Cultural Heritage, Ethics, and the Military 184383538X, 9781843835387

Table of contents :
Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
List of abbreviations
Introduction: The Ethical Challenges for Cultural Heritage Experts Working with the Military
1 Still in the Aftermath of Waterloo: A Brief History of Decisions about Restitution
2 Physicians at War: Lessons for Archaeologists?
3 Christian Responsibility and the Preservation of Civilisation in Wartime: George Bell and the Fate of Germany in World War II
4 Responding to Culture in Conflict
5 How Academia and the Military can Work Together
6 Archaeologist under Pressure: Neutral or Cooperative in Wartime
7 Ancient Artefacts and Modern Conflict: A Case Study of Looting and Instability in Iraq
8 Whose Heritage? Archaeology, Heritage and the Military
9 Military Archaeology in the US: A Complex Ethical Decision
10 Akwesasne – Where the Partridges Drum to Fort Drum: Consultation with Native Communities, an Evolving Process
11 Heritage Resources and Armed Conflicts: An African Perspective
12 Human Shields: Social Scientists on Point in Modern Asymmetrical Conflicts
13 Politicians: Assassins of Lebanese Heritage? Archaeology in Lebanon in Times of Armed Conflict
14 Relations between Archaeologists and the Military in the Case of Iraq: Foreword
Relations between Archaeologists and the Military in the Case of Iraq
Response to ‘Relations between Archaeologists and the Military in the Case of Iraq’
Response to ‘Relations between Archaeologists and the Military in the Case of Iraq’
Response to ‘Relations between Archaeologists and the Military in the Case of Iraq’
Response to ‘Relations between Archaeologists and the Military in the Case of Iraq’
Relations between Archaeologists and the Military in the Case of Iraq – Reply to Price, Rowlands, Rush and Teijgeler
List of Contributors
Index

Citation preview

The ‘Heritage Matters’ Series Editorial Board

H 

    eritage Matters is a series of edited and single-authored volumes which addresses the      whole range of issues that confront the heritage sector as it faces the global challenges of the twenty-first century. The series follows the ethos of the International Centre for Cultural and Heritage Studies (ICCHS) at Newcastle University, where these issues are seen as part of an integrated whole, including both cultural and natural agendas, and thus encompasses challenges faced by all types of museums, art galleries, heritage sites and the organisations and individuals that work with, and are affected by, them.

Heritage Matters Series: volume 4

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Cultural Heritage, Ethics and the Military

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an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd PO Box 9, Woodbridge IP12 3DF (GB) and 668 Mt Hope Ave, Rochester NY 14620-2731 (US) www.boydellandbrewer.com

Cultural Heritage, Ethics and the

Military Edited by Peter G. Stone

Peter G. Stone (ed.)

he world reacted with horror to the images of the looting of Iraq’s National Museum in 2003 and the subsequent damage and destruction to other museums and archaeological sites across the country. Many archaeologists had foreseen this, and some had offered to work with the military to identify museums and sites to be avoided and protected, but such offers received a mixed response from others concerned with heritage issues, who claimed that such collaboration lent legitimacy to the invasion. Faced with such divergence of views, the studies in this book therefore focus on the broader issue of whether archaeologists and other cultural heritage experts should ever work with the military, and if so, under what guidelines and strictures. The essays are drawn from a series of international conferences and seminars on the debate, and provide a historical background to the ethical issues facing cultural heritage experts. Can medical and religious experts justify close working relationships with the military? Is all contact with those engaged in conflict wrong? Does working with the military constitute tacit agreement with military and political goals, or can it be seen as contributing to the winning of a peace rather than success in war? These and other crucial questions are explored here.

Cultural Heritage, Ethics and the Military

Professor Peter Davis, Professor Peter G. Stone, Dr Chris Whitehead

The International Centre For Cultural & Heritage Studies

Newcastle University

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HERITAGE MATTERS

CULTURAL HERITAGE, ETHICS, AND THE MILITARY

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HERITAGE MATTERS

ISSN 1756-4832

Series Editors Peter G. Stone Peter Davis Chris Whitehead

Heritage Matters is a series of edited and single-authored volumes which addresses the whole range of issues that confront the cultural heritage sector as we face the global challenges of the twenty-first century. The series follows the ethos of the International Centre for Cultural and Heritage Studies (ICCHS) at Newcastle University, where these issues are seen as part of an integrated whole, including both cultural and natural agendas, and thus encompasses challenges faced by all types of museums, art galleries, heritage sites and the organisations and individuals that work with, and are affected by them.

Volume 1: The Destruction of Cultural Heritage in Iraq Edited by Peter G. Stone and Joanne Farchakh Bajjaly Volume 2: Metal Detecting and Archaeology Edited by Suzie Thomas and Peter G. Stone Volume 3: Archaeology, Cultural Property, and the Military Edited by Laurie Rush

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Cultural Heritage, Ethics, and the Military Edited by

PETER G. STONE

THE BOYDELL PRESS

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© Contributors 2011 All rights reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation no part of this work may be photocopied, stored in a retrieval system, published, performed in public, adapted, broadcast, transmitted, recorded or reproduced in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the copyright owner

First published 2011 The Boydell Press, Woodbridge

ISBN 978-1-84383-538-7 The Boydell Press is an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF, UK and of Boydell & Brewer Inc. 668 Mt Hope Avenue, Rochester, NY 14620, USA website: www.boydellandbrewer.com The publisher has no responsibility for the continued existence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library

Papers used by Boydell & Brewer Ltd are natural, recyclable products made from wood grown in sustainable forests

Typeset by Tina Ranft, Woodbridge Printed in Great Britain by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham and Eastbourne

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Contents

List of Illustrations Acknowledgements List of abbreviations Introduction: The Ethical Challenges for Cultural Heritage Experts Working with the Military Peter Stone 1

Still in the Aftermath of Waterloo: A Brief History of Decisions about Restitution Margaret M Miles

2

Physicians at War: Lessons for Archaeologists? Fritz Allhoff

3

Christian Responsibility and the Preservation of Civilisation in Wartime: George Bell and the Fate of Germany in World War II Andrew Chandler

vii ix x

1

29

43

55

4

Responding to Culture in Conflict Oliver Urquhart Irvine

70

5

How Academia and the Military can Work Together Barney White-Spunner

79

6

Archaeologist under Pressure: Neutral or Cooperative in Wartime René Teijgeler

86

7

Ancient Artefacts and Modern Conflict: A Case Study of Looting and Instability in Iraq Katharyn Hanson

113

8

Whose Heritage? Archaeology, Heritage and the Military Martin Brown

129

9

Military Archaeology in the US: A Complex Ethical Decision Laurie Rush

139

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vi

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Akwesasne – Where the Partridges Drum to Fort Drum: Consultation with Native Communities, an Evolving Process Francis Scardera

152

11

Heritage Resources and Armed Conflicts: An African Perspective Caleb Adebayo Folorunso

158

12

Human Shields: Social Scientists on Point in Modern Asymmetrical Conflicts Derek Suchard

172

13

Politicians: Assassins of Lebanese Heritage? Archaeology in Lebanon in Times of Armed Conflict Joanne Farchakh Bajjaly

14

182

Relations between Archaeologists and the Military in the Case of Iraq: Foreword 192 Iain Shearer Relations between Archaeologists and the Military in the Case of Iraq John Curtis

193

Responses to ‘Relations between Archaeologists and the Military in the Case of Iraq’ 200 Jon Price, Mike Rowlands, Laurie W Rush and René Teijgeler Relations between Archaeologists and the Military in the Case of Iraq – Reply to Price, Rowlands, Rush, and Teijgeler 214 John Curtis List of Contributors Index

218 223

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List of Illustrations

COVER IMAGES (Top) Soldiers of AUCON/KFOR guarding the ruins of St George's church, burnt down during the March 2004 riots in the southern Kosovo town of Prizren. Gunter Pusch, © Austrian Armed Forces. (Middle) Roman and modern remains heaped together at Nahr al-Bared, the Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon. Joanne Farchakh Bajjaly. (Bottom) J E Curtis with British Army personnel at Ur, Iraq, in June 2008. © British Museum.

5.1. One of the first aerial photos of Stonehenge, taken from a tethered balloon in 1906 by Lieutenant Phillip Henry Sharpe of the Royal Engineers’ Balloon Section. Image provided by the NMR and reproduced by kind permission of the Society of Antiquaries of London. © Society of Antiquaries of London.

81

7.1. Satellite image of Umma, February 2003. 115 Includes copyrighted material of DigitalGlobe, Inc., All Rights Reserved. 7.2. Umma, February 2003: looters’ pits marked by black diamonds. 116 Includes copyrighted material of DigitalGlobe, Inc., All Rights Reserved. 7.3. Umma, June 2005: new looters’ pits marked as grey circles. 117 Includes copyrighted material of DigitalGlobe, Inc., All Rights Reserved. 7.4. Umma, July 2008: new looters’ pits marked as white half circles. 118 Includes copyrighted material of DigitalGlobe, Inc., All Rights Reserved. 7.5. Combined image of looters’ pits from 2003 (black diamonds), 2005 (grey circles) and 2008 (white half circles). 119 Includes copyrighted material of DigitalGlobe, Inc., All Rights Reserved. 7.6. The top four time periods of Mesopotamian seals offered for sale online with and without provenance. Katharyn Hanson

123

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13.1. Bint Jbeil immediately after the 33 day war of 2006. Joanne Farchakh Bajjaly

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13.2. Roman and modern remains heaped together at Nahr al-Bared camp. Joanne Farchakh Bajjaly

185

13.3. Remains of Roman buildings unearthed during the rescue excavations at Nahr al-Bared camp. Joanne Farchakh Bajjaly 13.4. Protester holds placard demanding ‘immediate rebuilding of the camp’. Al Akhbar newspaper

185

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Acknowledgments

W

hile this book is an edited volume, for me it is, as I note in the Introduction, the culmination of a seven-year journey in which I have explored many of the issues raised in the following pages with not only the contributors but many other colleagues and friends. These conversations have always been useful, frequently fascinating, and, in all but a few cases, remarkably supportive. I thank everyone, far too numerous to name, for the time they have given me over these years. In particular, of course, I thank the contributors for their work and dedication. With the exception of Chapter 14, all of the contributions have been specifically written for this book. Chapter 14 was originally published in Papers from the Institute of Archaeology, University College London, Vol 19 (2009), available from: http://piajournal.co.uk/index.php/pia/issue/view/pia.330, and is reproduced by kind permission. The book would not have been possible without the support of my family (why is Dad working in his study again?) and especially of my wife, Genevieve, who has discussed these issues over the past seven years with me and not always agreed with my understanding of events. She has recently spent much time reading and questioning my Introduction, for which she is due yet more thanks. The manuscript would certainly not have been produced without the assistance of Catherine Todd, for which I thank her yet again. Caroline Palmer at Boydell deserves warm thanks for her understanding, as the manuscript has missed deadlines. Finally, I have never thanked Andy Collier, who got me involved in cultural property protection in the event of armed conflict seven years ago. Without him, little of the following would have happened. Peter Stone Newcastle 14 August 2010

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List of abbreviations

AAA AGJ AIA AMA AoR APA AUCON CEAUSSIC CIMIC CMC CoC CPP DCMS DCSU DoD EAP ERW FCO GIS HSCBRR HTS HTT IASC ICC ICOMOS ICRC IFRC IHL INLA IO ISBAH KFOR MCA MoD MSF

American Anthropological Association Archaeologists for Global Justice Archaeological Institute of America American Medical Association Area of Responsibility American Philosophical Association Austrian Contingent (of the Austrian Armed Forces) Commission on the Engagement of Anthropology with the US Security and Intelligence Communities civil–military cooperation Canadian Museum of Civilization Code of Conduct (Red Cross 1994 Code of Conduct) cultural property protection Department of Culture, Media and Sport Defence Cultural Specialist Unit Department of Defense Endangered Archives Programme enhanced-radiation weapons Foreign and Commonwealth Office Geographical Information Systems Haudenosaunee Standing Committee on Burial Rules and Regulations Human Terrain System(s) Human Terrain Team Inter-Agency Standing Committee International Criminal Court International Council on Monuments and Sites International Committee of the Red Cross Internal Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies International Humanitarian Law Iraq National Library and Archive International Organisation Iraq State Board of Antiquities and Heritage Kosovo Force Mohawk Council of Akwesasne Ministry of Defence Médecins Sans Frontières

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LIST

NAGPRA NATO NCO NGO NHPA NPA NPS NZRB PEF PIA RFC SUNY THPO UN UNESCO UNIDROIT UNRWA WAC WAMP

OF

ABBREVIATIONS

Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act North Atlantic Treaty Organisation non-commissioned officer non-governmental organisation National Historic Preservation Act Norwegian People’s Aid National Park Service New Zealand Rifle Brigade Palestine Exploration Fund Papers from the Institute of Archaeology Royal Flying Corps State University of New York Tribal Historical Preservation Officer United Nations United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation The International Institute for the Unification of Private Law United Nations Relief and Works Agency World Archaeological Congress West African Museums Programme

xi

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Introduction: The Ethical Challenges for Cultural Heritage Experts Working with the Military PETER STONE SOME CONTEXT In 2003 I was approached by the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) to provide assistance with the identification and protection of the archaeological cultural heritage in Iraq (Stone 2005/8). In doing this I had to put aside my own personal opposition to the war and, post-invasion, I had to weather limited, but very vocal, criticism of my actions (see below). This criticism, coupled with my own concerns over providing information to a military involved in what many still regard as an illegal invasion, led me to think far more deeply than I had had time to do in early 2003 about the correctness and implications of my actions, both personally and for cultural heritage experts more widely. I have presented numerous lectures and seminars in seven countries across five continents about the work I did in 2003, its ineffectiveness and my wider concerns as to whether I should have helped the military as I did. Most of these presentations have been directly to members of the heritage community, some to mixed heritage and military audiences, and some to the general public. I have been relieved to note that, in my own totally non-statistical analysis, more than 90% of audiences have supported my actions. The criticism – in a nutshell that my actions had provided an academic legitimacy to the conflict – still gnawed at my conscience, however, and I notched up hours of one-to-one discussions with heritage colleagues, military-related civil servants, serving European and USA military personnel, and others. I was particularly interested to have discussions with religious ministers and medical practitioners for their views not only on what I had done, but on the longterm relationship that their two professions have had with conflict. (A serious limitation of these discussions is that I managed to speak to only Christian clergy.) This book is the result of that seven-year discussion. I have asked and cajoled the contributors to help me put my actions into a deeper historical setting and a wider contemporary context. This is not intended as a post-event justification of those actions, but rather as a means of questioning what I did and teasing out issues relating to the relationship between cultural heritage experts and the military in order that we may clarify the parameters of any future collaboration. I thought it crucial that as full and rounded a picture as possible be painted and, to achieve this, deemed it essential that the book offered a chance to the military to explain their position and what they wanted, and why, from the cultural heritage sector. This decision had one anticipated but nonetheless extremely disappointing result: that none of my main critics would agree to contribute to the discussion in the following pages as they refuse to be part

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of any project that involves serving military personnel. I have encouraged all contributors to read, or listen to, my detractors and to my knowledge all have done one or both (one, Fritz Allhoff, was so struck by the writing of one critic that he insisted that his brief be widened and that he be allowed to address directly the issues raised). I have tried to paraphrase the arguments of my critics later in this Introduction; I hope I do this as fairly and as objectively as possible, without misrepresentation, but I fully acknowledge that it is very much a second-best solution. I urge all readers to go to the original texts and read my critics’ views directly. In many ways this book is also the final part of a trilogy begun in 2008 with the publication of The Destruction of Cultural Heritage in Iraq (Stone and Farchakh Bajjaly 2008). In the Introduction to that book I wrote that it was a publication that all its contributors would have preferred had never been written. It chronicled the first-hand experience of those who had been involved in efforts to deal with the complete and utter failure of the Coalition planners to put in place measures to protect the cultural heritage of Iraq prior to the 2003 invasion. As we were working on that book, some of us became increasingly aware of our own failures to do anything but complain and criticise – when it was too late. Numerous archaeologists had written in 2002 and early 2003 to political and military leaders, in particular those in the USA and UK, asking what measures were being put in place to protect the museums and archaeological sites if there were to be an invasion (see UK National Commission for UNESCO 2010 for a list of such letters written in the UK). As is retold in a number of chapters in Destruction, the questions were met with concerned faces but little action from a grossly overstretched military and, considerably more damningly, indifference or platitudes from politicians. My stomach still churns when I recall the words used by Donald Rumsfeld, then US Secretary of Defense, on hearing of the looting of the Iraq National Museum, that ‘stuff happens’. I am more than embarrassed that, given the late and limited nature of planning for cultural property protection (CPP) in the UK (Stone 2005/8), the then prime minister could assure parliament, on 19 March 2003, on the eve of major hostilities, that ‘we are fully committed to the protection of cultural property. That is not merely the Government’s position: we are also committed to that under the Geneva Conventions … we will do everything that we can to make sure that sites of cultural or religious significance are properly and fully protected’ (Hansard, 19 March 2003, col. 940). That so little was actually done to protect the cultural heritage in Iraq is ample testimony to the sincerity of these words. My role as adviser to the UK MoD has been published already (Stone 2005/8). By the middle of 2003 I could have decided to leave my abject failure to help protect the archaeological cultural heritage in Iraq behind me as a sad interlude in my career, but I was caught, and felt trapped, by an uncomfortable realisation. If cultural heritage experts were to complain about the military failing to protect cultural property then surely there was some onus on those experts to work with the military to provide the information with which the latter could protect cultural property. Indeed, what, if anything, had the cultural heritage sector done about conflict in the past? While I was aware of the specific military targeting of cultural heritage in other parts of the world, most recently in the war in the Former Yugoslavia (see, for

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example, Chapman 1994; Layton et al 2001), I wondered if anyone had thought to question the international military involved in that conflict as to their state of awareness and preparation in terms of CPP (although see Wahlgren 1994 for a very brief review of UN peacekeeping forces with respect to CPP). What had happened in Vietnam? And Malaysia? And Korea? And in all of the other conflicts since World War II? I was, of course, aware of the 1954 Hague Convention on the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (UNESCO 1954, and hereafter referred to as the 1954 Hague Convention) – but had no detailed working knowledge of it, nor of its Protocols, nor of why the UK had still not ratified the Convention in 2003 despite having signed in 1954. Who was taking responsibility from within the archaeological community – or indeed the wider heritage community – to protect cultural property and the cultural heritage in the event of armed conflict? And if noone was taking responsibility, why not? As I talked to colleagues and read around the subject I learnt much more of the Allied Monuments and Fine Arts Unit active in World War II (see, for example, Edsel 2009; Nicholas 1995; Spirydowicz 2010; Woolley 1947) and how the service provided by these ‘Monuments Men’, who had done so much to protect the archaeological (and especially architectural and artistic) legacy of European civilisation during the latter part of World War II, seemingly simply withered on the vine as conscripted experts returned to their civilian worlds. Emberling (2008, 449) makes the telling point that the ‘major difference between this situation [the 2003 invasion of Iraq] and the consultation of concerned scholars about cultural property in World War II is the relative lack of concern of the [US] President and top military leadership for the issue’ and concludes that cultural heritage experts need to get their message across at the highest political levels; a conclusion that, he notes, was also reached by Margaret Mead some decades earlier. Joanne Farchakh Bajjaly (Chapter 13) brings this discussion up to date with her analysis of the argument over the rebuilding of the Palestinian refugee camp at Nahr al-Bared, where political, rather than cultural heritage, decisions were paramount. The more I understood about the situation the clearer the enormity of the problem became. In retrospect, it was a damning indictment of the military process that the staff of the MoD who had approached me for advice in 2003 had been totally unaware that the MoD itself employed archaeologists. I had been vaguely aware that the MoD actually employs, as part of Defence Estates, its own archaeologists – but only to protect the archaeological sites and landscapes in the MoD’s UK Training Areas (see, for example, Brown 2010). I learnt that this effort is dwarfed by the archaeological activity of the Department of Defense (DoD) in the USA (Rush, Chapter 9), but became very conscious that, regardless of the quality of the work of and training provided by the Defence Estates archaeological team or their US or European equivalents, their influence on CPP once forces were deployed – primarily, but not exclusively, overseas – could only be as good as circumstances and military current process would allow. I became increasingly conscious that if those with expertise in cultural heritage failed to engage with the military in this new century then we would have no right to complain in the future if the military failed to protect the cultural heritage. I therefore remained involved and, with my new-found colleague Laurie Rush from

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the USA, began to plan the second book in this trilogy, Archaeology, Cultural Property, and the Military, a review of what various national military organisations actually do with respect to cultural heritage protection (Rush 2010). Rush, an archaeologist working for the US Army, had been driving to work when she first heard of the looting of the National Museum in Iraq. Her reaction was one of horror but also, almost immediately, to question what could she do to ensure such looting and destruction would not happen again. Much of what is chronicled in Archaeology has come about as a direct result of the failures in Iraq, but some was already in place, providing a sound basis from which to expand and develop better activity. This third book attempts to place the relationship between cultural heritage experts and the military within a wider ethical context. When I was first approached in 2003 by the MoD to act as archaeological adviser I accepted immediately, relieved that at last someone (even someone with credentials as limited as my own) was being consulted. Almost as quickly, I questioned whether I should get involved in preparations for a war that I felt I could not support without, at the least, an unambiguous UN mandate (and see Teijgeler, Chapter 6). However, I speedily put my concerns to one side, arguing to myself that my control over the war was non-existent but my potential impact on the protection of cultural property could be significant. I did take every opportunity to make those with whom I was dealing very aware that I did not support the war (Stone 2005/8). CRITICISM By June 2003 my advisory role was provoking harsh and sustained criticism from a small group of archaeologists who argued, from an ethical standpoint, that not only was I wrong to work with the military but that this work ‘provided academic and cultural legitimacy to the invasion’ (Hamilakis 2003, 107). Hamilakis regarded my involvement as part of the wider ‘ethical crisis in archaeology’ in which archaeologists can ‘publicly mourn the loss of artefacts but find no words for the loss of people’ (Hamilakis 2003, 107). I refute this criticism completely. Leaving aside my specific work with the military, the statement by the World Archaeological Congress (WAC) on the unfolding situation in Iraq (issued on 11 April 2003 by Professor Martin Hall, the then President of WAC, and drafted by Martin in collaboration with me in my then role as Honorary CEO of WAC) stressed, before mentioning the cultural heritage, the ‘increasingly distressing humanitarian situation’ (Hall 2003a). A conscious decision was made to lead with general humanitarian concerns but then to focus comments on the organisation’s area of expertise: archaeology. To do otherwise would have been to undermine any possible impact WAC’s intervention might have had with respect to its role regarding the protection of the archaeological cultural heritage. This, of course, in no way implies that WAC considers the protection of cultural property more important than human life. The criticism of my role was part of a focused response reflecting a wider literature (see, for example, Hamilakis and Dukes 2007; Ronayne 2002; 2007) and more general archaeological opposition to the invasion of Iraq which manifested itself in an active group calling themselves ‘Archaeologists Against the War’ (and see, for example,

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Archaeologists for Global Justice: http://www.shef.ac.uk/archaeology/globaljustice.html, accessed 10 November 2010). Indeed, the issue had been identified as important long before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and WAC had set up a Task Force on the ‘Destruction of Cultural Property in Conflict Situations’ as early as 1999 (Ronayne 2000). However, given WAC’s financial and resource limitations at the time, no practical proactive measures had been possible. Although criticism of my work with the military has been the topic of heated debate at a number of conferences and seminars, and I had hoped on these occasions that we could have moved the discussion forward, at each opportunity this aspiration has been thwarted by the refusal of most of those who disagree with cultural heritage experts working with the military to take part in discussions where there are either serving military, or those paid by the military, present. Once again, their refusal to accept the invitation to contribute to this book frustrates the process of discussion. This refusal to engage in a wider debate, and the contentious nature of the issues, is well illustrated by events at the sixth World Archaeological Congress (WAC-6), held at University College, Dublin, in 2008. After significant debate at WAC-5, held in Washington in 2003 and itself considered for postponement because of the 2003 invasion of Iraq (Hall 2003b; Stone 2003), WAC had created a Task Force on ‘Archaeologists and War’ (and see below). Some members of the Task Force began to plan sessions on the topic at WAC-6 in which they explicitly forbade participation by members of the military. The WAC-6 organisers, in conjunction with the WAC Executive, rejected this ban. In the event compromise was achieved in order to allow the widest debate: the original sessions went ahead without military participation while two other sessions were organised with participation open to all. Yannis Hamilakis also agreed to take part in a plenary session at which both I and the American lawyer Patty Gerstenblith spoke (Gerstenblith 2009; Hamilakis 2009; Stone 2009). On the morning of the sessions I arrived to find, to my total surprise, a highly visible Garda (Irish police) presence outside the session venue. This was, and continues to be, criticised as an attempt to limit free speech and inhibit criticism of the military. Let it be clear that the police presence came as just as much of a surprise to the WAC Executive and WAC-6 organisers as it did to me and other participants. The circumstances of this police presence were investigated by Michael Ryan, the President of WAC-6, and are now clear (Ryan 2008). The Garda had become aware of threats to disrupt the sessions in which military personnel were speaking. In the light of an earlier disrupted meeting at the University, in which the Garda had been obliged to intervene to ensure that a guest speaker was safely conducted from the hall, the Garda advised the University of the potential threat. As a result, and given that the University has a duty of care to all persons on its premises at all times, the Garda were invited onto campus to ensure that public order and safety were protected and that peaceful protest was possible. Despite some claims at the time, the Garda officers were, as normal, unarmed, but they did stand out as they wore protective vests. The deployment was strictly for the sessions in question, although officers did move through University buildings for access, breaks and so on. Security staff, in a uniform of blazer and slacks, were also present. These were not under Garda command and were from a company contracted to the University; as is always the case, they were

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likewise unarmed. The same Garda team was present for the visit of President McAleese during the Plenary – this too is standard procedure and attracted no adverse comment. It is ironic that Garda and University attempts to ensure free speech have been interpreted as an attempt to do exactly the opposite. Given the contentious nature of events at WAC-6 the WAC Executive decided that a specialised Inter-Congress on the relationship between archaeologists and the military should be held. The ‘Archaeology in Conflict’ Inter-Congress took place in Vienna in April 2010 and abstracts and papers presented have been published at http://www.archaeologyinconflict.org/proceedings.html (accessed 10 November 2010). The WAC Task Force on ‘Archaeologists and War’ created in 2003 at WAC-5 presented a majority report to the WAC Executive at the Inter-Congress. As I write, this is still being discussed by the WAC Executive. Umberto Albarella (2009) continued the attack on my work with the military when he noted that he questioned me after my plenary presentation at WAC-6: At the end of his talk I asked Peter if he would have provided the same level of collaboration had Britain decided to attack Denmark rather than Iraq. After some hesitation he answered ‘yes’. It was of course the only answer he could provide as any others would have implied that his actions were qualified by his political position regarding the attack on Iraq. I was just exploring what level of political and humanitarian madness such professional advice was prepared to embrace. Had time allowed it I would have gone further and asked what his position would have been had the target of the bombing been not Iraq or Denmark but his own town. Would he have tried to persuade the army to spare the local church despite knowing that many of his friends and family would have died as a consequence of the bombing? I am not sure that he would have also answered positively to this further question. This just shows that ultimately our preparedness to ‘engage’ with the military is a measure of our level of empathy with the victims. (Albarella 2009)

Setting aside the emotive language of this attack, there are points to be made that could move the debate on. Both Hamilakis and Albarella ignore the point, made to them both in person, that I do not suggest, nor have ever suggested, that the protection of cultural property is worth the loss of a single life. Those of my actions that are intended to protect cultural property bear no relationship to any ‘level of empathy with the victims’. My hesitation over Albarella’s question about a hypothetical UK invasion of Denmark, as I explained to him at the time, was simply my trying to understand why he had chosen Denmark as an example. His unasked question ‘Would he have tried to persuade the army to spare the local church despite knowing that many of his friends and family would have died as a consequence of the bombing?’ does not make sense to me as written; I assume he means that had my intervention to save the church been successful it would have resulted directly in a different building, one which contained family and friends, being targeted. This is nonsense, as the protection of an historic building does not require the targeting of a different, by implication non-historic, building; more importantly, of course I would not try to persuade anyone to save a building if the alternative were human casualties. Let me make it perfectly clear once again: any casualty caused by war – be it an Iraqi,

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an Afghan, a Dane, an Italian, or an inhabitant of a small Northumberland village (my ‘own town’); or a male or female; an adult or a child; a soldier, an ‘insurgent’, or a freedom fighter – is an affront to my personal creed. War and the casualties caused by war are wrong: but, unfortunately, I do not see a time in the near future where the age-old human recourse to violent conflict will end. The question is whether we use our particular expertise to mitigate the effects of violent conflict. Hamilakis and Albarella say ‘no’ and take what is effectively a pacifist line to have nothing to do with the military; this is absolutely within their rights and I fully support and defend their decision. I take the opposite view and accept it as my responsibility to do what I can to mitigate the impact of violent conflict on cultural property. Behind Albarella’s attack lies the very valid question of what level of cooperation should exist between cultural heritage experts and the military. The above presents a simple question: engage or not. One critic, Reinhard Bernbeck, raises a much wider and deeper set of questions that require much wider debate than can be provided in this Introduction. Bernbeck has spent a considerable time working both as an archaeologist and as an interpreter for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in conflict situations and his views are thus supported by a level of practical understanding and experience that I, and most of my critics, lack. He also places his criticisms within a compelling and much broader argument relating to ‘structural violence’ (Bernbeck 2008a). In brief, his argument is that archaeologists (and others) are, by implication of their working within the large social structures, mainly of the West, consistently carrying out structural violence against those outside such structures. Translated into an archaeological context this means ‘the “normality” of archaeological practice contributes to the perpetuation of stark inequalities in the doing of archaeology and thereby in the outcomes and implications of that work’ (Pollock 2008, 360; and see Starzmann 2008). It is ironic that much of my own work has dealt with just such issues with respect to formal and informal education about the past (see, for example, Stone and MacKenzie 1990; Stone and Molyneaux 1994; Stone and Planel 1999). The following summary of Bernbeck’s more specific views on CPP comes from my notes of a lecture he delivered at a conference on ‘Culture Wars: Heritage and Armed Conflict in the 21st Century’ organised by the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities in Cambridge (Bernbeck 2008b), a fairly long discussion with him at the same conference and correspondence between members of the WAC Task Force on ‘Archaeologists and War’. Bernbeck takes as his starting point the absolute priority of human life in conflict situations, to which consideration of cultural (or I presume any) property must come as a definite secondary issue. I absolutely agree with him. Linked to this is the obvious, but infrequently stated, maxim that any development in thinking concerning the relationship between cultural heritage experts and the military must be seen in the context of future conflicts and not just based retrospectively on discussion of failures in Iraq and Afghanistan. Bernbeck acknowledges and emphasises that knowledge is power and, while agreeing that the military should be made aware of their responsibilities to cultural property under international law, rejects the notion that they should be provided with specific information concerning cultural property extant in one particular geographical location. Bernbeck illustrates this

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rejection using his experience in Afghanistan, where combatants’ knowledge of the value and whereabouts of cultural objects put those cultural objects at considerable risk, with a corresponding dramatic increase in the trade in illicit antiquities. This is an important point that requires much wider consideration. An equally important issue for discussion is the blurring of roles between the military and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) working in conflict zones. Bernbeck notes that many NGO workers have been killed in conflict zones where the distinction between the military acting as combatants and then almost immediately as contractors involved in reconstruction has made it impossible to maintain a clear distinction between the military and (explicitly non-military) NGOs. This view was supported more broadly by other speakers at the Cambridge conference (mainly, but not exclusively, relating to experience in Afghanistan), where representatives of NGOs, including the Aga Khan Foundation, felt strongly that working with the military was often highly detrimental to their goals and, not infrequently, posed a danger to their own lives. Key to Bernbeck’s views are the concepts of ‘neutrality’ and ‘impartiality’, two of the seven principles of the ICRC (ICRC 1996). As I understand him, he considers that if these two principles can be maintained then there is scope for the development of norms of CPP, but, crucially, neutrality and impartiality can only be achieved if, first, cultural heritage experts remain outside the military, second, they are not of the same nationality as the belligerent parties, and, third, they work in close collaboration with local cultural heritage authorities. Such processes would, Bernbeck argues, require the establishment of contact between relevant experts, NGOs, and local cultural experts before conflict breaks out. The final point to note regarding Bernbeck’s views is that damage to cultural property has not been caused solely by anti-Western forces. Yes, the Taliban destroyed the statues of Buddha in Bamiyan, but, equally, US forces destroyed the statue of Saddam Hussein in Ferdows Square in Baghdad and Coalition forces have been responsible for significant damage to sites in Iraq (see, for example, Curtis 2008; Moussa 2008; van Ess and Curtis 2009). Rothfield (2009, 138–41) also reports on the involvement of US forces in the trade in illicit antiquities. As I have never been in combat, or in a conflict zone, it would be totally wrong of me to suggest that others should put themselves in such danger. For me, writing in a theoretical limbo, it seems entirely wrong that human life should be exchanged for the protection of cultural property. Nor do I prioritise in any way the following individuals over the hundreds of thousands of others who have died in recent conflicts. I do note, however, that during World War II numerous members of the French museum profession, perhaps most noticeably Rose Valland, the Temporary Custodian of the Jeu de Paume in Paris, put their lives at risk on a daily basis to protect cultural objects in France (Edsel 2009; Nicholas 1995); that two Monuments Men in that war paid with their lives while trying to protect cultural property (Edsel 2009, 245, 285); that two guards at archaeological sites in Guatemala were killed while trying to protect the site for which they were responsible (Brodie et al 2000, 16); that in the early 1990s a guard was shot dead in an attack at Angkor, in Cambodia (Brodie et al 2000, 16); and that eight Iraqi customs officers appear to have been

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killed in order that others might seize the illicit antiquities that they and Italian police had recovered a few days earlier (ABC News 2004). I would be very surprised if these acts of bravery and the senseless loss of life that resulted were the only examples of curators and others putting their lives at risk for the protection of the cultural property about which they felt so strongly. It is also worthy of note, given the discussion below on the ethical implication of social scientists working with the military, that in the past two years three civilian members of US Human Terrain Teams have died in Iraq and Afghanistan (http://humanterrainsystem.army.mil/, accessed 10 November 2010). THE SCOPE

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This book tries to place the relationship between cultural heritage experts and the military into both an historical and a wider contemporary context. In Chapter 1, Margaret Miles provides a thumbnail sketch of the history of the relationship, in which, for most of history, cultural property has been regarded as legitimate ‘spoils of war’ collected by generals and foot soldiers alike and used both as an additional incentive to partake in conflict and as a means of further humiliation for a defeated enemy. While Miles concentrates on the 19th-century Treaty of Vienna, she notes that it was as far back as the final century BC that the Greek historian Polybius argued for a very practical, essentially political, reason for the victorious nation not to loot – for by looting the victor would increase the hatred of the vanquished towards them and thus make the conquered territory more difficult to govern. Here there is a clear analogy with the developing military view that CPP is an important element of the ‘comprehensive approach’ (and see below). Miles notes that most later warfare ignored Polybius and that Napoleon refined the normal process of allowing looting by adding an academic justification to his more ambitious campaigns, thereby helping with the genesis and legitimisation of the collection of large numbers of ancient artefacts by scientific expeditions that was to be the norm in the 19th and early 20th centuries. However, it was the settlement of post-Napoleonic Europe that first introduced the idea of the restitution of looted antiquities and works of art to the country of origin. A clear point to come from this historical overview is that the view formed after the Battle of Waterloo, which ended the Napoleonic Wars, was that ‘it was not a judicial decision, but rather action was taken ad hoc, with the force of law, by the Army of Occupation headed by Wellington. He had no legal training, but was acting on general knowledge as a well-read eighteenth-century gentleman with common sense’ (Miles, Chapter 1, 40). There appears to have been little discussion of cultural heritage experts (the term itself obviously would not have been used) helping with the return of artefacts, although there is a depressing familiarity about 50 artists and architects signing letters to the press over the looting of art from Italy that was exhibited in a victory procession in Paris in July 1798, and being ignored. The international community has built upon this post-Napoleonic settlement in a series of instruments starting with the 1863 Lieber Code and culminating in the Second Protocol to the 1954 Hague Convention (Toman 1996; see Boylan 2002 for reviews of the development of this legislation).

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Fritz Allhoff (Chapter 2) and Andrew Chandler (Chapter 3) then look at two similar areas where non-military experts are drawn into close working relationships with the military. The respective callings of medicine and Christian ministry are widely perceived as being inherently anti-conflict, yet both medicine and religion have been inextricably linked to conflict for as long as it has taken place (and let us not forget that Christianity has been responsible for some of the most horrible wars in history). Both authors were asked to explore this contradiction and both took a different approach. Allhoff, an applied ethicist and philosopher of biology/science, dealing with medicine and drawing heavily on his 2008 edited volume Physicians at War, reviews contemporary debates in medical ethics and focuses on the ‘dual-loyalty’ challenge, where loyalty to a medical code of ethics may in certain circumstances be tested by loyalty to a wider military objective. Might the prioritisation of medical care to a senior enemy officer over a junior ranking ally leading to the death of the latter, or even involvement in the torture of an enemy agent/soldier, actually be a medically valid option if through such prioritisation or torture the lives of tens, or hundreds, or thousands are saved? Such debates make this editor feel extremely uncomfortable and leave him wanting to firmly lock the lid of this particular Pandora’s Box, to know less rather than more, but Allhoff raises very real issues facing those medical staff that either choose to, or find themselves, working with the military. Allhoff puts into writing a view offered by all of those doctors (and clergy) to whom I spoke about whether cultural heritage experts should become involved in CPP: his view is ‘absolutely yes’, as to do otherwise would be to abdicate professional responsibility (Chapter 2, 50–53). Chandler (Chapter 3) takes a more historical approach, using as a case study the position taken by Bishop Bell against the Allied bombing of German cities in World War II. This stance won Bell few friends and almost certainly curtailed his rise within the hierarchy of the Anglican Church. However, it is significant for our purposes that, while disagreeing publicly with the bombing strategy, not for one moment did Bell contemplate abdicating his more specific Christian duty of administering to those in uniform. Chandler emphasises this point more generally by noting that ‘If a priest is to protest against the war itself and remove himself from any contact with it, he may satisfy his own conscience but abandon those who need his ministry in an hour of extremity’ (Chapter 3, 56). Trauner (2008, 14) clarifies and expands upon this responsibility by noting that the three traditional pillars of military pastoral care are: • Pastoral/psychological care of the soldiers based on the concept of ‘accompanying pastoral care’ wherever they may be stationed; • Celebration of Church services, also within the framework of military ceremonies (eg the swearing-in of recruits); • Education of soldiers in the field of military and professional ethics.

I do not make a precise analogy between either of these professions and the relationship of cultural heritage experts with the military. Others (see, for example, the views of Schadla-Hall quoted in Jenkins 2010) have pointed out one claimed difference – that much, if not all, archaeology has a political dimension and that

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archaeological evidence has been used and misinterpreted for political justification and gain (see, for example, Gathercole and Lowenthal 1989; Stone in press). To a modern archaeological community, versed in the influence of WAC, such observations about the political nature of archaeology border on the banal: every country uses its cultural property and cultural heritage to help construct an image that is acceptable to itself (and see Hobsbawm and Ranger 1992). However, I would argue that medicine also has a clear relationship with politics (consider the current debates in the UK over the National Health Service or in the USA over the health reforms of President Obama), while Allhoff raises clear dilemmas for doctors regarding the prioritisation of military/political aims over medical ethics. At the same time even the most cursory review of world history would suggest that the link between religion and politics (and war) is as strong as – if not stronger than – the link between archaeology and politics. I am unaware of any war being provoked by cultural property (although there are numerous examples of cultural property being used as a rallying point of reference or a target) while the number of wars directly related to religion is legion. This aside, an underlying similarity between the three professions is clear: certain nonmilitary expertise sits uncomfortably but unambiguously alongside military operations. Those with medical and religious expertise appear to be unanimous in their acceptance of the difficulties such a relationship brings with it. Some choose to fully engage with such difficulties by actually becoming part of the military as doctors or chaplains; others immediately and without question accept the responsibility when it is forced upon them, as with, for example, Bell’s acceptance of his spiritual obligations to those in uniform during World War II. Others, such as members of Médecins Sans Frontières, reject international norms of neutrality and confidentiality but are still active participants in conflict situations because of their own professional expertise and beliefs (and see Teijgeler, Chapter 6). All accept that their specialist skills burden them with a responsibility to engage. The complexity of the situation is further underlined by the varied use of terminology. This Introduction uses the term ‘cultural property’ as it is used in international legislation, in particular the 1954 Hague Convention. Many discussing these issues use the less precise term ‘cultural heritage’ or effectively use the terms interchangeably (see, for example, a number of chapters in Stone and Farchakh Bajjaly 2008). The distinction may appear to be overly pedantic, but is in fact crucially important (Prott and O’Keefe 1992). Essentially, the terms can be seen to reflect tangible (property) and intangible aspects of heritage (non-physical examples of heritage such as songs, oral traditions and the uses to which cultural property is put). International legislation dealing with conflict concentrates on the former to the exclusion of the latter, reflecting Western property law (O’Keefe 2006; and see Kila 2010). This book follows international legislation in dealing primarily with cultural property and the ethics of cultural heritage experts assisting the military in its protection. However, my use of the term ‘cultural heritage experts’ is intentional and is chosen to indicate that CPP is but a part of a wider spectrum in which cultural heritage experts are normally involved. All contributors to the book were asked to follow this distinction and to avoid broadening the discussion to the wider cultural heritage – with the exception of Suchard (Chapter 12 and see below).

