of Dubrovnik, Croatia a war crime in the socalled Strugar case.
Dr Sada Mire, who is a specialist in archeological theory and lectures at the University of Leiden, was the third speaker. She gave a strong and impressive personal account of what she had seen and endured in Somalia. She had fled from the Somali civil war to Sweden at the age of 14, and witnessed the destruction of the ancient quarters of her hometown Mogadishu. Dr Sada Mire explained the archeological fieldwork she had done on Somali heritage in 2007, mapping, documenting and making inventories of hundreds of sites. “I believe that if we can accept diversity in our own past we can accept diversity in the present”, she concluded.
Photography by Europe Lecture.
