Protection of cultural property is smart military policy

7 juli 2009

UNESCO accuses American and Polish troops to have seriously damaged historic Babylon during the invasion of Iraq in 2003. A military base, camp Alpha, was built on top of the archeological site, to serve the war effort. While the looting of the Baghdad Museum captured headlines around the world, the looting and destruction of thousands of archeological sites around the country remains a story largely untold. Clearly, the military planners failed to include culture in the list of things that needed protection in the stability phase after Sadam Hussein had fallen.

The protection of cultural property in times of armed conflict is not a luxury. It is an international legal obligation for armed forces since 1954. The Hague Convention on the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict prohibits hostile acts against cultural property, as well as the use of cultural property in such a way that it will get damaged or destroyed. The only exception to this obligation is in case of imperative military necessity. The same rules should apply to post-conflict stability and reconstruction operations.

In the heat of combat, cultural property is often overlooked, out of ignorance -there are no cultural property advisors on military missions- or inconvenience: to any rational military commander saving a soldier's life clearly outweighs saving a historic building. Military necessity has become a broad justification to disregard the protection of cultural property on the battlefield. Yet, there is more to protecting cultural property than saving a few mosques, churches or protecting a heap of sand in the desert. Cultural property is often at the heart of the battle. Cultural and religious heritage is an expression of the cultural dominance of one of the other group, or of society's history; just the stuff that wars are fought over. Many conflicts aim to destroy the cultural property or identity of the opponent. By not protecting a group's or society's cultural heritage, a foreign intervening power loses a powerful tool to win the hearts and minds of the population. Or worse, is perceived to be siding with one or the other party to the conflict. Protection of cultural property thus contributes to force acceptance and protection. For example, in 2004, German NATO troops stood by when Albanian youth burned centuries old Serb orthodox churches and monasteries near Prizren, in the south of Kosovo. Among the destroyed religious buildings, 36 in all, were two historic sites listed by UNESCO as sites of universal significance, including the Monastery of the Archangel dating as far back as the fourteenth century. The message to the Serb minority in Kosovo: you are no longer welcome here. We can wipe out your history and the international community won't protect you. What I was told by a German officer was that the Rules of Engagement did not allow the use of deadly force to save buildings, only to save lives. So people were evacuated from the churches, which were then set ablaze in full view of the NATO troops. Thousands of Serbs fled Kosovo and the episode was a huge set-back to achieve the UN's goal of a multi-ethnic Kosovo. The use of the 800-year old spiral minaret in Samarra, Iraq, by US snipers in is another case in point. While arguably permissible from a legal point of view -the US is not party to the 1954 Convention and there may have been imperative military reasons- from a tactical counter insurgency perspective, the ensuing destruction of this minaret, which was an important part of Iraq's cultural heritage, was contrary to winning the hearts and minds and US interests in Iraq.

If we want to become smarter at post-conflict stabilization and reconstruction, protection of cultural property and religious heritage sites should be at its core. If not (yet) as a matter of law, then as a matter of smart military policy.