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It could nevertheless be argued, however, that this distinction is irrelevant, and that to make it creates a false environment where protection of cultural property can be isolated in some objective way from reality; after all, it is the use to which cultural property is put that provides it with cultural (and perhaps, depending on the circumstances, political, social, and economic) capital. Others stress that there are also implications for those who appear to be providing CPP expertise only. Emberling (2008) argues that archaeologists with specialised archaeological knowledge of an area will, by default, also possess specialised anthropological expertise in the same area, having worked there, one assumes successfully, for a period of time. The obvious implication is that the line between archaeologists providing information on cultural property and anthropologists providing information on social aspects of an area is extraordinarily thin, if not invisible. This is a very valid concern, especially if dealing with an area where cultural norms are significantly different to those of any military an archaeologist might be asked to assist. Trauner (2008) makes this point a positive aspect of the work of a military chaplain by arguing that there is no one better to explain the relevance and importance of ecclesiastical buildings than a chaplain who has the inside knowledge of their probable or potential importance to local communities. Any choice of cultural property to be protected involves a decision as to the relative merits of property A over property B. The unfairness – in effect, the impossibility – of such a choice has been put forward as a reason not to assist military planners prior to a particular deployment (see Curtis, Chapter 14, with particular reference to the 2003 invasion of Iraq and planning for a potential invasion of Iran). However, this is a conundrum with which all archaeological (and I would propose most other) cultural heritage experts are depressingly familiar. We constantly and consistently choose particular landscapes, sites and objects to be given international or national prominence and various forms of basic or enhanced protection, such choices affecting which sites are protected or excavated, and which sacrificed during, for example, intensified agriculture, mining activity, or building development. Every time a national archaeological organisation decides to add a site to its register of nationally important places there is an implicit rejection of other sites that are deemed, by whatever criteria are in vogue, not to be of such importance. UNESCO’s World Heritage List is but the most extreme example of this. The creation of lists of properties to be protected in times of conflict is an unfortunate, very difficult and extreme extension of the lists and decisions that archaeologists make on an almost daily basis, but that is all it is – an extension of what we do on a daily basis. Or is it? Considered in another way, could the provision of such information actually be much more than simply an extension of our normal work? While quite correct, Trauner’s argument that experts – in his case religious ministers, here cultural heritage experts – are those people best placed to provide information makes me nervous. By identifying particular objects, sites and buildings as cultural property worthy of protection in times of conflict, are we not providing the military with a potential list of targets, of places and things that, if treated in a particular way, might help it gain an advantage over its opponents? Might the military prioritise our prioritised list? A (historic) religious building of group X might be accorded better protection than one belonging to group Y because it fits the

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political goal of a particular campaign, a goal of which we may be totally unaware. By providing such information to the military we are making a clear decision to trust the military and, by implication, their political masters, not to misuse that information. Is this a decision we should be willing to make? Despite my request to preserve the distinction between cultural property and heritage, a number of contributors found the difference too important to ignore. In his discussion of conflict in Africa, Bayo Folorunso (Chapter 11) finds the separation impossible, suggesting that ‘the preservation of cultural property (material) without the preservation of the traditions and values associated with them would be incomplete, as they are inseparable’. This raises yet another layer of complexity: while it is impossible to separate cultural property and cultural heritage in Africa, it appears to be far more easily done in Europe and perhaps North America. Much international legislation dealing with cultural property/heritage is based on a European view and understanding of antiquities and, as noted above, European law. Folorunso makes the point that, given the close relationship between cultural property and heritage still remaining in Africa (and I would suggest much of the rest of the world), much conflict in contemporary Africa does not appear to be covered by the 1954 Hague Convention. More broadly, one consequence of this European bias in international legislation is that African cultural site representation on the World Heritage List is extremely low (42 out of 704, or 6%). While such low representation is caused by a number of factors, one of the most important is an acceptance that, with a few notable exceptions, African heritage does not fit conveniently into the monumental architectural view of World Heritage as it is understood in Europe: the preservation of places that, in most cases, have lost a direct relationship with the present. The implication is, rightly or wrongly, that Europeans can make a clear distinction between cultural property – major prehistoric monuments, medieval castles and cathedrals, industrial revolution factories – and cultural heritage because we have lost the relationship between such physical remains and the cultural heritage context that produced them. Folorunso argues this is not the case in Africa. In the same way, many African colleagues find the term ‘prehistory’ unhelpful and reminiscent of colonialism as it forces this distinction, this removal of monuments of the past from their present cultural context. Rowlands (Chapter 14) also implicitly calls for an acknowledgement of the link between cultural heritage and local communities, essentially questioning the West’s concerns for cultural property as an isolated entity. This difference must have an impact on how CPP is dealt with in times of armed conflict: can we claim that providing lists of important cultural property is an objective activity? Perhaps the further one travels from a West that has lost much of its direct link to the past, the less objective such a list might become. Folorunso also raises the point that conflict has changed through time, arguing that there is no evidence of cultural property being under threat in conflict in Africa before the arrival of European colonisers who introduced ‘the dimension of wanton looting and destruction of cultural properties and values’ (Chapter 11, 169). Perhaps not surprisingly, Martin Brown (Chapter 8) and Laurie Rush (Chapter 9), from the UK and USA respectively, find the distinction easier to accept. Rush stresses the important distinction between the work of archaeologists working with, and

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within, the military for CPP and anthropologists working within the military in what have come to be referred to in the US military as Human Terrain Teams (HTTs) (US Army 2009). As noted above, the former work within a context of international law and Rush argues that the only way for a country to be in a position to abide by such international legislation is for trained archaeologists to actively work directly with and within the military. In contrast, Rush argues, human terrain and cultural awareness training activities are driven by military doctrine and tactics, not by laws and regulations: the goal of an anthropologist working in a Human Terrain Team (HTT) is to provide combat commanders with a sophisticated understanding of the social structure of the local community in whose lands they are performing military operations. Rush suggests that there are serious ethical questions about the role of anthropologists in such activity, while Emberling (2008, 447) notes that the relationship has a sorry history, with anthropologists who were working ‘clearly contrary to the basic ethical principles of anthropological fieldwork’ providing information to the US military in the 1960s. I agree totally with Rush’s unease, but I can understand that anthropological information is exactly the type of knowledge that would be of interest to military commanders operating in a region where the social norms were unfamiliar. Local understanding and knowledge must be central to winning a war, rather than simply a series of battles. This is surely what the history of colonialism and empire has consistently taught over the past two millennia. Kila (2010) also draws a distinction similar to that made by Rush, as do most other archaeologists working with the military in CPP. Whether social scientists should help the military in this way is thus an extremely contentious issue. Suchard (Chapter 12) actually turns the concern on its head and makes a convincing case that anthropologists and other social scientists working with the military in HTTs and similar units are trying first and foremost to help bring conflict to a speedy conclusion, thereby reducing civilian injury that would result from a longer war. I understand the argument, but note that it relies on a total trust that the military is doing its best for the society in which it is operating. The American Anthropological Association’s (AAA) Commission on the Engagement of Anthropology with the US Security and Intelligence Communities (CEAUSSIC), of which Rush was a member, has recently issued a report on ‘The Engagement of Anthropology with the US Security and Intelligence Communities’ (AAA 2009). Suchard is concerned that the Report focuses too strongly on viewing the relationship from the point of view of anthropology as a discipline, rather than from the perspective of what anthropology can do to mitigate the impact of conflict. Given that the Report originates from the disciplinary organisation the emphasis is understandable, however, as is its conclusion: In summary, while we stress that constructive engagement between anthropology and the military is possible, CEAUSSIC suggests that the AAA emphasize the incompatibility of HTS [Human Terrain Systems] with disciplinary ethics and practice for job seekers and that it further recognize the problem of allowing HTS to define the meaning of ‘anthropology’ within DoD. (AAA 2009, 3)

This is about as clear as an organisation such as the AAA can get: anthropologists should not get involved with HTS as they can control neither the reason behind their

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involvement nor the environment in which they work. However, on this side of the Atlantic, the UK military has just created the Defence Cultural Specialist Unit (DCSU), which is intended to help commanders ‘identify and understand issues relating to the local cultural, political, economic, social and historical environment to help commanders make better and more informed decisions’ (MoD 2010). On hearing of the creation of this unit I contacted them and was somewhat relieved to be informed by the DCSU Senior Liaison Officer that while my area of interest (CPP) sounded fascinating, it was not in line with the activities of the DCSU and a protracted conversation would not be of value (Maguire pers comm, 7 June 2010). For present purposes, and as noted above, this book concentrates on CPP and tries to avoid straying into the world of Human Terrain operations. Some readers (and contributors – see above) may – will – find this an abdication of academic rigour, or overly simplistic, but I would suggest that it deals with the practical situation as it stands at present. I fully acknowledge that CPP is only an element of the broader field in which most cultural heritage experts are interested; however, let us take small steps that are likely to have results rather than attempt large strides that may not. If we allow the physical remains of the past to be destroyed there can be no (or at least extremely limited via record) further use of that particular cultural property to develop a cultural heritage identity, understanding, or position based upon that property. I therefore advocate CPP programmes while calling for a far more focused debate on what CPP actually requires in practice and where the boundaries defining the relationship between cultural heritage experts and the military lie. Both Brown (Chapter 8) and Rush (Chapter 9) remind us that CPP in times of armed conflict is only one aspect of the relationship between cultural heritage experts and the military. The brief outline of Rush’s archaeological conservation work at Fort Drum, mitigating the impact of large-scale military training on Native American sites and landscapes, is mirrored by the archaeological heritage management activity of the Defence Estates archaeologists employed by the UK MoD, as described by Brown. Few have raised objections to such long-term conservation (I have found no such criticism in print). Indeed, many praise such work and Francis Scardera (Chapter 10) emphasises the development of far better relations between the military and Native American communities since the arrival of archaeologists working, crucially, within the military while retaining civilian status, the implication being that if the cultural heritage expert were positioned outside the military chain of command their influence would be greatly diminished. The obvious benefits of such archaeological management of military lands raises the issue of where, if at all, to draw a line: if archaeologists are content to work with, and be paid by, the military in protecting and investigating sites affected by the military on home territory, should they, or should they not, do the same when the military is deployed overseas? Is there a distinction regarding the type of deployment, so that archaeological mitigation is acceptable if overseas deployment is for training or post-disaster humanitarian aid work, but unacceptable if for active service? Another key issue identified by Rush is that of guidelines. A significant amount of discussion has centred on the need for, and value of, guidelines to formalise the relationship between cultural heritage experts and the military. René Teijgeler

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(Chapter 6), who has been involved in CPP in both Iraq (Teijgeler 2008) and Afghanistan, argues that such internationally agreed guidelines are urgently required as ‘[i]t is essential to maintain a clear distinction between the various players and for all to realise that the protection of cultural heritage is not the primary responsibility of the armed forces’ (Teijgeler, Chapter 6, 108). Rush also favours guidelines, championing the ‘Guidelines for Relations Between U.S. Armed Forces and NonGovernmental Humanitarian Organizations in Hostile or Potentially Hostile Environments’ developed by the US Institute for Peace in 2007 (and reproduced as an appendix to Chapter 9, below). Teijgeler (pers comm) is less convinced by these guidelines, as they are too US-focused and general, dealing with all humanitarian NGOs and not just CPP issues; for Teijgeler, guidelines need to reflect the (increasing) complexity of international military missions and the fact that military doctrine has developed significantly since 2007. He therefore looks towards the Oslo Guidelines, which have a more international grounding (Oslo Guidelines 2006). Despite these arguments, however, the conclusion can only be, once again, that more discussion is required before the most appropriate solution will be found. Certainly, guidelines would help us make difficult decisions over when it is appropriate or inappropriate for cultural heritage experts to assist the military. There must be various points at which choices are made to engage or disengage; Teijgeler suggests, for example, that cultural heritage experts should work with the military only if a given deployment is sanctioned by an international body. During my own involvement with the military in 2003 I fully expected, in retrospect naïvely, international acceptance of the conflict in the form of an additional UN Resolution prior to the invasion. This did not materialise and I therefore had the choice of continuing to work with the military or withdrawing my association. However, let us hypothesise and imagine a situation in which a second UN Resolution was passed in late February 2003, thereby legitimising the war. Had I waited until this resolution had been passed before I started my work with the military it would have been too late for me to have made any contribution at all. In reality, the invasion went ahead without a second UN Resolution and had I withdrawn my support there would have been an implication that cultural property is worthy of protection only if a conflict is deemed legitimate. Can this be correct? Oliver Urquhart Irvine (Chapter 4) broadens the discussion again by moving from explicitly archaeological remains to the protection of libraries and archives and, in particular, the international work of the British Library. I purposefully asked for a contribution from the British Library not only because I knew the Library was taking protection of books and archival materials very seriously but also because many, rightly or wrongly, regard it as a bastion of the remnants of empire and colonialism. I remember many members of WAC questioning the ethical position of the British Museum in offering to lead international support for the Iraq National Museum immediately following the 2003 looting. Their argument questioned how the national museum of an invading belligerent power could legitimately offer to help put right destruction caused by the Coalition to which its government, and military, belonged. A counter-argument was put by some that it was precisely because the UK had been part of the Coalition that had failed so spectacularly to protect the museums in Iraq

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that the British Museum should, indeed had a responsibility to, offer as much help as possible. I raised this issue with Donny George, then Director of Research at the Iraq National Museum, at a seminar at the British Museum in April 2003 (and see Curtis, Chapter 14). George’s response was unequivocal: the British Museum was exactly the organisation to lead the international support efforts as it had the expertise and its staff were known and trusted by the staff of the Iraq National Museum. It is interesting to note that one of Bernbeck’s apparently very sensible suggestions discussed above – that post-conflict CPP should not be carried out by nationals of belligerent parties – would prevent the assistance offered by the British Museum and clearly desired by Iraqi counterparts. This does not mean that Bernbeck is wrong; it merely underlines the complexity of the issues, that different circumstances may well have different appropriate outcomes, and that significantly more thought needs to be given to the whole relationship. The British Library has also supported the struggle of cultural heritage experts within Iraq by hosting on the Library’s website the journal of Dr Saad Eskander, the Director of the Iraq National Library and Archive (INLA), which was continually updated as he wrote it. This is another area fraught with difficulty, as illustrated by Zainab Bahrani: A situation has arisen now that the voices of Iraqi archaeologists are mostly dismissed as politically motivated whereas the archaeologists who work with the US or UK government and military are now taken as the unbiased and objective assessors of the situation. In addition to the destruction and erasure of history therefore, we can add the silencing of the voices of Iraqi scholars. (Bahrani 2010, 72)

No cultural heritage expert with whom I have been in contact over either Iraq or Afghanistan would expect to work in either country without the approval of cultural heritage experts from the home country. However, I can imagine the situation where, for example, a UK military commander might be more comfortable taking advice from a UK national than a cultural heritage expert from a country where they are seen as an occupying force. This is wrong, but perhaps human nature. It underlines once again both the complexity of the situation and the need for clearer collaboration and guidelines as called for by Teijgeler and Rush (above). The Library’s response to conflict is active collaboration ‘by the sharing of digital copies, preservation through digitisation, virtual reunification of texts online, [and] the copying and redistribution of oral histories’ (Urquhart Irvine, Chapter 4, 70). While the Library has the advantage of digitisation, providing a large measure of the value of a manuscript, it is obvious that an image of an artefact or site has significantly less value. However, for present purposes the message is clear: the Library engages in the process of protecting the cultural property that it sees as falling under its remit within the bounds of its funding, capacity and the availability of relevant material. Bahrani makes a much wider and, if possible, more serious point. While welcoming the attention paid by academics and the general media to the destruction of cultural heritage in Iraq, she emphasises that this reaction has all ‘circumvented’ a major point: that such damage is not always collateral but that it ‘is destruction of history in a country under occupation’ (Bahrani 2010, 68). This, along with her point

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about the silencing of Iraqi archaeologists, is a very important reminder that the 2003 invasion has had far greater consequences than just the loss of cultural property. This point is made even more clearly by Dirk Adriaensens in his chilling account of the specific targeting of Iraqi doctors, teachers and academics for assassination (Adriaensens 2010). Some of the academics are claimed to have died at the hands of US interrogators ‘desperate for one confession that Iraq’s program of WMD was still active’ (email to BRussells Tribunal and quoted in Adriaensens 2010, 121), others at the hands of death squads associated with different factions struggling for power. One Iraqi academic suggests that ‘[k]illing the educators and academics would make it easier for the illiterate religious fanatics to govern uneducated people, terrified for their lives’ (quoted in Adriaensens 2010, 133). There are reports of Iraqi academics sending emails in 2003 stating that Coalition soldiers were transporting mobs to scientific institutions ‘to destroy scientific research centres and confiscate all papers and documents to stop any Iraqi scientific renaissance before it had a chance to begin’ (Adriaensens 2010, 119). Whatever the validity of these claims and whoever was doing the killing, it is clear that there has been a huge impact on the educated middle class in Iraq, approximately 40% of which had emigrated by 2006 (Adriaensens 2010, 123). Adriaensens’ contribution to a recent edited volume reproduces a slightly modified version of the BRussells Tribunal List of murdered academics in Iraq, which lists 410 names (Baker et al 2010, Appendix 2, 263–81), and notes that it is almost certainly incomplete. Baker et al (2010, Introduction) actually suggest that it is time to think the unthinkable and question whether the invasion had a more focused objective – essentially to destroy Iraq as a viable state. In this scenario the failure to protect and provide a safe environment for doctors, teachers, and academics – and, yes, for cultural property – become not failures, as widely perceived, but successes of planning. In this context providing information on cultural property that should be protected could be viewed as providing tactical information to the military for a secret strategic objective: fail to protect this museum and you will provoke general outrage that will contribute to a disintegration of social norms; allow this particular monument to be destroyed and you will fuel social division; treat this ancient site in this way and you will inflame the belief that you have utter contempt for the population’s culture. This takes the discussion to a completely different level, one on which I am not competent to comment. Nevertheless, it must still be asked whether the unthinkable scenario affects my commitment to CPP. It does not: in terms of the specifics of Iraq it merely recalibrates my understanding of the Coalition’s political leadership, showing that their actions were motivated by, rather than arrogance and incompetency, an active aim to collaborate in the destruction of cultural property. The issue remains the same, but what might change is not my commitment to CPP but to the way it is delivered: prioritised cultural property might have to be protected by parties other than one of the belligerents. In 2003 there was no opportunity for such a course of action. It may be, if practically possible, that provision for such action needs to be put in place for the future. Here there may well be a clearer role for the Blue Shield organisations, although at present these are still coming to terms with their responsibilities in an environment of huge financial and other resource constraints (see, for example, Cole 2008; and, with respect to the USA, Wegener 2010).

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(Lt General) Barney White-Spunner (Chapter 5) reminds us of a long association between archaeologists and those in the military (including Augustus Pitt Rivers, T E Lawrence and Mortimer Wheeler), the ending of which at the close of World War II he laments. Many in archaeology might welcome this distancing. White-Spunner makes the fundamental point that military commanders have always relied on external advice and that he was no exception as he prepared to lead UK 3rd Division on a tour of duty in Iraq, calling on a broad range of academics, journalists, politicians and historians to help him better understand the context in which he was about to operate. Put simply, the military is fully aware that it cannot function effectively without external expertise and support. Information regarding cultural property is only one, essentially minor, facet of this reliance on external support. White-Spunner is not naïve in thinking that all will share a common agenda, and certainly not common ethics, but suggests that if a unity of purpose, which is ‘all important within these relationships’, can be found then common goals can be achieved. The level of agreement will, of course, vary considerably between situations; for instance, I was totally against the invasion of Iraq but was able to agree on a common goal with those with whom I was working in the military: that all in our power would be done to protect the cultural property of Iraq. With hindsight, it is questionable whether the wider military, or its political masters, shared this common goal (and see Bevan 2006, 203). Brown (Chapter 8) continues the discussion of the direct relationship between cultural heritage specialists and the military by describing the very real links between various units in the British, and other, armies and their own heritage. To serving soldiers, their heritage is an important part of their identity. Brown makes the point that, with a little imagination and effort, it is not impossibly difficult to make a connection in soldiers’ minds between their own military heritage and encouraging that soldier to be an active proponent of CPP. This link to the military mindset is a vitally important point. From a military perspective it has long been accepted that armed forces are deployed by politicians to impose their will over that of their political opponents once normal political diplomacy has failed: ‘war is a mere continuation of policy by other means’ (von Clausewitz 1997 edn, 22). A successful war/conflict is therefore one in which the views of one group are accepted by a second group as the result of military activity. The military are obliged to do everything in their power to deliver victory within international humanitarian law and the resources allocated to them by their political masters. It is generally accepted, at the very least by the armed forces of Western democratic countries, that the politicians who send them to war will do so only when the war is a just one (and see, for example, Coates 1997; Guthrie and Quinlan 2007; Walzer 1977). This goes back to the Christian concept of going to war for a just cause – jus ad bellum – argued by, among others, St Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century (Guthrie and Quinlan 2007, 7). Whether the 2003 invasion of Iraq can be categorised as a Just War must be left up to others, although personally, I have my doubts. By implication, therefore, the military will prioritise means of winning conflicts over all other considerations. If CPP is regarded as an aspect of ‘other considerations’ (ie not central to the winning of conflict), it will attract limited, if any, consideration from the military. Furthermore, even if it is seen as a priority, if insufficient resources

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are available it may not be a high enough priority to ensure its success. In the case of Iraq, despite some particular exceptions – for example, the pre-invasion speech of Colonel Tim Collins to his troops (Collins 2003) – and notwithstanding the flimsy claims of the British prime minister, either CPP was deemed not to be a priority or not enough troops were deployed to ensure adequate protection.1 Or, just possibly, as mentioned above, the destruction of cultural property was a covert war aim. However, this does not mean that cultural property should have been ignored by the different national armed forces that made up the Coalition that invaded Iraq. CPP is established as part of international humanitarian law – in particular in the 1954 Hague Convention (and see Gerstenblith 2009; Hensel 2007; Toman 1996), and also in the 1977 Additional Protocol I to the 1949 Geneva Conventions (Articles 53 and 85[4] [d]) and also in the 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (Articles 8[2][b][ix] and 8[2][e][iv]). As far as UK forces were concerned, despite the astonishing fact that the UK had not (and as I write still has not) ratified the 1954 Hague Convention, its armed forces were claimed to be, and certainly should have been, working within the spirit of these international instruments. Indeed, there are no fewer than 52 specific references to the 1954 Hague Convention in the UK’s Manual of the Law of Armed Conflict (UK 2005) and a further 58 references to CPP more generally in the same manual. Given this, any failure to protect cultural property by UK forces becomes even less acceptable (although for some of the difficulties of protecting cultural property in times of armed conflict see Bevan 2006; Yahya 2008). While I am no lawyer, I presume that the UK’s military defence over the looting of museums and sites is that the conditions in Iraq at the time of looting were such that protection of the museum and sites in the UK’s Area of Responsibility (AoR) allows it to use as a mitigating factor the concept of ‘military necessity’ – ie that its forces were involved in necessary military activity that precluded, because of lack of available troops, the protection of the museum in Basra, archaeological sites, and other cultural buildings and collections. While this may be valid in relation to damage done in Basra before UK forces gained full control there, I am not sure that is is much of a defence with respect to archaeological sites that may have been looted in the UK AoR. As Bevan (2006, 205) notes, ‘for international condemnation and international law to mean anything more than pious intention it must be enforced’. The whole sorry situation also raises another issue under international humanitarian law – that occupying forces should not withdraw until there are competent authorities to take control. Given the poor state of the Iraqi police force that was supposed to be taking over the protection of archaeological sites (Myers 2010), it must be questioned whether the UK should have withdrawn or USA can withdraw. Military personnel with whom I have discussed the failure to protect cultural property argue that the situation on the ground simply precluded its protection, not least because not enough troops had been deployed. As noted above, the number of troops to be deployed is, in the last analysis, a political rather than military decision. 1 My understanding of the preparations for the 2003 invasion was that military commanders, on both sides of the Atlantic, requested considerably more troops than they were eventually allowed, thus leading to some original ‘priorities’, including the protection of museums, being de-emphasised. Therefore, no unit was allocated responsibility for the protection of the National Museum (or, later, of the archaeological sites), presenting the opportunity for the looting that ensued.

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In 2003 this decision was taken by a US DoD that had as its basic military doctrine the beliefs that 21st-century warfare was going to be based on high-technology weapons and speed, and that two conventional forces would fight each other until one was victorious (see, for example, Hammes 2004). Hammes argues that this military doctrine was fundamentally flawed and that this approach to warfare, an essential part of DoD philosophy in 2003, was already outdated. He identifies the conflict in Iraq (and that in Afghanistan) as ‘fourth-generation warfare’ that ‘uses all available networks – political, economic, social, and military – to convince the enemy’s political decision makers that their strategic goals are either unachievable or too costly for the perceived benefit’ (Hammes 2004, 2). Hammes suggests that if the US is going to be able to win such a conflict it will have to ‘learn to fight the low-tech, very human opponents we actually face rather than preparing to fight the high-tech, equipment intensive enemy visualised by DoD and its colleagues in industry’ (2004, xiv). This argument is being taken seriously by Western military planners and has resulted in the 3D (Defence, Diplomacy, Development) (see Teijgeler, Chapter 6) or Comprehensive Approach, as currently being developed by NATO (and see, for example, Jackobsen 2008). In this military planners are, however reluctantly, accepting the necessity and role not only to win any future armed conflict, but also to help to deliver to politicians a country capable of operating as a functioning society at the end of any conflict. This concept is actually not at all new and was a central component of successful war in Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, dating from more than 2000 years ago (Sun Tzu 1998 edn, chapter 3). It has also led some commentators to suggest the need for a new category of Just War thinking: a jus post bellum (Guthrie and Quinlan 2007, 26). This includes leaving an intact cultural heritage that is not only a source of pride and dignity but may also be a significant economic asset for a post-conflict country through tourism. Military planners are also beginning to understand that the protection of cultural heritage may not be an additional burden for over-stretched troops, but rather what they refer to as a ‘force multiplier’ – a positive action that makes their job easier. At least some members of the military have learnt that, for example, if they use a minaret as an observation post or, worse still, a sniper location, they will readily lose the goodwill of the local population (Corn 2005). If they look after and respect the minaret, goodwill, if it does not increase, is at least not damaged irreparably. Military strategists are also beginning to understand that the sale of illicit antiquities from looted archaeological sites has been, and probably still is, helping to fund the purchase of guns and ammunition for the so-called ‘insurgency’ in Iraq. As this change in military doctrine appears to be taking place, it provides an opportunity for cultural heritage experts to impress on the military the importance of CPP: put bluntly, if the military take care of the cultural property of a country in which it is fighting then it will be able to win not only the battle, but the war and then the peace more quickly. By chronicling the looting of sites and the associated trade in illicit antiquities, Katharyn Hanson (Chapter 7) helps provide evidence for use with the military that CPP should indeed be perceived as a priority. On the face of it, this is an odd contribution to this book. However, my point in asking Hanson to write was to make the direct link between the Coalition’s occupying forces’ failure to protect sites and museums from looting and the trade in illicit antiquities. As Hanson argues, the

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looting and trade both contribute directly to the undermining of the security in the country: ‘When archaeological sites are looted, the artefacts ripped from the ground become commodities travelling the same black market networks as illegal weapons and drugs and, like those commodities, funds from the sale of these stolen artefacts help to finance groups linked with violence … possibly the biggest incentive for preventing looting at archaeological sites simply involves the issue of civilian and military safety’ (Hanson, Chapter 7, 113). This is a link long accepted in private by police and customs, but more recently evidence has been provided by the head of the US investigation into the looting of the National Museum that profits from the sale of illicit antiquities looted from the archaeological sites in Iraq have been used to fund the insurgency (Bogdanos 2008a, 124; 2008b, 57–62; also see Russell 2003). Here is a direct link between CPP and the military’s end aim of winning a war, and the issue is beginning to be acknowledged within senior military ranks in NATO forces. Here is also a clear ethical problem: should cultural heritage experts lobby the military to protect sites and museums, and should we lobby customs and police to actively confront the trade in illicit antiquities? Most people, and perhaps even some of those who have questioned my work with the military, would agree this would be a legitimate course of action. However, an obvious and totally reasonable response from the military, customs and police would be a request for specialised advice and support – for without it their task, difficult enough, would become impossible. Thus specialists would, in effect, be specifically requested to help combat the (in Iraq) socalled ‘insurgency’. Is this a deployment of specialist expertise in an attempt to relieve some of the misery of the Iraqi people? Or is it the use of specialist expertise to support the activity of an illegal occupying power? Or is it an attempt to act in a humanitarian way by limiting casualties? Or is it simply a group of specialists trying to ensure that their tiny universe is affected as little as possible by the reality of the world around them? Or does it take us too close, for the AAA at least, to the view expressed by Suchard (Chapter 12) that HTTs are a positive use of anthropological knowledge as they help shorten war? The book concludes with Chapter 14, which reproduces a forum section from volume 19 of Papers from the Institute of Archaeology (PIA). I have reproduced these contributions, with the kind permission of the editor and individuals, for two main reasons. First, following his contribution at the 2008 conference on ‘Culture Wars: Heritage and Armed Conflict in the 21st Century’ in Cambridge, I approached John Curtis to write a chapter for this book. He declined, saying that he had written all he wanted to say in his piece for PIA. I was keen to have his contribution, as he had been a key player in the events following the 2003 invasion of Iraq and has strongly-held views on when cultural heritage experts should work with the military. He had refused to provide information to the US military prior to the invasion (despite being an obvious choice as a leading expert on Iraq, he had not been approached by the UK MoD) for three reasons: that it was wrong to prioritise some sites over others in Iraq; that providing information would be assisting in the preparations for the war; and that providing information was a political gesture (and see p 196 for his own words). With the proviso that any activity occurred with the full cooperation and collaboration of Iraqi archaeologists (Chapter 14, 196), Curtis was, however, willing

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to work for pragmatic reasons with the military ‘post-conflict’, after the ‘damage has occurred’, when both the military and archaeologists ‘have an obligation to rebuild the infrastructure including cultural heritage’ (Chapter 14, 196; and see Curtis et al 2008). He actually argues that there should have been closer collaboration postconflict between archaeologists and the military in order to avoid unnecessary damage to sites by Coalition forces as occurred at Babylon and Ur (and see van Ess and Curtis 2009). However, it should not be forgotten that the difficulties and complexities of integrating cultural property issues in post-conflict situations are legion (see StanleyPrice 2007). Barakat (2007, 38) notes that: All too often, the starting point of the international response for post-war reconstruction appears to be one of opportunistic self-interest, related to concerns over Western security, terrorism, access to oil/natural resources, control over narcotics and soon, rather than a coherent vision of how to reintegrate the affected countries into the world community of nations, while helping them to preserve their own cultural identities.

A final point to note from Curtis’ contribution is that before he began working closely with the military he made a number of visits to Iraq to help colleagues assess the damage and to help plan longer-term assistance to the Iraq State Board of Antiquities and Heritage. On each of these occasions protection was provided by private security companies. This raises the question of whether it is better to work with a military that is restricted in its actions by international law, or whether it is better to ask for help from private companies who have no such constraints (and see Teijgeler, Chapter 6, 102–3; Chapter 14, 212; Price, Chapter 14, 201). A third option, as ever, of course, is to work with neither and to refuse to engage with the situation. Three of the four responses to Curtis (Price, Rush, and Teijgeler) agree with him that cultural heritage experts should work with the military – but differ, to a greater or lesser extent, on how and when such collaboration should take place. The fourth, Rowlands, is quite clear in his view that archaeologists should find their own way to intervene without working with the military. This would, presumably, require an NGO presence. I argue above that making decisions on which sites to prioritise in times of conflict is simply a (horrible) extension of what cultural heritage specialists do on a daily basis. Curtis, perhaps unintentionally, also raises the issue of whether providing advice on cultural property is assisting in the preparation for war, as discussed above, or rather preparing the ground for the anticipated peace, in which a country needs its cultural property to re-establish itself and, in particular, its cultural heritage identity. Without the basic building blocks of cultural property, such re-establishment, and perhaps re-configuration, will be significantly more difficult. I am also not convinced that we have, as yet, reached a ‘post-conflict’ stage in Iraq. What the differing views point to is the real need for future discussion, not in specific relation to Iraq or Afghanistan, but in order to set the agenda for future collaboration between cultural heritage experts and the military. That there will be future wars is without doubt. What my own experience over the past seven years has brought me to believe is that cultural heritage experts will have little basis on which to complain if cultural property is destroyed in future wars if they choose not to work with the military to

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mitigate such damage (and see Teijgeler, Chapter 14, 212). Most if not all of the contributors to this book clearly support cultural heritage experts working with the military in order to mitigate the impact of violent conflict on cultural property (and, in some cases, cultural heritage). This apparent cohesion would have been questioned more robustly but for the self-imposed omission of some who think otherwise. I have tried to put their case for them as objectively as possible. While those who refused to contribute to this and other publications and events will continue to disagree, I think it is time to leave the ethical arguments of whether to work with the military or not and to accept that if we want to attempt to protect cultural property in times of armed conflict we have to engage. The ethical questions are thus transferred to how and when, rather than if we engage. As Bayo Folorunso states, ‘not talking to the military, for me, is shying away from the reality and it is not clear what purpose such action serves’ (Chapter 11, 170). My own views, which have vacillated during my personal debate over these issues, have been to some extent crystallised by the contributions in this book and I thank the authors. I am relieved that I still regard my instinctive reaction to offer what help I could in 2003 as correct. What the contributions in the following pages have done, however, is to reveal the enormous complexity of the relationship between cultural heritage experts and the military and it is clear that the contributors differ significantly on the means and rules of such engagement. To me, there is no doubt the relationship must continue in some form, but, as with all relationships, it will require much hard work and compromise. There is much still to do.

