In the aftermath of massive cultural destruction that occurred during WWII, nations across the globe convened in the Netherlands in 1954 to draft the Hague Convention in an effort to prevent wartime cultural loss in any future armed conflict (Wegener and Otter). This included all forms of mobile or stationary cultural heritage regardless of their origin or ownership. After a number of crimes committed against cultural property in the 80’s and 90’s, a Second Protocol to the Hague Convention was drafted, which created a new category of enhanced protection and more clearly defined sanctions and criminal responsibility (“Armed Conflict and Heritage”). However, even though these protocols are in place, the wartime destruction of cultural heritage has persisted in perhaps more complex ways with the recent War in Iraq and the present ISIS campaign of cultural destruction.
Photo by Erik Albers, "Palmyra from the west," Wikimedia Commons
In 2003, when the U.S. invaded Iraq, the National Museum saw extensive loss. Even though it was second on the list of important places to protect in the country, it was ambushed nonetheless with several thousand objects looted, damaged, and destroyed. Some have criticized the U.S. military campaign as having “failed” to secure Iraqi culture even though archaeologists had previously met with the Pentagon, prior to the invasion, to provide mapped points indicating the location of heritage sites in Iraq (Lawler 1). In the thirteen years since the invasion, there has still been extensive damage and looting to heritage sites in the country due to a lack of security (Wegener and Otter). Remarkably, the Iraq National Museum prepared for the U.S. invasion in the weeks prior, secretly securing and storing a large portion of the museum’s collection (ibid). Of the 170,000 objects estimated to be in the museum collection, most were later found to be safe though an estimated 15,000 are still missing or destroyed (ibid). This was only the case due to the forward-thinking museum professionals who even painted the international symbol for the protection of cultural property (a blue shield) on the rooftop of the museum (Wegener and Otter). It was also a preventable problem.
Iraq did not have a group of Monuments Men, who helped locate and protect cultural heritage, and many countries have few if any cultural personnel in their militaries (ibid). Ironically, even though the United Nations were responsible for the Hague Convention, it was United Nations sanctions that kept museum professionals at the National Museum in Iraq from training and therefore learning proper conservation techniques (ibid). There were no real experts left to deal with the objects that were left smashed in the gallery, and foreign conservation experts were denied entry into the country because they were neither employed by the ministry of state nor a governmental aid organization (ibid). More than a year after the invasion, Italy sent in conservationists to train museum professionals in Iraq (ibid). Alarmingly, as of today, no congressional hearings or independent investigations have been done to identify negligent parties, and the only formal report on the museum fiasco was written by a U.S. Marine who claimed the Iraqis used the museum as base for attacks (Lawler 2).
With the rise in cultural destruction at the hands of the Islamic State (ISIS), cultural heritage professionals have an even more complicated task as attacks cross borders and cultural spaces and are often used as political statements. The recent attacks at the 1,800 year old site of Palmyra have been called war crimes by UNESCO Director-General, Irina Bokova (Voone, “Palmyra”). It was recently discovered that ISIS has obliterated Dair Mar Elia, the oldest Christian Monastery in Iraq (Voone, “Satellite Images”). ISIS continues to target sites they deem heretical in an effort to remove both the current and historical peoples they represent.
Museum professionals Corine Wegener and Marjan Otter call for a more global, non-governmental unit modeled after humanitarian aid organizations to work more collaboratively and efficiently in protecting culture, which they call the International Committee of the Blue Shield:
Emergency planning is even more important today, given the willful destruction and looting witnessed during recent conflicts and the possibility in many places of terrorist attacks. Cultural heritage organizations should recognize that government and military resources often do not have the expertise or available personnel to provide assistance, particularly if they are concerned with saving lives. Therefore, cultural heritage organizations must themselves assume responsibility for protecting collections and planning for the worst (ibid).
Certainly the widespread and global effects of ISIS’s war on culture stimulates the need to strategize and implement cross-cultural, collaborative programs. In just this past month UNESCO announced a new partnership with Italy to create a 60-person task force of art detectives, restorers, and Italian military police called “Peacekeepers of Culture” to “assess risk and quantify damage done to cultural heritage sites, develop action plans and urgent measures, provide technical supervision and training for local national staff” (Dunne). The task force also aims to prevent looting and illegal trafficking of cultural heritage to cut off ISIS funding and will be centralized in Turin, acting as a training center for cultural heritage protection experts.
The Peacekeepers of Culture is one example of multinational agencies uniting in the preservation of culture in times of war, and though it is not quite the organization Wegener and Otter imagine, it is a step forward. Perhaps it is time for a Third Protocol, one that establishes harsher sanctions that specifically deal with those who declare war on culture itself; one that remedies previous loopholes that denied proper training to museum professionals who tried to preserve Iraqi heritage in the midst of invasion; and one that seeks to create special wartime circumstances that allow UNESCO, governments, and NGO’s to build better bridges in the fight against cultural cleansing.
Works Cited
“Armed Conflict and Heritage.” UNESCO. UNESCO, n.d. Web. 25 February 2016.
Dunne, Carey. “Italy and UNESCO Establish Task Force to Protect Cultural Heritage in Conflict Zones.” Hyperallergic. Hyperallergic, 16 February 2016. Web. 25 February 2016.
Lawler, Andrew. “National Museum, Baghdad: 10 Years Later.” Archaeological Institute of America. Archaeology (2016): 1-2. Web. 29 February 2016.
Voon, Claire. “ISIS Destroys Palmyra’s 1,800-Year-Old Arch of Triumph.” Hyperallergic. Hyperallergic, 5 October 2015. Web. 25 February 2016.
---. “Satellite Images Confirm the Destruction of Iraq’s Oldest Christian Monastery by ISIS.” Hyperallergic. Hyperallergic, 20 January 2016. Web. 25 February 2016.
Wegener, Corine and Marjan Otter. “Cultural Property at War: Protecting Heritage During Armed Conflict.” The Getty Conservation Institute. CGI Newsletter 28.1 (Spring 2008): n. pag. Web. 25 February 2016.