For the first time, the UN has just unanimously adopted a resolution for the protection of endangered heritage in conflict zones.
The cliff of Bamiyan, Afghanistan, after the destruction of its two Buddhas by the terrorist organization al-Qaeda in 2001.
HISTORY. The United Nations Security Council unanimously adopted a landmark resolution for heritage protection on Friday, March 24, in New York. The passage of resolution 2347 shows the official importance that the protection of cultural heritage now has “for peace and security after the destruction by the Islamic State (IS) group of the ancient sites of Nineveh and Nimroud in Iraq, or Palmyra in Syria, Timbuktu in Mali, or the Buddhas of Bamiyan, in Afghanistan, by the terrorist organization Al-Qaeda in 2001 .
This is the first time that such a resolution entirely devoted to cultural heritage has been adopted by the United Nations Security Council “ in conflict zones, without geographical limitation and for all types of threats (destruction, theft and looting, trafficking) .
The Security Council, through its report, affirms that "to launch unlawful attacks against sites and buildings devoted to religion, education, art, science or charitable purposes or monuments may constitute, in certain circumstances and in accordance with international law, a war crime and that the perpetrators of such attacks must be brought to justice”.
Irina Bokova, Director General of Unesco, speaking before the Security Council, Friday, March 24, 2017. Credit:Unesco
Invited for the first time to speak before this assembly, Irina Bokova, Director General of Unesco, declared in particular:"The deliberate destruction of heritage is a war crime, it has become a tactic of war for put to hurt them societies in the long term, in a strategy of cultural cleansing. This is why the defense of cultural heritage is much more than a cultural issue, it is a security imperative, inseparable from the defense of human lives". She also reiterated that weapons are not enough to defeat violent extremism." Build peace also goes through culture ; this requires education, prevention and the transmission of heritage. This is the whole point of this historic resolution."
Recalling the initiatives of UNESCO, the Director-General also returned to the adoption by the Security Council of resolution 2199 in 2015, banning the trade of cultural property from Syria and Iraq, to discuss the progress made. since by the signatory States to prevent the financing of terrorists through the illicit trafficking of antiquities.
This session organized at the initiative of France and Italy shows the particular involvement of these two countries on issues of endangered heritage. A few days earlier, President François Hollande had indeed, in the continuity of the Abu Dhabi International Conference on Heritage in December 2016, given an international conference at the Louvre, in Paris, for the creation of the International Alliance for the Protection of Heritage in Conflict Zones " (ALIPH). This initiative launched by Paris, Abu Dhabi and UNESCO, intends to raise by 2019, 100 million dollars to protect the cultural sites of the world heritage threatened by the conflicts, with in particular the organization of a network of shelters where endangered cultural property would be temporarily stored.
President François Hollande, at the Louvre Museum, on March 20, during the creation of the International Alliance for the Protection of Heritage in Conflict Zones (ALIPH). Credit:Stephan de Sakutin/Pool/AFP
To date, 75.5 million dollars (69.7 million euros) have already been raised. At the end of December 2016, France had announced its participation in the amount of 30 million dollars (28 million euros), in addition to Saudi Arabia, 20 million dollars (18.5 million euros), the Arab Emirates United States $15 million (€14 million), Kuwait $5 million (€4.6 million), Luxembourg $3 million (€2.8 million), Morocco, 1.5 million dollars (1.4 million euros). Billionaire American philanthropist Thomas Kaplan, who is currently exhibiting his Rembrandt collection at the Louvre, has pledged $1 million.
BA
With AFP and United Nations.
List of the various UNESCO conventions for the protection of cultural property adopted since the end of the Second World War (in their French versions):
1954:Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict
http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=13637&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html
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http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=13039&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html
1972:Protection of World Cultural and Natural Heritage
http://whc.unesco.org/en/convention/