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Collins, T, 2003 Colonel Tim Collins’ Speech, available from: http://journal.dajobe.org/journal/ 2003/03/collins/ [accessed 12 November 2010] Corn, G S, 2005 Snipers in the Minaret – What is the Rule? The Law of War and the Protection of Cultural Property: A Complex Equation, The Army Lawyer, July, 28–40 Curtis, J, 2008 The Role of the British Museum in the Protection of the Iraqi Cultural Heritage, in The Destruction of Cultural Heritage in Iraq (eds P G Stone and J Farchakh Bajjaly), The Boydell Press, Woodbridge, 201–12 Curtis, J, Hussein Raheed, Q, Clarke, H, Al Hamdani, A M, Stone, E, van Ess, M, Collins, P, and Ali, M, 2008 An Assessment of Archaeological Sites in June 2008: An Iraqi–British Project, Iraq LXX, 215–37 Edsel, R M, 2009 Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History, Preface Publishing, London Emberling, G, 2008 Archaeologists and the Military in Iraq, 2003–2008: Compromise or Contribution? Archaeologies 4 (3), 445–59 Gathercole, P and Lowenthal, D (eds), 1989 The Politics of the Past, Unwin Hyman, London Gerstenblith, P, 2009 Archaeology in the Context of War: Legal Frameworks for Protecting Cultural Heritage during Armed Conflict, Archaeologies 5 (1), 18–31 Guthrie, C, and Quinlan, M, 2007 Just War: The Just War Tradition: Ethics in Modern Warfare, Bloomsbury, London Hall, M, 2003a Statement on Iraq’s Cultural Heritage, World Archaeological Bulletin 17, 25–6 —, 2003b Why WAC should go to Washington, World Archaeological Bulletin 17, 13–24 Hamilakis, Y, 2003 Iraq, Stewardship and ‘the Record’: An Ethical Crisis for Archaeology, Public Archaeology 3 (2), 104–11 Hamilakis, Y, 2009 The ‘War on Terror’ and the Military–Archaeology Complex: Iraq, Ethics, and Neo-Colonialism, Archaeologies 5 (1), 39–65 Hamilakis, Y and Dukes, P (eds), 2007 Archaeology and Capitalism: From Ethics to Politics, Left Coast Press, Walnut Creek, CA Hammes, T X, 2004 The Sling and The Stone: On War in the 21st Century, Zenith Press, St Paul, MN Hensel, H M, 2007 The Protection of Cultural Objects During Armed Conflicts, in The Law of Armed Conflict: Constraints on the Contemporary Use of Military Force (ed H M Hensel), Ashgate, Aldershot Hobsbawm, E and Ranger, T (eds), 1992 The Invention of Tradition, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge ICRC, 1996 The Fundamental Principles of the Red Cross and Red Crescent, available from: http://www.icrc.org/web/eng/siteeng0.nsf/html/p0513 [accessed 12 November 2010] Jackobsen, P V, 2008 NATO’s Comprehensive Approach to Crisis Response Operations: A Work in Slow Progress, Danish Institute for International Studies, Copenhagen Jenkins, T, 2010 Conflicting Aims, Museums Journal, March, 22–7 Kila, J, 2010 Cultural Property Protection in Times of Armed Conflict: Deploying Military Experts or Can White Men Sing the Blues, in Archaeology, Cultural Property, and the Military (ed L Rush), The Boydell Press, Woodbridge Layton, R, Stone, P G, and Thomas, J (eds), 2001 Destruction and Conservation of Cultural Property, Routledge, London and New York

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MoD, 2010 Military Develops its Cultural Understanding of Afghanistan, Defence News, 24 February, available from: http://www.mod.uk/DefenceInternet/DefenceNews/ DefencePolicyAndBusiness/MilitaryDevelopsItsCulturalUnderstandingOfAfghanistan.htm [accessed 12 November 2010] Moussa, M U, 2008 The Damages Sustained to the Ancient City of Babel as a Consequence of the Military Presence of Coalition Forces in 2003, in The Destruction of Cultural Heritage in Iraq (eds P G Stone and J Farchakh Bajjaly), The Boydell Press, Woodbridge, 143–50 Myers, S L, 2010 Iraq’s Ancient Ruins Face New Looting, The New York Times, 25 June, available from: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/26/world/middleeast/26looting.html?_r=2 [accessed 12 November 2010] Nicholas, L, 1995 The Rape of Europa: The Fate of Europe’s Treasures in the Third Reich and the Second World War, Vintage Books, New York O’Keefe, R, 2006 The Protection of Cultural Property in Armed Conflict (Cambridge Studies in International and Comparative Law), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Oslo Guidelines [Consultative Group on the Use of Military and Civil Defence Assets and Civil–military Coordination Section], 2006 Guidelines on the Use of Military and Civil Defense Assets in Disaster Relief – ‘Oslo Guidelines’, Oslo 1994, updated November 2006, OCHA, Geneva Pollock, S, 2008 Archaeology as a Means for Peace or a Source of Violence, Archaeologies 4 (3), 356–67 Prott, L V, and O’Keefe, P J, 1992 ‘Cultural Heritage’ or ‘Cultural Property’, International Journal of Cultural Property 1 (1), 307–20 Ronayne, M, 2000 The Destruction of Cultural Property in Conflict Situations, World Archaeological Bulletin 11, 12–17 —, 2002 The Ilisu Dam: Displacement of Communities and Destruction of Culture, National University of Ireland, Galway and Kurdish Human Rights Project, London —, 2007 The Culture of Caring and its Destruction in the Middle East: Women’s Work, Water, War and Archaeology, in Archaeology and Capitalism: From Ethics to Politics (eds Y Hamilakis and P Duke), Left Coast Press, Walnut Creek, CA, 247–65 Rothfield, L, 2009 The Rape of Mesopotamia: Behind the Looting of the Iraq Museum, University of Chicago Press, Chicago Rush, L (ed), 2010 Archaeology, Cultural Property, and the Military, The Boydell Press, Woodbridge Russell, J M, 2003 The MPs Do It Again: Two More Antiquities from the Top 30 Are Back in the Iraq Museum, AIA Publications and New Media, November, available from: http://www.archaeological.org/pdfs/papers/J_Russell_recovery.pdf [accessed 12 November 2010] Ryan, M, 2008 Unpublished email report to the WAC Executive Spirydowicz, K, 2010 Rescuing Europe’s Cultural Heritage: The Role of the Allied Monuments Officers in World War II, in Archaeology, Cultural Property, and the Military (ed L Rush), The Boydell Press, Woodbridge Stanley-Price, N (ed), 2007 Cultural Heritage in Postwar Recovery, ICCROM, Rome Starzmann, M T, 2008 Cultural Imperialism and Heritage Politics in the Event of Armed Conflict: Prospects for an ‘Activist Archaeology’, Archaeologies 4 (3), 368–89 Stone, P G, 2003 WAC and the Iraq War, World Archaeological Bulletin 17, 8–12 —, 2005 and 2008 The Identification and Protection of Cultural Heritage during the Iraq Conflict: A Peculiarly English Tale, Antiquity 79 (306), 933–43, and reprinted in Stone, P G and Farchakh Bajjaly, J, 2008 The Destruction of Cultural Heritage in Iraq, The Boydell Press, Woodbridge, 74–84

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—, 2009 Protecting Cultural Heritage in Times of Conflict: Lessons from Iraq, Archaeologies 5 (1), 32–8 —, in press Sharing Archaeology: An Obligation not a Choice, in Sharing Archaeology (eds P G Stone and Zhouhui) Stone, P G, and Farchakh Bajjaly, J (eds), 2008 The Destruction of Cultural Heritage in Iraq, The Boydell Press, Woodbridge Stone, P G, and MacKenzie, R (eds), 1990 The Excluded Past: Archaeology in Education, Routledge, London and New York Stone, P G, and Molyneaux, B (eds), 1994 The Presented Past: Heritage, Museums, and Education, Routledge, London and New York Stone, P G, and Planel, P G (eds), 1999 The Constructed Past: Experimental Archaeology, Education and the Public, Routledge, London and New York Sun Tzu, 1998 edn, The Art of War, trans T Cleary, Shambhala, Boston and London Teijgeler, R, 2008 Embedded Archaeology: An Exercise in Self-Reflection, in The Destruction of Cultural Heritage in Iraq (eds P G Stone and J Farchakh Bajjaly), The Boydell Press, Woodbridge, 173–82 Toman, J, 1996 The Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, UNESCO, Paris Trauner, K-R, 2008 Der Schutz der Kultur als Gewissensfrage: Militärseelsorge und Kulturgüterschutz, in Kulturelles Erbe – Vermächtnis und Auftrag (ed G Sladek), Klagenfurt, Vienna (Schriftenreihe der Österreichischen Gesellschaft für Kulturgüterschutz, vol 9) UK, 2005 Manual of the Law of Armed Conflict, Oxford University Press, Oxford UK National Commission for UNESCO, 2010 Written Submission to the Iraq Inquiry by UK National Commission for UNESCO and Others, available from: http://www.unesco.org.uk/ uploads/Iraq%20Inquiry%20Evidence%20from%20UKNC%20and%20others%2017%20Fe b%202010.pdf [accessed 12 November 2010] UNESCO, 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, available from: http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0008/000824/082464mb.pdf [accessed 12 November 2010] US Army, 2009 Human Terrain System, available from: http://humanterrainsystem.army.mil/ [accessed 12 November 2010] van Ess, M, and Curtis, J (eds), 2009 UNESCO Final Report on Damage Assessment in Babylon, UNESCO, Paris von Clausewitz, C, 1997 On War, Wordsworth Editions, Ware (first published in 1832 as Vom Kreige) Wahlgren, L-E, 1994 Experience of the UN Peace-Keeping Forces, in Information as an Instrument for Protection Against War Damages to the Cultural Heritage, Swedish National Commission for UNESCO, Stockholm Walzer, M, 1977 Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations, Basic Books, New York Wegener, C, 2010 US Army Civil Affairs: Protecting Cultural Property, Past and Future, in Archaeology, Cultural Property, and the Military (ed L Rush), The Boydell Press, Woodbridge Woolley, L, 1947 A Record of the Work Done by the Military Authorities for The Protection of the Treasures of Art and History in War Areas, HMSO, London Yahya, A H, 2008 Managing Heritage in a War Zone, Archaeologies 4 (3), 495–505

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Still in the Aftermath of Waterloo: A Brief History of Decisions about Restitution MARGARET M MILES Many wrongs are done in war which admit of no subsequent undoing or reversal; but if, where such cannot be undone, it is right to make reparation, it must be far more right, when the circumstances admit, to make restitution. (Yonge 1868, 197)

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estitution after war is an old issue, mentioned at least as far back as the reign of Persian King Cyrus the Great in the mid 6th century BC. The Cyrus Cylinder, a terracotta drum found in a temple deposit at Babylon, is incised with an account in the first person of Cyrus’ reforms, including the repatriating of displaced peoples. After expanding his empire into the area of modern-day Iraq, Cyrus allowed the Jewish people found captive in Babylon to return to Jerusalem and rebuild their destroyed temple. In biblical accounts he is said to have sent along with them the gold and silver ritual vessels that Nebuchadnezzar II had plundered from the original Temple of Solomon in 586 BC (2 Kings 25:13, Ezra 1:9, 5:14). The same King Cyrus is depicted by the Greek historian Xenophon (writing in the 360s BC) as urging his troops into battle against Assyrians by reminding his men of the victor’s right to the spoils of war, and that only out of ‘humanity’ (philanthropeia) would the victors allow the defeated to keep anything at all (Cyropaedia 7.5.73). The assumption that ‘the winner takes all’ in war is thus firmly rooted in Western history, along with the idea that some conquerors in war might exercise restraint out of a sense of humanity. In this chapter I briefly review salient ancient antecedents that influenced early modern thinking on the topic of cultural property, a subject I have presented in detail elsewhere (Miles 2008). I then discuss the specific decision which became a significant precedent for subsequent legal decisions and for current views on the issue of cultural property and its fate in wartime: the decision made after the Battle of Waterloo in 1815 by Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington (as Field Marshal of the Army of Occupation), taken in consultation with Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh (British foreign secretary) and Robert Banks Jenkinson, Earl of Liverpool (British prime minister) to repatriate as far as possible the art plundered by Napoleon and taken to Paris. These antecedents of the early 21st-century events in Iraq matter because they illustrate the evolution of the concept of cultural property and the cumulative reasoning behind efforts to protect it or restore it. ROMAN ANTECEDENTS

When the Roman general Lucius Aemilius Paullus was honoured with a triumph after the battle of Pydna (167 BC), it took three days to parade through Rome the

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procession of booty captured from the Macedonian king Perseus. Of the three days, one was devoted entirely to the display of statues and paintings, which required 250 wagons to carry them (Livy 45.40, Plutarch Life of Aemilius 32–4). The pages of Roman historians are filled with descriptions of triumphs staged in Rome and the plunder that was displayed on parade: besides statues and paintings, gold and silver vessels, jewels, gems, elaborate furniture, garments and tapestries, there were exotic trees and plants, unusual wild animals, weapons and artillery, and human captives. The plundering of an enemy defeated in war was, for Romans, significant enough to merit organised regulation and ritual disposition in the city. The sacking of cities and gathering of loot was carried out systematically, and afterward spoils were carefully allocated. By the end of the Republic, annotated lists from the conquering general were expected at the Aerarium (treasury) in the Forum. Plunder was sometimes a source of revenue: L Aemilius Paullus is said to have deposited enough money there to cancel individual taxes for at least 120 years. Romans were well aware of the distinction between ordinary plunder in the form of movable goods, livestock, slaves, silver and gold coins and bullion, and that in the form of artistic plunder, which today we call ‘cultural property’. Some of the artistic plunder was quickly absorbed into Roman settings by private purchase, but other items, primarily those known to have been religious in content or use, were treated differently from ordinary booty and accorded special status. In the few, relatively rare, times that actual cult statues were taken (most were left unplundered), we hear that they were dedicated in temples in Rome and properly venerated. Some distinctive items, such as Archimedes’ own orrery, a working model of the planets taken from Syracuse in 211 BC, were also offered in temples rather than kept privately or sold. After the battle at Pydna the Greek historian Polybius (c.200–c.118 BC) was deported to Rome as one of some 1000 hostages. There he was well treated and found influential friends and time to write his history of Rome’s rise to dominance in the Mediterranean. He is among the earliest ancient authors to give a strong warning to future readers about the negative consequences of taking plunder in war. Commenting on the plunder taken from Syracuse in 211 BC, Polybius states flatly that Roman conduct was wrong. He argues that the Romans did not need these objects (‘superfluous magnificence’) and such things had not contributed to the advance of their country; why should they imitate the weaker, conquered state? Now possessing the objects, the Romans will only excite envy and passionate hatred in those who remember their own disasters, who will therefore be less tractable to rule. Polybius allows that gold and silver are useful, but the other objects (statues, paintings, and so on) should be left in their original place, where Rome would then add to them dignity and magnanimity. ‘At any rate, these remarks will serve to teach all those who succeeded to empire, that they should not strip cities under the idea that the misfortunes of another are an ornament to their own country’ (Polybius 9.10, trans Paton 1922). Polybius’ primary concern is with the aftermath of battle: how does artistic plunder (cultural property) contribute to good administration and future rule over the defeated? It does not; in fact, it may undermine future rule and foment rebellion. Here and elsewhere in his history Polybius advocates restraint in warfare, damage done

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only when necessary, and above all respect for religious property. He is also the earliest preserved author to state that art should be left in its original setting (Miles 2008, 82–6). In one notable instance in antiquity, some plunder was actually returned to its original setting. P Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus, conqueror of Carthage in 146 BC, discovered in Carthage statues and other works of art that had been taken as plunder over many centuries by Carthaginians from Sicilian Greek cities and sanctuaries. Scipio Aemilianus sent envoys into Sicily, seeking help in identifying the statues and their proper owners, and he returned the plunder, in some instances as dedications with his name, thus allowing the Sicilians a share in the Roman victory over Carthage. That the restitutions were in fact made is attested in preserved inscriptions. Scipio Aemilianus’ motives for restitution have been interpreted by modern historians variously, with the spectrum of opinion ranging from self-interest (establishing patronage in Sicily) to pure virtue: in antiquity and well into the Middle Ages he was held up as an exemplar of magnanimity. In a famous trial of 70 BC, Cicero frequently mentions these ‘compassionate returns’ by Scipio Aemilianus in the course of his prosecution of Gaius Verres, who had served as Roman governor of Sicily for three years. Roman magistrates in foreign provinces had the power to profit from their office, and some profited so excessively they were prosecuted for extortion. At the request of the Sicilians, Cicero took up the case for extortion against Verres, an avid and rapacious collector of Greek art who not only extorted a huge sum of money but also abused his office by plundering public sanctuaries of statues and paintings and even private houses of art and furnishings. In some instances he claimed these were ‘sold’ to him, but evidently in forced sales with absurdly low prices. Cicero highlights the stolen art – much of it religious in content or from sanctuaries – as a way of making the case important to his Roman audience. They would share in collective offence to the gods through Verres’ actions if unpunished, he argued, since as governor Verres represented Rome’s authority abroad. He emphasises that some works of art have a specific and natural context where they belong, an argument made earlier by Polybius. Cicero makes much of Scipio Aemilianus’ restitutions to Sicily after victory in war as a stark contrast with the depredations of Verres in peacetime. After Cicero published his speeches they were widely read, studied and admired in antiquity, and the ethical precepts he voiced did in fact have an impact on what became fashionable among those wealthy enough to collect or pay for art, with artistic production shifting to fulfil the new tastes. Verres’ name became a byword for corruption and excessively greedy and unscrupulous art collection, just as did Scipio Aemilianus’ for magnanimity (Miles 2008). EARLY MODERN ANTECEDENTS Cicero’s case against Verres was read and used in debates about the ethics of art collecting in the 18th and early 19th centuries, with Verres held up as the exemplar of the predatory collector who stops at nothing to acquire the art he wants. Travellers in the educated classes eagerly read Cicero’s Verrines as a part of their

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interest in Sicily, then a destination on the Grand Tour and thoroughly described by Cicero as the setting for Verres’ activities. Cicero’s portrait of Verres was such a common cultural reference, indeed, that Lord Byron could use it as a reference in his poetry and commentary denouncing Lord Elgin’s actions in Athens in the early 1800s. He even refers to the artist Lusieri, hired by Elgin, as his ‘Finder’, a parallel epithet for Verres’ henchmen given by Cicero. In his long epic poem Childe Harold he has the eponymous hero meditate on the forlorn site of the Temple of Minerva (Parthenon), with ruminations about the cold Scottish heart (of Lord Elgin) and the shame brought to England by his actions in Greece. Another poem, The Curse of Minerva, is devoted entirely to the stripping of the Parthenon and its projected repercussions on England (Kefallineou 1999). Byron’s parallel with Verres is apt, since Lord Elgin used his official position as British ambassador to the Ottoman court in Istanbul to acquire the vaguely worded firman (permit) that he presented to local authorities in Athens so as to allow him to remove sculpture, inscriptions and architectural pieces to England. At about the same time another episode of early modern plundering – but in wartime rather than by force of governmental authority – stirred both public indignation and public admiration. From 1796 Napoleon Bonaparte gathered up major collections of ancient, Renaissance and Baroque painting and sculpture, scientific specimens, and artistic and historical treasures of all sorts as he made his way down through the Italian peninsula. These were taken from museums, churches and private collections. In this he followed closely a precedent set by revolutionary French armies that had invaded Belgium and the Netherlands in the early 1790s, when numerous paintings by Van Dyke and Rubens were taken and moved to Paris. The scale and scope of the plunder were unprecedented, as was the façade of ‘unequal treaties’ to paper over the plunder, most notoriously the Treaty of Tolentino, signed with the Papal States in 1797 but extended to all of Italy in 1798. The extension supposedly gave the French a free hand to take any artwork they wished (Filippone 1961–7). For Napoleon, a reader of Roman history, Roman triumphs were so closely associated with the establishment of empire and so full of potential for powerful spectacle and symbolism that he and his circle staged one on 27–28 July 1798 (called the ‘Fête de la Liberté’). The official announcements declared that the festival would be as magnificent as the triumphal entry of Aemilius Paullus into Rome. The procession into Paris – intended to be the new Rome, both culturally and politically – displayed the captured statues, paintings, natural history collections, scientific instruments, tapestries, plants and animals, and even archival documents that Napoleon had plundered from principalities in Italy and from the Pope’s collection in the Vatican. Banana, palm, coconut, and papaya trees brought from Trinidad provided shade for the artistic and scientific objects and illustrated France’s wide dominion. Lions and camels from Africa and a bear from Bern were included. Chariots and banners gave the names of the defeated cities and described the contents of wagons, Roman style, and a banner leading the 25 wagons of sculpture read: ‘Monuments of Antique Sculpture: Greece gave them up, / Rome lost them, / their fate has twice changed, / it will not change again’ (Mainardi 1989, 155–63; Pommier 1991, 331–96).

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Although this triumphal spectacle won attention and was commemorated with prints and even a depiction on Sèvres porcelain, and although many were pleased to view the art now gathered in Paris, the French people were not united in their support of the wholesale transfer of Italian art. A-C Quatremère de Quincy, a distinguished architect, artist and essayist, published in 1796 open letters passionately denouncing the plundering of Italy, and they were signed by 50 artists and architects, among them the future Director of the Musée Napoléon, Vivant Denon. In these letters, scattered with references to Verres, Quatremère argues that the best art has a universal quality, but also an original context, where it should stay. He attributes this idea to Cicero (who had amplified Polybius’ comments). This is an important point for current discussion about cultural property: today we are concerned less about the perceived artistic ‘quality’ of a cultural object and more about its appropriate context. This may be determined by the historical value of artefacts, which in turn depends on an artefact having a known historical or archaeological context. Objects looted from the ground have lost their context (Pommier 1989; Miles 2008, 320–27). Ideas about treating cultural property as a special category in time of war had already been published by legal theorists when Quatremère de Quincy wrote his open letters about the French plundering in Italy, although he does not cite them and it is not clear whether he knew of them. The Swiss jurist Emmerich de Vattel (1714–1767) was the first to suggest that ‘cultural property’ should be regarded as a separate category from other property in time of war. His treatise of 1758, Droit des gens, ou principes de la loi naturelle appliqués à la conduit et aux affaires des Nations et des Souverains, uses ideas about ‘natural law’ formulated by earlier theorists Hugo Grotius and Samuel von Puffendorf. Another emerging concept in de Vattel’s thinking was the formulation and application of international law (which von Puffendorf had argued should apply to all nations as a common bond, not just ‘Christendom’) (Vattel 1758, ch 9, 293; Grewe 2000, 349–60). We see the impact of both the conscientious architect Quatremère de Quincy and the earlier theorist de Vattel in an actual case at law in the Vice-Admiralty Court of Halifax, Nova Scotia, less than a decade later. The case of the ‘Marquis de Somerueles’ ruling, between the United States and England (during the War of 1812), was decided in 1813 and resulted in restitution de jure. An American merchant ship named the Marquis de Somerueles, carrying paintings belonging to the Academy of Arts in Philadelphia, had been seized by a British ship and taken to prize court. The judge, Dr Croke, after being petitioned for the return of the paintings, agreed they should be returned, saying: The same law of nations, which prescribes that all property belonging to the enemy shall be liable to confiscation, has likewise its modifications and relaxations of that rule. The arts and sciences are admitted amongst all civilized nations, as forming an exception to the severe rights of warfare, and as entitled to favour and protection. They are considered not as the peculium of this or that nation, but as the property of mankind at large, and as belonging to the common interests of the whole species. (quoted in Merryman 1996, 319, 322; Merryman and Elson 2007, 11–13)

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Merryman points out that this is the earliest judicial decision which treats cultural property as a separate category, exempt from the laws of war, and notes similarities between the reasoning in Judge Croke’s decision and that of Vattel and Quatremère de Quincy (and Polybius before him), concluding that Quatremère de Quincy was probably Croke’s immediate source (Merryman 1996, 325). Despite the objections of Quatremère de Quincy and his circle, the establishment of the plundered art in various French museums (not only in the future Louvre) continued, and during his Egyptian campaign Napoleon gathered up yet more artistic and archaeological plunder, referred to at the time as scientific specimens. The Egyptian collection, however, was destined for British possession after the defeat of French forces in Egypt in 1801, and is currently in the British Museum. The fate of these Egyptian possessions did not stir contemporary public debate or indignation parallel with that over the French possession of Italian art, including Greek and Roman antiquities. On the contrary, it apparently stimulated great public interest in Egypt, illustrating the shifting public perceptions of the time depending on the place of origin of the art. One significant result of Napoleon’s campaign was the contribution that the French made to historical understanding of Egypt. Notwithstanding the loss of the Egyptian artefacts, French scholars who had gone to Egypt published their work, and the Description de l’Egypte helped establish the new field of Egyptology (Dykstra 1998). Another indirect outcome of the French plundering of the 1790s (in Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Egypt and, later, Prussia) was the impetus within western Europe and England to build up national museums with ‘universal collections’, an idea rooted even earlier in the 18th century (and still earlier in 1st-century BC Rome), but now coming to fruition. This led in turn to fierce international competition to ‘collect’ further specimens in Sicily, Greece, Turkey, and the Near East during the 19th century, and the beginnings of systematic archaeological excavations. Thus, from the beginning, plundering in wartime or appropriations by a stronger authority were enmeshed with and often opposed to the interests of museums, collectors, scientific excavators, and ‘source’ countries. THE AFTERMATH

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The year 1815, marked by the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo on 18 June, is usually regarded as the ‘beginning’ of the modern era. After the earlier defeat of the French in 1814 and Napoleon’s confinement on Elba, the new era was underway with the convening of the Congress of Vienna. In the most recent account of the Congress, A Zamoyski describes in detail its significant results. Representatives of the major powers of the time convened to reconstruct Europe while negotiating mutual interests; every effort was made to pre-empt future aggression, with the result that expansionist impulses were directed to other regions in the world, notably Africa and Asia. The Congress of Vienna transformed the way in which international affairs are conducted, and even led to the founding of the European Union (Nicolson 1946; Zamoyski 2007). The Congress was interrupted and its results somewhat modified by the escape of Napoleon from Elba and the Battle of Waterloo. One issue that had been raised in

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Vienna before Waterloo was the disposition of the plundered art in the Louvre: the French (represented by Talleyrand) hoped to keep it (Sédouy 2003, 267–70). But, as accounts of the Congress make clear, the representatives had far more urgent demands and focused on issues considered truly momentous, such as the borders of France, Prussia’s wish to expand its territory, and whether Poland would exist as an independent country. A large number of issues and petitions remained unresolved and unanswered when the Congress broke up in the face of the renewal of war. In a famous letter dated 23 September 1815, the Duke of Wellington made public his views on the restitution of plunder: the statues and pictures in the Louvre taken by Napoleon must be returned. Distributed to newspapers and addressed to Lord Castlereagh, the British foreign secretary, the letter was in fact the culmination of an ongoing three-way correspondence with the prime minister, Lord Liverpool, that had begun earlier in the summer on this topic as one of many problems that had to be resolved after the Battle of Waterloo. The correspondence is now all published, and readers can feel the enormity and urgency of the problems (Gurwood 1838; Yonge 1868; Castlereagh 1853). I present the gist of the correspondence here, followed by analysis. First and most urgent of the problems debated was the location and, after he surrendered to the British at Rochefort on 17 July, the fate of Napoleon. Of continuing concern was the occupation of France, the finding of an authoritative government for France, whether France should cede territory or pay reparations or both, and practical matters in Paris. Complicated questions affected every decision: for example, had the Allies been at war with France, or with Napoleon personally? This idea was rooted in an Allied declaration against Napoleon after he escaped, but was used by Talleyrand as an argument for a more favourable settlement (Angeberg 1864, 2.1521–1522). Since many of the French rushed to support Napoleon when he returned, what was the position of the Bourbon King Louis XVIII? The British administration felt it best to support the king, despite his evident weakness and unpopularity, as he seemed to offer the best promise of future stability, and hence they did not wish to undermine his rule with overly punitive decisions. The restitution of the art in the Louvre could have been regarded as a ‘humiliation’ for the king, and at the outset seemed undesirable to Castlereagh and Wellington because stability above all was their desideratum (Webster 1950, 472–3). On a more local level, a recurrent problem in Paris was that the Prussian army and its leaders had a strong desire for vengeance for earlier wrongs, and public order was kept only with difficulty because of their aggression. Prince Blücher, for example, wanted to blow up the Jena bridge because of its offending commemorative name. Wellington wrote to him firmly on 9 July to dissuade him (Gurwood 1838, 12.553). Besides the larger issues and the diplomatic efforts needed with the Prussians, the Duke was also concerned with an array of lesser complaints. British troops had had to be admonished by the Duke’s General Orders not to plunder the countryside (as the Prussians were doing), not to cut down trees on the streets of Paris or tie horses to them, and officers had to be told not to break into private boxes in the theatres (Gurwood 1847, 216, 218, 219, 221). The issue of statues and pictures began to require attention from the British in

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Paris after the Prussians forcibly removed what had been looted from their territories from the Louvre, and the king of the Netherlands requested Wellington’s military assistance in removing his country’s plundered art. Since the Netherlands had played an important role at Waterloo, and were allies, this request could not be ignored. Even earlier, on July 15, Liverpool wrote to Castlereagh (in a letter marked secret and confidential) that he was asked by the Prince Regent to consider the disposition of the statues and pictures plundered by the French in Italy, Germany, and the Low Countries, and he states that it is most desirable to remove them from France, as a matter of policy, because they will ‘necessarily have the effect of keeping up the remembrance of their former conquests and of cherishing a military spirit’ (Yonge 1868, 193). From then on, we can track the evolving thinking and the articulated principles in the letters. The topic of restitution was among the most vehemently discussed – second only to the fate of Napoleon – in public (via newspapers) and in more private arenas, such as the salons of the day, where the various envoys would socialise in the evenings, and in private correspondence. Although the decision was ultimately up to Wellington as commander of the Army of Occupation, he was evidently open to other voices he encountered socially. Joseph Farington, an artist and avid diarist, records in his diary a conversation about a Mr Planta, who had just returned from visiting his son in Paris. The son was serving as secretary to Lord Castlereagh. Evidently Mr Planta had an opportunity to present to Castlereagh and Wellington a memorandum on proposed restitution, and believed he had been effective in persuading them to take the matter seriously (Farington 1978–84, entry for 16 September 1815, 13.4706–4707; Johns 1998, 177). The process of decision-making is difficult to reconstruct, but it seems that military opinion and diplomatic considerations were dominant but not the only contributing factors. CORRESPONDENCE

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24 July: Castlereagh (on the spot in Paris, along with Wellington) writes to Liverpool, expressing concern about the opinions on restitution of Alexander, the tsar of Russia, and of the king of France, and reiterates British opinion previously expressed at the Congress. In Vienna Wellington, who had served as representative briefly in the spring, before leaving to fight Napoleon, had refused France’s request to include an Article in the Convention allowing them to keep the art booty; Wellington thought then that this should be decided by the sovereigns concerned (Castlereagh 1853, 10.435). Alexander, in fact, was not supportive of restitution, at least in part because he had purchased the empress Josephine’s collection of paintings, many of which had been looted (Zamoyski 2007, 512). The king of France was initially supportive, but later claimed that the ‘masterpieces … belong to us now on stronger rights than those of victory’ (Boyer 1965; Freeman 2004, 207). 3 August: Liverpool responds that he is sending William Richard Hamilton (no relation to the better-known Sir William, but former private secretary to Lord Elgin and now an undersecretary to Earl Bathurst, Secretary of State for War and the

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Colonies) to discuss the public outcry in London over the art. The London newspapers were full of speculation and editorials about the fate of the art in the Louvre (Musée Napoléon) and descriptions of the Prussians reclaiming their art, alongside statistics and facts about deaths and injuries at Waterloo (Quynn 1945; Miles 2008, 336–40). Liverpool notes that the Prince Regent himself wanted to acquire some of this art. He says: The reasonable part of the world are for general restoration to the original possessors; but they say, with truth, that we have a better title to them than the French, if legitimate war gives a title to such objects; and they blame the policy of leaving the trophies of the French victories at Paris, and making that capital in future the centre of the arts. Might there not be some compromise on this question?

Liverpool then requests an explanatory letter with the principles for allied action on the question (Castlereagh 1853, 10.453). 17 August: Castlereagh replies to Lord Liverpool that he has a list of all the works of art taken from the Netherlands by the French, and reports the discussion in Paris among an allied council. They felt there was no doubt about the items from Holland: they should be returned. They discussed whether treaties such as Tolentino could be a distinguishing line of argument, but concluded that they ‘were not inferior in immorality to his [Napoleon’s] wars’. They ended then with no decision. Meanwhile, Hamilton was involved in conversations with the highly regarded sculptor Antonio Canova, who had been sent by the Pope to ask for the return of the Papal collections (and his working papers, which had also been taken) (Castlereagh 1853, 10.491). 24 August: William Hamilton remarks in a lengthy report to Bathurst that no general principle regarding the works of art and the public monuments has yet been determined, although there was discussion on whether French victory monuments might, perhaps, be destroyed. Some reliefs offensive to the Austrians had been destroyed or defaced, but several other more major monuments were left intact. The Bronze Horses taken from Venice and set on top of the Arc de Triomphe were to be restored to Venice by Austria. About 220 pictures had already been removed from the Louvre, and more were to be returned. A decision about the Italian art had not yet been made (Bathurst 1923, 375). 6 September: William Hamilton writes to Bathurst that any idea of purchasing items from the Pope must be given up. It would throw an odium on the whole project, and be used by the French to show hypocrisy. Any proposal for British benefit will make the project collapse, and the French will end with possessing everything, largely due to British mismanagement (Bathurst 1923, 384–5). 11 September: Castlereagh presents a memorandum to the Plenipotentiaries of the Allies on the subject of the restitution of works of art. In it he lays out the reasons for restitution and comments that no just peace could leave robbers in possession of their loot, nor should revolutionary spoliation be rewarded (Angeberg 1864, 2.1510–1514).

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11 September: On the same day, Castlereagh writes again to Liverpool to discuss the possibility of the sale of some lesser objects to the Prince Regent, and to warn that the more important items (such as the Laocoön and Apollo Belvedere) would be unobtainable. Castlereagh also expresses concern about the ‘odium and misrepresentation’ which would ensue if the British purchased anything. He advocates a disinterested line, and suggests further that the Prince Regent should help the Pope by paying for the transport of the items back to the Vatican, as this would be ‘more consistent with his munificence’. He notes that by now the Prussians have removed from the museum everything that was taken from their territories and from those of their neighbours, and that the king of the Netherlands feels all the more strongly about getting back his country’s pictures, even to the point of perhaps relinquishing his own private family collection, also in the Louvre, if necessary. Castlereagh argues that Wellington really must support the king of the Netherlands, and the pictures must be returned, even if it should require force. He suggests further that the Italian items should be under the responsibility of the king of Austria (Castlereagh 1853, 11.12–14). 19 September: Liverpool replies that he thinks it is just and natural to consider French feelings on the matter of the integrity of their territory, the dismantling of fortresses, and the proposed occupation more generally, but that he has ‘no regard whatever for their feeling with respect to the plunder they have taken from other countries. The feeling is altogether one of vanity, and of the worse description; and by permitting it we are only encouraging a sentiment which will hereafter prove hostile to the just rights of other countries.’ He hopes the king of France can be brought to agreement on the subject, and also points out that if some items are taken, especially by force, really all should be returned, because then the action would rest on a matter of principle. By leaving some of the art the Allies would be acquiescing in some degree to the right of France to keep the plunder, and give her a pretext for recovering it in the future. He also agrees that England should help restore the items to the Vatican (Castlereagh 1853, 11.27–28). 23 September: Wellington now writes a formal open letter to Castlereagh stating his views that were published in newspapers. As the victor at Waterloo and all the Peninsular campaigns, and because of his integrity, his letter carried special weight, but it also had the force of law since he was at the head of the Army of Occupation. Evidently a public position was necessary because of the turbulence in Paris over the removal of the art from the museum. In this letter the Duke first describes in detail the various conversations and actions required to remove the art from the Louvre, which was accomplished without actually using force, although British soldiers helped as movers. He then reiterates that there was no article in the Treaty of Paris (of May 1814) protecting the contents of the museum, and states that this omission was a deliberate one, as he believed the disposition of the plundered art should have been decided among the various sovereigns; at the time, he could not support Prussia’s claims for restitution without supporting those of other nations. When the French representatives tried to insert an article into the Treaty it was rejected. The Allies should have restored the art to the

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countries from which it was taken then, but, in an effort to consolidate the reconciliation of Europe, it was left. Now, however, the circumstances are very different. The French army rose up again, and was defeated by the armies of Europe. Borrowing a phrase from Liverpool, he continues: The feeling of the people of France upon this subject must be one of national vanity only. It must be a desire to retain these specimens of the arts, not because Paris is the fittest depository for them, as, upon that subject, artists, connoisseurs, and all who have written upon it, agree that the whole ought to be removed to their ancient seat, but because they were obtained by military concessions, of which they are the trophies.

He points out that there is no reason for the Allied sovereigns to gratify the people of France rather than their own people, and concludes with the expectation that their decision will give the people of France ‘a great moral lesson’. When it was published this letter caused a great furore in France. The Duke was even booed at the opera, and there were histrionic scenes of French women weeping over the Apollo Belvedere at the Louvre (Gurwood 1838, 12.641–646; Quynn 1945). In fact, protection from the army did prove necessary when the Bronze Horses were taken down from the Arc de Triomphe and packed up to be returned to Venice (they were removed from San Marco in Venice by the French, by the Venetians in 1204 from Constantinople, and from some sanctuary in Greece [perhaps Delphi] c. AD 330 by Constantine). This was reported on 1 October by Castlereagh to Liverpool (Castlereagh 1853, 11.38–39). These letters were written in the immediate aftermath of a prolonged international war which lasted from 1793 to 1815, punctuated only by the short Peace of Amiens (March 1802–May 1803) and the brief period of Napoleon’s captivity on Elba. Yet the issue of restitution could not be postponed because of the forthright removal from Paris of their art by the Prussians and the claims of the king of the Netherlands, and vociferous public opinion both in London and Paris, well documented in newspapers and journalistic books, that were immediately published by eyewitnesses (Scott 1816; Simpson 1853). In Paris, crowds of people threatened those who removed the art, hence the threat posed to public order. Somewhat in the background were the Italians, since they had not participated at Waterloo. Liverpool was the first to suggest complete restitution, but this occurred only after much discussion. CONCLUSION Competing views and claims were discussed in the letters, including the early suggestions from the Prince Regent that he would like to purchase some of the art, but eventually ‘principles’ for restitution did emerge and were accepted among the three men: • That the Netherlands and the Prussians should certainly get back their plundered pictures, as they were allies on the battlefield in the victory over the French. This might be considered a ‘restitution by right of conquest in the same war’. • That the right of conquest does not give the right of new possession of new plunder (otherwise the British, Dutch, and Prussians would have taken not only all the

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plundered art, but also non-plundered art previously in French possession, and other objects besides from the Louvre and elsewhere in France – the British and their allies did not systematically plunder museums, churches and private collections in France as did the French in Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy and Prussia). • That unequal treaties forced in wartime, such as the Treaty of Tolentino, cannot be regarded as a legitimate basis for possession. • That art belongs in its ‘ancient seat’. • That art (statues, pictures), books, archival documents, scientific specimens and so on do belong in a special, protected category that is treated apart from other goods and possessions.

In addition, there was recognition of the potential for cultural property to be viewed as a military trophy, which the British hoped to discourage. What is especially significant about this debate and decision after Waterloo is that it was not a judicial matter, but rather action was taken ad hoc, with the force of law, by the Army of Occupation headed by Wellington. He had no legal training, but was acting as a wellread 18th-century gentleman with common sense. Because of huge public attention in the turbulent months after Waterloo, this British military decision remained a very strong cultural precedent and marks a new era in terms of the ways in which ‘plunder’ and ‘booty’ would be regarded in wartime, at least in principle, if not in fact. The next significant legal development was the publication of the Lieber Code, formulated in 1863, during the American Civil War, at President Abraham Lincoln’s request by Francis Lieber (c.1798–1872), together with Lincoln’s military staff. Lieber had emigrated to the United States and was then a prominent professor of political science at Columbia College (later Columbia University). Known as General Orders No. 100, the Lieber Code provides rules of engagement for soldiers at war and became the basis for subsequent international Conventions on cultural property (Boylan 1993; O’Keefe 2006). Less well known is that, while still a teenager, Francis Lieber volunteered in the Prussian army and fought at Ligny and Waterloo (Freidel 1947). He would have been aware of the clamour over art in Paris and may have participated in the occupation, despite wounds received in battle. Thus Waterloo and its aftermath truly mark a step forward in Xenophon’s formulation of philanthropeia: restrained, humane behaviour, even in wartime.

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REFERENCES

Angeberg, Comte d’ (L Chodz´ko), 1864 Le Congrès de Vienne et les Traités de 1815: précéde et suivi des acts diplomatiques qui s’y rattachent, avec une introduction historique par M Capefigue, 2 vols, Amyot, Paris Bathurst, H, 1923 Report on the Manuscripts of Earl Bathurst Preserved at Cirencester Park, Historical Manuscripts Commission 76, HMSO, London Boyer, F, 1965 Louis XVIII et la restitution des oeuvres d’art confisquées sous la Révolution et l’Empire, Bulletin de la Société de l’histoire de l’art français, 202–3 Boylan, P J, 1993 Review of the Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (The Hague Convention of 1954), UNESCO, London Castlereagh, R, 1853 Correspondence, Despatches and Other Papers, ed his Brother Charles William Vane, Marquess of Londonderry, 3 series, vols 9–12, J Murray, London Dykstra, D, 1998 The French Occupation of Egypt, 1798–1801: The Cambridge History of Egypt 2 (ed M W Daly), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Farington, J, 1978–84 The Diary of Joseph Farington (eds K Garlick and A Macintyre), Mellon Centre, New Haven, CT Filippone, G, 1961–7 Le relazioni tra lo stato pontificio e la francia rivoluzionaria: Storia diplomatica del Trattato di Tolentino, Part I (1961) Part II (1967), Giuffré, Milan Freeman, C, 2004 The Horses of St Mark’s: A Story of Triumph in Byzantium, Paris and Venice, Abacus, London Freidel, F B, 1947 Francis Lieber, Nineteeth-Century Liberal, P Smith, Glouster, MA Grewe, W G, 2000 The Epochs of International Law, trans M Byers, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin Gurwood, C, 1838 The Dispatches of Field Marshal the Duke of Wellington: During his Various Campaigns in India, Denmark, Portugal, Spain, the Low Countries, and France, from 1799 to 1818, vol 12, J Murray, London —, 1847 Selections from the General Orders of Field Marshal the Duke of Wellington During his Various Commands, 1799–1818, Parker Furnivall and Parker, London Johns, C, 1998 Antonia Canova and the Politics of Patronage in Revolutionary and Napoleonic Europe, University of California Press, Berkeley, CA Kefallineou, E, 1999 Byron and the Antiquities of the Acropolis of Athens, Archaeological Society at Athens, Athens Mainardi, P, 1989 Assuring the Empire of the Future: The 1798 ‘Fête de la Liberté’, Art Journal 48, 155–63 Merryman, J H, 1996 Case Notes, The Marquis de Somerueles, Vice-Admiralty Court of Halifax, Nova Scotia Stewart’s Vice-Admiralty Reports 482 (1813), International Journal of Cultural Property 5, 319–29 — and Elson, A E, 2007 Law, Ethics and the Visual Arts, 5 edn, Kluwer Law International (Aspen), New York Miles, M M, 2008 Art as Plunder: The Ancient Origins of Debate about Cultural Property, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Nicolson, H, 1946 The Congress of Vienna: A Study in Allied Unity 1812–1822, Constable, London O’Keefe, R, 2006 The Protection of Cultural Property in Armed Conflict, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

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Paton, W R, 1922–7 Polybius, The Histories, with an English translation and notes, Loeb Ed, 6 vols, G Putnam, New York Pommier, É, 1989 Lettres á Miranda sur de Déplacement des Monuments de l’Art de l’Italie: Introduction et notes, Macula, Paris —, 1991 L’Art de la liberté: Doctrines de débats de la révolution française, Gallimard, Paris Quynn, D M, 1945 The Art Confiscations of the Napoleonic Wars, American Historical Review 50, 437–60 Scott, J, 1816 Paris Revisited in 1815, by Way of Brussels: Including a Walk over the Field of Battle at Waterloo, Longman Hurst Rees Orme and Brown, London Sédouy, J-A de, 2003 Le Congrès de Vienne: L’Europe contre la France 1812–1815, Perrin, Paris Simpson, J, 1853 Paris After Waterloo. Notes Taken at the Time and Hitherto Unpublished. Including a Revised Edition – the Tenth – of A Visit to Flanders and the Field, Blackwood, Edinburgh and London Vattel, E de, 1758 The Law of Nations, trans J Chitty, T and J W Johnson, Philadelphia, PA Yonge, C (ed), 1868 The Life and Administration of Robert Banks, Second Earl of Liverpool, K.G., Compiled from Original Documents, Macmillan, London Webster, C, 1950 The Foreign Policy of Castlereagh, 1812–1815. Britain and the Reconstruction of Europe

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Physicians at War: Lessons for Archaeologists?

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FRITZ ALLHOFF BACKGROUND As an academic philosopher I surely know less about archaeology than anyone else contributing to this book. My research is in various fields of applied ethics, including bioethics and the ethics of war. While these usually occupy separate programmes, they came together during the 2004–5 academic year, when I was on a research fellowship at the Institute for Ethics of the American Medical Association (AMA). Just after I began the fellowship two articles were published in The Lancet by Steve Miles in which he discussed alleged violations of military medical ethics that may have transpired through physician involvement in hostile interrogations (Miles 2004a; 2004b). Then, immediately before the holiday break, we received notice that the New England Journal of Medicine would be publishing a similar essay by Gregg Bloche and Jonathan Marks in its first issue of 2005. The AMA in general, and the Institute for Ethics in particular, was extremely concerned about Miles’ papers and the forthcoming one by Bloche and Marks. Not only were these extremely visible publications, but many thought that the allegations they contained were of grave ethical concern. The AMA, which publishes The Code of Medical Ethics, takes very seriously the moral status of the medical profession and therefore was very interested in these articles. (The AMA’s Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs has since published an opinion on physician involvement in interrogation, which represents the culmination of its thinking on these topics (AMA 2006).) I already had a background in some elements of the ethics of war, and torture in particular (Allhoff 2003; Allhoff 2006a), and my fellowship year quickly evolved to explore physician involvement in interrogations. One element of this project was research into some of the underlying moral issues, while another was to talk to those responsible for military ethics (including military medical ethics) education. This research led me to speak with those teaching military ethics at the US Military Academy at West Point, the US Naval Academy, and the US Air Force Academy, as well as those teaching military medical ethics at the US Army Medical Department Center & School (Fort Sam Houston, Texas) and the University Services University of the Health Sciences (Bethesda, Maryland). After I left the AMA I was also able to spend some time at the Australian Defence Force Academy (Canberra, Australia). In all cases, I was extremely impressed with the professionalism and commitment to ethics that was displayed at each of these training academies. When starting the research, however, one of the first things that I noticed was how 1 Part of this chapter was drawn from Allhoff 2008a.

