WRITTEN QUESTION P-1509/03 by Lucio Manisco (GUE/NGL) to the Commission. Sacking of Iraq's cultural and artistic heritage — the role of the European Union.
Date: 2003-04-28
Institutions: European Parliament, Provisional data
Subjects: EU relations, Iraq, aid policy, art trade, heritage protection, illicit trade, import restriction, museum, war damage

3.4.2004

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

C 84 E/725

The American military campaign of the past three weeks has brought about the collapse of the Iraqi
regime. In the absence of a government, one can only wonder who is now protecting the seven national
museums and some 10 000 archaeological sites throughout the country.

How does the European Union wish to show its support for the Iraqi people and help them protect their
exceptional heritage?

How does the European Union intend to mobilise the Member States against the illegal trade in stolen
property?

(2004/C 84 E/0815)

WRITTEN QUESTION P-1509/03

by Lucio Manisco (GUE/NGL) to the Commission

(28 April 2003)

Subject: Sacking of Iraq’s cultural and artistic heritage (cid:1) 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 Commission 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?

issued on 17 April 2003 by
2. What concrete support will the Commission provide to the call
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 Commission 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 five years?

4. Will the President of the Commission and Commissioners Lamy, Patten, Vitorino and Bolkestein, in
the areas for which they are competent, report to the European Parliament at its plenary sitting of 12 to
15 May 2003 on the measures adopted to end this destruction?

Joint answer
to Written Questions E-1500/03 and P-1509/03
given by Mr Patten on behalf of the Commission

(27 May 2003)

The Commission would refer the Honourable Member to the replies it gave to Oral Questions H-0264/03
by Mr Manisco and H-0274/03 by Mrs Zorba during question time at Parliament’s May 2003 part
session (1).

(1) Written answer of 13.5.2003.