This Gulf War was entirely unnecessary. It has caused inestimable human misery to the people of Iraq and has wrecked an irreplaceable goldmine of cultural heritage. The looting of hospitals and other public buildings is serious enough, particularly when hundreds of women and children are suffering from the effects of bombing and artillery fire, but at least that medical infrastructure can be rebuilt. Not so the country’s priceless material culture.
This war has revealed more than any conflict since the Second World War, the essentially philistine nature of Western capitalist economies, as the US barges into a country of unparalleled historical significance in order to further its own strategic aims. Clearly the coalition forces made no proper contingency plans for the immediate aftermath.
Of course, scores of extra troops were standing by to quash an intransigent Republican Guard had it decided to fight to the bitter end, but when peacekeeping personnel were needed to defend public buildings and the cultural treasures in Iraq’s museums, there was suddenly a paucity of ‘men on the ground’.
“We haven't targeted anything, nor are we firing at these precious sites,” US Navy Lt. Cmdr. Charles Owens, a spokesman for the U.S. Central Command, told ABC News. What neither he nor his military superiors had taken into account is that cultural heritage is not only destroyed by bombing and artillery fire, but by a lawless people after the conflict ends. Any sophisticated military planner would have made allowance for this, particularly in a country such as Iraq, and particularly given what happened after the last Gulf War.
Owens went on to say that he was unaware of any damage to museums, but he had only to tune into networked radio broadcasts to hear that Mosul museum had been ransacked by a mob, two men seen carrying off an ancient portal, while gangs burst into the museum storeroom and targeted ancient Assyrian and Babylonian stone tablets.
Meanwhile, Baghdad’s archaeological museum was also looted, according to an AFP reporter, with dozens of opportunists on the ground floor helping themselves to ancient pottery artefacts and statues. After seeing hundreds of computers looted from offices in recent days, it is perhaps only a matter of time before Iraq’s ancient material culture starts appearing on eBay, that pernicious paradise for traffickers in stolen goods and looted antiquities.
While this tragic destruction was taking place in what archaeologists call “the cradle of civilisation”, a sinister-sounding organisation calling itself the American Council for Cultural Policy (ACCP) – a coalition of antiquities collectors and arts lawyers (now there’s a venal concatenation of interests) – was lobbying for a relaxation of Iraq’s export legislation.
It is antiquities collectors who provide the incentive for looters in the first place. No modern museum worth its reputation would even consider purchasing antiquities without documented provenance, but auction houses and dealers continue to offer objects of uncertain origin, while wealthy collectors remain the end users, fuelling the supply chain. Websites such as eBay unwittingly provide cover for the traffic in illicitly-acquired artefacts, but the entire process, from tomb-robber and museum-looter to dealer and collector, needs policing. Failing to do so will result in the dispersal of the world’s cultural heritage.
No matter how we dress this up, Bush and Blair are directly to blame. There was no proper legal or human justification for this war. Saddam’s régime was toothless in the face of international political and diplomatic containment in recent years. The region will never be cleaned of weapons of mass destruction while Israel is allowed to intimidate its neighbours with its privileged nuclear stockpile.
No ‘smoking gun’ has been found in Iraq. It would only have been necessary to relax sanctions and attach specific conditions to that relaxation, to re-empower the Iraqi people. Political change in the modern world needs to occur organically. Attempts to impose it through the military industrial complex is fraught with danger and invariably leads to the uncontainable humanitarian crisis we now see unfolding across Iraq today. And it will not end here. The blunt weapon of American neo-colonialism will grind forwards, creating new cells of informal opposition around the world. America bleats about why it is so despised and then promptly sends a reckless and unwieldy military machine into a region where it has no business to be. The British government should be ashamed of itself for collaborating and exposing British forces to 'blue-on-blue' - that hideous euphemism which disguises the fatal flaws in America's computerised command structure - which has killed so many young soldiers and airmen in this conflict.
The built and moveable heritage of Iraq may seem a small part of all this, but a country’s ancient material culture is crucial to a people seeking to heal themselves after a terrible war. Now that point of reference, that umbilicus joining the Iraqi people to their ancient ancestors, has been severed, or at any rate dispersed beyond retrieval. It will be interesting to see how the international art market associations respond to this crisis. Now is a time for collaboration and visionary thinking. So don’t hold your breath.