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little academic work had been done in military medical ethics. The Borden Institute, an agency of the US Army Medical Department Center & School, had produced two outstanding volumes intended as textbooks for the teaching of military medical ethics (Office of the Surgeon General 2003); Steve Miles (2006) and Michael Gross (2006) have each written books about these topics, though these emerged, at least in part, from the previously mentioned journal articles of 2004; and, finally, a symposium was held in a prestigious bioethics journal, Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics (2006) (I authored an essay in this symposium; see Allhoff 2006b). The point, though, is that discussions regarding military medical ethics have been rare until the past few years. As a final programmatic note, the topic of physician involvement in interrogations was afforded the plenary session at the largest biomedical ethics conference of 2005, the American Society of Bioethics and the Humanities. This session was somewhat unbalanced, however, insofar as all three speakers argued for exactly the same conclusion (ie there was no conservative or dissenting voice), though a response panel aimed to remediate this shortcoming. All of these experiences culminated in an edited volume, Physicians at War: The Dual-Loyalties Challenge, which explored ethical conflicts attendant to physician participation in war (Allhoff 2008a). The book is wide-ranging, but principally focuses on two questions. First, how are we to conceptualise the moral obligations of physicians during war? It seems straightforward enough that military physicians have medical obligations to those in medical need, regardless of the political allegiance that the needy bear.2 But do military physicians bear non-medical obligations elsewhere, such as to the military chain of command, national security, or the greater good? If so, how are these conflicts resolved? If not, are these latter obligations nullified? Trying to answer these questions gives us a broad, theoretical apparatus by which to assess the use of physicians in war. Second, we can apply this thinking to particular issues and, in fact, it is this application that has borne the most popular attention. For example, military physician participation in torture or other hostile measures would seem to contravene the medical value of non-malfeasance (for more discussion see Allhoff 2008b, Part II). And the same could be said about military physicians using their medical training to develop chemical or biological weapons (for more discussion see Allhoff 2008b, Part III). But, depending on our stance on the first set of questions, there might be some moral call for such actions. So, in addition to generating the generalised framework, we need to think about how it plays out in some of these particular issues. The editor of this book asked me to contribute in order that the primary discussion about the ethical use of archaeologists in war could be complemented and contextualised by some other perspectives, such as that of the ethical use of physicians in war. What are the similarities and differences between the use of these professions in war? Can archaeologists learn about the ethical use of archaeological knowledge by considering the ethical use of medical knowledge? And can physicians learn from archaeologists? In the remainder of this chapter, I have two objectives. First, I will discuss in more detail what the dual-loyalties challenge is in military medicine, as well 2 While most people take this to be self-evident, I have argued against it; see Allhoff 2006b.

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as various ways in which it may be resolved; this will be done primarily at the theoretical level, but will also incorporate discussion of various issues. Second, I will take this discussion and try to bring it to bear on my (very limited) knowledge of archaeology. In particular, I will focus on similarities and differences between archaeology and medicine as manifest in the use of their practitioners in war. THE DUAL-LOYALTIES CHALLENGE The motivating premise behind my thinking on military medical ethics is that, in times of armed conflict, physicians are (arguably) subject to dual loyalties. This concept has been explored in greater detail elsewhere (see, for example, Physicians for Human Rights and the School of Public Health and Primary Health Care 2003; see also Allhoff 2008b, Part I), but, for present purposes, we might understand it as the existence of simultaneous obligations which might come into conflict with each other. While dual loyalties can apply across all sorts of contexts, our present concern is with the ones that apply to physicians during armed conflict. In these scenarios, physicians have medical obligations to those in medical need. We could ground such obligations in various ways, but the most straightforward way is to acknowledge the medical duties of beneficence and non-malfeasance, both of which have been traditional foundations of medical ethics. According to these duties, physicians are morally bound to render aid insofar as they can and not to (intentionally) make anyone medically worse off. Such medical duties, however, might come into conflict with non-medical duties, and we can expect such non-medical duties to be expressly manifest during times of war. For example, military physicians are subject to the chain of command and therefore have an obligation to obey their orders. Certainly, it might not always be the case that following orders from the chain of command is morally obligatory, but we can presumably suppose that, at least in the cases of ‘just’ war, there is a (defeasible) reason – which we could, for example, cache out in terms of military efficiency – for obeying commands and that, therefore, such commands have some sort of positive moral status. Second, the physician, in virtue of his medical training, might be able to promote national security or the greater good and therefore absorb the associative moral obligations. Of course, these non-medical obligations could precisely oppose the medical obligations previously mentioned. For example, consider physician participation in weapons development (for more discussion see Allhoff 2008b, Part III). We can easily imagine cases wherein physicians are operating on the just side in a conflict against an evil regime and that their expertise could be applied to the development of chemical or biological weapons; we could further imagine that such weapons would be effective against the enemy and lead to a quicker dissolution of the conflict. With such weapons it could be the case that there would be fewer casualties overall – perhaps by shortening the war – or even that their existence would be psychologically debilitating enough to the enemy that the conflict could rapidly come to an end. If the enemy were a terrorist regime then national security could legitimise the development of the weapons or, regardless, such weapons might serve the greater good – including the

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citizenry, present and future, which falls under the dissolved evil regime – and therefore be morally justified. But, despite the moral considerations that would count in favour of the development of such weapons, there are contrary considerations that would inveigh against it. In particular, the development of weapons could violate the physician obligation of non-malfeasance since those weapons would be used to harm some individuals.3 What, then, should physicians do? Are they morally permitted to participate in weapons development? Before moving on to a more general discussion of these challenges, let me point out some other specific contexts in which such challenges arise. In particular, we could see the above frameworks also applying to the following: physician involvement in torture and battlefield triage/medical neutrality (for more discussion see Allhoff 2008b, Part IV). It could easily be the case that torturous interrogations serve important military objectives, and that medical knowledge could make the interrogations more expedient, perhaps by conducting them in ways that invoke physical or psychological vulnerabilities of the interrogatee. Again, though, any application of medical knowledge that makes the interrogatee worse off than s/he otherwise would have been could be viewed as problematic when viewed through the lens of medical ethics.4 Therefore, this is another instance of the dual-loyalties conundrum. On the battlefield itself physicians might face other issues – in particular, battlefield triage and medical neutrality. Here, the scenario is that the demand for medical attention exceeds the supply. Some decision, then, must be made about how medical resources should be allocated. Medical obligations would suggest that these decisions should be made on medical grounds alone: resources should be invested in ways that optimise (medical) outcomes. Just to take an example, imagine that there are two wounded soldiers, one of ours and one of the enemy’s, and that there are resources to tend to only one of them. Imagine, further, that the enemy is slightly worse off, though both are very much in need. Medically, it could easily be the case that treatment should be provided to the enemy, since he is less likely to survive without medical care. The other soldier, however, is on our side. Should the physician tend to the enemy, despite the fact that this could lead to the death of an allied comrade? Or, more generally, should physicians exercise (political) neutrality when making medical decisions? What if the injured enemy were a high-ranking officer who could be an important strategic asset? It could be the case that resuscitating such an officer could, ultimately, lead to the realisation of various military objectives; we could further stipulate that such objectives had moral significance. If the physician chooses to save the enemy officer over our private, is this fair? If such an officer were less in medical need then, despite the military advantages, it would seem medical virtues would mandate the treatment of the private, though this could have adverse 3 In my own view, this conclusion does not follow since I think that non-malfeasance should be understood in an aggregative mode: if physicians harm a few people such that more people are not harmed later – through, let’s say, continued military conflict – it seems to me that such an act is not just licensed, but rather required by an appeal to non-malfeasance. This is an unpopular view that I will not develop here, but see Allhoff 2006b for related discussion. 4 In fact, this is precisely the view taken by the AMA in its report; see AMA 2006. For a dissent, see Allhoff 2006b.

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consequences for key military objectives. These questions can become even murkier when we abstract away from ‘micro’ decisions (eg save this person or that one) and try to achieve some clarity about the general triage practices that should be endorsed; in any case, such situations can clearly manifest the dual-loyalties concern. ADDRESSING

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In the previous section I introduced the notion of the dual-loyalties challenge and showed how it could be instantiated in various contexts: weapons development, torture and battlefield triage/medical neutrality. In this section I want to consider various ways to remediate the challenge, and I take it that there are, conceptually, four different options here. First, we could hold that medical and non-medical values are commensurable and that, in any given case, we just have to make adjudications about which pull more strongly. Second and third, we could hold that these values are incommensurable, but that one or the other set of values does not apply. One option is that non-medical obligations are patently irrelevant to medical decision-making; the other is that medical obligations are inappropriate in these contexts. Fourth, we might say that the values are incommensurable, yet all apply. It is not clear to me how this fourth option is a solution to the challenge as it merely posits intractability. And I think, therefore, that it is simply implausible: we all believe that there are right and wrong courses of action in the scenarios mentioned above, and I want to suggest that we all believe this because one of the first three options listed must be correct. The first option is the one that might seem the most straightforward: we acknowledge the existence of conflicting obligations and then have to decide which set carries more weight (while accepting the countervailing force of the contrary). So we could say, for example, that it is prima facie bad for physicians to develop weapons while, at the same time, allowing that complicity in weapons programmes could nevertheless be justified if the stakes were high enough. As more lives hung in the balance, as the enemy regime was more evil, or as all other options had been exhausted, we might postulate increasing moral merit in physicians developing these weapons. In the absence of such features, though, perhaps there would be insufficient countervailing moral weight for physician involvement in such a programme, given their medical obligations. This line of argument is not without problems, both epistemic and metaphysical. Regarding the epistemic ones, we simply do not know how many lives might be at stake, or what the consequences will be of us having (or not having) chemical or biological weapons. Metaphysically, we might meaningfully ask how many lives are worth a single transgression against non-malfeasance, and thence beckons the spectre of incommensurability. The epistemic worries, though, are just that, epistemic: whether or not we know the relevant stakes, it hardly follows that there does not exist some proper course of action, and we then have to do our best to determine what it is. The commensurability problem is a difficult one as well and people choosing this approach to resolving the challenge will surely owe us an account of their thinking in this regard. Let me also point out another answer that might present itself here, which is more

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empirical than conceptual. In setting up the above challenges I made various suppositions, and people might simply deny that any of these is reasonable. For example, in the torturous interrogation case, I asked that we consider an interrogation that advanced the greater good, despite its transgression of medical virtues. It is certainly an open possibility here to deny that such an interrogation is possible, perhaps by denying the plausibility of any sort of utility forecast that would justify the interrogation. In the torture debate more generally this is a common line (Arrigo 2004; Wynia 2005), though I think that there are responses (Allhoff 2006a). This approach, then, admits of the commensurability of the conflicting obligations while, at the same time, denying that there will ever be much pull coming from one of the directions; a quick look at the literature would suggest that the non-medical obligations are more commonly thought to be the impotent ones. However, I think that this is the approach that is most intuitive, though there is some work to be done regarding how the commensurability would be understood. Second, we could resolve the challenge by saying that one of the two directions (necessarily, as opposed to contingently) exerts no pull. The more common direction that this would take is to deny that extra-medical considerations can have any import on medical considerations. This strategy is one that we might appropriate, in a different context, to Michael Walzer (1983). Walzer has postulated the existence of ‘spheres of justice’ such that we can make distributions of resources within some sphere only based on considerations internal to it, rather than to some distributive logic that would be motivated from some other sphere. In applying that structure to our context, it would therefore be inappropriate to make decisions regarding medicine by appeal to extra-medical considerations: medicine occupies its own sphere of justice and, therefore, medical decisions must be based on medical considerations alone. Note, then, that this view is patently one of incommensurability: it does not matter, for example, whether there are tremendous extra-medical benefits to be gained through some action that violates tenets of medical justice since the former are inadmissible regarding considerations of the latter. In this view there is no dual-loyalties challenge since there are no dual loyalties in the first place: physicians must make medical decisions based solely on medical considerations and chains of command; national security and the greater good are impotent against such considerations. While Walzer did not explicitly apply his framework to this present context, such an application is nevertheless fairly straightforward. This view is not without problems, though many people will nevertheless find it compelling. As far as I can tell, the most pressing objection would have to do with how we individuate different spheres. As I laid it out in the previous paragraph, the medical sphere was conveniently insulated from the non-medical realm, and this insulation provided a solution to the dual-loyalties challenge. However, this structure could receive pressure in either of two directions. First, we might wonder whether this medical sphere is too small. In fact, the reason it offers a solution to the dual-loyalties challenge is that it is precisely of the scope that would do so and, therefore, might be thought to be idiosyncratic or ad hoc. What is so special about medicine that it gets its own sphere of justice? The postulation of such a sphere almost seems to be

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question-begging against ‘greater good’ considerations, since it eliminates those considerations out of hand (eg by asserting a sphere which they cannot penetrate). We could certainly carve up the spheres differently, and perhaps ‘greater good’ could be a sphere of which medicine were a proper part. Regardless, it would seem that the postulation of spheres needs to be motivated in some way, and it is not clear to me what the motivation for a medical sphere would be.5 Conversely, perhaps the medical sphere is too big (as opposed to too small). If there is a medical sphere, there could very well be sub-medical spheres: just as some features set off the medical sphere from others, features within it might be used to set off facets of it from itself. The problem would then be that this conception of spheres could lead to a sufficiently high number of them that they would not be useful in particular cases. Regardless, the proponents of spheres will have to say something about why there is a sphere of medicine and why it does not either get subsumed under a bigger sphere or fracture into multiple smaller ones; only a compelling story here would preserve the merits of this answer. Finally, we could resolve the dual-loyalties challenge in the third way, which is again to deny that there are dual loyalties at all. While the spheres of justice approach negates the relevance of extra-medical obligations, a converse approach holds that only extra-medical obligations are admissible and that medical obligations do not apply. Again, this line would deny that there is a dual-loyalties challenge since there would not be competing obligations at all. This is undoubtedly the least popular of all the options and, as far as I can tell, I am the only person who defends it (Allhoff 2006b, 395–400). The idea here is that medical obligations apply only to physicians and that there is conceptual space for medically trained military functionaries who are not physicians.6 Physicians are members of the medical profession, and this carries with it various moral features. For example, they have taken an oath to abide by various aspects of that profession, including providing care for those in need. But we could easily imagine medically trained personnel who are not members of this profession: they may never have taken the oath nor ever planned to provide positive medical services. Rather, they could use their medical training in an adversarial way, such as through the development of weapons or through participation in hostile interrogations. I want to suggest that medical obligations do not apply to these people, whom I take to be something other than physicians. The contrary view would have to hold that, regardless of these people’s non-participation in the medical profession, the obligations nevertheless attach to them. I think that this line is problematic for various reasons and have argued against it elsewhere (Allhoff 2006b, 395–400). A second critique of this position is that the people that I would otherwise exempt from medical obligations are, in fact, physicians: they have taken the associative oaths and are members of the medical profession. I do not disagree with this claim, but it does nothing to erode the conceptual space that I aim to delimit. Rather, it seems completely possible to me that military physicians could opt out of the profession, and 5 In the book (and in subsequent literature), this topic is explored, though I take it to continue to be one that assails the position. 6 I acknowledge that, despite this contention, the title of this chapter nevertheless invokes ‘physicians’. I do this most proximately for ease of use, but also in recognition of the consensus view on this issue.

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that some of their obligations would thereafter dissolve. (Some, however, would not, such as the obligation to preserve confidences obtained through participation in the profession.) Furthermore, there is no reason that these personnel had to take whatever oaths would ground medical obligations: we could easily imagine a medically-trained force that completely rejects these values altogether. APPLICATIONS

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Having now developed a conceptual framework for thinking about the ethical foundations of military medicine, let us now turn to archaeology, the principal topic of this book. In particular, what does the aforementioned discussion have to do with archaeology? Is it at all relevant? Much of this assessment will have to be carried out by those who know more about the discipline, although there are a few comments worth making; let me identify and focus on two. First, there is the issue of whether participation in a military campaign is tantamount to (tacit) endorsement of that campaign. And, second, there is the issue of voluntariness. I will take these in turn. It might be useful to have some context, so let us recognise the participation that archaeologists played in the recent Iraq war. Other contributors to this volume will discuss the facts in greater detail,7 but suffice it to say that archaeologists collaborated with American and allied forces to develop a list of thousands of sites that should be spared during the then-imminent bombings; estimates include up to 5000 named sites (Hamilakis 2003, 105) including ‘historic mosques, churches, forts, khans, and treasures housed in museums’ (Stone 2005, 1). It has been acknowledged that this initiative led to the protection of sites that might have otherwise been lost during conflict (Hamilakis 2003, 106). After the invasion, many archaeologists drew attention to the significance of much of the looting that was taking place and offered their services in attempts to assess and to rectify the damage that had already been done (Hamilakis 2003, 105–6; also see numerous chapters in Stone and Farchakh Bajjaly 2008). Yannis Hamilakis has argued against the involvement of archaeologists in this capacity, saying that it shows a failure of ‘responsibility’ and evinces a stewardship over artefacts rather than over people. He wonders (2003, 107) why ‘archaeologists … agree to act as advisors to the invading armies, oblivious to the fact that their role provided academic and cultural legitimacy to the invasion?’ But, of course, playing an advisory role does no such thing. Imagine, for example, that the invasion will happen with or without archaeological feedback, as it almost surely would have. The professional archaeologist is therefore placed in the (unfortunate) position of either telling the attacking forces what not to destroy or not telling them this. Any professional archaeologist with special knowledge of important sites in the to-beinvaded region clearly has an ethical obligation to advise in a way such as to minimise those damages. This fails to be true only in a very small subset of cases, such as when the archaeologist knows – or is culpably ignorant for not knowing – that the information 7 In addition to the contents of this volume and for the specifics of the UK response, see Stone 2005.

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would be used nefariously in order to actively target the archaeological sites. So, for example, imagine that the attacking force wants to effectuate some blow to the morale of the enemy by destroying culturally important sites. In this case, imagine that the archaeologist is brought in and told to identify such sites precisely so that they can be destroyed. Still, it is not obvious that such disclosures cannot be justified. For example, the invaded population might surrender more quickly if its morale were destroyed, thus saving more lives overall, effecting less economic and cultural damage, and so on. If the destruction of one museum helped bring this resolution about – and further assume, if you think it matters, that the museum would otherwise be at high risk during a drawn-out conflict – then there cannot be anything wrong with the archaeologist providing the corresponding assessment. After all, as Hamilakis would have us believe, what ultimately matters is the people and not the artefacts. But this gives rise to a further point, which is that archaeologists (and physicians) are neither tasked nor qualified to render commentary on ‘the criminality of the whole campaign … [or] … the illegal colonization of [some] country’ (Hamilakis 2003). This is simply empty rhetoric, unsubstantiated by any serious assessment of the legal merits of the Iraq invasion. That it portends a more general call to politicise archaeology is even more troubling. Politicians and lawyers should decide whether wars are legal or not and should wage them accordingly; this is where their expertise lies and is the reason that we elect and hire them. The American Philosophical Association (APA), for example, provided a resolution against the war in Iraq (APA 2005), but it is hard to discern what this is supposed to amount to other than a group of philosophers saying that they do not like the war. Given the left-leaning orientation of academic philosophy, such a result is hardly surprising, though it hardly seems relevant, either. Nor, again, do philosophers have the appropriate training or expertise to render such commentary; there seem here to be a lot of similarities to a grade school class ‘opposing’ climate change. A similar statement was issued by the 5th World Archaeological Congress (WAC), which I assess similarly (Hamilakis 2003, 109). Suffice it to say, then, that I oppose the politicisation of archaeology and medicine. The AMA, for example, has issued an opinion saying that ‘[p]hysicians must oppose and must not participate in torture for any reason’ (AMA 2004, 2.067); similar things are said about capital punishment in a related opinion (AMA, 2.06). But these are political issues and not ones directly relevant to medicine. For example, the medical value of non-malfeasance goes, at best, to physicians not participating in torture and says nothing about whether physicians must actively oppose it in all its instances. And, given that torture (or executions) is likely to happen regardless, the physician only makes the recipients worse off by not participating, thus violating the value of beneficence. Regardless, I do not think that the AMA should issue these statements any more than the WAC should issue their analogues. In this sense, I see a similarity between archaeology and medicine: archaeologists should do archaeology and physicians should practise medicine. Archaeologists and physicians should not make claims about what is legal or illegal, but rather should leave those queries to those with legal expertise. This is not to say that neither archaeologists nor physicians will get it right or wrong in any given case – after all, we might assume they have a 50% chance either way – but rather that their

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professional training and expertise are inappropriate to take those sorts of stances. I further think that, were such proclamations to come from professional societies – as they did from the APA and WAC – that would be dramatically unfair to the rest of the membership, most of which will not have signed up in order to be wielded as some sort of partisan bullhorn. While I take that to be a similarity between archaeology and medicine, there is also a principal difference: military physicians do not have a say in whether they participate in a conflict, and archaeologists do. For reasons given above I do not take participation to be tantamount to any sort of tacit approval and I further think that, regardless of the morality of the conflict, the participation might be morally required in order to reduce overall harms. Nevertheless, I do think that the notion of volition is relevant. To wit, imagine that a military physician participates in an immoral war – or else performs an immoral yet commanded act within a moral one. Perhaps the physician enlists under one administration and the next goes off to this unjust war, yet his period of service has not yet ended. It seems to me that his blameworthiness is mitigated by his lack of volition. Perhaps some sort of disobedience would be required in some situations, though it is hard to see how, for example, a physician might justifiably not elect to treat a wounded soldier such that the solider could not be returned for battle. Archaeologists, as far as I can tell, are playing only advisory roles in military campaigns rather than (otherwise) actively contributing to them. If some archaeologist were to contribute to that effort in such a way that the situation were ultimately made worse off, there would be blameworthiness not appropriate for the physician. As argued above, this is not to say that archaeologists should not participate in unjust wars: in order to minimise overall harms, it is quite possible that they should. Rather, the thought is that they enter at their own risk insofar as they do so voluntarily. Note that this proviso might, at some level, apply to military physicians as well insofar as they should think before enlisting about what moral quandaries they might find themselves in. However, with the archaeologists the links are presumably more proximate and the ethical burden is therefore correspondingly greater. Because archaeologists are advisers I do not see them as straightforwardly subject to the dual-loyalties framework that I developed for physicians. What would the dual loyalties be? As I said above, I think that archaeologists should, as they can, provide military support that would lead to the protection of important sites. I take it, though, that Hamilakis need not disagree: presumably he would acknowledge that this is one value, of which there are others, to which archaeologists should be attendant. And what is the value against which this value can come into conflict, thus effectuating the dual loyalties? Hamilakis thinks that the competing value has to be one such as to be derived from being an outspoken critic – as opposed to tacit endorser – of unpopular (or putatively illegal or unjust) wars, though I reject this completely. What I would not reject bears a stronger similarity to the medical case, which is that archaeologists owe some consideration to the greater good. If physicians can violate apparent strictures of medical ethics to use their expertise in the development of weapons (cf non-malfeasance), then that justification would presumably have to be made by citing just and important moral value (eg self-defence, deposition of an

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aggressive and evil regime, and so on). So imagine that the compromise of archaeological values would somehow bring about an improved state of affairs in the world. For example, an important museum could be classified as non-important, thus allowing for its destruction. And, furthermore, that destruction could catalyse a negative response throughout the world, by bringing attention (and corrective action) to an unjust war, an exposed population, or whatever. In this case, should the archaeologist sacrifice the museum? Maybe, though the epistemological challenges are myriad. Nevertheless, I do think that it is possible for archaeological value – which I take it is the archaeologist’s to defend – to come into conflict with other values. And therein, perhaps, lies the archaeologist’s own dual-loyalties challenge.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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REFERENCES

Allhoff, F, 2003 Terrorism and Torture, International Journal of Applied Philosophy 17 (1), 105–18 —, 2006a A Defense of Torture: Separation of Cases, Ticking Time-Bombs, and Moral Justification, International Journal of Applied Philosophy 19 (2), 243–64 —, 2006b Physician Involvement in Hostile Interrogations, Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 15, 392–402 —, 2008a Physicians at War: The Dual-Loyalties Challenge, in Physicians at War: The DualLoyalties Challenge (ed F Allhoff), Springer, Dordrect, 3–11 —, (ed), 2008b Physicians at War: The Dual-Loyalties Challenge, Springer, Dordrecht American Medical Association, Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs, 2004 Torture, Code of Medical Ethics: Current Opinions with Annotations 2004–2005 Edition, AMA Press, Chicago American Medical Association, 2006 The Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs: Physician Participation in Interrogation, CEJA Report 10-A-06 The American Philosophical Association, 2005 Eastern Division Index, available from: http://www.apaonline.org/divisions/eastern/index.aspx [accessed 14 November 2010] Arrigo, J M, 2004 A Utilitarian Argument against Torture, Science and Engineering Ethics 10 (3), 1–30 Bloche, M G, and Marks, J H, 2005 When Doctors Go to War, New England Journal of Medicine 352 (1), 3–6 Gross, M L, 2006 Bioethics and Armed Conflict, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA Hamilakis, Y, 2003 Iraq, Stewardship, and ‘The Record’: An Ethical Crisis for Archaeology, Public Archaeology 3, 104–11 Miles, S H, 2004a Abu Ghraib: Its Legacy for Military Medicine, The Lancet 364 (9435), 725–9 —, 2004b Military Medicine and Human Rights, The Lancet 364 (9448), 1851–2 —, 2006 Oath Betrayed: Torture, Medical Complicity, and the War on Terror, Random House, New York Office of the Surgeon General, Department of the Army, United States of America, 2003 Military Medical Ethics, 2 vols, Department of Defense, US Army, Borden Institute, Bethesda, MD

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Physicians for Human Rights and the School of Public Health and Primary Health Care, University of Cape Town Health Sciences Faculty, 2003 Dual-loyalty & Human Rights in Health Professional Practice: Proposed Guidelines & Institutional Mechanisms, The Journal of the American Medical Association 290 (5), 671–2 Stone, P, 2005 The Identification and Protection of Cultural Heritage During the Iraq Conflict: A Peculiarly English Tale, Antiquity 79, 933–43 — and Farchakh Bajjaly, J (eds), 2008 The Destruction of Cultural Heritage in Iraq, The Boydell Press, Woodbridge Walzer, M, 1983 Spheres of Justice, Basic Books, New York Wynia, M, 2005 Consequentialism and Harsh Interrogations, American Journal of Bioethics 5 (1), 4–6

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Christian Responsibility and the Preservation of Civilisation in Wartime: George Bell and the Fate of Germany in World War II ANDREW CHANDLER

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xceedingly few priests, ministers or counsellors will remark that it is ever helpful, or even relevant, to apportion something called ‘blame’ to unhappy parties in a crisis or dispute. Yet interpreters of the great crises of the 20th century have often set to work with exactly that purpose in view. This has become a fundamental, and inescapable, thread in any discussion of the ‘record’ of churches caught up in a time of dictatorship, persecution or conflict. Popes, archbishops, bishops, and Christians of every kind have attracted a barrage of criticism from observers and journalists for failing to do what they allegedly should have done or for doing what they should never have attempted (for obvious examples one might see how much of the present literature on Pope Pius XII wears this polemical character: see Cornwell 1999). Historical scholars, too, often show a mighty relish in converting themselves into lawyers determined to prove a case for prosecution against offending individuals or institutions, trading intently on a provocative generalisation, an annihilation of character or an accumulation of ‘mistakes’, and on these things they seek to establish a new picture of failure, ‘silence’, complicity, corruption, even betrayal. Such analysis can be invigorating and it can also puncture, valuably, self-serving complacency, not least in high places. But the loss which such arguments involve is an uncomfortable one because all too often it involves the sensitivity and humility of our own understanding. Moreover, such work rather often reveals self-serving qualities of its own. While reputation continues to be prized by scholars, they too have their own interests – their arguments and discoveries – to protect and promote. Like that of archaeology, the study of contemporary history is essentially a work of excavation in which the practitioners become, in their own manner, participants, moralists and politicians. Many of these lively debates fail to acknowledge at least two necessary truths. The first is an inescapable hermeneutical problem. Distance and detachment might enhance a capacity to create a broad picture, and even to judge, but they also remove the scholar from the pressures of context, the specific atmosphere of a particular time, with all its unanswered questions and dilemmas. The limitations of evidence are severe. The second truth is that the dominant narratives of power in the 20th-century world were not fashioned by churches at all. The claims of Christian theology seldom inspired the policies of governments, even when politicians drew from them in framing a language of justification. At large, the Christian contribution was defined by the difficult task of responding to what was already happening around them.

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Sometimes there were protests or attempts to claw back some initiative or practical ground of action. These brought with them all manner of subtle calculations, only some of which might be visible to the scholar. Some of the dilemmas, even so, could be cruelly apparent: should a public word be spoken if it might compromise the prospects of a successful private intervention? Might a protest actually make matters better or worse? A decision not to act in one way might rest on a plan to act in another; an intervention might occur at one moment but not another, even though we might find it too late or too early; a decision to speak on behalf of one person but not another might be directed by apparent prospects of success. Historians have reached into the distinctive theological worlds which lie in the midst of this with patchy success. A Christian presence in a time of war or danger will not simply involve speeches, public statements or even protest rallies. The lives of Christians are often fashioned by responsibilities and practices which seldom attract the attention of scholars of politics at all. Prayer leaves few sources and often historians proceed on the assumption that it did not happen at all, or had no particular significance in a world of endeavour. Meanwhile, churches – however one defines and understands them – do not inhabit a world merely made up of principles and doctrines. Christians at large live daily in the same world as everybody else and negotiate its difficulties as best they can. The principled opinion is only a beginning of the story and the weight of it may lie elsewhere. A war might be judged right or wrong, but the task of a priest, minister or army chaplain does not lie only with that question: it is to offer ministry to the community, the congregation or the soldier – people who have as little actual power over these great matters as they do and who find that they must answer to obligations of their own. If a priest is to protest against the war itself and remove himself from any contact with it, he may satisfy his own conscience but abandon those who need his ministry in an hour of extremity. If an individual leaves his country because it has fallen into the hands of dangerous politicians he may extricate himself from a possibility of complicity, but he will not work against these things in their own territory and remain in the company of others who seek to do so. Indeed, he might even be criticised for simply gaining personal safety and leaving all the danger to others. One kind of integrity might be achieved only at the cost of another. So we turn back to what the historian Meinecke (1946) called the ‘German Catastrophe’ of 1933–45 and confront the moral worlds of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Alfred Delp, Helmuth James von Moltke and Adam von Trott zu Solz (for a still impressive discussion, see Zeller 1963 and 1967). Most strains of Christian life, across many traditions, show an ongoing exploration of these troubled dilemmas. It is the intensity and breadth of such individual experiences which commend them to scholars now, be they historians, theologians or archaeologists and historians of culture. In Britain in February 1944 a single speech took place in the House of Lords which might be said to crystallise many of those themes in a particularly striking form. To this occasion there had been a long background, not least because the motion at stake had been surreptitiously moved back now and then in a clumsy strategy to delay the occasion. But the mover had stood his ground and not been deterred: he was an occupant of the bishops’ bench, George Bell, the Bishop of Chichester. The purpose of this chapter is not merely to

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look at Bell’s contribution as an example of a bishop involved in a political controversy, but to see how his contribution might help us to claim the rich, diverse and provocative moral paradigm which, as a Christian, he inhabited. George Bell was a progressive and an internationalist (the standard biography is Jasper 1967; see also Slack 1971; Raina 2006; Foster 2004; Chandler 2008). He knew the realities of political life at least adequately well. As a young priest he had served a long apprenticeship, much of it in wartime, as chaplain to Archbishop Davidson. Davidson was clear that the role of the Archbishop of Canterbury was a public one, and that the position carried a responsibility to judge the affairs of politicians. He had supported the war effort in 1914 without doubt. Any suggestion that the Church should not work with the military would not have occurred to him: the national church must stand by the national government, its army, its people. A number of senior churchmen across all the traditions were eager to drum up support for the forces. If this war was right in the light of Christian duty, this must surely be the right thing to do. At times the high diction of patriotism fused with the luminosity of religious devotion, in speeches, pulpits, and magazines, in a way which set the teeth of a later, more critical, generation on edge. Davidson did not offer much to this pile. He was often equivocal. He maintained that he did not understand the morality of pacifism, but he did what he could to defend its adherents in what was at once a vehement and even dangerous mood of criticism against them. He proved less equivocal when he criticised the government for anything looking like a policy of ‘reprisals’ in the conduct of hostilities and he also protested against the adoption of poison gas on the battlefield. Davidson was no prophet; he was not a man to find on a soapbox; his speeches were never exciting and yielded few vivid generalisations of rhetoric. Many thought him essentially a remnant of the Victorian establishment, and rather often he was all too easily underrated. But he was steady, circumspect, canny and persistent. To what extent Davidson and his chaplain influenced one another is, naturally, impossible to fathom. But these qualities of Davidson’s were all ones which the quiet and tenacious Bell admired and shared (Bell 1935). As Dean of Canterbury between 1924 and 1929 George Bell looked to set all manner of new projects in motion, in the organisation of a cathedral, in the cultivation of the Arts, in the prosecution of ecumenical encounters at home and abroad. He was still relatively young when he accepted the bishopric of Chichester, and was then viewed as a coming force in the church. What greater position would fall to him after Chichester? While he proved his mettle as a diocesan bishop and chased about Europe on behalf of ecumenical committees and stranded refugees, he was also given places on significant commissions and organisations preoccupied with church business. He was often at Lambeth Palace, where Davidson’s successor, Cosmo Gordon Lang, leaned upon him for advice and viewed him as an ally. There was in this relationship a new, striking entente and it would endure. Bell himself knew something of what modern war meant: two of his brothers died in France in the spring of 1918. When he began to play his part in the international ecumenical movement it was in the body known as ‘Life and Work’, which committed its energies to discussions and statements on the place of the Church in the world. Here his greatest influence proved to be the dynamic Swedish Archbishop Nathan

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Söderblom. Bell was very much a presence in that great collective repudiation of war which illuminated the activities of the 1920s, and he was a firm advocate of the new League of Nations. When the Kellogg–Briand pact was signed by 15 governments in August 1928 (and soon to be endorsed by 45), seeking to ‘condemn recourse to war for the solution of international controversies and renounce it as an instrument of national policy’ (Jasper 1967, 94–5), the great ecumenical conference at Stockholm in the same year resolved that ‘war, considered as an institution for the settlement of international disputes, is incompatible with the mind and method of Christ, and therefore incompatible with the mind and method of His Church’. Bell took this forward to a new, more refined, resolution by the Continuation Committee of the movement in September 1929. Arbitration and disarmament were the causes of the moment and Bell’s motion insisted upon both. Churches should pronounce firmly that ‘they will not countenance any war or encourage their countrymen to serve in any war, with regard to which the government of their country had refused an offer to submit the dispute to arbitration’ (Jasper 1967, 94–5). The resolution proved influential beyond the committee rooms of the Life and Work movement, being endorsed by Anglicans at the Lambeth Conference of 1930. By the end of 1933 the Bishop of Chichester was known across the British churches, and more widely still across the protestant churches of the world, for his labours as an authoritative ecumenist. In National Socialist Germany he was widely acknowledged not merely as an observer of church controversies but as a committed participant to whom many turned for active support. In this line of duty he had protested, intervened and lamented on behalf of those Christians who had sought to withstand the corruption of their faith by neo-Nazi ideals and practices and create, in opposition, an Emergency League and then a Confessing Church. This made Bell a public ally of a figure like Martin Niemöller. By the outbreak of war in September 1939, Niemöller was in a concentration camp for his pains (Robbins 1970). This was one of several strands which made the Bishop of Chichester conspicuous. Between 1933 and 1939 he also championed German Jews and so-called ‘Non-Aryan Christians’, who endured persecution from the Nazi State. When, in 1933, a modest but purposeful coalition of church leaders and senior lawyers created a memorial protesting at the incarceration of political opponents in concentration camps, to be placed in the hands of Hitler himself by special envoys, Bell was one of this number (Chandler 1990, 32–9). By the end of that year he was acknowledged as the church’s authority on all such affairs. When the Archbishop of Canterbury, Cosmo Gordon Lang, wrote an indignant letter to The Times to deplore the so-called ‘ritual murder number’ of the Nazi paper Der Stürmer, it was Bell who had shown him that paper (Chandler 1990, 86–7). When the Church Assembly of the Church of England passed a motion of concern for the German Jews in September 1935, in light of the passage of the Nuremberg Laws, it was Bell who moved it, just as it was Bell who introduced another, in 1938. Bell made his maiden speech in the House of Lords in July 1938 and argued for the support of refugees from Germany and Austria (Hansard 1938). Few could doubt that the Bishop of Chichester was a small but persistent thorn in the side of the Nazi State. Although he kept his lines of communication to Germans of all kinds open, it was the critics of those in power there who found in him a purposeful friend and ally.

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None of this made Bell belligerent in his view of what British foreign policy should be. Unlike Bishop Henson of Durham, his ally in most German questions (Chadwick 1983, 239–73), he was an appeaser who admired Chamberlain and Halifax. When Britain went to war he supported the decision clearly and firmly. Although he did not now refer to authorities like Augustine or Aquinas specifically, his understanding of this sober decision of State would have lain firmly within a range of arguments which Catholic theologians had come to recognise as the planks of a ‘just’ war. Bell believed that international law must be maintained. Hitler’s aggression had contravened both the spirit and the law of international life. The British government had been forced – no-one could doubt how reluctantly – into a corner and must now stand by its obligations. But Bell also had no intention of letting the coming of war pass without some declaration of resolve. This came in the pages of a journal, the Fortnightly Review, in November 1939. ‘What’, asked Bell, ‘is the Church to do and say in time of war?’ First of all, it was the basic measure of its obligation that the Church was not a national but a universal power. ‘If the Church is purely national, it will fail. If it fails in war, it will be powerless in the making of peace. If the Church does not fulfil its function now, how will it ever persuade mankind that it has a function?’ He continued: This matter of functions is vital. The State has a function, and the Church has a function. They are distinct. The State is the guarantor of order, justice and civil liberty. It acts by the power of restraint, legal and physical. The Church, on the other hand, is charged with a gospel of God’s redeeming love. It witnesses to a Revelation in history. It speaks of the realities which outlast change. It aims at creating a community founded on love. So when all the resources of the State are concentrated, for example, on winning a war, the Church is not a part of those resources. It stands for something different from these. It possesses an authority independent of the State. It is bound, because of that authority, to proclaim the realities which outlast change. It has to preach the gospel of redemption.

In short, the Church ‘is not the State’s spiritual auxiliary with exactly the same ends as the State. To give the impression that it is, is both to do a profound disservice to the nation and to betray its own principles.’ But this was not all. In the development of his argument Bell insisted that: There can be no contracting out of the national destiny. It is the Church of men, and there are no men save those belonging to nations. The Church has a share in all that affects the individual nation. It rejoices in the good gifts God gives the nation. It suffers in all the burdens which the nation must bear.

The Church must settle ‘the question of right and wrong – the moral law’: The Church then ought to declare both in peace-time and war-time, that there are certain basic principles which can and should be the standards of both international and social order and conduct. Such principles are the equal dignity of all men, respect for human life, the acknowledgment of the solidarity for good and evil of all nations and races of the earth, fidelity to the plighted word, and the appreciation of the fact that

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power of any kind, political or economic, must be coextensive with responsibility. The Church therefore ought to declare what is just. It has a right to prophesy, to analyse the issues which lie behind a particular conflict, and to rebuke the aggressor … It must not hesitate, if occasion arises, to condemn the infliction of reprisals, or the bombing of civilian populations, by the military forces of its own nation. It should set itself against the propaganda of lies and hatred. It should be ready to encourage a resumption of friendly relations with the enemy nation. It should set its face against any war of extermination or enslavement, and any measures directly aimed at destroying the morale of a population.

