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Many priceless artifacts were simply destroyed when the museums were wantonly ransacked; others were taken by professional thieves or hauled away by mobs of casual looters. Fortunately, many were put away by museum personnel for safekeeping. US Attorney General John Ashcroft told an Interpol conference in Lyons that “there is a strong case to be made that the looting and theft of the artifacts were perpetrated by criminals who knew precisely what they were looking for.” Indeed, stolen objects from Iraq are already available for sale on the black market. On eBay, cuneiform tablets dating back thousands of years recently sold for a few hundred dollars apiece. (SAFE does not claim to have any information about the origin of these particular objects or the channels through which they were procured.) Lynne Chaffinch, manager of the FBI's art theft program, said that most of the stolen antiquities are likely to surface in wealthy countries such as the United States, Britain, Germany, Japan, France, and Switzerland. U.S. dealers and collectors buy 60 percent of the world's art, legal and illegal. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution April 27, 2003). Casual looters who destroyed artifacts, archival documents, and books may have been motivated by rage resulting from political repression. Others sought whatever money stolen objects could fetch on the black market. Many may not have realized that, while there are vast sums of money to be made in the illicit trade, very little reaches the original seller. Others still were unaware that their activity was illegal. Many did not understand that they were destroying their most valuable and irreplaceable possession: their own cultural heritage. On April 24, 2003, a report in the International Herald Tribune told the story of how ordinary Iraqis aided in the return of some of the stolen antiquities. "As Jamil stepped out of the van carrying a priceless and broken statue of an Assyrian king from the ninth century B.C., he broke down and wept and fell into the arms of Donny George, curator of the museum, who also began weeping. " This is our heritage," Jamil said later, in a brief and emotional conversation in the dank waiting room of the museum, whose arched ceiling features a smiling Saddam Hussein. Jamil said: "How could we do this to ourselves? It is our heritage, our heritage." SAFE aims to work towards bringing this sense of loss and realization to the public on a global scale. WHY SHOULD WE CARE ABOUT IRAQ’S CULTURAL TREASURES ? WHAT HAPPENED TO ANTIQUITIES IN IRAQ ? |
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