Police looking for leads to solve theft from Pittsburg State art exhibit
By JOE NOGA Morning Sun Staff Writer
The investigation into a recent art heist from an exhibit at Porter Hall on the Pittsburg State University campus sometime early Wednesday morning continues as local investigators contact surrounding cities and state for help. "Will be contacting the Kansas Bureau of Investigation and other local law enforcement agencies in Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma," said Butch Herring, assistant director of campus police. "What we are doing now is trying to get the word out about the theft and the descriptions of the paintings to area law enforcement and hopefully we will be able to recover them." The exhibit featured 55 pieces of art from two PSU artists, Kale Van Leeuwen, a senior fine arts major, and Michael Lasseter a graduate art student. There are 13 paintings missing, nine created by Van Leeuwen and four from Lasseter. Both men have removed their remaining art from the exhibit. "The bad thing is I had to take down my exhibition. Now I can't share it with anybody," Lasseter said. "This is my last semester. This was to be my crowning achievement, my big, solo graduate exhibition. It is just a bad ending to a whole lot of work." "Just in the last two nights alone they had the showing of this artwork, so there were many, many, many people in there," Herring said. "It is really an impossibility to fingerprint an area like that. Basically, what we are hoping is that someone recognize the paintings and contact us. Herring said that they have started interviewing people about the night in question. "We've started interviewing people who were at Porter that night and interviewing people who were there in the morning," herring said. "We did interview one graduate assistant who was there until 2 a.m. and when she left she noticed that one of the paintings that was taken was hanging crooked on the wall and she straightened up. So we know they were there at 2 a.m."
Herring said the custodial staff comes in at 6 a.m. but he said they weren't sure if the paintings were there or not. "But when Ms. Schick came in between 7 a.m. and 8 a.m. she did notice the paintings were missing. So we are relatively sure that at some time in between, these items were removed." Herring said he isn't sure how the paintings were removed, but he said he does think that it was a theft of opportunity. "I think it is more a fact of during their showings many people asked what the paintings were worth," Herring said. "The fact is, somebody saw an opportunity and grabbed it."
Van Leeuwen said that the value of his art was listed at approximately $2,500. "The bad thing about these paintings is that I can't replace them," Lasseter said. "I can't go out and paint another one like them, it doesn't work that way. One of them was of my parents' farms and I had a deep attachment to it. I have had offers to sell it but I wouldn't." Lasseter said his paintings were conservatively worth about $3,600 and he was offered nearly $1,000 for the painting of his parents' farm.
Anyone with information can contact the Pittsburg State University Police at 620-235-4624.
To see photos of the stolen paintings go to www.morningsun.net/photogallery.
Internet site for stolen antiquities launched
A new Internet site, displaying photos of antiquities illegally smuggled out of Egypt, has been designed by the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA).
The website will also give detailed information about each item and is part of the Ministry of Culture's efforts to effect restoration of stolen antiquities, said Dr. Zahi Hawass, SCA Secretary-General, yesterday. He stated that a committee, led by Mohamed Abdul-Maksoud, general manager of the Lower Egypt Antiquities' Department, had been formed to handle legal procedures and take executive steps for the restoration of stolen items. The website will aid auction galleries to establish whether items offered for sale are genuine or illegal, enable them to inform Interpol of suspicious items and halt any sales, said Dr. Abdul-Maksoud. He mentioned that the International Governmental Committee to Restore Cultural Possessions to their Homelands, recommended at a meeting held at UNESCO headquarters in Paris last week, that all countries encountering this problem should set up such websites and link them to Interpol. Lists of smuggled antiquities are being prepared for submission to UNESCO, as well as the follow-up of auction house Internet sites offering antiquities for sale, to take legal procedures and halt sales of any suspected items, said SCA director general of restored antiquities, Ibrahim Abdul-Meguid.
He added that another list will include antiquities, which have already been restored and these will also be displayed on the websites.