Finally, ‘the Church is universal. Its message is for all nations. The Church in any country fails to be the Church if it forgets that its members in one nation have a fellowship with its members in every nation’ (reprinted in Bell 1946, 22–31). Although Bell himself had now attempted a framework of some kind for the Church’s role in wartime (for more, see Bell 1940), it was, of course, the case that he had no idea then what kind of war this would turn out to be. Soon he seemed to his critics to muddy the waters by venturing to argue that peace by negotiations should still be sought. This did not make Bell by one whit a sympathiser of Nazism. He simply believed that in a war of nations the German people would find that they would have to rally around their government. War would maintain this state. Peace gave Hitler’s German critics a better chance of unseating him. The fundamental question was not how to defeat the German people, but how to get rid of Hitler. In December 1939 Bell maintained that offers of mediation should not be spurned because a war to the bitter end would go on, spread, fall most heavily on Poles and Jews, make a just peace harder to secure and so unhinge future prospects for the world as Versailles had already done once before. Like many British Christians, Bell was of the view that if Versailles had been just and Germany treated more encouragingly thereafter, Hitler might well never have taken power at all. War could only foster atheism and communism. Such a peace must be just and must guarantee the rights of Jews and dependents. This argument won few allies at the time (Bell 1940, 32–7) – in January 1940 Archbishop Lang thought Bell admirable but unrealistic (Chandler 1990, 179–80) – but few could doubt that this was a conspicuous, independent voice. A war policy requires a general conformity in public opinion, and in a war for national survival that requirement will intensify. Did Bell know how to weigh this responsibility, too? In February 1944 it is unlikely that the figure of George Bell was viewed indulgently by the British government itself, insofar as he was often glimpsed popping up now and then on the periphery of its grander narratives. His growing opposition to what soon became known as ‘obliteration’ bombing had become one strand among many, and those others embraced criticism of government policies of internment of ‘enemy aliens’, the dogged insistence that the nation must declare its ‘peace aims’, and sporadic contacts with resistance circles in Germany, whose cause he would take to the Foreign Office itself (for an overview see Jasper 1967, 256–87). A bishop venturing into political waters is inevitably vulnerable to the criticism that he is an amateur in a field in which professionalism governs all questions, great

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and small. The organisation of a society in wartime naturally intensifies this kind of protectionism. What, after all, does a bishop know about the practical business of conducting national foreign policy and winning a war? To this the bishop has a ready rejoinder: what, then, do politicians and generals know about morality? If a war must be legitimate, where do these notions of legitimacy come from? In Britain between 1939 and 1945 it was common currency that this must derive from the Christian faith. With that a bishop found his legitimacy. Even politicians who rankled at episcopal interventions, such as Lord Vansittart, with whom Bell crossed swords many times, acknowledged that the Church had a responsibility to offer a view. Bell measured the character of this war not simply from the vantage point of an established church, or the universal church at large. This was not merely a war to defeat an army or a nation but one waged between ‘rival philosophies of life’ (Bell 1946, 83). In this they might look to allies in every country – even in Germany itself. In May 1942 his mind was sharpened by a momentous encounter with two German friends, Hans Schönfeld and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, then deeply involved in active resistance against Hitler in their own country (see Chandler 1994, 448–59.) Bell now began the fraught task of maintaining the cause of that resistance movement in public and in private, but he also placed that issue within a still greater picture of civilisation in Europe. In the Upper House of the Convocation of Canterbury on 15 October 1942 he moved that the continuation of the Nazi oppression of occupied Europe threatened the collapse of civilisation itself: Hitler was ‘the arch-destroyer’ whose rule brought only hatred, suffering, the ‘torture and the ceaseless and systematic deportations of the Jews’, the murder of hostages and the return of slavery. Now ‘it is extremely important to recover the conception of Europe as a whole … Europe, however, is now being destroyed economically as well as in civilisation and culture. The British must wake up. They must sacrifice more for their cause. They must show that the faith for which they contended was greater than that of their adversaries’ (Bell 1946, 79–85). By this time Bell had already come to question Allied bombing strategy publicly. He saw that a technique of ‘area’ bombing had been applied almost from the beginning. A letter of protest was published in The Times on 17 April 1941: ‘If Europe is civilised at all, what can excuse the bombing of towns by night and the harassing of non-combatants who work by day and cannot sleep when night comes?’ (The Times 1941, 5d). When Bell attempted to launch another resolution in the Upper House of the Convocation of Canterbury, this time on bombing strategy itself, he exasperated even his friends and was effectively suppressed after the Bishop of Winchester shouted him down from the floor (Chandler 1993, 930–31). He wrote to Edwin Lutyens that he feared for the architecture of Germany (Lutyens simply forwarded this to the Chief of Air Staff, Sir Charles Portal, who returned a mollifying reply). He wrote to the Chichester Observer. When Chichester Cathedral put on a Battle of Britain service for the RAF in September 1943, the Dean, A S Duncan-Jones, apologetically wrote to his bishop that it would be better if he did not attend (Chandler 1993, 937). None of this appeared to deflect Bell. Indeed he had yet to reach a climax. By the summer of 1943, as the first one thousand bomber raids were unleashed over Hamburg, he had fixed his own sights on the House of Lords.

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Bell knew that if he were to be influential he must be credible, and that credibility of this kind was founded squarely upon the marshalling of information. One of the fascinations for a historian of his campaign against obliteration bombing is to view his own correspondence on the matter as it accumulated parallel to that of the Air Ministry, which knew that he was preparing for a speech and sought to anticipate it. In this steady task Bell found one constant ally, the military historian Basil Liddell Hart. Liddell Hart was hardly in the front line of this war: he had retired from the army with the rank of Captain in 1927 and for ten years had worked as the military correspondent of the Daily Telegraph. But his reputation as a military historian was unique, in part because he was viewed as one of the handful of analysts who had predicted that a second war with Germany would be quite unlike the first, that it would prove to be a war of mobility and tanks and technology. That such a figure (incidentally, the son of a Methodist minister) should also resist the bombing of German cities offered the Bishop of Chichester exactly the kind of validation which he needed. It also offered him guidance of an authoritative kind. He probably barely sensed that the government viewed Liddell Hart, too, as something of a loose cannon. By 9 February 1944 Bell was well established in the House of Lords, although his speeches were not necessarily well received there. After his death Lord Pakenham would recall how: There was no one whose speeches were followed with a closer, or at times, more painful attention, when he raised, as he almost invariably did, a moral issue. That is not to say that he was a popular speaker, there were quite a number of excellent peers who really couldn’t take his speeches at all. They found them so acutely irritating that they could hardly bear to listen in silence. (Bell Papers, 367, fols 325–6)

Lord Woolton now approached Bell quietly with the words: George, there isn’t a soul in this House who doesn’t wish you wouldn’t make the speech you are going to make … You must know that. But I also want to tell you that there isn’t a soul who doesn’t know that the only reason why you make it, is because you believe it is your duty to make it as a Christian priest. (ibid)

Bell began with due care: the question of this bombing strategy was ‘beset with difficulties’ and must make members of the government itself anxious, as well as ‘large numbers of people who are as resolute champions of the Allied cause as any member of your Lordships’ House’. That went for Bell himself, too: ‘[i]f long-sustained and public opposition to Hitler and the Nazis since 1933 is any credential, I would humbly claim to be one of the most convinced and consistent anti-Nazis in Great Britain.’ In the challenge that he now made he voiced no criticism of British airmen, who faced ‘tremendous danger, with supreme courage and skill, carry out the simple duty of obeying their superiors’ orders’. That a distinction in principle should be drawn between ‘attacks on military and industrial objectives and attacks on objectives which do not possess that character’ was generally admitted:

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At the outbreak of the war, in response to an appeal by President Roosevelt, the Governments of the United Kingdom and France issued a joint declaration of their intention to conduct hostilities with a firm desire to spare the civilian population and to preserve in every way possible those monuments of human achievement which are treasured in all civilised countries. At the same time explicit instructions were issued to the Commanders of the Armed Forces prohibiting the bombardment, whether from the air or from the sea or by artillery on land, of any except strictly military objectives in the narrowest sense of the word. Both sides accepted this agreement.

To be sure, the governments of Britain and France had added the proviso that they ‘reserve the right to take all such action as they may consider appropriate’. Moreover, on 10 May 1940: the Government publicly proclaimed their intention to exercise this right in the event of bombing by the enemy of civilian populations. But the point which I wish to establish at this moment is that in entering the war there was no doubt in the Government’s mind that the distinction between military and non-military objectives was real.

The principle which lay at the root of that distinction had also been accepted as a point of international law. In 1922 the Washington Conference on the Limitation of Armaments had appointed a Commission of Jurists to frame a code of rules about aerial warfare. Article 22 set down the view that ‘aerial bombardment for the purpose of terrorizing the civilian population, of destroying or damaging private property not of military character, or of injuring non-combatants is prohibited’, while Article 24 affirmed that ‘aerial bombardment is legitimate only when directed at a military objective – that is to say, an objective of which the destruction or injury would constitute a distinct military advantage to the belligerent’. Meanwhile, they could turn to the Hague Regulations of 1907. Bell warned that ‘it is common experience in the history of warfare that not only wars but actions taken in war as military necessities are often supported at the time by a class of arguments which, after the war is over, people find are arguments to which they never should have listened’. Bell acknowledged that the Luftwaffe had bombed Belgrade, Warsaw, Rotterdam, London, Portsmouth, Coventry, Canterbury, ‘and many other places of military, industrial and cultural importance’. But Hitler was a barbarian: ‘There is no decent person on the Allied side who is likely to suggest that we should make him our pattern, or attempt to be competitors in that market.’ Furthermore: it is clear enough that large-scale bombing of enemy towns was begun by the Nazis. I am not arguing that point at all. The question with which I am concerned is this. Do the Government understand the full force of what area bombardment is doing and is destroying now? Are they alive not only to the vastness of the material damage, much of which is irreparable, but also to the harvest they are laying up for the future relationships of the peoples of Europe as well as to its moral implications?

The second objection was practical: I fully realise that in attacks on centres of war industry and transport the killing of civilians when it is the result of bona-fide military activity is inevitable. But there must

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be a fair balance between the means employed and the purpose achieved. To obliterate a whole town because certain portions contain military and industrial establishments is to reject the balance.

The realities of this policy could be seen in Hamburg, a city which certainly contained many legitimate targets, but was also ‘the most democratic town in Germany where the anti-Nazi opposition was strongest’. Now the city had witnessed ‘unutterable destruction and devastation’. At least 28,000 people had died: Never before in the history of air warfare was an attack of such weight and persistence carried out against a single industrial concentration. Practically all the buildings: cultural, military, residential, industrial, religious – including the famous University Library with its 800,000 volumes, of which three-quarters have perished – were razed to the ground.

As for Berlin: The offices of the Government, the military, industrial, war-making establishments in Berlin are a fair target. Injuries to civilians are inevitable, but up to date half Berlin has been destroyed, area by area, the residential and the industrial portions alike. Through the dropping of thousands of tons of bombs, including fire-phosphorus bombs, of extraordinary power, men and women have been lost, overwhelmed in the colossal tornado of smoke, blast and flame. It is said that 74,000 persons have been killed and that 3,000,000 are already homeless. The policy is obliteration, openly acknowledged. That is not a justifiable act of war. Again, Berlin is one of the great centres of art collections in the world. It has a large collection of Oriental and classical sculpture. It has one of the best picture galleries in Europe, comparable to the National Gallery. It has a gallery of modern art better than the Tate, a museum of ethnology without parallel in this country, one of the biggest and best-organised libraries – State and university, containing two and a half million books – in the world … It is possible to replace flats and houses by mass production. It is not possible so quickly to rebuild libraries or galleries or churches or museums. It is not very easy to re-house those works of art which have been spared. Those works of art and those libraries will be wanted for the re-education of the Germans after the war. I wonder whether your Lordships realise the loss involved in that.

This could only be called indiscriminate. The rhetoric which justified it was indiscriminate, too. Air-Marshal Sir Arthur Harris had said ‘We are going to scourge the Third Reich from end to end.’ What would be caught up in this great offensive? Furthermore, ‘To justify methods inhuman in themselves by arguments of expediency smacks of the Nazi philosophy that Might is Right.’ The conclusion was unequivocal: Why is there this inability to reckon with the moral and spiritual facts? Why is there this forgetfulness of the ideals by which our cause is inspired? How can the War Cabinet fail to see that this progressive devastation of cities is threatening the roots of civilisation? How can they be blind to the harvest of even fiercer warring and desolation, even in this country, to which the present destruction will inevitably lead when the members of the War Cabinet have long passed to their rest? How can they fail to realise that this is not the way to curb military aggression and end war? (Hansard 1944, vol CXXX, cols 739–41)

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To this Lord Cranborne made a dutiful reply. These distinctions were hard to draw. Berlin was, in effect, one great armaments factory. They must acknowledge, above all, that ‘war is a horrible thing’. The debate which followed proved a striking, and temperate, exploration of attitudes, some of them sympathetic to various parts of Bell’s argument, others politely firm in criticism (Hansard 1944, vol CXXX, cols 741 ff). Beyond Westminster, Bell found himself criticised – inevitably – for undermining the war effort. News spread. In occupied Norway Bishop Berggrav, a bishop placed under house arrest for his prominent part in a movement of disobedience against the German occupying forces, was at first baffled to read a report of this speech. Years later he would recall: During the war I read in some Finnish paper a report of his speech … I was really shocked, because to us in Norway, this was not good politics. At the same time I felt that he was right, but had the impression that this would block his further way in the church. (Bell Papers, 367, fol 327)

How should the scholar define this occasion? It did not speak simply of a clash between the old powers of Church and State, but revealed something more diffuse and fragmented, quite as the construction of the State itself allowed. For the establishment of the Church of England was founded on the argument that the State was Christian and its officers worked as Christian laity. This logic looked rather threadbare by the middle of the 20th century, but it still represented something significant in the fabric of public authority. Bell might well insist on the distinctness of their functions, but he knew that many of those who led the political life of the nation were Christians as committed as any priest or bishop. Bell’s own political friendships were not as extensive as those of Archbishop Lang, and evidently he made no effort to cultivate a constituency in the House of Lords itself. But he knew well the Labour politician Stafford Cripps, who was a devout, even austere, Anglican and one prepared to make much public sense of his faith. Cripps merits attention here. In 1944 he was running the Ministry of Aircraft Production, which was responsible for the manufacture of all the bombers which attacked the cities of Germany each night. It was said by Archibald Sinclair at the Air Ministry that British policy had not changed in essentials during the war. It was simply that it was being pursued with more aircraft. It was this task which Cripps oversaw. Cripps was not an opponent of obliteration bombing, but his views showed some variations on the official line, even so. He was widely suspected in the more prickly corners of the RAF, partly for a speech which he had made which appeared to question the priorities of British air strategy in February 1942, when Cripps was Lord Privy Seal, but still more for a speech made at the invitation of a friend, the chaplain at RAF High Wycombe, John Collins, late in 1944. Here he had duly turned up with the title ‘Is God my Co-Pilot?’ and left a muddled, but far from reassuring, impression amongst the officers, some of whom thought that he had argued that airmen who were unconvinced by these raids should not be sent on them. Arthur Harris demanded a riposte and out duly came a pamphlet, ‘The Ethics of Bombing’. Collins demurred that it might more properly have been renamed ‘The Bombing of Ethics’ (Bryant 1997, 319–25).

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Cripps was often an ally of the Bishop of Chichester, but he was not one now. Yet Bell did win a cluster of committed allies and sympathisers from all kinds of different quarters, political, military and ecclesiastical. Bell’s postbag – or what remains of it, for it is perfectly possible that the most vituperative assaults were destroyed – reveals a diverse picture, but one largely in his favour. He reported to a friend that he had not expected to receive ‘such a torrent of commentary and indignation in the press as it has elicited’; letters tumbling into the Bishop’s palace proved to be broadly three to one in his favour. A young priest wrote to him, ‘It is heartening indeed to know that at last the voice of sanity and Christian charity has been lifted in high places and the surrender of principle to expediency challenged by a representative of the English Church.’ He went on: It may interest you to know that after listening to the 9pm News I went with a Padres Brains Trust into a local factory to answer the religious questions of workers during the break on the night shift in their canteen. One worker expressed his amazement that a Bishop of all people! should raise his voice against the government on such an issue … His expression of strong support for you my Lord received murmuring assent from all parts of the canteen. I add in my own visitations in this district that I am constantly hearing expressions of disgust and horror at our bombing policy.

Another vicar, in London, wrote, ‘I have evidence, though most of it is highly confidential, that a number of the RAF boys are seriously perturbed by what they have to do ….’ An RAF sergeant in Staffordshire wrote: It has been distressing to note the increasing ruthlessness of our attitude to this devastating form of warfare & the development of a frame of mind which can dismiss the maiming and slaughter of thousands of human beings in a single night as ‘grim necessity’. One wonders if the age of reason is over; if those virtues of mercy & forbearance which have dignified the human race, are not rapidly becoming things of the past.

A major wrote from the United Services Club in London, ‘Many young airmen who have to carry out these bombing raids feel deeply that they are being asked to do more than is required by military necessity and they are most unhappy about it.’ A retired Royal Navy Commander wrote that he had been waiting to see when the Church would ‘stand up for the principles of Christianity in this matter’, and now one member had at last done so. A journalist wrote, ‘You may be interested to know that, in company with four other hard-bitten newspapermen, I was discussing what you had said and, at the end of a somewhat heated debate, “Fleet Street’s view” was 4–1 in your favour!’ A mother who had lost her son, a violinist in peacetime who had became a navigator in war, thanked Bell and deplored, ‘this sickening business of retaliation’ (for all letters and more see Bell Papers, 70). But across the armed services views were sometimes harsh. When transport was requested for a visit by the Bishop of Chichester to a local RAF station an officer retorted, ‘Let the bugger bike’ (Watson 1998, 4). The Bishop persevered in his pastoral duties to the aircrews nonetheless. He was a priest, not a campaigner, and he had no doubt about his responsibilities in those terms.

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Crises polarise opinion; divisions are inevitable and they grow rigid as parties become antagonists. In such a landscape it becomes all the more likely that the individual who holds to a firm view will find himself maintaining that view in isolation. Those he might consider predictable allies might well slip discreetly into the background. Yet, at the same time, he might find himself in new and even surprising company and be much the richer for it. Bell did not provoke the admiration of many bishops. The new Archbishop of Canterbury, William Temple, was of quite a different view and said so often enough (Chandler 1993, 920–46). Only one bishop, Hone of Wakefield, wrote with his warm support and showed that he had read the debate thoroughly. But others within the Church and without now turned to him to say and do the things which others had, in their eyes, left unsaid and undone. And some found themselves thinking of a bishop with respect and interest when otherwise they might never have considered a bishop a part of their moral universe at all. Such individualism has its costs, and it cost Bell a good deal, in the crashing of his hopes that he may win a higher position in his own church. Yet it also has its gains, and these are surely to be prized all the more because they represented a quite different currency. To reason and act morally is to take up some measure of responsibility for what occurs around us, to weigh principles, priorities, capacities, and opportunities together and set a course. So much of the integrity of this rests in the character and richness of relationships. Within a particular constituency, interest or peer group ‘doing the right thing’ might simply foster bland conformity or avoidance once a certain view has found its loudest and most influential advocates and has generated impressive momentum in charismatic or authoritative quarters. But the rich and diverse ecology of friendships which defined Bell’s own life showed something quite different. A word in the House of Lords now was the consequence not merely of a committed public advocate who decided that a great evil was occurring, but of a moral vision emerging from a determined participation in the great tumult of the age as he found it in the lives of a quite extraordinary variety of friends, such as the refugee artist Hans Feibusch, the writer T S Eliot, the refugee lawyer Gerhard Leibholz and the young journalist David Astor. The theatre producer Martin Brown would one day remark of the Bishop of Chicester, ‘Nothing was outside the scope of his interest and understanding, and everything was related to his master’s will and work. He was the broadest minded, and also the deepest Christian I have ever known’ (Bell Papers, 367, fol 328). By the end of the 20th century British society had arguably lost at least something of the common appearance of a lively, bustling democratic enterprise, something to which Bell contributed so tenaciously during World War II. The concerned individual was far more likely to find himself still more narrowly confined within heavily overmanaged institutions, busily accumulating piles of memoranda, targets and committees. Looking above the parapets had become more and more difficult. Whatever moral campaigns arise within such boundaries are unlikely to become anything better than self-serving strategies and interior games. At the beginning of the 21st century the decline of Christian life brings with it the uncomfortable question of what has become of the distinctive tools of moral argument – theological, intellectual, pragmatic and pastoral – which a figure like Bell possessed and applied? Furthermore,

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in a society governed by headlong specialisation and self-absorption, a society where the individual is so often stranded from a wider landscape by the intensity of immediate requirements, where might we look for such breadth of conviction, association, and commitment? Throughout World War II Christians from Catholic, Lutheran and Anglican traditions across the dictatorships and democracies continued to pray: Lord have mercy upon us, Christ have mercy upon us, Lord have mercy upon us. What did this mean to them? In times of dispute there can often be a sense that the protesting individual bears no responsibility for what is done by the politicians who are in charge. But a figure like Bell did not argue from this foundation. Indeed, within the framework of Christian understanding that was recognisable to him, he had no right to feel exempt from the tumbling affairs of humanity at large, let alone the national policy which the government of his own country had framed. Humanity itself was guilty and the individual who took his place in its drama was a part of humanity and must accept his share in the common guilt for what went awry. Bell did not for a moment judge that a bishop was somehow more moral than an RAF pilot. They simply found themselves in different places and lived and worked under different requirements and conditions. They both had a responsibility to live by the light of some principle or other. If they were to find a credible moral purpose they would only do so together, with and through each other’s experiences and insights. The rooting of an argument in actual realities and in the costs of human experience is, after all, what makes for integrity. There must be a share of the cost. It might be seen to be better to take one’s stand first of all by those who are left to bear the consequences of political life: that is, by the victims. By the time that Bell made his speech on obliteration bombing in the House of Lords one of his greatest friends, the young German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, was in prison suspected for his role in active opposition to the Hitler State. Bonhoeffer had insisted to Bell, ‘We do not want to escape repentance. Our action must be understood as an act of repentance’ (see ‘The Background to the Hitler Plot’, first published in the Contemporary Review in 1945 and republished in Bell 1946, 165–76). The remark struck a chord with Bell and he often referred to it. In February 1946 he would write to his friends in Germany, ‘Although no man’s guilt goes so deep as the guilt of Hitler and Himmler, no Nation, no Party, no Church, no University, is free from some responsibility for the doom which has come upon us’ (‘A Letter to my friends in the Evangelical Church in Germany’, Bell 1946, 183–93). But this was not a matter of vulgar moral selfflagellation. It was with the acceptance of guilt that repentance could come, and with repentance, forgiveness. It is surely the common experience of humanity that these things do not bring oppression but instead inspire the freedom and courage to build again. Now there was new work to be done.

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Bell, G K A, n.d. Collected Papers, Lambeth Palace Library, London —, 1935 Randall Davidson, Archbishop of Canterbury, OUP, Oxford —, 1939 The Church’s Function in Wartime, Fortnightly Review, November (reprinted in G K A Bell, 1946 The Church and Humanity, Longman, London, 22–31) —, 1940 Christianity and World Order, Penguin Books, London —, 1946 The Church and Humanity, Longman, London Bryant, C, 1997 Stafford Cripps: The First Modern Chancellor, Hodder & Stoughton, London Chadwick, O, 1983 Hensley Henson: A Study in the Friction between Church and State, Oxford University Press, Oxford Chandler, A, 1990 The Church of England and Nazi Germany, 1933–1945, unpublished PhD thesis, University of Cambridge —, 1993 The Church of England and the Obliteration Bombing of Germany in the Second World War, English Historical Review 108 (429), 920–46 —, 1994 The Death of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Journal of Ecclesiastical History 45 (3), 448–59 —, 2008 A Piety and Provocation: A Study of George Bell, Bishop of Chichester, Humanitas Subsidia Series, Chichester Cornwell, J, 1999 Hitler’s Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII, Penguin, London Foster, P (ed), 2004 Bell of Chichester (1883–1958): A Prophetic Bishop, Bishop Otter Memorial Series, Chichester Hansard, 1938, Debates of the House of Lords: Fifth Series, 110, 1206–15, 27 July —, 1944, Debates of the House of Lords: Fifth Series, vol CXXX, cols 739–41, 9 February Jasper, R C D, 1967 George Bell, Bishop of Chichester, Oxford University Press, London Meinecke, F, 1946 Die deutsche Katastrophe: Betrachtungen und Erinnerungen, Eberhard Brockhaus Verlag, Wiesbaden ..or in English: Meinecke, F, 1950 The German Catastrophe: Reflections and Recollections (trans Sidney Bradshaw Fay), Harvard, Cambridge, Mass Raina, P, 2006 George Bell: The Greatest Churchman: A Portrait in Letters, CTBI, London Robbins, K, 1970 Martin Niemöller, the German Church Struggle and English Opinion, Journal of Ecclesiastical History 21 (X), 149–70 Slack, K, 1971 George Bell, SCM Press, London The Times, 1941 Letter from the Bishop of Chichester, Letters to the Editor, 17 April Watson, G, 1998 ‘In a filial and obedient spirit’: George Bell and the Anglican response to crisis, 1937–1949, Humanitas: The Journal of the George Bell Institute 1 (1), 4–24 Zeller, E, 1963/1967 Der Geist der Freiheit: Der Zwanzigste Juli, Gotthold Müller Verlag, Munich; The Flame of Freedom, Oswald Wolff, London

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Responding to Culture in Conflict

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OLIVER URQUHART IRVINE2

INTRODUCTION There is potentially no limit to the geographical reach of an organisation that engages in the pursuance of its governing instrument’s obligations. Certainly the concept of ‘cultural diplomacy’, now recently relabelled ‘cultural relations’ (see, for example, Battle of Ideas 2009), is one that permits any organisation whose existence is based in collections of cultural property, however defined,3 to attempt business in another country without apparently falling foul either of the competing interests of public diplomacy or of its own, more narrowly cast, remit. This chapter surveys the reality of responding to conflict around the world, from the Andes to China, by way of subSaharan Africa and Burma and, ultimately, Iraq. The types of conflict encountered are as varied as the countries in which they have taken place and the responses discussed are likewise manifold, rooted as they are in the possibilities afforded by the 21st century for the preservation of material and the dissemination of its content. This chapter, therefore, contains a series of case studies rather than an exegesis on theory, and reflects on the issue of how to respond to conflict and iconoclasm, or in this case largely biblioclasm, from the perspective of a cultural institution. Statements made and case studies selected are informed by the nature of the British Library, in particular its dualistic remit. While the British Library is a library with immense heritage collections of undoubted worldwide significance, it must give access to the content of its collections as much as to the collection items themselves. The British Library is thus a particular type of cultural institution: not expressly a museum, though with significant museum-type characteristics, but also a public service, in some respects at the wholesale end of culture and knowledge. Drawing this ostensibly artificial distinction between content and object is crucial in enabling the Library’s prompt response to acts of destruction and iconoclasm; and enabling it, moreover, to go about that response in a very 21st-century way. Collaboration by the sharing of digital copies, preservation through digitisation, 1 This chapter is based upon a paper originally given at the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities, University of Cambridge: ‘Culture Wars: heritage and armed conflict’, 11–13 December 2008, see: http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/166/ [accessed 20 November 2010]. 2 The author would also like to thank Roberta Klimt for her assistance in preparing this chapter for publication. 3 For the purposes of this paper I have added material of religious and faith significance to the very wide definition of cultural property given by UNESCO in 1970 that includes: ‘original engravings, prints and lithographs … rare manuscripts and incunabula, old books, documents and publications of special interest (historical, artistic, scientific, literary, etc.) singly or in collections; postage, revenue and similar stamps, singly or in collections; archives, including sound, photographic and cinematographic archives’ (UNESCO 1970).

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virtual reunification of texts online, the copying and redistribution of oral histories: all sit alongside the Library’s more traditional forms of response, from capacity building to professional leadership. These, the Library’s non-proprietorial responses to culture in conflict, must be considered in the framework and context of the Library’s remit, its constraints and drivers, including legal and ethical issues, and how these also pertain to questions of acquisition and restitution. These are examined in turn and followed with selective case studies. AN INTERNATIONAL REMIT The Library’s collections are international in scope and origin: they range across time, space, languages, religions, cultures, and nations, and they contribute to the worldwide understanding and celebration of British culture and values, not least the global phenomena of English language and literature. The international scope and depth of the Library’s collections derive not only from the British historical experience in the world, but from the self-conscious development of collection policies over the last 250 years and in the development of modern and contemporary sources, both for consultation in the Library’s reading rooms and by way of provisioning its lending services for an international audience. The Library recognises and values the international stewardship role it fulfils, particularly in today’s culturally diverse Britain. As one of the world’s foremost research libraries, the Library seeks to collaborate internationally with other bodies and institutions to increase the awareness, exploitation and enjoyment of its world heritage collections. CONSTRAINTS

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The Library must act within its governing statute, but acknowledges also an everexpanding and complex non-legal environment. This includes codes of practice, advisory panels, and other drivers, including UK political, partnership, and collaborative opportunities, as well as the challenges of international cultural diplomacy and cultural foreign policy. Governing statute The British Library Act 1972, upon its vesting day on 1 July 1973, brought together several separate national institutions to establish the UK national library ‘comprising a comprehensive collection of books, mss, periodicals, films and other recorded matter’ (Section 1(1)). They were the library departments of the British Museum, the National Reference Library of Science and Invention, the National Lending Library for Science and Technology, and the National Central Library. A year later (1974), this quartet was joined by the British National Bibliography and the Office for Scientific and Technical Information. More recently the Library was substantially enriched, particularly from an international perspective, by the transfer to it of the Library and

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Records of the former India Office (in 1982)4 and the collections of the British Institute of Records Sound (in 1984), now the National Sound Archive. Each of those bodies had a different purpose and scope and each represented a different collecting history. Notwithstanding such diversity of origin, responses to culture in conflict by way of pure philanthropy would be ultra vires, as would the application of grant-in-aid money beyond the remit of the Act. Furthermore, the Act places considerable restraints on deaccessioning and disposal (Schedule sections 11(3) and (4)). Nonetheless, the Act provides a disciplined structure to responding to conflict, one in which there must be a benefit to all parties and in which there is a clear demonstration of probity in purpose, governance, and funding. Non-legal codes I have discussed elsewhere (see, for example, Urquhart Irvine 2009), and with some scepticism, the increasing popularity of applying codes of ethics to museums, libraries, and archives; but it is arguably true that a positive result of this groundswell has been the closer scrutiny of the activities of all those dealing with cultural property, especially property in or from areas of conflict. A highly selective list, chosen merely to represent the diversity of codes of ethics in this area, would include the International Council of Museums Code of Ethics for Museums (1996),5 the Museums Association Code of Practice for Governing Bodies (1994),6 UNIDROIT Convention on Stolen or Illegally Exported Cultural Objects (Rome, 24 June 1995),7 while the Washington DC Conference on Holocaust-Era Assets issued a set of non-binding principles under the heading ‘Conference Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art’ in December 1998. More recently, in direct response to the spoliation of property during the Holocaust, the Museums and Galleries Commission issued their ‘Restitution and Repatriation: Guidelines for Good Practice’ (2000), while in 2004 the National Museum Directors’ Conference updated its ‘Statement of Principles and Proposed Actions’ about the ‘spoliation of works of art during the Holocaust and World War II period’ (originally published in 2002). These developments together are arguably indicative of the growth in significance of ethics and morals in dealing with problems perceived as inadequately addressed by the law. Such codes do have their limitations: however much they are the product of one culture rather than another and irrespective of how collective or inclusive they are in their language and intent, they are largely without sanction for breach or universal application. 4 The India Office Library and Records were physically transferred in 1982 and ownership by way of a trust deed was effected in February 1984. 5 http://icom.museum/ethics.html#intro [accessed 20 November 2010]. This was revised in 2001 and again in 2004. 6 ‘collections management policy should ensure, through appropriate documentation, that the museum does not acquire or exhibit any stolen or illegally exported works and that it acquires legal title to items deaccessioned to its collections’. 7 The UNIDROIT Convention has only 22 member states so far, and though it has been ratified by the UK it has not been implemented. There is a high degree of complementarity between the UNIDROIT and UNESCO conventions on illicit cultural property though the former has some additional features that covered criminal and recovery elements of the illicit trade in cultural property. The full text can be found at: http://www.unidroit.org/english/conventions/1995culturalproperty/1995culturalproperty-e.htm [accessed 20 November 2010].

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Cultural diplomacy and cultural relations Since the report on cultural diplomacy published by Demos in 2007 (Bound et al 2007, 11–12) there has been considerable debate as to whether or not such activity should properly be labelled cultural diplomacy or cultural relations, not to mention the extent to which any organisation in receipt of public funds, for example, should engage in an arena customarily considered the preserve of public diplomacy and international politics. Suffice it to say that fostering good international relations in the cultural sector arguably adds significantly to the UK’s reputation and prestige at home and abroad and may, one hopes, lead to greater leverage for the UK in other spheres. Conversely, too, failing to maintain good relations in the international cultural sector can significantly affect national reputations, including those of cultural institutions, and impact negatively on the stewardship of cultural property. This is particularly true if one considers the global stretch of communities, with the ever greater and faster connections which are now a reality between non-resident diaspora and countries of origin. Ironically, then, the recent debate at Tate Britain, ‘Museums for World Peace? The pros and cons of cultural diplomacy’ (Battle of Ideas 2009), which examined whether all of this was just a crude extension of government-sanctioned activity, actually served to underline the validity of developing the means to respond to culture in conflict. It proved that, however they are labelled, the opportunities and obligations arising from the possession of cultural heritage of international standing subsist. Collaborative opportunities For all of these reasons partnership activities are especially important where we have an international stewardship role for significant heritage collections, which may be solely the Library’s own responsibility or one shared effectively with foreign cultural institutions. This is the case for material from Dunhuang, for example, which is shared with France, Russia, and Germany as well as with China itself (see The International Dunhuang Project 2009). Working in partnership has done much to offset the challenges raised by the political context in which the Library operates. Acquisition and restitution Against this background, close scrutiny has been given to (present and past) acquisition and restitution of cultural property by all institutions. This applies no less to the ongoing preservation of and access to material already held by the Library as it does to those groups and organisations with whom the Library seeks to do business, especially in areas of conflict or immediate post-conflict. The British Library has adopted an Ethical Future Acquisitions Policy (British Library 2006) which, in addition to recognising the legal and ethical constraints and obligations already mentioned, leaves room for the Library to operate as a safe haven or even a repository of last resort. For instance, there may be occasions when the British Library actively considers temporary and emergency acquisition on a safe-haven basis. This may occur where there is an overwhelming conservation, scholarly or otherwise exceptional imperative that outweighs other, more usual, moral imperatives. The Library also recognises that there may be occasions when it is asked to act as repository of last

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resort for items within its remit where no documentation exists and where no payment is given that encourages illicit trade. Such circumstances are likely to be very rare, and if the situation arose it would be kept under constant review. CASE STUDIES Endangerment through environment and unregulated trade The Library administers the Endangered Archives Programme (EAP) (British Library 2009a), a £10 million initiative sponsored by Arcadia which enables institutions and researchers to apply for grants to help identify endangered records and relocate them to institutional archives in their local region. Through the EAP the Library has made funding available to microfilm or digitise part of the Bamum Palace Archives, Cameroon: some 7000 documents, many in the native African Bamum script, and many of which antecede the advent in 1902 of Europeans to Cameroon.8 The documents comprise a very broad range of subject matter, from official and family histories to texts on traditional medicines, speeches, commentaries on Islam and magic, and maps of the Bamum Kingdom. All of these documents are endangered by poor environmental conditions and by theft and sale fuelled by unregulated trade in Bamum art and antiquities. A set of digitised copies made under the EAP is now kept at the British Library, while the originals and another set of copies are held at the University of Dschang. The result is the preservation for present and future generations of researchers of the most significant pre-industrial and non-Western holding of indigenous manuscripts in sub-Saharan Africa. Endangerment through technological obsolescence Another project sponsored by EAP has been the saving of private archives of ethnographic material – music, dance, festivals, and oral traditions – produced by the Andean culture in Peru.9 Such archives of cultural material, formed by a number of folklore scholars as private research archives, comprise large collections of old photographs, Super 8 films, audio tapes, and associated papers. The threat to this material is one of obsolescence and disinterest: not a single act of destruction but the rapid pace of development in technologies of recording, the fast rate at which such material deteriorates and a perceived lack of awareness about its cultural significance. This exemplifies well the growing problem that the survival of culture captured in modern technology is in direct conflict with its inherent physical properties as much as from changing preoccupations with those cultures themselves. Sustaining cultures Another EAP project was a pilot study to digitise and assess the possibility of a more coordinated response to a group of endangered materials – mostly Thervada 8 This project was led by Dr Konrad Tuchscherer, St John’s University, New York. Further details can be found at: http://www.bl.uk/about/policies/endangeredarch/tuchscherer.html [accessed 20 November 2010]. 9 This project was led by Dr Paul Romero, Catholic University of Peru. Further details can be found at: http://www.bl.uk/about/policies/endangeredarch/romero.html [accessed 20 November 2010].

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Buddhists texts on palm leaves but also scrolls containing religious and literary texts – which was the work of the ethnic Pa’O (Tibeto-Burman, Karenic branch) minority occupying an area from the southern Shan State down as far as Myanmar.10 Together the manuscripts represent a significant Buddhist tradition written in Pa’O language or in Pali. As an ethnic minority the Pa’O have been marginalised, deprived of any effective wherewithal for the advancement and preservation of their culture, and subject to an overt programme of assimilation and oppression by non-Burmese cultures. The project aims to locate and copy as many as possible of these texts so as to increase greatly the chance for preservation of and access to this material, thereby offering a degree of sustainability to a culture under enormous pressure. Laws and morals Legal issues are often both at the heart of the capacity of an institution to respond to conflict and at the margin of the interest and purpose of that collaboration. In this light it is curious to note that, while the case of the Beneventan Missal was not a 21stcentury looting, its proffered solution is entirely a product of the 21st century: an admixture of law and morals with a result that balances legal and moral questions. The Benevento Missal, made in around 1200 at Benevento in Italy and written in the eponymous script prevalent throughout Italy at the time, is considered to be a particularly characteristic and representative example of the style. It was acquired at auction by the British Museum Library in 1946 and (on the Library’s creation) passed to the British Library in 1973. On the basis that it had been looted during World War II, the Missal was the subject of a restitution claim brought against the Library through the Spoliation Advisory Panel (DCMS 2010). The purpose of the Panel is to provide an alternative, non-litigious forum for dispute resolution in cases concerning Holocaust-era assets. Crucially, it must take into account not only the law but ‘nonlegal obligations, such as the moral strength of the claimant’s case … and whether any moral obligation rests on the institution’. The Spoliation Advisory Panel recommended that the Beneventan Missal be returned to Benevento;11 this reflected their belief in the moral superiority of the claimant’s case over the Library’s position. Knowing that the Library would be unable to deaccession the Missal because of the terms of the British Library Act, the recommendation was to send the Missal to Italy on loan, pending a change to the British Library Act which would allow its permanent and outright return. The successful passage in late 2009 of the Heritage (Return of Cultural Objects) Act (the Act received Royal Assent on 13 November 2009), while not retrospective in effect, has provided a mechanism for the return of the Missal.12

10 This was a pilot project led by Christopher Miller, Arizona State Libraries. For further information see: http://www.bl.uk/about/policies/endangeredarch/2006/miller.html [accessed 20 November 2010]. 11 For a full copy of the report of the Panel in this matter see: www.culture.gov.uk/images/publications/ sreport_hc406.pdf [accessed 2010]. 12 Incidentally it was also a power The British Library asked to be added to the Heritage Bill dropped from the Queen’s Speech before Parliament in November 2008. The Missal was handed over on 9 November 2010.

