WRITTEN QUESTION E-1520/03

by Lucio Manisco (GUE/NGL)and Alexandros Alavanos (GUE/NGL) to the Council

(6 May 2003)

Subject: Sacking of Iraq's cultural and artistic heritage the role of the European Union

The sacking of the National Archaeological Museum in Baghdad and other museum buildings in Iraq as well as the devastation of the country's libraries and historical archives by vandals, but also and above all by professional thieves clearly in the pay of Western antique dealers, began in Baghdad on the night of 10 April 2003 and after a pause started again on a vast scale in other cities and at archaeological sites in Iraq between 14/15 April 2003.

As is reported in the British newspaper the Daily Telegraph (20 April 2003), many of the artefacts taken (around 179 thousand in Baghdad alone) are already being offered for sale on various Internet sites. This is a terrible tragedy for the whole of mankind and one compared by the leading US archaeologist Paul Zimansky to the fire that destroyed the library in Alexandria.

1. Will the Council condemn these events as a flagrant violation, by the coalition forces on the ground in Iraq, of the Protocol to the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, and of the 1970 Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property?

2. What concrete support will the Council provide to the call issued on 17 April 2003 by Dr Koïchiro Matsuura, the Director-General of Unesco, to the international community, the UN Security Council and the governments of the states bordering Iraq for all states to adopt the requisite emergency legal and administrative measures to prevent the importation, trafficking or passage through their territory of any cultural, archaeological or bibliographical object from Iraq, and to enforce the confiscation and restitution of stolen artefacts to Iraq, not least through criminal penalties under the laws of individual countries?

3. Will the Council ask the EU Member States to prohibit the legal and illegal trade in any artefacts originating from the area that was once Mesopotamia for a minimum period of at least 5 years?

4. Will the Council report to the European Parliament at its plenary sitting of 12 to 15 May 2003 on the measures adopted to end this destruction?

Reply

(13 October 2003)

1. As already expressed in the reply to Written Question P-1496/03 by the Honourable Member Florence Kuntz, the Council is deeply concerned about the destruction of cultural goods, archaeological sites and historical monuments in Iraq, the vandalism and looting of Iraqi museums and libraries of worldwide importance and resulting possible trafficking in artefacts illegally removed from Iraq.

2. The Council at its meeting on 6 May 2003 agreed unanimously on a declaration in which it stressed in particular the need to protect in an efficient way the cultural goods of Iraq and to return the objects illegally removed from museums or archeaological sites, and in which it declared the European Union's active support of Unesco's related initiatives and actions. This declaration was formally adopted on 26 May 2003.

3. The Council equally adheres to UN Security Council resolution 1483 on Iraq of 22 May 2003, which in its paragraph 7 stipulates that all Member States shall take appropriate steps to facilitate the safe return to Iraqi institutions of Iraqi cultural property and other items of archaeological, historical, cultural, rare scientific, and religious importance illegally removed from the Iraq National Museum, the National Library, and other locations in Iraq () including by establishing a prohibition on trade in or transfer of such items (). The Council is currently examining a draft common position following-up on the UNSC resolution and providing in particular for taking appropriate steps in regard of Iraqi cultural property.

4. The Honourable Member will remember that the Council did report to the European Parliament plenary session of 12-15 May on the general situation in Iraq (14 May 2003).