(as soon as the URL is known we will inform Cpprot.net subscribers)
Published on TaipeiTimes http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2003/04/12/201766
History is being washed away at Taipei site
By Chang Yun-Ping STAFF REPORTER Saturday, Apr 12, 2003,Page 4
DPP Taipei City Councilor Hsu Chia-ching has demanded that the city's Cultural Affairs Bureau step up efforts to protect a prehistoric archeological site which now lies derelict on the grounds of the Municipal Children's Recreation Center (MCRC).
"The Yuanshan Culture site, which holds the largest prehistoric shell mound in Taiwan, has been listed as a national historical heritage site," Hsu said yesterday. "However, the Cultural Affairs Bureau, which is responsible for managing the site, has left the site barren and untended," Hsu said. The city councilor demanded that the cultural affairs council move to protect the existing 2.7 hectare site, and coordinate with the Ministry of the Interior (MOI) to determine the exact boundary of the site -- which includes the shell mound where inhabitants would discard the shells from shell fish they had eaten. To make her point, Hsu led officials from the Cultural Affairs Bureau, Education Bureau, and the recreation center to inspect the remaining relics. The prehistoric Yuanshan culture, which existed in Taiwan around 3,000 to 4,000 years ago, was first discovered by a Japanese archaeologist in 1897. Although the site has been known about for some time, it was not until 1988 that the Ministry of the Interior officially listed the area as a first-degree national historical heritage site. Hu said that according to the Cultural Heritage Preservation Law, the local government is responsible for managing and maintaining historical heritage sites that lie within its jurisdiction. Therefore, Taipei's Cultural Affairs Bureau is responsible for looking after the site. "However, it has been two years since the former director of the Cultural Affairs Bureau, Lung Ying-tai, inspected the site and instructed the appropriate management work. Nothing has been done so far. The relics site is still deserted," Hsu complained.
At the site, artifacts could be seen lying exposed on the ground, apparently being washed away by rain and wind. "The shell mound is especially vulnerable to damage from typhoons," Hsu said. However, the recreation center, which is responsible for managing the site on the city's behalf, is not equipped for such work. "The preservation work of the site needs professional experts to conduct appropriate protection work. The center is not really equipped with that professionalism to undertake the maintenance work,"said MCRC Director Chao Shan-pin.
Gallagher arrested in relation to alleged art theft
12/04/2003 - 11:32:39 am
Celebrity Irish chef Conrad Gallagher, who has been accused of stealing paintings from a Dublin hotel, has been arrested in New York.
Gallagher was appeared in Brooklyn federal court yesterday accused of stealing three paintings worth $50,000 (€47,000) from the hotel where he once ran a popular restaurant. He was remanded in custody pending an extradition hearing. No date was set. Gallagher’s lawyer, Doug Morris, declined to comment. Acting on recent information provided by Irish investigators, US marshals tracked down Gallagher and arrested him outside his Manhattan bar, called Traffic, said John Sheehan, spokesman for the US Marshals Service. Gallagher, 31, who has appeared on television and cooked for stars in Ireland, left the country last year on the eve of his trial. He has claimed he is the rightful owner of the paintings, according to press reports.
If convicted, Gallagher faces up to 20 years in prison.
http://breaking.examiner.ie/
Art Experts Fear Worst in the Plunder of a Museum
By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD
The looting of the National Museum of Iraq, a repository of treasures from civilization's first cities and early Islamic culture, could be a catastrophe for world cultural heritage, archaeologists and art experts said on Friday.
"Baghdad is one of the great museums of the world, with irreplaceable material," said Dr. John Malcolm Russell, a specialist in Mesopotamian archaeology at the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston. Though he and other scholars of antiquities were alarmed by the reports of looting, they were not surprised. They said they feared the next cultural target could be the important museum in Mosul, a northern city that is also in turmoil. The Mosul museum holds many Assyrian artifacts from the nearby Nineveh ruins. Concerned archaeologists urged United States military leaders to take more forceful steps to protect Iraqi's cultural treasures and to restore control of them to the local Department of Antiquities. For weeks before the war, archaeologists and other scholars had alerted military planners to the risks of combat, particularly postwar pillage of the country's antiquities. These include 10,000 sites of ruins with such resonating names as Babylon, Nineveh, Nimrud and Ur. Experts reminded the Defense Department that after the Persian Gulf war of 1991, 9 of Iraq's 13 regional museums were plundered. The Baghdad museum was spared then because the end of war had left the government still in power and policing the city. American archaeologists who studied the looting suspected that some of it was driven by the illicit trade in antiquities. At some remote and poorly guarded dig sites, Dr. McGuire Gibson of the University of Chicago wrote recently that illicit digging in most cases started as attempts simply to find something to sell to put food on the table. "This work soon grew to an industry," he said, "financed from abroad and engaging hundreds of diggers at some sites."