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Restoring cultures Destruction and iconoclasm may also take the form of sustained periods of political and ethnic pressure. Forgotten songs in Rutwa dialect, sung by Batwa tribesman (a pygmy people of the Great Lakes region of Central Africa) and recorded in 1968, were discovered in the British Library’s sound archives, along with additional recordings of the Batwa made in the 1990s, by Chris Kidd, a social anthropologist at Glasgow University. Kidd had been able to find the descendents of those recorded in 1968 and thus reunite the voices of ancestors with the present generation. The ‘return’ of the content of these recordings had a wider particular historical and cultural significance: the Batwa, an indigenous people of Uganda, have, like other Pygmy People in Central Africa, been the victims of extraordinary racial discrimination over the last hundred years. This, Kidd noted, ‘has led to the complete loss of [the Batwa’s] ancestral territories, extensive physical and sexual violence, landlessness, acute poverty and consequently an inability to retain their distinct cultural and social integrity’ (Kidd 2007, 4). Listening to the songs, the Batwa began to recall forgotten words and dances, even other songs and the social and political histories they contained: truly an act of cultural remembrance. Collaborative opportunities In the context of the rapidly worsening security situation in Baghdad from late 2006 through to the summer of 2007, the Library posted the journal of the Director of the Iraq National Library and Archive (INLA), Dr Saad Eskander, updated as he wrote it, on the Library’s website (British Library 2009b). This was a simple and effective means of expressing institutional commonality with the INLA while simultaneously providing a stage from which to attract worldwide editorial media coverage to enable Dr Eskander to reach the global audience necessary to further the reconstruction and renewal of the INLA. This is not to overplay such a simple strategy, but the publication of Dr Eskander’s observations on the reality of the INLA’s situation, not just concerning the collections but also the staff, provided the necessary leverage for an appeal within the UK Higher Education library community for undergraduate and postgraduate English texts in the social sciences, material that Dr Eskander had told us was particularly needed. More than 300 titles were donated. Some measure of the importance of the donation is that the INLA’s book budget was just US $7000, while the value of the donations was US $20,000–30,000. The British Library coordinated the shipping of further donations of collection material needed by the INLA during 2008, notable amongst which was a donation of 900 books from the family of Maurice Barley, who was for many years professor of archaeology at Nottingham University. Digital collection building for overseas organisations In 2008, funded by the UK Government’s Department for Culture, Media and Sport, the Library has completed two further small projects for the INLA: the digitisation of more than 600 historical maps of Iraq from a variety of printed and manuscript map sources within the Library’s collections. Covering a substantial date range, these were

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produced in the spirit of creative commons, leaving the INLA free to make them available to academic, higher education, and other cultural institutions and libraries in Iraq. The INLA also made an initial selection of 20,000 pages of material from the India Office Records for digitisation for the same purposes. This material, put together for the Board of Control, which oversaw the activities of the East India Company, as well as records of the Company’s factories or bases in the Red Sea and Persia and the Persian Gulf, comprised documents dating from 1732 to 1835 and illuminates the political and economic history of Iraq, covering subjects such as the assassination of Ali, Pasha of Baghdad; piracy; and the charting of the Euphrates. We have started digitising the INLA’s next priority, the records of the Political and Secret Department; these cover subjects such as outbreaks of plague, grain riots, postal history, trade and intelligence on German activities, and politics in general. There remain many more documents in the India Office Records that should be digitised in order for the INLA to provide the fullest possible record of the history of Iraq, but further funding will need to be secured in order for this to be taken forward. Together, these two projects represent a modest contribution to the reconstruction of the collection of the INLA. This is reconstruction in its broadest sense: not the replacement of lost material, but the provision of additional material in easily transferable and accessible formats, not hitherto available to readers, in the reading rooms of the National Library of Iraq. CONCLUSION This is only a snapshot of the context for responding to culture in conflict and merely a brief survey of some possible types of response. What is certain is that responding to culture in conflict, to acts of iconoclasm, to the results of sustained periods of oppression and suppression, is key to the responsible stewardship of collections of international standing. The variety of potential responses discussed in this chapter goes some way towards reflecting the range of possibilities for access to and shared use of materials, a solution especially desirable where other types of ‘ownership’ – religious, historic, social, or cultural – are contested or claimed. It is the remit of the responsible cultural institution both to manage competing claims in its collection and to contribute to the restoration and sustenance of cultures in conflict. In the rapidly changing landscape of the 21st century this task is in one sense more complicated than it has ever been; but this era’s ever-broadening panoply of technologies also allows a response far more immediate, and far more imaginative, than has ever been possible before.

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Battle of Ideas, 2009 Museums for world peace? The Pros and Cons of Cultural Diplomacy, available from: http://www.battleofideas.org.uk/index.php/2009/session_detail/2592/ [accessed 15 November 2010] Bound, K, Briggs, R, Holden, J, and Jones, S, 2007 Cultural Diplomacy, Demos, London, 11–12, available from: http://www.demos.co.uk/publications/culturaldiplomacy [accessed 15 November 2010] British Library, 2006 Ethical Future Acquisitions Policy, available from: http://www.bl.uk/ aboutus/stratpolprog/coldevpol/ethical.pdf [accessed 15 November 2010] —, 2009a Endangered Archives, available from: http://www.bl.uk/endangeredarchives [accessed 15 November 2010] —, 2009b Saad Eskander’s Iraq Diary, available from: http://www.webarchive.org.uk/ wayback/archive/20100427123118/http://www.bl.uk/iraqdiary.html [accessed 15 November 2010] DCMS, 2010 Spoliation Advisory Panel, available from: http://www.culture.gov.uk/ what_we_do/cultural_property/3296.aspx [accessed 15 November 2010] The International Dunhuang Project, 2009 The International Dunhuang Project: The Silk Road Online, available from: http://idp.bl.uk/ [accessed 15 November 2010] Kidd, C, 2007 Cultural Remembrance among the Rutwa people, unpublished report circulated by the author, April, 4 UNESCO, 1970 Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property, Paris, UNESCO Urquhart Irvine, O, 2009 The law and ethics of the acquisition of expatriate archives: addressing the ‘lack of guidance’, Archives 34 (121), Autumn, 6–13

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How Academia and the Military can Work Together BARNEY WHITE-SPUNNER

T

he relationship between academia and the military is as important today as it ever has been, but the increasingly complex environments in which we are operating require institutional adaptation in an area where perhaps both sides have drifted apart. The concept of military and academic cooperation on operations is not a new idea; it has worked before, but there is a fine balance of interest to be achieved which can so easily be upset by a lack of unity and cooperation. This unity of purpose was demonstrated during Operation Heritage (a joint project between the British Museum, the British Army, and the Ministry of State for Antiquities and Tourism of Iraq), which assessed the impact which the last five years had had on significant archaeological sites, and the development of a museum in southern Iraq (and see Clarke 2010). Operation Heritage showed that strong, lasting relationships with mutual respect and an understanding between all parties could be developed. Advice and assistance to the military commander on the ground is hardly a new idea; it is something which has been recognised as a critical asset for some time. Napoleon’s completion of the monumental ‘Description de L’Egypte’ was down to the 167 scholars whom he took with him to Egypt. These included engineers, zoologists, geologists, chemists, mathematicians, astronomers, mineralogists, archaeologists, arabists, poets, and painters. They have been described as ‘another corps of cadets following young Caesar into battle’ (Moorehead 1962, 53–4). The 24 volumes of the ‘Description de l’Egypte’ were used by every archaeologist, explorer or invader of the 19th century; ‘[i]t was a true census of Egypt’ (Moorehead 1962, 132).1 Major General Pitt-Rivers, considered by many as the father of British archaeology, impressed on many the importance of preserving cultural heritage (see, for example, Bowden 1991). He applied his initial studies of the evolution in warfare from ‘the spear to the rifle’ to human progression, and, through this knowledge of anthropology, shaped modern archaeology. Greatly influenced by Pitt-Rivers was Sir Mortimer Wheeler, whose outlook and methods seem (like those of Pitt-Rivers) to reflect his military background (see Wheeler 1955). Wheeler was a remarkable man who served in both World Wars. Although a serving soldier, fighting with his Regiment at El Alamein, he was also the embedded adviser to the Eighth Army in the Western Desert on all cultural heritage matters (Woolley 1947, 12ff). He went on from this to command an anti-aircraft Brigade in Salerno, Italy. Throughout this time he was Keeper of the London Museum and, from 1932, Honorary Director of the 1 It is worth noting that Champillon, in the late 1820s, began the science of Egyptology by studying the hieroglyphics of the Rosetta Stone. The stone, surrendered to the British in 1801 at Alexandria, had been copied by Napoleon for the ‘Description de l’Egypte’.

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Institute of Archaeology, University College, London (Wheeler 1955, 88ff). Sadly, this embedded advisory model, described in detail by Sir Leonard Woolley in his review of the work of the Monuments and Fine Art Service (Woolley 1947), was not maintained thereafter. Perhaps the most interesting academic and military partnership was initiated by Viscount Kitchener, who as a Lieutenant in the Engineers had himself conducted several archaeological surveys of Western Palestine between 1874 and 1875 (Palestine Exploration Fund 2010). In 1913, as the British Agent in Cairo, he approached the Palestine Exploration Fund (PEF) and, with funding from the British Museum, the assistance of Sir Leonard Woolley and T E Lawrence was secured. The Carchemish and ‘wilderness of Zin’ expeditions in Northern Syria were not remarkable, but interesting nonetheless, and led to a broader understanding of the region from both an archaeological and a topographical viewpoint. On a lighter note, the trip was one of the first noted instances of Lawrence’s ingenuity and daring.2 On being refused permission to visit the site of Jezirat Farun, he paddled across in some rusty water tanks to conduct his assessment (Moorhead 2003). In 1914 both Woolley and Lawrence returned to Cairo to work with military intelligence. Gertrude Bell, adviser to both Lloyd George and Winston Churchill, worked closely with Lawrence at this time. Described as Al Khatun, or a lady of the court, she was, as described by her contemporary Virginia Woolf, ‘a masterful woman who has everyone under her thumb, and makes you feel a little inefficient’ (Pettinger 2006). Her expert knowledge of pre-war Arabia proved invaluable (Howell 2006), and on being posted to Basra in 1916 she rapidly rose to become Oriental Secretary under Sir Percy Cox. Her drive and energy mixed with her special knowledge of Arab politics and the friendships she had made among the Arab people made her a trusted and effective government servant. Her liberal views and hopes for an early political independence for the Arab people were at odds with the Anglo-Indian Empire views of many, yet she was held in the highest regard and continued with her work in Iraq after World War I. Appointed Honorary Director of Antiquities in 1918, she was fundamental to the inauguration of a National Museum in Baghdad in 1923 (Hogarth 1937, 74–6; Bernhardsson 2005). A further example, though closer to home, of academia and the military working together was the taking of the first three aerial photographs of Stonehenge from a tethered balloon in 1906 by Lieutenant Phillip Henry Sharpe of the Royal Engineers’ Balloon Section (Fig 5.1). The photographs were published in the journal of the 2 They found nearly 40 new inscriptions, including one by the Nabatean king Aretas. They concluded that the climate had never changed and that the cities which sprang up, particularly during the Byzantine Era, had subsisted by means of careful and ingenious water management techniques first used during the Iron Age. Less welcome was their assessment of Ain Kadesh, which they concluded was too poor a spring to have ever supported a large population such as the hordes of Israelites. Either it was not the Biblical Kadesh Barnea or the Israelite encampment had been spread over a much wider area than anyone had suspected. One of the places that Lord Kitchener particularly wished to have investigated was the fortress of Jezirat Farun, which dated back to Crusader times. The Turks refused point blank to allow Lawrence and Woolley access to what was, after all, a fairly strategic fortress. Fortunately the place was several miles down the coast from the Turkish base at Aqaba and Lawrence found some rusty old water tanks in which he was able to paddle across to the island.

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Disclaimer: Some images in the printed version of this book are not available for inclusion in the eBook.

FIG 5.1 ONE OF

THE FIRST

AERIAL PHOTOS OF

STONEHENGE,

To view the image on this page please refer to the printed version of this book.

TAKEN FROM A TETHERED BALLOON

1906 BY LIEUTENANT PHILLIP HENRY SHARPE OF THE ROYAL ENGINEERS’ BALLOON SECTION. IN

Society of Antiquaries in 1907 and archaeologists gradually realised the significance aerial photography would have for recording and interpreting the past. As Pete Horne, Head of Aerial Survey and Investigation at English Heritage, notes, ‘[t]oday aerial survey is the single most important tool for the discovery of archaeological sites in this country’ (Spicer 2006). Perhaps the best example of the military assisting archaeologists, however, is the conservation of 37,000 hectares, an area equal in size to the Isle of Wight, on Salisbury Plain. This area has been described as ‘an island within a sea of arable’ (McOmish et al 2002). The MoD, which has responsibility for over 2500 monuments – 306 of which are Scheduled Monuments protected by government statute – and part of the Stonehenge World Heritage Site, manages to maintain a balance between the needs of the military and the conservation of a historic landscape.3 3 ‘In the 1930s OGS Crawford, the founding father of aerial archaeology, noted that Salisbury Plain had been so damaged by military activity that archaeological interest should be concentrated on the Marlborough Downs, with a view to designation as a National Park. Unfortunately his advice was ignored and the archaeology of the Marlborough Downs was systematically destroyed by ploughing. The presence of the military … has helped to protect the Plain from plough damage. As a result it is now probably the best preserved area of upland in southern Britain, with earthwork remains of field systems, settlements and funerary monuments of various periods’ (http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/professional/research/ landscapes-and-areas/national-mapping-programme/salisbury-plain-nmp/).

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These examples demonstrate that military and academic cooperation are not a new idea. However, much as the British Army would like to put 167 academics into the field, we are no longer living in the Napoleonic era. But, although times have changed, there still remains a strong bond between the military and heritage professions, and this bond can and should be developed now and for the future. Military commanders have always relied on external advice, as noted above. An understanding of the cultural diversities in the area of operations is fundamental to developing the plan. Before our deployment to Iraq in 2008, UK 3rd Division had put considerable time and effort into ensuring that we had a detailed understanding of the country as a whole: its ethnic divides, politics, aspirations, resources, history and culture. We drew on the knowledge and experience of a broad range of academics, journalists, politicians and historians. We were fortunate, particularly, to be able to draw on the extensive knowledge of Dr John Curtis from the British Museum, enabling members of the Division to understand not only the significance of the cultural heritage in Iraq, the birthplace of civilisation, but additionally the issues surrounding the condition of cultural heritage sites in Iraq and what was being done about them. This reliance on external advisers, to us a necessity, goes both ways. It is a reliance forged through trust, strong relationships, a willingness to listen and an understanding of each others’ agendas. Eisenhower summed this up when he said to Mountbatten ‘cooperation, in turn, implies such things as selflessness, devotion to a common cause, generosity in attitude, and mutual confidence’ (Chandler 1970, 1420–22). There will always be different agendas and ethics from separate parties and we should never expect to agree on everything; but we can, if we want to, find common ground where we can all gain the results we set out to achieve. It is this unity of purpose which is all-important within these relationships. There is a perception today that external organisations will ‘preserve their own independence and perceived impartiality by distancing themselves from the military’ (Kiszely 2008, 3–4). This attitude is often disruptive and certainly leads to misunderstandings and confusion by creating more complexity within an already complex environment. As was noted by General Richards in Afghanistan, ‘[t]he current lack of unity and co-ordination between the numerous different organisations and agencies often manifests itself in a situation close to anarchy, both military and civilian … a recipe for confusion, disaffection due to promises undelivered, and aggravated distrust of Western institutions amongst the Afghan population’ (Kiszely 2008, 13). The end result of all this is a disunity of effort and breakdown within the lines of operation we are trying to progress. These military, economic, social, and political lines must work in unison, ‘for if one is nil, the product will be zero’ (Galula 1964, 61, quoted in Kiszely 2008, 14). Professor Liam Kennedy from Queen’s University Belfast summed this up when he said, ‘One thing we have certainly learned is that a one-sided, partisan approach to a complex problem is counter-productive’ (Kennedy 2007). Throughout 2007 and the beginning of 2008, the security situation in Iraq did not lend itself to unescorted visits, and, as we have all seen over the last number of years, Western aid workers, contractors, journalists, academics and contractors have all been targeted by militias, not only in Afghanistan and Iraq but also in other places across the world; for example, Susanne Osthoff, a German

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archaeologist working in Iraq, was kidnapped for three weeks in 2005 by a Sunni gang. Disassociation from the military does not necessarily mean that one is disassociated from the conflict. ‘Archaeology cannot be conducted purely as an “objective” exercise independent of the political context’ (Brooks 2005). Underpinning all of this is an understanding of what our role is. Are we leading or, as is more often the case, supporting the host nation? We can all be at fault for translating Western attitudes to different cultures. These attitudes – ignorance from some and arrogance from others – can have a far-reaching and damaging effect. In the year that T E Lawrence died the American archaeologist James Henry Breasted stated: ‘It is evident that an important item in our job is to educate a small group of these ignorant and fanatical Iraqis, and I propose to undertake it’ (quoted in Bernhardsson 2005, 193). It is a pity that he had not heeded Lawrence’s earlier wisdom when he said: ‘Do not try to do too much with your own hands. Better the Arabs do it tolerably than that you do it perfectly. It is their war, and you are to help them, not to win it for them. Actually, also, under the very odd conditions of Arabia, your practical work will not be as good as, perhaps, you think it is’ (Lawrence 1917). Gertrude Bell stated that ‘any administration … must … command the confidence of the people so as to secure the cooperation of public opinion, without which so complex a tangle could not be unravelled’ (Howell 2006, 310). It is far better for the host nation to preserve its own culture and heritage. As Nick Brooks recognised in the Western Sahara, ‘archaeology can be used to strengthen psychological links between people and land, and strengthen a sense of ownership’ (Brooks 2005). But it is also recognised that the host country in question may have lost a great deal of its specialist knowledge within certain fields as a result of the conflict. Rebuilding this capacity is not a short-term project and requires significant investment from supporting nations. Last year I was approached by my friend Charles Moore, the journalist and exeditor of The Daily Telegraph, to meet with Dr Neil MacGregor, Director of the British Museum, prior to my taking command of British Forces in Southern Iraq. We discussed the feasibility of a joint project between the British Museum, the British Army and the Ministry of State for Antiquities and Tourism of Iraq, with a view to assessing the impact which the past five years had had on significant archaeological sites, and the possibility of developing a museum in Southern Iraq. Operation Heritage, the cultural heritage project born from these discussions, enabled us to take forward important work in an area which has been in the spotlight for a significant period and which was in need of specialist attention. This operation, subdivided into Operations Sumeria and Bell, has been run from the start with full Iraqi backing. To my mind, such a project could not or should not be run in any other way. Both the British Museum and the British Iraqi Friendship Society have invited us to attend workshops and exhibition openings where we have been warmly welcomed by some of the key players in Iraq’s cultural heritage. These relationships have been continued while in Iraq. Operation Sumeria, the site assessment we conducted earlier this year, was advised and accompanied by three senior Iraqi cultural representatives, Mr Qais Hussein Raheed, Director of Investigations and Excavations, Mr Mehsin Ali, Director General of Iraqi Museums, and Abdulamir Mayeh Madhji Al Hamdani,

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Inspector of Dhi Qar Archaeology Inspectorate.4 Without their authority, advice, and guidance we could not have achieved what we did during this trip. Operation Bell, the plan to build a museum in Basra, has been an Iraqi-owned project from the outset. We, the British Army and the British Museum, have offered advice and support throughout the process and we will continue to do so. It is worthy of note that, at the time of writing, Prime Minister Maliki has given his permission for the Lakeside Palace in Basra to be used as a museum. This initiative has attracted a lot of interest from across government departments in the United Kingdom who are all now working together with the British Army and the British Museum to support the Iraqis in completing this important project. Iraq’s heritage, from its pre-dynastic cultures to the modern day, is of importance not only to its people but also to the international community as a whole. We all seek to create a safe and secure environment within which this heritage can be preserved. We have proved that the military and academia can work closely together. Openness, honesty, respect and an understanding of our different roles enabled us to work closely and effectively together in Iraq. It is critical that these relationships are maintained and expanded over time or we will all venture along our different paths achieving nothing tangible, or perhaps building another Tower of Babel.

4 The team led by Dr John Curtis included Dr Paul Collins from the British Museum, Dr Margarete van Ess from the German Institute of Archaeology in Berlin, Professor Elizabeth Stone from the State University of New York, and from the Ministry of State for Archaeology and Heritage, Mr Qais Hussein Raheed, Director of Investigations and Excavations, Mr Mehsin Ali, Director General of Iraqi Museums, and Abdulamir Mayeh Madhji Al Hamdani, Inspector of Dhi Qar Archaeology Inspectorate.

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REFERENCES

Bernhardsson, M T, 2005 Reclaiming a Plundered Past: Archaeology and Nation Building in Modern Iraq, University of Texas Press, Austin Bowden, M, 1991 Pitt Rivers: the life and archaeological work of Lieutenant-General Augustus Henry Lane Fox Pitt Rivers, DCL, FRS, FSA, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge and New York Brooks, N, 2005 Cultural heritage and conflict: The threatened archaeology of Western Sahara, The Journal of North African Studies 10 (3 & 4), September, 413–39 Chandler Jr, A D (ed), 1970 General Eisenhower to Admiral Mountbatten, The Papers of Dwight D Eisenhower: The War Years III, John Hopkins Press, Baltimore, 1420–22 Clarke, H, 2010, Operation Heritage, in Archaeology, Cultural Property, and the Military (ed L Rush), The Boydell Press, Woodbridge Galula, D, 1964 Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice, Praeger Security International, Westport, CT Hogarth, W D, 1937 Humphrey Milford, entry in The Dictionary of National Biography 1922–1930 (ed J R H Weaver), Oxford University Press, London, 74–6 Howell, G, 2006 Daughter of the Desert: The Remarkable Life of Gertrude Bell, Macmillan, London Kennedy, L, 2007 Quote published on Stop the Boycott website, available from: http://www.stoptheboycott.org/about-the-boycott/quotes [accessed 19 July 2010] Kiszely, Lt Gen, J, 2008 Coalition Command in Contemporary Operations, Whitehall Report 1–08, available from: http://www.rusi.org/publications/whitehallreports/ref:O483581D370D1D/ [accessed 15 November 2010] Lawrence, T E, 1917 Guide written for British Officers in the Arab Bulletin, 20 August, available from: http://telawrence.net/telawrencenet/works/articles_essays/1917_twenty-seven_articles.htm [accessed 15 November 2010] McOmish, D, Field, D, and Brown, G, 2002 The Field Archaeology of the Salisbury Plain Training Area, English Heritage Moorehead, A, 1962 The Blue Nile, Hamish Hamilton Ltd, London Moorhead, T S N, 2003 The Genesis, Pursuit and Publication of the Wilderness of Zin Survey: a new introduction to C L Woolley and T E Lawrence, The Wilderness of Zin (Palestine Exploration Fund and Stacey International), xv–xlvii Palestine Exploration Fund, 2010 Lt Horatio H Kitchener, R E, 1850–1916, available from: http://www.pef.org.uk/profiles/lt-horatio-h-kitchener-re-1850-1916 [accessed 15 November 2010] Pettinger, R, 2006 Gertrude Bell: Short Biography Gertrude Bell (1868–1926), available from: http://www.writespirit.net/authors/gertrude_bell [accessed 15 November 2010] Spicer, G, 2006 English Heritage To Reveal 100-Year-Old Aerial Photos Of Stonehenge, Culture 24, available from: http://www.culture24.org.uk/history+%2526+heritage/archaeology/ megaliths+and+prehistoric+archaeology/art38599 [accessed 15 November 2010] Wheeler, M, 1955 Still Digging: Interleaves from an Antiquary’s Notebook, M Joseph, London Woolley, L, 1947 A Record of the Work Done by the Military Authorities for The Protection of the Treasures of Art and History in War Areas, HMSO, London

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Archaeologist under Pressure: Neutral or Cooperative in Wartime RENÉ TEIJGELER INTRODUCTION The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have led to frequently heated debate in the archaeological community that has touched on issues extensively examined in humanitarian aid. The so-called ‘new wars’ of the 1990s led to a development in humanitarian aid referred to as ‘new humanitarianism’. This human-rights-based policy noted that, in modern conflict, the sovereignty of a state was no longer regarded as sacred, a stance that allowed international civil society to take sides in a conflict and intervene on behalf of those whose rights were being seriously violated. This was diametrically opposed to the views of the proponents of ‘classical humanitarianism’, who maintained their belief in neutrality as an essential strategy to reach all those who suffer during an armed conflict. In the debate on humanitarianism the notion of ‘neutrality’ plays a key part as it is defined differently by the various stakeholders – the individuals and institutions who are involved by choice or default and who need to be taken into consideration. CLASSICAL HUMANITARIANISM In 1965 national Red Cross and Red Crescent societies, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), and the Internal Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) proclaimed their new fundamental guiding principles.1 Encompassing ideas dating back to the 18th century (see, for example, Trevelyan 1964, 103), the four humanitarian principles of humanity, impartiality, neutrality and independence formed the basis for the policy. As in the past, the principles underpinned a philosophy directed towards practical efforts to improve the lives of the most weak. During the 1960s, international development assistance gained momentum. In particular, the New Left and the liberal Christians of the booming welfare states in the West felt it irresponsible not to share their wealth with the starving populations in the South and the East. A decade later many development organisations were dissatisfied with the results. Young Western idealists who identified with the oppressed, struggling for survival, demanded immediate and concrete results – humanitarian action became a tool that satisfied their demands and there was a proliferation of humanitarian nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) that, unsurprisingly, lacked any field experience. 1 For the full text see: http://www.icrc.org/Web/Eng/siteeng0.nsf/htmlall/fundamental-principlescommentary-010179 [accessed 20 November 2010].

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Though these NGOs moved centre stage, there was surprisingly little debate about the theoretical premises and content of their humanitarianism. Their standards, if any were professed at all, were based on vaguely formulated ethics (ICRC 2004). In the course of time these NGOs threatened the integrity of humanitarian action itself. Until the 1990s most of these NGOs worked on rural development and disaster relief and not in conflict situations. Relief work was considered only a temporary alleviation of suffering and always a poor substitute for development work; the latter was perceived as the correct way to give support to the weak and address their universal human rights. However, as conflicts in the Balkans and Kuwait/Iraq developed, concerns grew about the role of humanitarian aid in times of conflict and, in particular, about the principle of neutrality. In response, the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and NonGovernmental Organisations in Disaster Relief issued their 1994 Code of Conduct (Red Cross CoC).2 The Code built on the four guiding principles noted above from classical humanitarianism and added development standards such as accountability, partnership, participation and sustainability. The supposition was that the basis of humanitarian and developmental assistance could be reconciled on a practical level. In hindsight, the error was that the focus was on relief during natural disasters, with armed conflicts treated as a footnote only – despite the well-known fact that conflict produces many more casualties than natural disasters (Teygeler 2001, 103 et seq). Today over 450 NGOs are signatories to the Red Cross CoC and accept it as a statement of professional standards. However, before the Code was launched, while most NGOs claimed that the principles were incorporated implicitly into their work most were using it only as an evaluation and training tool (Hilhorst 2004). NEUTRALITY

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In general, ‘neutrality’ in the humanitarianism debate means that assistance must be provided without engaging in hostilities or taking sides in controversies of a political, religious, or ideological nature (see, for example, VENRO 2005, 4). It does not mean, however, that a relief organisation cannot adopt particular political or religious opinions so long as assistance is not dependent on the adherence of the recipients to any particular political or religious creed. According to the Red Cross the main reason to maintain neutrality is confidentiality: ‘in order to continue to enjoy the confidence of all, the Red Cross may not take sides in hostilities or engage at any time in controversies of a political, racial, religious or ideological nature’ (Pictet 1979). This principle of neutrality has been criticised by some NGOs for a long time. During the Biafra crisis (1967–70) French and Biafran health workers were attacked and witnessed a purposely organised famine and the killing of many innocent civilians. The French doctor Bernard Kouchner, witness to the atrocities, condemned the Red Cross for its seemingly complicit behaviour. Pointing out that neutrality and justice are sometimes even incompatible (Plattner 1996, 1), in 1971 Kouchner, with his colleagues, started a new aid organisation, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) that 2 For the full text see: http://www.ifrc.org/publicat/conduct/code.asp [accessed 20 November 2010].

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would step away from neutrality. In order to better serve the welfare of victims, MSF chose to break the silence, thus giving up the notion of confidentiality, much earlier than the Red Cross. Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) The refusal by the Red Cross to denounce violations of the law in public is what made Kouchner choose a different path. His action was based on two premises: that neutrality imposes silence and, from the standpoint of justice, silence is reprehensible. This view is fuelled by research on the behaviour of the International Red Cross in World War II and the 2003 Iraq War. There is now compelling evidence that the Red Cross had knowledge of the genocide of the European Jews before anyone else, but decided not to publicise their knowledge in order not to violate the principle of neutrality (Favez 1988). A similar report, of a definitely lesser magnitude, is of a more recent date. On 7 May 2004 the Wall Street Journal published excerpts of a report by the ICRC on the violations of International Humanitarian Law (IHL) in Iraqi detention centres, including Abu Ghraib prison. The report, based on frequent visits to prisoners of war and civilian internees between March and November 2003, had been presented to the Coalition Forces in February 2004. It documented brutal behaviour and called some of the abuses ‘tantamount to torture’.3 Throughout 2003 ICRC officers had, unsuccessfully, repeatedly pressed for changes in the prison regime. It was not until 13 January 2004, when a soldier at the Abu Ghraib prison turned over copies of incriminating pictures to investigators, that the US started to investigate the allegations properly. At a press conference the ICRC stated that its reports are strictly confidential and are only intended for the authorities to whom they are presented so as to prevent humanitarian issues from becoming politicised: thus referring to their neutrality.4 The ICRC believed that its visits made a difference: ‘had we not [thought so], we would maybe have come to another conclusion and taken other measures’.5 The criticism that silence can turn into complicity is, in these cases, not easy to put aside. However, the Red Cross has demonstrated that confidentiality is not unconditional: for example, in the case of breaches of IHL in the Gaza Strip it recently publicly called upon Israel and the Palestinian parties to adhere to IHL (ICRC 2008). Yet ‘silence has never been set up as a principle by the ICRC. The question has always been considered from the angle of efficiency in achieving the objective set by the principle of humanity’ (Sandoz 1992, 8) and the ICRC ‘subjects denunciations [of humanitarian law violations] to certain conditions, notably the requirement that any such publicity be in the interests of the persons or populations affected or under threat’ ((International Review of the Red Cross 1981, 81). The ICRC ‘does not raise its working principles to the status of absolute values’ (Plattner 1996, 1), nor does it deny the antithesis between justice and neutrality: for the ICRC neutrality has never been regarded as an end in itself but as a means of carrying out its mandate on behalf 3 For the full text of the ICRC report and a summary see: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/2004/icrc_report_iraq_feb2004.pdf [accessed 20 November 2010]. 4 See: http://www.icrc.org/web/eng/siteeng0.nsf/html/5YRMYC [accessed 20 November 2010]. 5 Ibid.

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of victims of armed conflict and internal disturbances. Neither should neutrality and the silence it imposes be confused with indifference, as the ICRC tries constantly to convince concerned parties to stop violating IHL. In this respect Pierre Bourdieu made an interesting observation by differentiating between ‘disinterest’ as a stance that implies the acceptance of the ‘rules of the game’, in this case the IHL, and ‘indifference’, ‘where one is so detached that the difference between the rules and what is beyond them is not even perceived’ (1999, 77). With these definitions, the ICRC stance can under certain circumstances be categorised as ‘disinterest’. NEW WARS After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 the world changed dramatically. For one, the new wars, such as in former Yugoslavia, were of a totally different character to previous conflicts (see, for example, Kaldor 1999; Chandler 2002). The battlefield was no longer divided into clearly identifiable warring parties. Regular armies turned into paramilitary units, local warlords, criminal gangs, corrupt police forces or even looting and raping military forces. There was an absence of ‘the full control of the structures of war’ (Anderson 1999, 12) with no distinction between war, organised crime, and human rights violations. As traditional military control failed the political impact of conflict mutated. A World Bank discussion paper described the status of failing states as ‘a stable situation of instability … that leads to … political economies of threat and combat’ (Michailof et al 2001, 3). To establish political control, fear and terror became decisive weapons and in this process all people of a different identity became targets. ‘The other’ became subjected to fierce violence and their symbols destroyed, leading to cultural genocide: the deliberate destruction of the cultural heritage of a people or nation for political or military reasons. It is estimated that over 90% of the victims of new wars are civilians (UN 2002). COMPLEX EMERGENCIES As a result of new wars, humanitarian emergencies became increasingly complex. The Inter-Agency Standing Committee6 defines a complex emergency as ‘a humanitarian crisis in a country, region or society where there is total or considerable breakdown of authority resulting from internal or external conflict and which requires an international response that goes beyond the mandate or capacity of any single agency and/or the ongoing United Nations country program’ (McHugh and Bessler 2006, 7). The deliberate targeting of civilians and their heritage causes a large number of the affected population to flee their home and their community. This forces humanitarian organisations to operate in war-torn societies where conflicting parties, often openly contemptuous of traditional humanitarian norms, also consistently fail to comply 6 The Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) is a unique inter-agency forum for coordination, policy development, and decision-making involving the key UN and non-UN humanitarian partners. The IASC was established in June 1992 in response to United Nations General Assembly Resolution 46/182 on the strengthening of humanitarian assistance. General Assembly Resolution 48/57 affirmed its role as the primary mechanism for inter-agency coordination of humanitarian assistance.

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with IHL, thus directly endangering the lives of those who seek to bring relief (see OCHA and IRIN 2003, 2). Negotiating neutrality becomes ever more cumbersome and at times simply impossible. Under these changing circumstances NGOs faced real problems. On occasion they were criticised harshly for their lack of effectiveness and even accused of exacerbating the conflict, as it became all too clear that humanitarian aid had the potential to preferentially support one of the parties in a new war conflict (Anderson 1999). In a failing state the central government is incapable of providing basic services; the economy largely breaks down, as do most of the fundamental social structures, with mass starvation a frequent result. To respond to such calamity with traditional relief assistance is inadequate. Humanitarian actors, often the sole providers, have been forced to interfere with society in an intense and deliberate way. If they want to be effective they have to accept societal and political constraints as the new reality that shapes their programmes to a considerable degree. In a discordant country where (threatened) identities play crucial roles it does not take much for aid distribution to disrupt any delicate ethnic or religious balance. Simply delivering food and shelter or basic health care is no longer enough, as ‘aid can reinforce, exacerbate, and prolong the conflict’ (Anderson 1999, 1). For example, giving food to starving women and children in a refugee camp can support the warring parties, which come in at night and take the food away. In short, relief aid in the context of a violent conflict becomes part of that context itself. Humanitarian NGOs no longer control ‘humanitarian space’. These factors seriously limit the humanitarian space – the freedom that secures ‘the independence and neutrality from military and political forces that has allowed NGOs … to provide lifesaving aid to needy civilians on all sides of a conflict’ (Olson 2006, 10) – of NGOs working in a new war armed conflict. Given this, it is now common practice for humanitarian NGOs to conduct a conflict analysis before they start their programmes. The aim is to ascertain the two realities in a conflict: dividers and connectors. According to Anderson (1999), dividers are those factors that people are fighting about or which cause tension, while connectors bring people together and/or tend to reduce tension. By providing assistance, NGOs have the – perhaps unintentional – potential to impact on both dividers and connectors. POLITICISATION

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Since the launch of the ‘global war on terror’ in 2001, the field of humanitarian assistance has become shared between political agencies, civil/military units, and humanitarian NGOs, while the distinction between these actors has progressively faded. The relationship between politics and humanitarian aid is not new, as donor states are not equal to charity organisations: funds are regularly allocated to disaster areas for national security reasons or to stimulate the donor state’s own national economy, and indirect state funding can also be used as a mechanism to influence NGOs’ policies. More important is the emergence of many other actors in the field of humanitarian aid; the traditional relief organisations are no longer the only players. Multinational military forces and private contractors, some posing as NGOs, have become active partners in

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the humanitarian enterprise.7 Numerous activities in a disaster-struck region are today marketed as humanitarian action. The problem is that some of this action conflicts with the basic principles of classical humanitarianism, including neutrality, independence, and impartiality, and are instead motivated by religious or political beliefs. Even several profit-making corporations describe their work as humanitarian. One could wonder how neutral or impartial these ideological or money-driven parties are. Furthermore, state agencies are increasingly incorporating humanitarian assistance into their political strategies to legitimise military or political intervention. Not without reason, the humanitarian agencies fear losing their humanitarian space. The new situation described above challenges IHL. In countries in transition, such as Iraq and Afghanistan, relief and reconstruction are considered to be of essential political importance because security is directly related to rebuilding the country. At the basis of this thought lies the 3-D policy, which stipulates that to solve a conflict in a complex emergency actions need to be taken simultaneously in Defence, Development and Diplomacy (see, for example, Gabriëlse 2007). The realisation that complex emergencies cannot be solved by military means alone is a significant change to earlier military ideology and can only be welcomed. However, it becomes problematic when the lines between the 3 Ds become blurred. MILITARY HUMANITARIANISM The politicisation of humanitarianism by the military – ‘military humanitarianism’ – has been heavily criticised by NGOs. In general they do not blame the military for providing humanitarian aid in itself, but question the political and military interest behind military kindness and its impact on their own work. Humanitarian organisations have worked with the military for a long time. In disaster areas, NGOs, International Organisations (IOs) and military forces often work together. Over time, problems that arose out of this relationship were dealt with in several clear-cut guidelines (see, for example, Oslo Guidelines 2006; UN/IASC 2004; UN/MCDA 2006; UN/OCHA 2008. More country-specific guidelines can be found at http://ochaonline.un.org/). These guidelines seek to protect the humanitarian character of relief operations and maintain a strict and unambiguous distinction between military and humanitarian actors. Some of the key principles and concepts in these guidelines are: • adherence to the Red Cross Code of Conduct: humanity, neutrality, impartiality and independence • missions maintain their civilian character and stay under civilian control • no aid from belligerent forces • limited, complementary, and no direct assistance • military assistance on request only, at no cost and as a last resort • avoid reliance upon the military • acceptable markings on vehicles and all military staff unarmed 7 References to the military in this article relate exclusively to multinational military involvement and not to domestic armed forces.

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It is clear from the first point that these strict rules are in concordance with classical humanitarianism. Only in highly exceptional cases will relief organisations approach non-belligerent forces for support to reach the victims of disaster that otherwise could not be reached. Even the Red Cross does not entirely discard this possibility: ‘When it is a matter of saving lives, a pragmatic approach must be taken. It is not inconceivable that in certain situations the military may be in a better position than the ICRC to carry out certain humanitarian tasks’ (Struder 2001, 386). Despite these agreed guidelines, the movement of military peacekeepers into humanitarian work is of great concern to relief organisations, and the development of civil/military cooperation and so-called ‘hearts and minds’ campaigns are viewed with anxiety by those who defend classical humanitarianism. True, military and humanitarian actors have certain features in common: they operate in the same discordant theatre with its many strategic and political interests; they use more or less the same logistical techniques; they are frequently funded by the same government: but it is impossible for the military to be neutral. With the ‘peace-building’ operations, the days of ‘neutral’ UN peace-keeping missions are over (see also Struder 2001, 371ff). Neither are military forces independent; they represent the national state or an intergovernmental body. This is in great contrast to relief organisations that stress the rights of individuals over those of the state and who adhere to the principles of neutrality and independence (VENRO 2005, 4). A further issue is ‘cross-dressing’, in which armed forces mix military and civilian identity. According to the Law of War, merging civilian and military roles on the battlefield is not allowed. A similar situation arises when the military act as relief workers – and most definitely when they wear civilian clothing. Such actions undermine the position of those NGOs providing humanitarian aid. Humanitarian workers in a conflict-ridden country have traditionally been able to tread where others cannot because they do not take sides. Besides, for many victims, it is often too humiliating to accept kindness from the enemy and in any case the population cannot always trust such help to be without malice in some way. Also, the recipients of humanitarian aid administered by the military run the risk of being targeted by opposing forces. Consider the case where US forces simultaneously air-dropped food and political propaganda in Afghanistan at the beginning of war in 2001: a clear example of military-driven aid. The main role for the military in terms of humanitarian aid is to provide security and stability – in effect to facilitate, or rather anticipate, the work of relief workers. Through their solely humanitarian values, experience and expertise, NGOs are much better equipped to deliver relief aid. This said, ‘everyone can and should be humanitarian in war’ (Slim 2003, 2), and there are circumstances where the military, working within IHL, are obliged to give support to the victims of war: for example, when the host nation itself fails to provide basic services and when civil society is essentially absent for security reasons. This was the case in Iraq after the bombing of the UN headquarters in Baghdad in 2003 and was still the case in southern Afghanistan in early 2010. It can only be hoped that, under such circumstances, the armed forces seek advice from humanitarian NGOs before delivering humanitarian

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aid. Some militaries, such as the Dutch CIMIC (civil–military cooperation) units, try to understand the implications of humanitarian action and even use the Sphere Handbook (‘The Sphere Project’ 2004) as a standard reference.8 Still, Struder (2001, 375) writes that ‘the greatest contribution … the military can make to humanitarian action is to restore order and security, which will help create a situation conductive to humanitarian activities while at the same time dealing with the causes of the crisis’. He continues by stating that ‘in a post-conflict situation … the “humanitarian” role of the military should be looked upon with fewer reservations’, as in such a situation there is no risk of soldiers being identified with one party in the conflict. Thus the idea that civil society exclusively ‘owns’ humanitarian action and that they are the ones to set the ethical boundaries is not entirely supported in reality. Providing that military forces operate distinguishably and strictly as military, and do not use relief work to serve war aims, they too can, and do, play a modest humanitarian role. In extremis, and despite the reluctance to accept aid from the military noted above, some of those who need food and shelter or other substantial assistance do not really care what that help is being called and from whom it comes, so long as it is fair and effective. Such aid may be easier to accept if it is offered by an internationally sanctioned military intervention. This raises the issue of the international legitimacy of any military intervention in a new war situation. My suggestion is that only under the express condition of sanction by an international political body should armed forces enter a new war conflict.9 NEW HUMANITARIANISM On 14 July 2008 the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) applied for an arrest warrant for the president of Sudan, Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir, on charges that included genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes (ICC 2008). In doing so, the prosecutor relied on the human-rights-based politics of the new humanitarian order. The atrocities in new wars, according to Mamdani (2008), lead to ‘an international humanitarian order that promises to hold state sovereignty accountable to an international human rights standard’. The United Nations’ decision to officially adopt this new policy at the UN 2005 World Summit was instrumental to the development of this new world order. It claims that the responsibility for the protection of the weak and vulnerable belongs to the international community and in particular to the UN Security Council. In 1991 the UN Secretary General, Perez de Cuellar, in his last annual report, had called for the first time on the UN to ‘reinterpret 8 The Sphere Project was launched in 1997 with the participation of 700 individuals from over 200 organisations in over 60 countries. ‘It is a tool for humanitarian agencies to enhance the effectiveness and quality of their assistance, and thus to make a significant difference to the lives of people affected by disaster’ (The Sphere Project 2004, 14). 9 Although this raises the question of how to define international legitimacy: for example, in Afghanistan the US-initiated military intervention (Enduring Freedom) was sanctioned by the international community at some point after the operation began. The military intervention in Iraq (Operation Iraqi Freedom) was initiated by a ‘coalition of the willing’ led by the US and the UK and was partly sanctioned by the UN Security Council (UNSC Resolution 1483, May 22 2003) some months later, after the initial attack.

