Destruction of Historic Sites (Syria and Iraq) — House of Commons, 2015-02-12
Topic: International Affairs
Gareth Thomas (Labour, Centre-left): I congratulate the hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) on persuading the Backbench Business Committee to hold this debate, on the quality of his speech and on his success in persuading the hon. Members for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) and for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) to come along and make excellent and provocative—in the best sense of the word—speeches The hon. Member for Newark rightly referred to the danger the current conflict in Syria and Iraq poses to the peoples of both countries and to its implications not only internationally and domestically, but for some of the world’s great cultural sites in both countries. As he said, any debate about the damage to Syria and Iraq’s great cultural sites cannot ignore the security realities in those two countries, whose peoples are experiencing huge turmoil. The hon. Member for Gainsborough underlined the fact that thousands of lives have been lost and millions have been forced to flee their homes as sectarian, religious and political fault lines have opened. Ensuring an effective response to the rise of ISIL remains fundamental and we as a country must continue to play our part in ensuring that Iraq has the political, security and diplomatic support required, including strong support for the Kurdistan Regional Government and the peshmerga In Syria, ISIL-governed territory is being used to draw in, train and radicalise jihadists, including from Britain. Although the Assad regime cannot have a long-term future, the international community must continue to maintain efforts to achieve a transitional agreement of the type envisaged in the Geneva II process. I recognise the scale of the barriers to such an agreement, but the threat posed by ISIL must continue to be a motive for our international efforts As the three hon. Members who have already spoken underlined, both Iraq and Syria are exceptionally rich in terms of their cultural heritage. Indeed, parts of what is now Iraq and Syrian territory have long been regarded as the cradle of human civilisation. There are an enormous number of ancient sites in both countries, including Syria’s great Umayyad mosque, the 13th-century citadel that is part of the world heritage site in Aleppo, the site of Palmyra, which the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham mentioned, the Krak des Chevaliers and the Salah Ed-Din, the ancient city of Bosra and the many monuments in Damascus. It is clear that Syria has much to lose in terms of its cultural heritage from the ongoing conflict. As the three previous speakers have outlined, Iraq, too, has much to lose, including the ancient cities of Ashur and Samarra, and many other great sites of cultural heritage, which are under attack from the conflict within its borders There may be some outside this House who ask, "Does what’s happening to those cultural sites in Iraq and Syria really matter? If it does, is it really that important for the UK?" I share the view of the three previous speakers that it does matter and that, at its most basic level, heritage gives us a sense of place, gives a people a sense of their shared identity, and helps to bind nations together. Even though we in the UK may never visit some or all of the sites mentioned in this debate, our shared humanity means that parts of our common heritage are being attacked As the excellent Lakhdar Brahimi, the former UN-Arab League joint special representative for Syria, said recently: "Destroying the inheritance of the past robs future generations of a powerful legacy, deepens hatred and despair and undermines all attempts to foster reconciliation." Indeed, the director general of UNESCO, Irina Bokova, has talked of attacks on cultural heritage being, on occasion, part of a strategy of deliberate cultural cleansing, with implicitly a recognition that it is designed to erode collective identity, encourage hatred and therefore make it easier for people to access less tolerant, less inclusive, more hostile and destructive ideologies It is therefore not a surprise that ISIL has been involved in much of the worst recent attacks on cultural heritage, blowing up, for example, the shrine to the prophet Jonah in Mosul. There are also reports of ISIL bulldozing ancient statues along with Sufi and Shi’a shrines in Raqqa province As the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham was at pains to point out, however, it is not just ISIL that is at fault. The Syrian air force bombed the Krak des Chevaliers, and looters have taken advantage of the lack of Government to destroy eastern Syria’s ancient Roman city of Dura-Europos. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s assessment of what is being done locally, in this incredibly dangerous and difficult conflict, to safeguard a series of key cultural sites in Syria and Iraq that are under sustained attack UNESCO, the UN’s cultural and heritage body, has documented the multiple threats to Iraq and Syria’s most important cultural sites, including deliberate attacks, destruction as collateral damage in fighting, the greed of unscrupulous traders and collectors, and the organised vandalism by terrorist and other organisations wanting to erase the past achievements of their cultures. It would be good to hear from the Minister how the Government are supporting UNESCO in its work UNESCO leads on a series of international conventions that set international standards to deal with the specific risks faced by heritage during conflict, including most recently the statutes of the International Criminal Court, which have defined the intentional destruction of historical buildings as a war crime. As the hon. Member for Newark said, Britain has not yet signed up to the Hague convention on the protection of cultural property in the event of armed conflict. Labour began the process of signing up to it, but I understand that the current ministerial team at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport has not yet followed up that work. Is the Minister able to give a new commitment or is he only able to give—I say this gently—some weasel words UNESCO has sought to raise international concern about the destruction of cultural heritage in conflict zones and to encourage better local readiness to prevent and minimise devastation of cultural sites in the event of conflict. It would be good to hear from the Minister the Foreign Office’s assessment of UNESCO’s effectiveness in raising the issue’s profile internationally and in helping local communities prepare for and mitigate the impact of conflict on cultural sites. Following on from a point made by the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham, how much funding, if any, does the Foreign and Commonwealth Office or the Department for International Development allocate to help Illegal trafficking of cultural property is a major threat to crucial heritage sites during conflict. In theory, UNESCO, Interpol, the World Customs Organisation, the International Council of Museums and many others are already lined up to work together to alert the art market about the dangers of traded goods and to attempt to limit such illegal trade. It would be helpful to hear from the Minister the Foreign Office’s assessment of the scale of such trade, and what, if anything, is Britain’s contribution to attempting to limit it. Are Foreign Office Ministers, as the hon. Member for Newark encouraged, raising the issue of illicit trade with our middle east allies Last July, UNESCO held an emergency meeting that brought together cultural heritage experts from Iraq and the wider international community to develop an action plan to mitigate the cultural damage from the recent upsurge in conflict. A further international meeting was organised in late September by the French and Italian delegations to UNESCO to develop such ideas. What was Britain’s contribution to those meetings The brutality of ISIL demands a continuing, determined international effort to confront and limit its capabilities in Iraq and Syria, while, as the hon. Member for Newark rightly set out, the scale of their damage and that of others to crucial cultural sites demands that Britain should be part of the international effort to help in minimising the damage and should stand ready to support efforts to rehabilitate the sites where possible. I look forward to hearing the Minister say how Britain is fulfilling that role and how it will do so in future.