The reported museum looting that began on Friday in Baghdad would be the war's first known plundering of Iraqi antiquities. Reacting to the report, Dr. Philippe de Montebello, director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, said, "We can't conquer and then shirk further responsibility by allowing anarchy in the cities and allowing Iraq's ancient heritage to be pillaged." Dr. de Montebello complained of the apparent lack of effective policing by American troops. He said that he and other museum officials and archaeologists had already held meetings to explore what must be done "to help the Baghdad museum and Iraqi's antiquities authorities to restore themselves." By chance, the damage to the Baghdad museum came as the Metropolitan was preparing a major new exhibition, "Art of the First Cities: The Third Millennium B.C. from the Mediterranean to the Indus." It is to open May 8. About 400 rare works of art will be displayed, many of them from Iraq, though no works from the Baghdad museum were available. More than 230 scholars of ancient Mesopotamian history from 25 countries have signed a petition to be delivered to the United Nations on Monday. Drafted by researchers at Yale and Oxford Universities, the petition urges military leaders and postwar administrators of Iraq to safeguard cultural artifacts "for the future of the Iraqi people and for the world." American archaeologists said that they had lost contact with their Iraqi colleagues in recent weeks. The last they had heard was that several antiquities officials and researchers had barricaded themselves in the Baghdad museum. They had hidden some of the most precious artifacts elsewhere, and protected others with sandbags.
At last report, just before the outbreak of war on March 21, Dr. Russell said that Dr. Donny George, the research director of antiquities who is known for his heft, was seen to be thin and exhausted from the stress of preparing to defend the museum. Of the several thousand artifacts at the museum, Dr. Russell said some of his favorites were the stone birds from Nemrik, north of Mosul. The site, investigated in the last decade, is one of the world's first villages, from about 8,000 B.C. The museum's collection includes a cult vase from Uruk decorated with some of the earliest narrative pictures from the Sumerian culture. The pictures show fields and flocks and people making offerings to the goddess Inanna, the Sumerian version of Ishtar.
"That's a beautiful, important piece," Dr. Russell said.
http://www.nytimes.com/
NEW YORK. State governors across the US are proposing deficit- reducing arts cuts of unprecedented severity. New Jersey Governor James E McGreevey’s proposed budget would trim $32 million from the State’s $5-billion shortfall by eliminating the Council on the Arts and the Historical Commission completely, along with a trust for struggling arts groups. This just a few months after the governor vowed to increase arts funding: he and his family recently posed for a “Discover Jersey Arts” marketing campaign ad. http://81.112.115.148/allemandi/TAN/news/article.asp?idart=10977
SINGAPORE FULFILLS ITS CULTURAL PROMISE
SINGAPORE. Singaporeans are painfully aware of their international image and stung by descriptions of their island as boring and, of their government as overly intrusive. Who, after all, has not heard of Singapore’s anti-spitting law? The new branch of the Asian Civilisations Museum (ACM), which opened last month, is part of a massive government arts programme launched 10 years ago partly to counter these claims, but mainly to establish the squeaky-clean island as a credible centre for the arts. http://81.112.115.148/allemandi/TAN/news/article.asp?idart=10975
WHEN CULTURES CLASH…….BEATING AROUND THE BUSH
Like everyone else, artists have watched the war. Some have created protest actions even though polls have shown that the majority of the US public could not give a damn what actors, writers and artists think about the war. Not being of this opinion, The Art Newspaper offers a sampling of what prominent people in the art world and artists think about the war in Iraq and the current political climate in the US. http://81.112.115.148/allemandi/TAN/news/article.asp?idart=10972
Anna Somers Cocks, Editor contact@theartnewspaper.com
The Art Newspaper 70 South Lambeth Road London SW8 1RL UK tel +44(0)207 735 3331 fax +44(0)207 735 3332 http://81.112.115.148