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[the] charter principles of sovereignty and non-interference in domestic affairs to allow for intervention on humanitarian grounds’ (Weiss and Chopra 1995, 89). One year later the president of the UN Security Council, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, stated in a note on the Agenda for Peace (UNSC 1992) that ‘the non-military sources of instability in the economic, social, humanitarian and ecological fields have become threats to peace and security. The United Nations membership as a whole, working through the appropriate bodies, needs to give the highest priority to the solution of these matters’; hence the military 3-D policy that specifies that only through progress in Defence, Development and Diplomacy can an armed conflict be ended. War became, above all else, a humanitarian crisis. Humanitarianism thus not only entered the world of international relations and foreign policy but formed the basis of the new politics. The new order departed markedly from the old principle of foreign policy laid down at the Peace of Westphalia (1648), which recognises that sovereignty of the nation state is based on two principles: territoriality and the exclusion of external actors from domestic authority structures. Criticism of this interpretation of international politics arose in relation to the alleged failed states of Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq and Sudan. International military interventions became justified on humanitarian grounds. The principle of sovereignty was overridden not only to prevent imminent genocide or large-scale loss of life but also because of the threat failed states posed to peace in the region and in the world more widely. While new war conflicts were screaming for an answer, a serious and sincere response to the humanitarian problems being long overdue, the opportunity to reinterpret the notion of humanitarianism was based on opportunism as well as principles. For some it is a ‘value’, for others an ‘interest’. To date, the UN military operations in the name of peacekeeping, peace-enforcement, post-conflict peacebuilding and humanitarian assistance could perhaps better be described as humanitarian experiments, and the UN has not thus far produced any agreed, universal criteria for military humanitarian interventions. For some nations, such as Canada and Norway, human security is a priority in their foreign policy: they value human rights above the nation’s right of non-intervention. However, the Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben suggests that the victims in a conflict are in fact dehumanised by being treated as apolitical suffering bodies – what he calls ‘bare life’ (Agamben 1998). Nobody asked them if they wanted help and, once confronted with Western charity, it is hardly possible to turn it down. More importantly, the victims cannot reciprocate, which leaves them indebted for the rest of their lives. This reveals the ethnocentric element in the human rights discussion. It is the West that constructed the declaration of universal human rights (UN 1948) and it is the essentially Westernbased humanitarian industry that time and again labels people as victims without entering into a discussion with the affected people themselves. The human rights group African Rights recognises the operations in the new humanitarian era as liberated from the ‘Cold War’ straitjacket but at the same time characterises the new era as ‘a reckless period of “humanitarian unbound” in which assertive humanitarian policies have often done more harm than good’ (African Rights 1994, 1).

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Indeed, since the US interventions in Afghanistan (2001) and Iraq (2003), one could seriously question the sincerity of the higher principles behind humanitarianism and wonder if the real reasons for intervention were not simply dictated by the promotion of geo-political and economic interests. Regardless of the truth, humanitarianism remains a good basis for building public support. Despite the fact that the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 was justified on the grounds of selfdefence after the September 11 attacks in the same year, and not on violation of human rights, the campaigns in 2001 and 2003 were permeated with ideological rhetoric promoting ‘democracy’ and the ‘free-market economy’. For the US neoconservatives, simply a lack of (Western) democracy may foretell future humanitarian crises; they may even feel that democracy constitutes a human right on its own. One could argue that the new humanitarians are, at least to a certain extent, the cause of today’s crisis of humanitarian aid. Armed with the new humanitarian discourse, political leaders justified their preparations for war in ethical terms. Violations of human rights were to be punished with war, preferably waged by a coalition of politically associative countries. To (re-)establish justice, ‘just war’ became an accepted instrument in the hands of politicians and their militaries. The typical language of the new order departs markedly from traditional language of law and citizenship. Whereas the language of sovereignty is profoundly political, the language of new humanitarian intervention is profoundly apolitical and at times even straightforwardly anti-political and moralistic. In times of complex emergencies the simple provision of relief to sufferers appears to be no longer enough. The arguments promulgated by the state and civil society in 2001 and 2003 went far beyond classical humanitarianism based on need, as the new humanitarians found their basis in human rights. As Greenaway (2000) points out, ‘the new humanitarianism may accordingly be characterised as a conceptual space permitting deontological, but not teleological, rupture with classical humanitarian thought’. Complex emergencies obviously need complex responses. NEUTRALITY SUMMARISED It is clear that the principle of neutrality is central to this debate, given that, in new wars, the politicisation of aid and the growing complexity of emergencies means that it is very hard for civil society to remain outside politics and thus to stay neutral. In situations where the international community is paralysed and a warring party refuses to acknowledge the limits of war, many humanitarian workers wonder whether the concept of neutrality is still effective. In the light of these developments neutrality has increasingly ‘become a dirty word’ (Slim 2004, 196). In an attempt to crystallise the debate, Brubacher (2004) identified the following approaches for civil society to neutrality: • • • •

Classicist Approach – Preserve Neutrality Solidarity Approach – Abandon Neutrality Utilitarian Approach – Operational Neutrality Rights-Based Approach – Redefining Neutrality

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Classicist Approach: Preserve Neutrality Following the ICRC 1965 principles and 1994 CoC, the advocates of the Classicist Approach, based on IHL, maintain their distance from political action. From the start the Red Cross CoC was subject to criticism, as historical examples proved that neutrality through silence can lead to complicity. Still, the Red Cross feels that neutrality is the key to reach the victims of war. Neutrality itself is unmistakably a political choice and to assure confidentiality it is a strategic choice. At the time of the reformulation of the CoC in 1994 the focus was on natural disasters, and armed conflict was hardly taken into consideration. Together with a progressively more politicised view of humanitarian aid, the concept of neutrality has become increasingly untenable. Solidarity Approach: Abandon Neutrality To give up neutrality and take a clear stance in the conflict is also fraught with problems. The solidarity movements from the 1960s and 1970s appear now to have been rather presumptuous. On the surface, solidarity as an answer to Bourdieu’s ‘disinterest’ makes sense, but solidarity on the basis of ideology can turn into zealotry and nepotism. The approach allowed new actors in the humanitarian field who had overt, nonhumanitarian agendas. In the end, abandoning neutrality can corrode the fundamentals of humanitarianism itself: to assist all of those in need of assistance in dire times. Abandoning neutrality also implies the rejection of the notion of consent as a prerequisite for intervention. This resulted in humanitarian aid organisations delivering aid that was not asked for. This ‘religious’ urge for charity – to do good – has been rightly criticised by Agamben (see above) as in traditional societies this means that those on the receiving end will for their rest of their lives be dependent on their welldoers without being able to pay them back. The United Nations accepts that an NGO can be motivated by ideology (including religion) to provide aid, but stresses that any such NGO has to support all of those who are in need and not only the followers of that ideology. When MSF chose to follow their own path in 1971 it was not because they wanted to take sides on an ideological level but merely to take ‘the side of the weak and oppressed’. In a similar way, the Norwegian People’s Aid (NPA) classifies itself as independent but not neutral and impartial, as their work is grounded in the idea of solidarity with the people it helps. The early solidarity movements, however, did deliberately take sides on the political/ideological level and some NGOs still do today (see, for example, Medical Committee Netherlands – Vietnam;10 Un ponte per…11) These NGOs fail to see that the political context of every conflict is different and that logically solutions, political or not, are different for every conflict. However, the contribution of the solidarity organisations to the debate is important as they were the first to understand that working in a conflict zone is working in a political context. 10 http://www.mcnv.nl/index.php?id=home&L=1 [accessed 20 November 2010]: since its foundation in 1968, the Vietnam War era, the Medical Committee Netherlands – Vietnam has given practical and material medical aid to the people of Vietnam. There were many others in the past as Solidarity movements for Cuba, (Maoist) China, El Salvador, Nicaragua. 11 http://www.unponteper.it/index.php [accessed 20 November 2010]: this voluntary movement started in 1991 in Italy to stop the bombing of Iraq.

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Utilitarian Approach: Operational Neutrality In the Utilitarian Approach NGOs admit that their interventions are not neutral, but they position themselves in theatre as neutral actors for the benefit of their programmes. This attitude partly reflects the results of Anderson’s 1999 study Do No Harm, as the utilitarians accept the notion that aid can exacerbate tensions in the conflict. However, this is a half-hearted solution, as frequently they do not follow Anderson’s conclusion through in separating dividers from connectors and planning accordingly. Also, in practice, a number of NGOs today realise that in the recent conflicts there has been much to gain when they cooperate with the military while not always being willing to admit as much in their home countries. For these ‘hypocritical’ NGOs it works the other way around, as they claim neutrality in public but in theatre are not neutral. For the same reasons some contractors list themselves as NGOs to keep up the appearance of neutrality, while in fact they work as for-profit organisations. All these uses and abuses are the result of what I call the ‘battle for neutrality’ and attempts have been made to address them in the various guidelines mentioned above. However, most of these guidelines refer to natural disasters and only a few pay attention to the specific problems of civil/military relations in a conflict zone. Still, as Brubacher (2004) states, preserving operational neutrality – if ever achievable – does not address the root problems underlying the challenges to wider NGO neutrality. Rights-based Approach: Redefining Neutrality The Rights-based Approach has been the most debated response of development agencies to the classicist approach when searching for alternative, objective standards that can be applied impartially. However, unlike UN agencies and the ICRC, which explicitly base their actions on IHL, NGOs have struggled to determine the basis for these rights and have been unable to identify a credible process of developing IHL as it currently stands. Clearly, collective rights have been substituted for individual rights, and the general lack of clarity has resulted in the blurring of humanitarian aid itself and of the roles the many new aid workers play. As noted above, governments and military forces have increasingly used humanitarianism, some say improperly, as an argument in the justification of armed intervention. Military humanitarianism as such is seen as acceptable; but the reasons behind it have been repeatedly questioned. Indeed, in Iraq and Afghanistan, Coalition forces use humanitarian action as one of the ‘lines of operation’ to bring security and stability. The UN, which stimulated human-rightsbased international politics, has failed to come up with straightforward guidelines for humanitarian military intervention. A redefinition or a new legal basis for neutrality is an absolute necessity for the international community to guide them in emerging conflicts. So far human-rights-based policies are too confusing and leave too much room for interpretation. The many challenges to ‘the moral high ground’ (Brubacher 2004) that face NGOs and IOs today need to be addressed if humanitarian aid organisations want to continue to play a significant role in the increasingly state-dominated agenda of

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humanitarianism. There is no doubt that, in modern conflicts, security is tightly interwoven with development, (re)construction and governance. This realisation is unquestionably a step forward in international conflict resolution: being right no longer comes from the barrel of a rifle. How to adapt humanitarian principles, in particular neutrality, and how to redefine humanitarian space under these changing circumstances is a tough assignment for the humanitarian world but one that should have the highest priority. ARCHAEOLOGY

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The ethical problems that archaeologists encounter in cooperating with armed forces can be compared to the problems humanitarian workers have faced since the 1990s, as outlined above. As with humanitarian aid, a central issue in the archaeological debate must be neutrality; the four possible ways of dealing with it identified by Brubacher (2004) provide a good starting point. Archaeologists need to reflect on whether they should preserve, abandon, redefine, or adhere to operational neutrality. Before discussing these questions, a few observations are in order. Preconceived notions The intense debate within archaeological circles on possible cooperation with the military has been somewhat muddled and limited. It is different from the debate surrounding anthropology’s concerns regarding Human Terrain Systems (HTS) and, although there are similarities in the two issues, this chapter does not deal with the latter.12 From the outset, the archaeological debate was focused within the Englishspeaking academic community, with the result that ‘the military’ was almost entirely equated with the armed forces of the US and UK. This left little room for a divergent stance by academics from other countries who had decided to cooperate with their national armed forces and/or join a multinational military mission. It should be understood that every army has separate rules and opportunities for cooperation. Some, like the Dutch army, stand at the centre of CIMIC, having already taken part in many ethical discussions over previous decades. The opportunities to actually join the army and the consequent position of a militarised expert also differ between countries. For example, the dependency of a Dutch reserve officer on his employer is totally different to the position of a reservist in the US army.13 Another

12 The whole debate regarding Human Terrain Systems is outside the remit of this chapter but see, for example: AAA Commission on the Engagement of Anthropology with the US Security and Intelligence Communities, final report 4 Nov 2007 (http://www.aaanet.org/_cs_upload/pdf/ 4092_1.pdf [accessed 20 November 2010]). Also see the discussion on the website Inside Higher Ed: Secrecy and Anthropology, 3 December 2007 (http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/12/03/ anthro [accessed 20 November 2010]). Finally see an overview by Lindsay Beyerstein, Anthropologists on the Front Lines, 30 Nov 2007 (http://www.inthesetimes.com/ARTICLE/3433/ANTHROPOLOGISTS_ON_THE_FRONT_LINES/ [accessed 20 November 2010]).

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consequence of the US/UK focus of the debate is that the discussants frequently referred to ‘war’ as synonymous with the current confrontations in Iraq and Afghanistan, which were waged, initially at least, with very limited international consensus. Some European countries did not, and do not, take part in those wars, or participated only after international support was forthcoming. As observed above, the wider neutrality debate was raised after a totally different war – the Biafra crisis (1967–70) – and in a complete different era. The debate within archaeology should not focus entirely on the recent interventions in the Middle East and Central Asia, as these are only examples within a much wider discussion: the legitimacy of military intervention and any associated archaeological role. Legitimacy Discussion of legitimacy has been neglected in the current debate. Some protagonists happily gloss over the fact that the international community frequently agrees to enter a conflict with a multinational armed force through the UN Security Council or other recognised international political bodies such as NATO, the European Union, or the African Union.14 Such international support should at least reduce the burden on the shoulders of archaeologists, as it can be argued to remove the implication of specific national self-interest. Nonetheless, it does not discharge them of personal responsibility. If my above suggestion that only under the express condition of sanction by an international political body should armed forces enter a new war conflict is accepted then, consequently, archaeologists should only under those circumstances assist the military in wartime. Responsibility It has been suggested that one of the main duties of archaeologists is ‘to preserve, protect, and enhance the archaeological record for the benefit of those who no longer have voice’ (Williams 2008). This can be easily compared to the responsibility to protect people at risk of genocide (see International Peace Academy 2004). The deliberate mass starvation, targeting or massacre of a specific ethnic group, who are innocent and helpless victims of a war, and the subsequent non-intervention of the international political community has, in the past, led to worldwide indignation. Where the State fails to protect, or is incapable of protecting, their own, it becomes the international community’s responsibility to attempt to protect the weak and

13 A Dutch reserve officer can join and leave the army more or less whenever he chooses to. He is not dependent on any form of social security, education or pension and he is only paid when on active duty. The Dutch reserve officer is treated as an expert and can join a mission or refuse to go. Of course, he should not refuse too often or his superior will ask him why he joined the forces. In the US a reservist often joins the army at a young age to gain the benefits of a paid education and social security. He has to serve for a great number of years in order not to lose these benefits. In Iraq and Afghanistan, reservist units were deployed without the soldiers being asked for their consent. They had no way of refusing the call to active duty without suffering legal consequences. 14 For example, the NATO mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina called Stabilization Force (SFOR), the EU mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina called the European Union Force Althea (EUFOR Althea), the African Union Mission to Somalia (AMISOM).

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prevent such carnage. Without elevating the loss of artefacts and monuments to the same level as the loss of lives, the destruction of cultural heritage in an armed conflict can be considered as part of the same issue as genocide. Numerous recent conflicts have provided clear evidence of the vulnerability and fragility of the heritage of the innocent victims of war. The term to describe the deliberate destruction of the cultural heritage of a people or nation for political or military reasons is ‘cultural genocide’. Where the State is, for whatever reason, incapable of preventing cultural genocide, the international heritage community has the responsibility to protect – in this case – the material and immaterial culture of those who have been silenced. This responsibility to protect encompasses three broad elements: the responsibility to prevent; the responsibility to react; and the responsibility to rebuild.15 I have made a similar distinction in heritage protection in a conflict zone: pre-conflict, peri-conflict and post-conflict (Teijgeler 2006, 136). Almost all preventive actions are taken before the conflict breaks out (pre-conflict). The protection of heritage during the conflict can only be translated into reactive measures on the ground: you have to be there to intervene directly (peri-conflict). When most of the fighting is over, attention can be focused on the reconstruction of the heritage (post-conflict). Post-conflict reconstruction still covers the major body of action plans designed by heritage preservation organisations; however, the reality of new wars forces us to reconsider this model. Sadly, many conflicts are fixed or ‘frozen’ for decades at the peri-conflict stage, with alternating periods of relative peace and mounting violence. This situation makes the questions archaeologists should ask themselves even more pressing. The question is to what extent archaeologists have accepted their responsibility to protect. In general the archaeological community is present in the pre- and postconflict phase. However, unlike the humanitarian sector, archaeologists have rarely taken part in direct action on the ground (peri-conflict), with or without military support. The number of heritage NGOs or IOs known to be operating in a conflict area is usually very small. Heritage NGOs and IOs consistently leave the country when violence, and thus the chance that they will be attacked, increases. For example, when UNESCO was invited by the Iraqi minister of culture in 2005 to assist in making an inventory of the damage at the site of Babylon, it refused, citing the insecurity of the country. Later, however, UNESCO did preserve the minaret of Jam and the Bamiyan Buddha statues in Afghanistan under very difficult circumstances. The Italian NGO Un ponte per… was instrumental in the reconstruction of the INLA. After the kidnapping of the Italian staff of this NGO in 2004 the local staff continued the work. This course of action has been criticised by some because the local staff continue to be exposed to violence in-theatre, while Western staff are safe in their home offices, yet claiming organisational presence in the country in conflict. Likewise, only a few heritage professionals working for government agencies work to safeguard threatened heritage during an armed conflict.16 For example, the governments of the 15 Of course, there are strict rules before the international community, on grounds of their ‘responsibility to protect’, intervenes with an armed force: Just Cause Threshold; Precautionary Principles; Right Authority; Operational Principles. For full details see ICISS 2001.

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UK and Italy provided technical conservation staff on an individual basis in 2004 and 2005 to train and work with staff of the Iraq National Museum. It goes without saying that no archaeologist is to blame for being unwilling to be employed in violent surroundings, but the above observation does limit the present discussion enormously. As such it is no surprise that, in contrast to the situation with humanitarian/military relations, hardly any rules and procedures have been developed for archaeologist/ military relations. Archaeology to preserve neutrality A question often raised is whether employment by the military affects the neutrality of the scholar. Is an archaeologist taking sides when he takes a job with the army? What of the archaeologist working indirectly for the army on a project financed by the MoD? Is there a difference between those colleagues working in contract research for any company or those directly working for multinational construction or oil companies? Here it seems that the ethical debate takes a different turn. Apparently some think in terms of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ employers. Williams (2009) notes that the present ethical systems ‘based primarily on utilitarian principles manifested in ethical codes or standards, are deficient because they fail to establish the embedded archaeologist as an objective professional’. Indeed, those working for the military are confronted with their colleagues’ mistrust. Williams (2009) continues that they ‘fail to address adequately the matrix of duties and beneficiaries thereof, and fail to identify and develop the virtue of “trust” that ensures objectivity across the interests of all stakeholders’. Williams refers specifically to embedded archaeologists, which are only part of the problem. Comparisons with embedded journalists show us that there is a high risk of ‘going native’ and thus losing professional objectivity, though this does not always have to be the case (see Teijgeler 2008). Perhaps the question should be put differently by differentiating between employment in peacetime and in times of war. Is neutrality jeopardised if an archaeologist works for the military in peacetime? There is no indication that any archaeologist working for the military in times of peace is less objective than his colleagues who are employed elsewhere. However, do the special circumstances under which an archaeologist has to work in a violent area introduce the risk of biased results? There are other professionals, such as humanitarian workers and civil servants, who work under the same conditions. They experience the same stress and are generally faced with the same problems. Are the products of their work biased as well? According to many professional codes of conduct, archaeology, as any other empirical social science, attempts to maintain its neutrality in research. One could wonder whether the activities an archaeologist undertakes for the military would 16 The position of senior cultural adviser to the Iraqi Reconstruction Management Office at the US embassy in Baghdad was filled by several people. I served as the last adviser from July 2004 until March 2005 (see also Teijgeler 2005 and 2008). My four predecessors were from the USA and Italy. Though I was militarised, those before me were all civilians. In addition, the Polish army in Iraq employed three militarised archaeologists.

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consist of ‘research’. Again, a distinction should be made between employment in times of peace and war: ‘to preserve and protect’ during a violent conflict hardly includes research within the area of conflict but it does imply the application of archaeological, conservation and heritage management knowledge (see Teijgeler 2006). One of the golden rules at the peri-conflict stage, accepted by the majority of archaeologists, is: thou shalt not excavate!17 It is irresponsible to excavate during a violent conflict for a number of reasons, not least because it shows the less wellintentioned where possible ‘treasures’ can be found and thus looted. Indeed, to prevent looting and illegal trade in artefacts is also in the interest of the military: for example, soon after the invasion of Iraq in 2003 it became clear that the revenue from the illicit trade in artefacts was one of the three main sources of income for the insurgents (Bogdanos 2008a, 124; 2008b, 57–62; Russell 2003). In peacetime, on the other hand, archaeologists frequently conduct research for the military in their home country (see Rush, Chapter 9; Scardera, Chapter 10). The 1999 Second Protocol to the Hague Convention obligates the States Party to work on prevention of war damage to cultural heritage in their own country during peacetime, which is often carried out with the assistance of the military.18 However, as part of the preparations for military deployment overseas, archaeologists may be asked to prepare a list of the most important sites, monuments and heritage institutions that should be protected in that particular missioncountry. Still, the majority of the tasks to be performed by an archaeologist working within, or for, the military at all times lies more in the fields of applied archaeology, heritage management and conservation sciences than in that of academic research. Nevertheless, it holds that any credible academic, whoever the employer, should adhere to the common rules of empirical research, including neutrality. One of the rationales for preserving neutrality is that humanitarian organisations can obtain better access to the stakeholders under threat. That is why archaeologists should question whether they would gain better access to endangered heritage and its stakeholders by preserving their neutrality – and thus should not work with the military. Unfortunately there are too few examples to answer this question, as hardly any archaeologists have worked independently in a conflict zone, and it can be argued that it would be extremely difficult in a war-ridden region to get access to remote archaeological sites and monuments without the help of security units. On the one hand, preserving neutrality might give archaeologists better access to the heritage stakeholders, but on the other it would be extremely difficult to reach all stakeholders in the context of war (see Barakat et al 2004; Hilhorst and Jansen 2005). Instead of seeking official military protection, archaeologists could employ the assistance of private security forces, as practised by many NGOs and IOs. However, involvement with private security companies is very problematic following the criticism these 17 In 2003, during the Iraq war, Polish archaeologists tried to excavate at Babylon but they were soon stopped, as was an Italian expedition near Nasiriya a year later. 18 The Second Protocol of the Hague Convention (1999) also outlines measures for safeguarding cultural property to be undertaken in peacetime. These include: the preparation of inventories, the planning of emergency measures for protection against fire or structural collapse, the preparation for the removal of movable cultural property or the provision for adequate in situ protection of such property, and the designation of competent authorities responsible for the safeguarding of cultural property.

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companies received in Iraq (see, for example, Scahill 2007). The harsh reality of new war is that any aid worker needs protection in a war zone as neutrality in itself does not shield them from attacks by some warring parties. Archaeology to abandon neutrality As in humanitarianism, there are social theories, such as Marxist social science and Action research, which maintain that the researcher should side with the weakest of their research subjects.19 In archaeology ‘Archaeologists for Global Justice’ (AGJ), inspired by the actions of ‘Archaeologists Against the War’, who opposed British involvement in the 2003 Iraq War, have abandoned their neutral stance and taken up a clear political position. According to their manifesto, members have the ‘obligation to oppose those forces that are anti-humanitarian, unsustainable or destructive of human life and society’; their fourth principle reads ‘we believe in world peace and as archaeologists we will not provide any direct or indirect support to armed interventions, whether led by governments or other organisations, unless this is justified by extreme cases of self defence’ (Archaeologists for Global Justice 2010). Clearly, these archaeologists will not cooperate with the military, although the last part of the principle leaves room for discussion – the more so as self-defence is exactly the argument the USA used to justify their invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. The contrast with an NGO such as MSF, the first to criticise neutrality, is that MSF did not abandon its neutrality out of ideological reasons but to take the side of those who suffer the most. AGJ, on the other hand, seems to have left neutrality mainly for ideological reasons rather than to better preserve and protect the threatened heritage in a (future) conflict. One of the main arguments for the Solidarity Approach is that it empowers its adherents to speak out in public and not be silent, as silence may lead to complicity. In most cases archaeologists are keen to point out the injustice of destruction and their reactions to cultural genocide have been instantaneous and effective in raising significant media coverage. Archaeologists working for the military in times of conflict do not have the same opportunity to criticise as, in principle, they gave up their neutrality to join one of the parties involved, so constraining their manoeuvrability. To speak up in public is very difficult when wearing a uniform. However, this, of course, holds for everyone who exposes their own employer in public. To abandon neutrality also implies a rejection of the notion of consent. Solidaritydriven archaeologists need to ask what is more important: their conception of reality or the interpretation and views of those concerned. From my own discussions with the staff of the Iraqi Ministry of Culture, Iraq National Museum, Iraq National Library and Archives, and the State Board of Antiquities and Heritage during my work as senior cultural adviser in Iraq from July 2004 until March 2005, it is clear that some Iraqi colleagues initially welcomed the US invasion while others were more cautious. After a while all felt abandoned by the international archaeological community. They 19 Here I am thinking in particular of the work of Theodor Horkheim, Theodor W Adorno and Herbert Marcuse of the Frankfurter Schule, and Radical Sociology. For discussion of Action Research see the Center for Collaborative Action Research: http://cadres.pepperdine.edu/ccar/ [accessed 20 November 2010].

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did not care much for all the well-intended protests and statements but were yearning for assistance on the ground. Later their criticism of the occupying forces grew, but they could see no alternative but to work with them. Of course, asking consent of all the stakeholders in a country in turmoil is very difficult, if not impossible. One characteristic of working in conflict situations is that often one is forced to make quick decisions based on very few facts. As Williams (2008) points out, ‘modern warfighting thrusts the archaeologist into a maelstrom of complex and difficult situations that may erode the prime duty of trust-making’. This is made more complex as, in many new war situations, sites and monuments representing different identities are contested, with many groups claiming ownership of a particular heritage. Still, in a peri-conflict setting, extensive consultations with the authorities of the host nation are essential and a prerequisite for any archaeological action. For example, in my work in Iraq I discussed all issues concerning cultural heritage with the appropriate staff of the museum, library, archives, Antiquities Board, or the Ministry of Culture. I referred heritage-related requests, mostly from army units outside Baghdad, to the local antiquities authority. It was my standard policy to leave all final decisions to the proper Iraqi authority. When the then-director of the national library asked me to represent him (and Iraq) in the USA because he did not want to deal with his US colleagues, we had a heated discussion when I turned down his request. Such an approach does not, of course, guarantee the correctness of any actions but does, at least, reduce the risk of ethnocentrism.20 Archaeology and operational neutrality Most archaeologists appreciate that their actions are not neutral and that their own backgrounds and biases will inevitably affect their field of study, although their work is guided and objectified by standardised research methods and tools. Archaeology is all about context and politics. It can be questioned if archaeologists conduct sufficient research into the effects of their work on the conflicts themselves, as humanitarians did through the Local Capacities for Peace Project (see Anderson 1999). What are the connectors and dividers in heritage protection in a particular conflict? Can archaeology really claim neutrality without knowledge of the context of our work in general? Hamilakis (2009, 44) presents an interesting view on Iraq. He shows how some archaeologists imitated the narrative of their government, hid behind their ‘professional duty’, and had ‘perhaps a desire to demonstrate complete neutrality’. Especially during war, safeguarding archaeological sites is extremely sensitive and political in situations where identities are contested and redefined and their symbols destroyed. For example, during my time in Iraq, most of the staff in the US embassy in Baghdad were Bush apologists and for them Babylon chiefly stood for the physical evidence of the Old Testament; while, for many Iraqis, Babylon represented a heroic Iraq, long before Saddam’s reign, with which all denominations and ethnicities could easily identify. 20 When I tried to make an effort to save Saddam Hussein’s legacy during my work in Iraq in 2004, I experienced much opposition from the undersecretary of culture. She argued that the recent historical past of Iraq was not to be compared with the tragic history of World War II. A few years later, under another minister of culture, Iraq decided to make plans for a Saddam Hussein museum to show future generations of Iraqis what Saddam Hussein meant to Iraq.

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Whatever archaeologists claim in theory or carry out in practice, they should at all costs prevent confusion within their role. Half-hearted solutions, such as claiming operational neutrality while knowing your actions are not neutral, cannot be an option. Those who choose to work for the military should not hide that fact and those who work from within the military as a soldier should at all times be identifiable as such. The several guidelines for civil/military relations in humanitarian action are very clear and archaeologists should study these. To work covertly for any organisation should be totally out of the question. Archaeology to redefine neutrality Since the wilful destruction of cultural heritage during the violent confrontations in former Yugoslavia, Iraq and Afghanistan, one could wonder if cultural genocide is also grounds for armed intervention by the international community in the same way that the violation of human rights is viewed by the new humanitarians (see Riedlmayer 2000a; 2000b; and the present discussion on the Tamil heritage in Sri Lanka21). One aspect of human rights is cultural rights, which often refer to cultural rights of minorities and indigenous peoples – the right to express culture – and in more general terms the right of cultural diversity.22 Addressing cultural rights is complex (see, for example, Francioni and Scheinin 2008) as they are the least understood and developed of the rights guaranteed under international law.23 One source of the complexity is the varying understandings of ‘culture’. Cultural rights are often an inextricable part of other rights while at the same time frequently being in a state of tension with them. Furthermore, cultural rights are intimately related to values – to what we believe is important and what is insignificant, what is good and what is bad. As with all international human rights, cultural rights were historically produced mainly by Western nations and embody the cultural values of those powers. To redefine neutrality in terms of cultural rights seems an even more difficult undertaking than a redefinition in terms of human rights. There are simply too many open ends and contingencies, and all the more so since some societies are unwilling to enshrine purported cultural rights as legal rights in themselves, seeing them only as needs that society or government might provide. Could cultural genocide, like human genocide, be a basis for reformulating neutrality? Within the articles of international treaties on cultural rights very few references are found to the right to protect and preserve cultural heritage. There are, however, important and explicit international conventions on the protection of cultural property: The 1954 Hague Convention and its Second Protocol of 1999; the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit 21 http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=79&artid=30908# [accessed 20 November 2010]. 22 Often cultural rights are taken together with economic and social rights, which, abbreviated as ESCR, relate to the conditions necessary to meet basic human needs. 23 International legal provisions for cultural rights are, among others: Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948 – art 27); International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966 – art 15); The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948 – art 2); UNESCO Principles on International Cultural Cooperation (1966 – art 1); The UN Declaration on the Right to Development (1986 – art 1); The Mexico City Declaration on Cultural Policies (1982 – Principle 2); The Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action (1993).

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Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property; the 1995 UNIDROIT Convention on Stolen or Illegally Exported Cultural Objects; and the 1977 Additional Protocols of the Geneva Conventions.24 Ironically, one of the consequences of the destruction of Iraq’s cultural heritage after the 2003 invasion and the turmoil that followed was that finally numerous Western countries decided to become signatories to these international treaties or to ratify them. This resulted in a firm legal basis but, as yet, no cases stemming from Iraq have been tried and it is unlikely that any will be, as ratification is not retrospective. In general, the legal history of cultural war crimes is limited. The earliest example is the sentencing to death of Nazi officials for a plethora of violations that included the destruction of cultural property at the Nuremberg Trials after World War II (Vrdoljak 2009); following that precedent, the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia was empowered to prosecute individuals deemed responsible for the ‘seizure of, destruction or wilful damage done to institutions dedicated to religion, charity and education, the arts and sciences, historic monuments and works of art and science’.25 The former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic and other officials were indicted for the destruction of cultural and religious heritage in Kosovo and Croatia. Thus, from an IHL point of view, to rest neutrality on cultural genocide rather than on cultural rights might give better results. Nevertheless, this is contentious and perhaps dangerous ground, as there is no international agreement on who decides when destruction of cultural property becomes cultural genocide or how many destroyed monuments or looted archaeological sites are required. Besides, is armed intervention justified when a country does not suffer from war but systematically eradicates the cultural property of one ethnic group? And what of intangible heritage, which is accepted to be as much a part of cultural heritage as is tangible property. UNESCO can try to objectify monuments and artefacts in terms of universality, and list them according to their importance, but it does not take away the emotions and feelings of those who identify with their cultural symbols. Cultural heritage is so closely tied with shared norms and values, and can thus become an integral part of the conflict itself, that it is next to impossible to develop new approaches to neutrality by way of cultural genocide. What would we have thought if the USA had invaded Afghanistan after the Taliban’s demolition of the Bamiyan Buddhas in 2001 under the pretext of safeguarding and protecting Afghanistan’s cultural heritage?

24 For details see the Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (The 1954 Hague Convention): http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.phpURL_ID=13637&URL_DO=DO_ TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html [accessed 20 November 2010]; 1977 Additional Protocols of the Geneva Convention: http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/7c4d08d9b287a42141256739003e636b/ f6c8b9fee14a77fdc125641e0052b07 [accessed 2010]; 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property: http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=13039&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html [accessed 20 November 2010]; 1995 UNIDROIT Convention on Stolen or Illegally Exported Cultural Objects: http://www.unidroit.org/english/conventions/1995culturalproperty/1995culturalproperty-e.htm [accessed 20 November 2010]. 25 For details see: http://www.icty.org/ [accessed 20 November 2010].

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CONCLUDING REMARKS Over the past half-century our humanitarian colleagues have gained a tremendous amount of experience delivering aid under the most difficult of circumstances. However, the development of their activities and duties has not gone without debate. The recent discussions on relations between archaeologists and the military are very similar, with the concept of neutrality playing a key role in both discussions. The relationships of both humanitarian workers and archaeologists with the military are subjected to varying pressures from politics, international relations, the military, IOs, NGOs, the academic community, and, crucially, the local community. Still, there are differences in the two debates. The archaeological community is undeniably short of practical experience in bringing emergency relief to the heritage sector in wartime. Because of this, the discussion in our community remains quite academic. Perhaps that is the reason why our exchange of views is dominated, on occasion, by prejudices – partly fed by a basic lack of knowledge of ‘new war’, complex emergencies and the politicisation of aid, and partly by anti-war and anti-militarist principles. One thing should be very clear: colleagues cooperating with the military or even from within the military do not necessarily have to be proponents of war. Both groups, working inside and outside the system, engage in the hope of making a positive contribution to the protection of cultural heritage in times of war. At times they risk their lives to do so. The discussion surrounding neutrality is unresolved. If archaeologists are to take their responsibility to protect cultural property seriously they will have to react in situ at the peri-conflict stage. Facing the daily difficulties of working in a war, they will have a hard time preserving their neutrality, all the more so as their work will be very practical. A job based on the needs of those concerned cannot be fulfilled without support from somewhere. To abandon neutrality is certainly a possibility, but is not one without risks. To give up a neutral stance for solidarity reasons does not necessarily mean to lose impartiality and objectivity unless one is blinded by ideology or ethnocentrism; equally, to work with the military does not mean archaeologists necessarily lose their impartiality or objectivity. That the military is, in principle, a morally bad employer is an untenable position nowadays. However, during a conflict, embedded archaeologists run the risk of losing their objectivity by sympathising too greatly with their employer. Guidelines for these archaeologist/military relations are, therefore, badly needed. On the Utilitarian Approach we can be very clear: there is no future whatsoever in claiming neutrality in theatre while admitting the actions are not neutral. To redefine neutrality on the basis of the concept of cultural genocide is another possibility, but as values and ideas are mixed it remains a contentious option. From the previous discussions various conclusions can be drawn: • General • Archaeologists have the responsibility to protect endangered cultural heritage • Archaeologists are not the only players in a complex violent emergency • Archaeologists should never excavate in a conflict zone • On archaeologist/military relations • Archaeologist/military relations need to be regulated by professional standards or guidelines

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• An absolute condition for archaeologists’ cooperation with the military in an armed conflict is the sanctioning of military intervention in that conflict by an international political body • Archaeologists working for the armed forces, thus inside the system, should at all times be identifiable as such (no ‘cross-dressing’ (see above, p 92)) • On neutrality • Both to preserve or abandon neutrality are options for archaeologists • The Rights-based Approach to neutrality to prevent cultural genocide remains a slight option for archaeologists • The Utilitarian Approach to neutrality is no option for archaeologists • Archaeologists working for the armed forces are not neutral as they work for one of the warring parties • Archaeologists’ neutrality does not guarantee better access to cultural heritage and the stakeholders • Archaeologists’ neutrality is no guarantee of their physical safety.

First and foremost, archaeologists must realise that any aid delivered in a conflict zone is part of the context of the conflict itself. The ‘cultural space’ can be defined only if all factors contributing to the conflict, especially the political context, are considered. Archaeologists should also address the issue of how essential cultural space is in a conflict zone in comparison to humanitarian space and security space. Without a conflict analysis archaeologists will be unable to identify the connectors and dividers and in the end will fail to achieve their goal of safeguarding cultural heritage. In an era of new wars, increasingly complex emergencies and the politicisation of aid, the archaeological community has to understand that actions in a conflict zone are not neutral. In theatre they will meet new players, including the military, and they should wonder how to deal with them, and consequently ask themselves if they are the exclusive owners of cultural space. It is essential to maintain a clear distinction between the various players and for all to realise that the protection of cultural heritage is not the primary responsibility of the armed forces. Internationally agreed guidelines will be of enormous assistance in dealing with these complex problems. Archaeologists should also investigate at what point the mitigation of the effects of war on the endangered heritage should be attempted: pre-conflict, peri-conflict, or post-conflict. Then they will find out what they can do and with whom. During and immediately following the conflict they will discover that it will be extremely difficult to reach the more remote sites and monuments and most of their stakeholders. To refuse the support of the armed forces under those circumstances will almost inevitably mean leaving heritage to its own devices. From a disaster management point of view it only makes sense to prepare in peacetime. To assist the armed forces in the pre-conflict phase and help them to fulfil their statutory obligations is a choice some of us make without jeopardising our neutrality. You do not have to put on a uniform to educate the military. Even the Red Cross and UN, along with many other IOs and NGOs, help to educate the military. Most take it a step further by participating in major international military exercises and none of them perceive their neutrality to be compromised. The mistrust of fellow

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archaeologists, especially of the archaeologists’ objectivity, for those who teach and train the military is to some extent a witness of academic hauteur and conceit. Reality changes quickly. Today, the armed forces employ numerous advisers in the field, including in the areas of politics, law, development and culture. This fits the comprehensive approach or 3-D policy. Many of these advisers are civilians supplied by the relevant ministries or hired on a temporary basis. In fact, practice shows that in the case of advisers it does not make that much difference if they are wearing a uniform or not, although it must be said that knowledge of the military organisation and the ability to ‘speak its language’ is a great advantage. Experience tells us that NGOs, IOs, and international security forces are working more closely. Nonetheless, the fact remains that, by putting on a military uniform, an individual definitely abandons neutrality and for embedded colleagues there remains a high risk of bias. Given this, archaeologists should perhaps give preference to cooperating with the military in future conflicts as informed civilian experts. The realities of new wars and complex emergencies are something with which we have to come to terms. We need clear guidelines for archaeologist/military relations, the sooner the better. Perhaps more importantly, we need the debate to be open and ongoing. Ideological disputes will in the end just obstruct the exchange of views; headstrong opinions will take us nowhere. While the debate unfolds, archaeologists who do get involved will have to stand the continuing pressure. I strongly believe that we need, and will be able, to redefine cultural space in times of conflict. Only then can we adjust to the changing world around us.

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‘The Sphere Project’, 2004 The Sphere Handbook 2004: Humanitarian Charter and Minimum Standards in Disaster Response, Oxfam Publishing, Oxford Struder, M, 2001 The ICRC and Civil–Military Relations in Armed Conflict, International Review of the Red Cross 842, June, 367–91 Teijgeler, R, 2005 So Yesterday was the Burning of Books: Wartime in Iraq, lecture held at ‘Responsible Stewardship towards Cultural Heritage Materials Preconference’, Copenhagen, 11 August, published by The Iraq War & Archaeology, IW&A Documents 5, 5 October, available from: http://iwa.univie.ac.at/teijgeler.html [accessed 15 November 2010] —, 2006 Preserving Cultural Heritage in Times of Conflict, in Preservation Management for Libraries, Archives and Museums (eds G E Gorman and S J Shep), Facet Publishing, London, 133–65 —, 2008 Embedded Archaeology: An Exercise in Self-Reflection, in The Destruction of Cultural Heritage in Iraq (eds P G Stone and J Farchakh Bajjaly), Boydell & Brewer, Woodbridge, 173–82 Teygeler, R, 2001 Preservation of Archives in Tropical Climates: An Annotated Bibliography, International Council on Archives/National Archives of the Netherlands/National Archives of the Republic of Indonesia, Paris/The Hague/Jakarta Trevelyan, G M, 1964 Illustrated English Social History 3, Penguin, Harmondsworth UN, 1948 The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, UN, New York, available from: http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr [15 December 2010] UN, 2002 Report of the Secretary General on the Safety and Security of Humanitarian Personnel and Protection of United Nations Personnel, UN, New York UN/IASC, 2004 Civil–Military Relationship in Complex Emergencies – an IASC Reference Paper, paper at IASC 57th Meeting, 16–17 June, Geneva UN/MCDA (Consultative Group on the Use of Military and Civil Defence Assets), 2006 Guidelines On the Use of Military and Civil Defence Assets To Support United Nations Humanitarian Activities in Complex Emergencies (revised Jan 2006), OCHA, Geneva UN/OCHA, 2008 United Nations Civil–Military Coordination Officer Field Handbook, Version E 1.1, OCHA and DG ECHO, Geneva and Brussels UNSC, 1992 Note by the President of the Security Council, 31 January, UN SOC S/23500, UN, New York, available from: http://www.securitycouncilreport.org/atf/cf/%7B65BFCF9B6D27–4E9C-8CD3-CF6E4FF96FF9%7D/UNRO%20S23500.pdf [accessed 16 March 2010] VENRO, 2005 Humanitarian Aid put to the Test – Principles, Criteria and Indicators to Ensure and Monitor Quality in Humanitarian Aid, VENRO Working Paper 14, VENRO, Bonn Vrdoljak, A F, 2009 Cultural Heritage in Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, in Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (ed O Ben-Naftali), Oxford University Press, Oxford, available from: http://works.bepress.com/ana_filipa_vrdoljak/15 [accessed 15 November 2010] Weiss, T G, and Chopra, J, 1995 Sovereignty Under Siege: From Intervention to Humanitarian Space, in Beyond Westphalia? National Sovereignty and International Intervention (eds G Lyons and M Mastanduno), Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD, 87–114 Williams, J, 2008 The Ethics of Archaeologists Embedded in Military Structures During Armed Conflicts, lecture held at the Sixth World Archaeological Congress (WAC 6), 29 June–4 July, Dublin, Ireland —, 2009 The Ethics of Archaeologists Embedded in Military Structures During Armed Conflict, abstract available from: http://www2.le.ac.uk/departments/archaeology/research/postgraduate [accessed 15 November 2010]

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Ancient Artefacts and Modern Conflict: A Case Study of Looting and Instability in Iraq KATHARYN HANSON1

E

arly in the Iraq War, media coverage sporadically informed the general public about the looting of the Iraq National Museum in Baghdad, yet the continuing issue of cultural property protection (CPP) during wartime has been largely ignored by the media and, as a result, the general public. Protection of museums and archaeological sites in Iraq, as in previous armed conflicts, has been typically seen as a small problem that concerns only overwrought academics. Compared to the more urgent problems during wartime, such as the preservation of human lives, protection of some dusty old trinkets should rightly take a back seat, but it is also important to keep in mind that the widespread and ongoing looting of archaeological sites in Iraq has contributed to the undermining of the security in the country. When archaeological sites are looted the artefacts ripped from the ground become commodities travelling the same black market networks as illegal weapons and drugs, and, like those commodities, funds from the sale of these stolen artefacts help to finance groups linked with violence (Bogdanos 2008). Although as cultural heritage experts we may be aware of the military’s moral and legal obligations to protect cultural property, possibly the biggest incentive for preventing looting at archaeological sites simply involves the issue of civilian and military safety. This chapter presents two interconnected areas of my research: first, the ongoing looting of archaeological sites in Iraq as seen through satellite imagery; and, second, the trade in artefacts from Iraq, specifically the online market in seals, a type of small ancient Mesopotamian object. Awareness and acknowledgement of the looting of archaeological sites in Iraq and a better understanding of the market in stolen artefacts will improve our ability to prevent this type of destruction in the future. The looting of Iraq’s archaeological sites can serve as an example and raise awareness about the importance of planning for protecting cultural property. THE LOOTING

OF IRAQ’S

ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITES

During the spring of 2003 media coverage of the plundered Iraq National Museum in Baghdad brought Iraq’s threatened cultural property to the public’s attention. Unfortunately, the theft and destruction at the Museum in Baghdad is only one part of a much larger problem: the looting of Iraq’s archaeological sites (Stone and Farchakh Bajjaly 2008; Rothfield 2008; Emberling and Hanson 2008). Ancient sites throughout Iraq are pockmarked with looters’ pits, evidence of the market demand 1 The author would like to thank the Center for Ancient Middle Eastern Landscapes (CAMEL) Lab at the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago for their assistance.

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for Mesopotamian artefacts. Reports of this looting prompted my research into timeseries satellite images using the ancient site of Umma (also known by the modern names Jokha, Djokha, and Djoha) as a case study to explore ongoing damage between February 2003 and July 2008. The ongoing unchecked looting at archaeological sites throughout Iraq is destroying an inconceivable amount of Mesopotamian history. The architecture and stratigraphy of an archaeological site help to establish the history of the site and its artefacts. Looters’ pits and tunnels cut through these and destroy much of that information. Similarly, an artefact looted from its archaeological site can no longer add to that site’s history and loses all of its own contextual information: or, more simply, a looted artefact has lost its story (Hanson 2008). This has been largely seen as a loss simply for academics, but it is important to remember that when archaeological sites are looted we lose knowledge which could have helped us better understand both ancient and modern societies. Although cultural property throughout Iraq is at risk, the archaeological sites in the south have been hit the hardest. Archaeologists estimate that, in the south, more than 150 Sumerian cities have been ‘completely destroyed’ (Farchakh Bajjaly 2005). In the summer of 2003 it was estimated that Iraq’s archaeological sites were ransacked daily by roughly 300 looters apiece. These looters favour previously excavated sites, as they know that these areas have already produced valuable items. However, looters are also destroying small, previously unknown archaeological sites across southern Iraq in their quest for marketable artefacts (Gibson 2003). The severity and extent of looting at archaeological sites in Iraq has been difficult to document from the ground owing to the unstable security situation as well as the limited resources of the Iraqi State Board of Antiquities. Without ground documentation, satellite and aerial images provide the next best source for analysis. Many archaeologists are incorporating high-resolution commercial satellite images into their research; for example, Elizabeth Stone’s work shows patterns in looted archaeological sites and the extent of this looting in 10,000 square kilometres of southern Iraq (Stone 2008, 125). Similarly, Carrie Hritz’s investigation into the looting at the ancient site of Isin in southern Iraq showed the dramatic increase in looting from the winter of 2003 to the winter of 2006 (Hritz 2008). Hritz found that at the ancient site of Isin the looted area had increased from 37 hectares to 69 hectares – this of a site that is only 193 hectares in total. Another diachronic study of looting at a specific site in southern Iraq was done by John Russell at Umma. Russell highlighted the area previously dug as shown on a December 2000 satellite image and compared it with an aerial photograph taken during a helicopter flyover in August 2003 (Russell 2008, 32). As Russell’s work indicated, the ancient site of Umma has been heavily looted. Umma was excavated by the Iraqi State Board of Antiquities between 1996 and December 2002 and their work is still visible in the exposed mudbrick architecture seen in Fig 7.1. Unfortunately, since the end of Iraqi excavations in December 2002 Umma has been ransacked by looters; the top five to ten metres of the site have been eaten away by looters’ pits, leaving what can only be described as a ‘moonscape’. But these images tell only half the story: at the bottom of some of these pits are horizontal tunnels dug by looters to exploit the most profitable layers of artefacts while staying out of the desert sun. Note that in

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Disclaimer: Some images in the printed version of this book are not available for inclusion in the eBook. To view the image on this page please refer to the printed version of this book.

FIG 7.1 SATELLITE

IMAGE OF

UMMA, FEBRUARY 2003.

these images the dark spots covering the site are not sand dunes or natural features but rather a multitude of looters’ pits that, like a pox, scar the site. This continued looting at Umma is the subject of my analysis of three highresolution satellite images taken in February 2003, June 2005 and July 2008. Fig 7.1 shows the site of Umma prior to the Iraq War in February 2003. The collapse from millennia of adobe structures built at Umma made the site into an artificial hill, or tell, that rises up from the flat landscape of southern Iraq. This contrast in elevation makes Umma, like every ancient tell site in southern Iraq, highly identifiable and therefore an easy target. A visit to the site in 1902, prior to any excavation work, led to reports that Umma rose 15 metres above the surface; despite recent dune activity, there were visible remains of a mudbrick building (Adams and Nissen 1972, 197; Andrae 1903, 20). Umma’s high elevation and large size reflect its historical importance: towards the end of the 3rd millennium BC, it was the capital of a large province estimated, based on ancient textual material, to have been about 2000 square kilometres in area (Adams 2008, 1). Pits dug by looters in the 1990s and the first few months of 2003 are visible in Fig 7.1 and are shown highlighted as black diamonds on Fig 7.2. Using a Digital

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Disclaimer: Some images in the printed version of this book are not available for inclusion in the eBook. To view the image on this page please refer to the printed version of this book.

FIG 7.2 UMMA FEBRUARY 2003,

LOOTERS’ PITS MARKED BY BLACK DIAMONDS.

Globe high-resolution satellite image of Umma taken in February 2003, immediately prior to the US-led invasion of Iraq, I was able to assess the visible damage and calculate the number of looters’ pits present at that time. By February 2003 approximately 2644 looters’ pits were observable in the surface of Umma, many of which are clearly quite old and nearly filled with sand. Iraq’s archaeological sites have been looted on and off at a low level since the 1880s to meet a market demand created by the first modern archaeological excavations in the mid-1800s; this suggests that the looters’ pits visible in the 2003 image of Umma show roughly 120 years’ worth of looting (Gibson 2008, 31). Thus, between 1880 and 2003 Umma may have suffered on average only 16 new looters’ pits per year; this average is only a rough estimate since it cannot take shifting dunes and windblown sand into account. As the February 2003 satellite image shows, looting at Umma occurred at low levels prior to the start of the Iraq War; however, from the spring of 2003 to the summer of 2005 looters carved up the surface of the site at an astonishing rate. By incorporating both the February 2003 image and a high-resolution satellite image from June 2005 into a Geographical Information Systems (GIS) framework I was able to assess the changing condition of Umma over time. This comparison allowed me to

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Disclaimer: Some images in the printed version of this book are not available for inclusion in the eBook. To view the image on this page please refer to the printed version of this book.

FIG 7.3 UMMA JUNE 2005,

NEW LOOTERS’ PITS MARKED AS GREY CIRCLES.

determine the number of new looters’ pits – that is, those that were present in June 2005 but were not present in the 2003 image. There were approximately 8318 new looters’ pits on the surface of Umma by June 2005 (marked as grey circles on Fig 7.3). Including the pits that were visible in 2003, the total number of holes visible on the surface of Umma by the summer of 2005 was 10,962. It is obvious that the majority of visible damage to Umma occurred between February 2003 and June 2005. These new pits indicate a dramatic increase in the rate of looting. The average rate of looting between February 2003 and June 2005 skyrockets (from the prior estimate of approximately 16 new looters’ pits per year) to 3564 new looters’ pits per year: the annual rate of new pits increased by a multiple of 223 in the first few years of the current Iraq War (Table 7.1). The significant increase in the rate of looting at Umma between February 2003 and June 2005 illustrates the extensive damage archaeological sites can suffer when left unprotected. Even after the area of southern Iraq surrounding Umma became more secure the looting did not stop completely, so that although the degree of looting in southern Iraq lessened over time, as of July 2008 new looters’ pits were visible on the surface of ancient Umma. Fig 7.4 shows the 500-plus new pits found in an initial

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Date of satellite image February 2003

Total no of new pits 2644

Time LJ123 years

June 2005

8318

28 months

July 2008

500

37 months

TABLE 7.1 NUMBER OF

AND THE

MILITARY

Average no of Average no of new pits per month new pits per year n/a 16 297

3564

13.5

162

PITS VISIBLE ON SATELLITE IMAGES OVER TIME.

analysis of a high-resolution Digital Globe satellite image from July 2008. While the frequency of looting at Umma has certainly declined between 2005 and 2008 the annual rate of 162 new pits per year is still ten times the level of looting before the current war. We can hope that as the region stabilises further, providing more local employment options, looting at Umma will decrease further.

Disclaimer: Some images in the printed version of this book are not available for inclusion in the eBook. To view the image on this page please refer to the printed version of this book.

FIG 7.4 UMMA JULY 2008,

NEW LOOTERS’ PITS MARKED AS WHITE HALF CIRCLES.

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Fig 7.5 shows the results from all three of the Umma satellite images combined. The black diamonds are pits from the 2003 image, the grey circles are those from 2005, and the white half circles are from 2008. You can see that, as of July 2008, fresh holes had been dug in the centre of the temple and also at the edges where dunes had shifted away from the site. Without additional analysis on the ground these are only estimates, as Umma’s plentiful dune action and windblown sand can quickly fill new pits. A conservative estimate from my analysis of the July 2008 satellite image indicates that an area of approximately 1,517,917 square metres of Umma has been looted; based on early reports from the 1900s suggesting that Umma’s diameter was 1500m, indicating a total area of about 1,766,250 square metres, this is over 86% of the original site. One of the most discouraging aspects of this study has been the fact that the decline in the amount of looting at Umma may not accurately reflect the typical pattern. Umma was one of the few lucky sites that received a site guard, as well as some limited military protection, primarily provided by the Carabinieri, an Italian military police unit (Russell 2008, 29–44).

Disclaimer: Some images in the printed version of this book are not available for inclusion in the eBook. To view the image on this page please refer to the printed version of this book.

FIG 7.5 COMBINED IMAGE OF LOOTERS’ (WHITE HALF CIRCLES).

PITS FROM

2003 (BLACK

DIAMONDS),

2005 (GREY

CIRCLES) AND

2008

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IRAQ’S STOLEN ARTEFACTS Umma is just one example out of many sites in southern Iraq that have been reduced to Swiss cheese by looters. This destruction raises the question: where are Iraq’s stolen artefacts? The sad answer is that no one knows exactly where in the shadowy black market of illegal antiquities Iraq’s stolen artefacts end up. Some evidence is in the public reports of seized or returned artefacts from Iraq (Table 7.2). From the nine countries where Iraq’s stolen cultural property was seized or returned a total of 3002 artefacts were recovered. These artefacts clearly indicate that Iraq’s stolen cultural property is being shipped throughout the world to meet the demands of the illegal art market. But why are Iraq’s stolen artefacts being seized throughout the world? Who encourages the ongoing destruction of Iraq’s archaeological sites? Who will profit from the plunder? Demand for illicit artefacts in market countries is staggering, so much so that it is generally assumed that the extent of and profit from the illegal trade in cultural property is exceeded only by the illegal trade in weapons and drugs (Elsea and Garcia 2004). Prior to the current Iraq War, the international black market in ancient artefacts was valued at between US $2 billion and $6 billion a year (Stille 2002, 77). More recently, Renfrew estimated that the international trade was US $3 billion, although those who work in the art market claim it is as low as US $200 million (Lidstone 2009). Regardless of the precise figure, the profit in illegal antiquities can clearly be huge, and by far the largest share of these profits goes to the dealers at the end of a long chain of smugglers and thieves. Although our data is limited, we can estimate the potential based on the legal trade in antiquities. For

Country

Date

No of artefacts

Source

Syria

April 2008

700

AFP News 2008

Italy

July 2008

13

Babington 2008

US

September 2008

Lebanon

October 2008

UAE

November 2008

120

McClenaghan 2008

Iraq

December 2008

228

Lidstone 2009

Peru

February 2009

Iraq

March/Feb 2009

Iraq

April 2009

235

Netherlands

9 July 2009

69

TABLE 7.2 PUBLICISED

1046 57

3 531 (surrendered)

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement 2010 AFP News 2008

Kukis 2009 Khudai 2009 Alexander 2009 AP 2009

SEIZURES/RETURNS OF STOLEN ARTEFACTS FROM IRAQ (PLEASE NOTE THAT THERE MAY HAVE

BEEN A NUMBER OF ADDITIONAL SEIZURES THAT LAW ENFORCEMENT CHOSE NOT TO MAKE PUBLIC).

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example, on the New York art market in 2001 a high-quality cylinder seal sold for US $424,000 (Lawler 2003, 583). More recently, in December 2007, a small limestone statue of a lion originally from Iraq sold for US $57 million (BBC News 2007). As these examples illustrate, the legal antiquities trade in Iraq’s ancient past is a lucrative business which turns an ancient object into a highly priced commodity. The allure of similarly large profits and the unabated demand for ancient merchandise drive the illicit antiquities trade at all levels. The artefacts most vulnerable to theft are those that are the most commercially desirable and portable, such as cylinder and stamp seals. These objects were used in the ancient past to make impressions on clay as a means of identification and ownership, not unlike the magnetic strip on today’s credit cards. Looters target these seals because collectors value their small intricate designs. It is probably safe to assume that, as we find unprovenanced seals from Iraq for sale at a small shop in a Damascus suq and at a well-known Chicago antiquities store, they are probably also available on the internet. The internet offers dealers an unprecedented international market and a safe venue to market objects which might draw suspicion if displayed locally, and enables collectors to circumvent local laws when purchasing objects and to browse many vendors’ offerings quickly and easily with very little risk of scrutiny. Here I will explore the probability that some number of Iraq’s stolen artefacts, specifically seals, are being offered for sale online, and examine the details of these ancient Iraqi seals for what they can tell us about the online market and looting. In a one-month period I found 95 seals offered for sale online and from these created a small database. This preliminary research suggests that there is a connection between the type of seals offered for sale online without provenance and the location of the most severe looting in southern Iraq. The research for this study of seals was carried out in Chicago although the US has domestic laws that regulate sales online; in general, and in no way intending to criticise or comment on law enforcement efforts regarding stolen cultural property sold online, it is a simple and frustrating fact that internet transactions are notoriously difficult to regulate. It is also important to note that the US prohibits the import and trade of Iraq’s stolen cultural property through two separate measures as well as a more general law prohibiting trade in stolen property.2 While the larger, more reputable auction houses have become very cautious about selling anything of a dubious origin that might have come from Iraq, there are innumerable other online sales venues (Brodie 2008, 4). eBay is the only example of an online venue for antiquity sales which successfully regulates its sales of Mesopotamian artefacts so that it only offers replicas. (Replicas differ from fakes in that the seller lists the object as a modern reproduction, whereas a fake is a modern object that the seller attempts to pass off as an ancient artefact. The problem of fakes in the market is complex and not addressed here simply because there is no feasible way for the expert or average consumer to 2 (1) US Presidential Executive Order 13350 Section 4 prohibits importing Iraqi cultural property. (2) The Emergency Protection for Iraqi Cultural Antiquities Act (Now Public Law 108-429) imposed import restrictions on Archaeological and Ethnological material of Iraq. (3) The National Stolen Property Act (NSPA) prohibits the transport interstate or across international boundaries, as well as the receipt and possession of stolen property.

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determine the authenticity of a seal based on a grainy digital photo.) One website I researched noted that the dealer started on eBay but was forced to rely on his own website once eBay began to regulate their sales. So, although eBay is no longer an easy option for those selling Mesopotamian artefacts, many other sales venues exist online. That these online antiquities dealers offer Mesopotamian seals without provenance raises a few specific questions: how much money does an average Mesopotamian seal cost? Does provenance and paperwork influence the price of a seal? What time periods and regions are represented in the current market for seals? To address these questions I tracked the online offering of Mesopotamian seals on seven websites specialising in antiquities between 25 October 2007 and 25 November 2007. These websites, which represent a small sample of the online dealers in ancient Iraqi antiquities, were Medusa-art (Montreal, Canada and Champlain, NY), Arsantiquaonline (Modena, Italy), Collector-antiquities (London), Dcancientart (Washington DC), Apoloniagallery (Denver, CO), Artemission (London), and Harlan J Berk’s (Chicago, IL). In December 2006 Neil Brodie identified 55 websites selling similar material, and nearly two years later, in September 2008, 72 websites sold Iraqi antiquities online (Brodie 2008). During the study I found 95 seals offered on these seven sites, although these 95 seals are probably only a small proportion of the seals sold online in that month-long period (Table 7.3). Additionally, there is no guarantee that what is offered for sale on each website accurately indicates the true number of seals available for sale. As I found when I visited Harlan J Berk’s storefront in Chicago, dealers can have far more material available than that advertised online, and an interested buyer may be offered other items in private communications that are not open for public viewing. Not one of the seven websites sampled here mention Iraq as the provenance or findspot for any of their offered artefacts, although they commonly describe other objects’ findspots. This trend is similar to that observed by Brodie in his survey of sites in 2006 and 2008, and, as he suggests, it would indicate that even dealers who may be unaware of the law are intentionally avoiding any reference to Iraq. To review the 95 seals in this study I first divided them into two groups: those with provenance and those without. For this study the word provenance indicates known ownership history, such as a named previous owner, a named publication or previous sale, or information that would allow a purchaser to establish the date that an object was removed from Iraq. It is important to note that, for this limited definition, ‘provenance’ does not confer legality. Nor is an unprovenanced artefact necessarily illegal; however, without established provenance, legality is impossible to determine. The inherent difficulty in using material advertised by dealers online is that research is dependent on the information they provide. Thus, for this study, seals classified as ‘with provenance’ had some object history listed on the webpage, ranging from a simple and suspicious statement that a seal ‘came from a private German collection’ to a much more detailed citation of a seal in a pre-1970 scholarly publication. The second group, without provenance, had no purchase history, paperwork, or documentation noted on the webpage. Of the 95 total seals included in this study 47 had provenance and 48 did not – a surprisingly even divide. The level of documentation detailed for these seals differed vastly between websites

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Seals without provenance Totals

48

OF

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Seals with provenance 47

123

AND INSTABILITY IN IRAQ

Total no of seals included in this study 95

TABLE 7.3 MESOPOTAMIAN

SEALS

OFFERED FOR SALE ONLINE

and often within the same website. Four of the seven sites listed seals with detailed provenance next to seals with no provenance at all. To determine if this lack of provenance listing was simply a mistake or actually reflected a complete absence of documentation, I contacted the four websites. The subsequent correspondence suggested that information about a seal’s provenance was not left out by oversight, but rather because the dealer had no information or was unwilling to share the information that they had (pers comm). Antiquities dealers use digital photographs to advertise their seals online. The photographs of the 95 seals in this study allowed a preliminary analysis of each seal’s style, shape, material, and impression which assisted in identifying roughly which time period and region each was from. Five seals do not have a suggested time period because it was impossible to make a qualified estimate without physically examining the seal. Fig 7.6 shows the seals with and without provenance divided by the most likely time period of their creation. The most striking difference between these two charts is the number of seals from the late 4th millennium and the Sasanian period. Although it is difficult to draw concrete conclusions from such a small study, the comparison of time periods indicates that more of the seals without provenance come from the late 4th millennium, one of the earliest time periods for the creation of seals. One explanation could be that these seals are easier to fake because they are less detailed than later seals and fake seals, clearly, would not have provenance; however, reproductions are usually so labelled and sold at lower prices. Another possibility is

FIG 7.6 THE TOP

FOUR TIME PERIODS OF

PROVENANCE.

MESOPOTAMIAN

SEALS OFFERED FOR SALE ONLINE WITH AND WITHOUT

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that seals from later periods, especially those that are intricate cylinder seals, are bought up by higher-level auction houses. Larger, rarer artefacts are probably more difficult to market and require a more discerning (or a wealthier) buyer. A more likely explanation for the significant number of early period seals without provenance, however, is that they come from late 4th millennium archaeological sites, many of which are found in southern Iraq. As evidenced by the satellite images and helicopter photographs discussed above, ancient sites in southern Iraq have suffered particularly high levels of looting. Perhaps the large number of these early period seals offered for sale without provenance reflects the vast number of artefacts recently looted from southern Iraq. These early stamp seals from the looted sites, owing to their large numbers, are the objects dealers would probably try to sell quickly and relatively cheaply. The online price of these seals is a second, and from a practical standpoint more important, piece of information presented by the dataset from these websites. Of the 95 seals included in this study, 10 were listed as sold with no price information, thus leaving only 85 seals from which to calculate averages. During the month of this study the average price of a seal online was US $753, from a high of US $3600 to a low of US $61 (Table 7.4). As this chart illustrates, there appears to be a substantial price difference between the seals for which provenance information exists, with a mean of US $957, and those seals without any documentation, with a mean of US $549. The information gathered in this study supports the premise that the existence of provenance plays a significant factor in a seal’s price. Price

Seals without provenance (41)

Seals with provenance (44)

Price difference

$549

$957

$408

Max

$1600

$3600

$2000

Min

$61

$195

$134

Average

TABLE 7.4 PRICE OF MESOPOTAMIAN

SEALS

OFFERED FOR SALE ONLINE

In the past it has been suggested that unprovenanced material would be pushed out of the market once it was substantially less profitable than comparable material with provenance, thereby creating a self-regulating market. On average, a seal without existing provenance is 57%, or a little more than half, of the price of a seal with provenance. Based on this data it would be as, or even more, profitable to sell two seals without provenance for every seal sold with provenance. Although these numbers suggest that it would be more lucrative for the dealer to obtain and ensure a seal’s provenance, in the market it may not necessarily be more cost-efficient or profitable. This is corroborated in this study by some higher priced seals without provenance which were sold for sums which can exceed the average price of seals with provenance by almost a factor of two. According to the premise of a self-regulating market, we should expect to see fewer unprovenanced seals. However, the total numbers of seals without and with provenance is equal. The market does not yet appear to be avoiding the cheaper, unprovenanced seals. If dealers are offering seals

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without provenance it is probably because they can buy them far more cheaply than seals with provenance and in turn price them to sell quickly, while still making a profit. The overall conclusion we can draw from this data is that the existence of provenance impacts a seal’s price but does not influence its marketability. The 95 seals analysed in this study are simply a means of profit for the dealers who list them on their websites. Typically, academics avoid assigning monetary value to artefacts for fear that it will promote demand for illegal antiquities. This is a valid concern and speculating on an artefact’s true price tag is not my intent here; rather, exploring the dollar values involved allows us to better understand the reasons why the market in stolen and unprovenanced artefacts continues despite laws and international agreements to the contrary. The study also highlights that the trade possibly contributes to destabilising and violent networks in Iraq. While the dealer who advertises an unprovenanced seal online will take some of its price in profit, enough revenue is generated by these sales, with the average price at US $549, to encourage the original seller to continue. Even if only a minimal percentage of the final sale price is returned to the artefact’s point of origin, the sale of these seals clearly brings cash into the region. If sold at their asking price, the 41 unprovenanced seals in this small study would have earned a total of US $22,509 and, if these seals are from looted sites in Iraq, then a percentage of this cash would have returned to Iraq’s black market. As the study of these seals offered for sale online indicates, there are profits to be made from unprovenanced seals. It is likely that many of these unprovenanced seals come from looted archaeological sites where the person actually digging the pits and scavenging artefacts does so for a meagre subsistence income and sees very little of the final sale price. In 2005 Abdulamir Hamdani, the archaeologist responsible for the district of Nasiriya in Iraq, told Joanne Farchakh Bajjaly that ‘a cylinder seal or a cuneiform tablet brings in under $50 on the site for the looter’ (Farchakh Bajjaly 2005). Although this is a small percentage of the final price or profits, US $50 was a sizeable sum in 2005 in southern Iraq given that the year before the average income in Iraq was about US $144 (CNN News 2005). Probably the best-publicised prices for stolen Mesopotamian seals are the three Akkadian cylinder seals purchased by Joseph Braude. While shopping in a Baghdad marketplace, Braude spent US $200 for two small Akkadian seals and the salesman gave him a third as a present. These were caught by customs at JFK airport with the Iraq Museum identification number still written on them (Ramírez 2004). If we apply Braude’s seals’ price of US $100 apiece (the gift seal is not factored in as it may well have been of much lesser ‘value’) to the volume of seals stolen from the Baghdad Museum, then the looters’ potential income from seals alone is staggering. During the April 2003 looting of the Iraq Museum, 103 boxes containing cylinder seals and small jewellery were taken from the Museum’s basement storage. The US military investigation into the looting of the Museum estimated that 10,337 objects, mainly cylinder seals, were stolen, of which 667 were recovered and 9670 were still missing at the time of the final report in September 2003 (Bogdanos 2003). If the middlemen were able to sell these cylinder seals for prices similar to the US $100 apiece Braude spent, then the black market in Iraq could have earned up to US $967,000.

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These are not insignificant amounts of cash and the most troubling aspect of these profits from stolen artefacts is that this income has been linked to illegal weapons and terrorism in Iraq. Stolen artefacts travel the same black market networks as illegal weapons and drugs. This is best known from Matthew Bogdanos’ work publicising the connection between stolen artefacts and funding for the insurgents (Bogdanos 2008). Bogdanos noted that in 2003, when he was recovering objects stolen from the Iraq National Museum in Baghdad, they were often found associated with weapons and links to violent groups. The link between stolen artefacts and weapons was corroborated in November 2003, when the US 812th Military Police Company and a team of Iraqi police recovered the wheeled brazier from Nimrud in a raid that not only seized the artefact stolen from the Baghdad Museum but also two AK 47s, a light machine gun and a pistol (Russell 2003). Similarly, in 2005, in north-west Iraq, ancient vases, seals, and statuettes were found in an insurgent’s underground bunker along with stockpiles of weapons and ammunition (Bogdanos 2008, 30). Although this chapter has focused on Iraq, artefacts from Afghanistan are similarly used to fund violence. In one of the better-publicised instances, one of the 9/11 terrorists, Mohamed Atta, attempted to gain advice on how to sell artefacts from Afghanistan so that he could raise money to buy an aeroplane (Der Spiegel 2005). That one of the 9/11 attackers attempted to acquire funds for that attack by selling artefacts demonstrates the connection between stolen artefacts and violence. The current evidence for the ongoing looting of Iraq’s archaeological sites and the extent of this damage indicates that the theft of Iraq’s archaeological past is staggering. The second section of this chapter looked at the seals offered for sale online as a snapshot of a section of the antiquities market well after the current laws against the import of Iraq’s stolen artefacts were put in place. This preliminary study suggests a possible connection between the archaeological sites most heavily looted in southern Iraq and the availability of unprovenanced early seals online. More importantly, these data show that although the lack of provenance influences a seal’s sale price, unprovenanced and probably stolen artefacts can generate sufficient profit to support an active market in them. There are countless academic and cultural-patrimony-based rationales for protecting archaeological sites and museums. Yet, at the most basic level, we must remember that ancient artefacts, even those without provenance, are valuable and profitable. Whether the initial pit digger is motivated by poverty or insurgency, when artefacts are easily stolen or looted they will enter the black market and can help fund instability and violence.

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REFERENCES

Adams, R McC, 2008 An Interdisciplinary Overview of a Mesopotamian City and its Hinterlands, Cuneiform Digital Library Journal 2008:1, 25 March, available from: http://www.cdli.ucla.edu/pubs/cdlj/2008/cdlj2008_001.html [accessed 16 November 2010] — and Nissen, H, 1972 The Uruk Countryside: The Natural Setting of Urban Societies, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL AFP News, 2008 Iraqi Antiquities Seized in Lebanon: Customs, 28 October, available from: http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5huJJcZpDncm2aOsIjiG8zYQFOJwg [accessed 16 November 2010] Alexander, C, 2009 Iraq Troops Bust Smuggling Ring, Recover 235 Looted Artifacts, Bloomberg News, 24 April, available from: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/ news?pid=newsarchive&sid=acKT3j2bEdkw [accessed 31 January 2011] Andrae, W, 1903 Die Umgebung von Fara und Abu Hatab, Mitteilungen der Deutschen OrientGesellschaft zu Berlin 16 (1902/03), 20–21 Associated Press, 2009 Dutch Gov’t Returns Stolen Antiquities to Iraq [online], 9 July, available from: http://www.pr-inside.com/dutch-gov-t-returns-stolen-antiquities-to-r1377187.htm [2 December 2009] Babington, D, 2008 Italy Returns Antiquities Looted from Iraq, Reuters News, 24 July, available from: http://www.reuters.com/article/artsNews/idUSL423608720080724 [accessed 16 November 2010] BBC News, 2007 Lion Sculpture gets Record Price, 6 December, available from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/7130337.stm [accessed 16 November 2010] Bogdanos, M, 2003 Final Report, September, available from: http://www.defenselink.mil/news/ Sep2003/d20030922fr.pdf [accessed 16 November 2010] —, 2008 See No Evil: Museums, Art Collectors, and the Black Markets They Adore, in Antiquities Under Siege, Cultural Heritage Protection After the War in Iraq (ed L Rothfield), AltaMira, Lanham, MD, 57–62 Brodie, N, 2008 The Market in Iraqi Antiquities 1980–2008, available from: https://www.stanford.edu/group/chr/cgi-bin/drupal/files/Market%20in%20Iraqi% 20antiquities%20(2008)%20txt.pdf [accessed 16 November 2010] CNN News, 2005 Report Paints Grim Picture of Iraqi Life, 12 May, available from: http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/05/12/iraq.livingsurvey/ [accessed 16 November 2010] Der Spiegel, 2005 Todespilot Atta wollte Terroranschläge vom 11. September 2001 durch illegalen Kunsthandel finanzieren, 16 July, available from: http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/vorab/ 0,1518,365376,00.html [accessed 16 November 2010] Eig, L M, and Elsea, J K, 2003 Cultural Property: International Conventions and United States Legislation (RS21485), Congressional Research Service Report, 9 June Elsea, J K, and Garcia, M J, 2004 Cultural Property: International Conventions and United States Legislation (RL32351), Congressional Research Service Report, 8 April Emberling, G, and Hanson, K (eds), 2008 Catastrophe! The Looting and Destruction of Iraq’s Past, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL Farchakh Bajjaly, J, 2005 History Lost in Dust of War-torn Iraq, BBC News, 25 April, available from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4461755.stm [accessed 16 November 2010] Gibson, McG, 2003 Cultural Tragedy in Iraq: A Report on the Looting of Museums, Archives, and Sites, International Foundation for Art Research (IFAR) Journal Special Issues 6, available from: http://www.ifar.org/upload/pdffile8470e61407a5fdifar_iraqtragedy.pdf [December 2009]

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—, 2008 The Acquisition of Antiquities in Iraq, 19th Century to 2003, Legal and Illegal, in The Destruction of Cultural Heritage in Iraq (eds P G Stone and J Farchakh Bajjaly), The Boydell Press, Woodbridge, 31–40 Hanson, K, 2008 Why Does Archaeological Context Matter? in Catastrophe! The Looting and Destruction of Iraq’s Past (eds G Emberling and K Hanson), University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, 45–50 Hritz, C, 2008 Remote Sensing of Cultural Heritage in Iraq: A Case Study of Isin, The American Academic Research Institute in Iraq Newsletter 3–1, Spring, 1–8 Khudai, Z, 2009 Government Officials Surrender 531 Artifacts to Iraq Museum, Azzaman, 9 March, available from: http://www.azzaman.com/english/index.asp?fname=news%5 C2009–03–09%5Ckurd.htm [accessed 2 December 2009] Kukis, M, 2009 Iraq’s Ancient Treasures Lost and Found, Time.com, 19 February, available from: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1880701,00.html [accessed 16 November 2010] Lawler, A, 2003 Mayhem in Mesopotamia, Science 301 (5633), 582–8 Lidstone, D, 2009 Hunt Widens for Iraq’s Looted Treasure, Financial Times, 2 July, available from: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/10644a84-665d-11de-a03400144feabdc0.html#axzz1Bi0Oh 7w4 [accessed 2 December 2009] McClenaghan, G, 2008 Iraqi Antiquities Seized in Dubai, The National, 26 November, available from: http://www.thenational.ae/article/20081126/NATIONAL/815893506/1010 [accessed 16 November 2010] Ramírez, E, 2004 Scholar in Smuggling Trial Switches to a Guilty Plea, The New York Times, 4 August, available from: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/04/nyregion/scholar-in-smugglingtrial-switches-to-a-guilty-plea.html [1 February 2011] Rothfield, L, 2008 Antiquities Under Siege, Cultural Heritage Protection After the War in Iraq, AltaMira, Lanham, MD Russell, J M, 2003 The MPs Do It Again: Two More Antiquities from the Top 30 Are Back in the Iraq Museum, AIA Publications and New Media, November, available from: http://www.archaeological.org/pdfs/papers/J_Russell_recovery.pdf [accessed 16 November 2010] —, 2008 Efforts to Protect Archaeological Sites and Monuments in Iraq, 2003–2004, in Catastrophe! The Looting and Destruction of Iraq’s Past (eds G Emberling and K Hanson), University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, 29–44 Stille, A, 2002 The Future of the Past, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York Stone, E, 2008 Patterns of Looting in Southern Iraq, Antiquity 82 (315), 125–38 Stone, P G, and Farchakh Bajjaly, J (eds), 2008 The Destruction of Cultural Heritage in Iraq, The Boydell Press, Woodbridge US Immigration and Custom Enforcement, 2010 Fact Sheet: Cultural Property, Art and Antiquities Investigations [online], available from: http://www.ice.gov/news/library/factsheets/ cultural-artifacts.htm [28 December 2010]

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8

Whose Heritage? Archaeology, Heritage and the Military 1

MARTIN BROWN A COMMON HERITAGE The UK defence estate includes some 1% (240,000 hectares) of the UK land mass (Defence Estates 2009). Sites range in size from the 28,000 hectares of Salisbury Plain to small airfields and rifle ranges. Unsurprisingly, for a country rich in archaeological heritage, the estate includes a wide range of cultural heritage assets, from Mesolithic flint scatters to farmsteads abandoned during the expansion of military training during World War II. Unlike many other areas of the United Kingdom, land in military use has been protected from intensive agriculture and widespread development and as a result the survival and extent of remains is significant (see, for example, McOmish et al 2002). In addition, since some sites have been occupied by the military for over 200 years, there is a strong component of military heritage sites, including standing buildings such as Woolwich Barracks or the Royal Naval Dockyard at Portsmouth, practice works, anti-invasion defences, and memorials. There are even three battlefields: Otterburn, an Anglo-Scots engagement of the 14th century, Chalgrove Field (1643), and Edgehill, the opening battle of the English Civil Wars (1642–51). These fields of conflict present military heritage pre-dating the formation of the modern British military. Other ancient military sites include Roman practice camps at Otterburn in northern England and an associated carving of the Romano-Celtic war god Cocidius (Westcott 2009, 29). While the traditional archaeology may be incredibly rich and well-preserved, owing largely to the lack of development or agricultural pressure on the Estate, in many cases it is the density and temporal distribution of military remains which characterise the land held. This is particularly true of modern military heritage, where the land’s users have added their own layers to the palimpsest, but the older military heritage can also excite interest from users of a training area because, as will be shown, of the perceived connection between soldiers across the centuries. Defence Estates archaeologists have worked hard to ensure that the archaeological resource is not compromised by the activities of the military (Brown 2005, 99–110; Brown 2010). The inclusion of heritage assets on military maps, the erection of signs prohibiting digging and regular assessments of monument condition are all employed in protection strategies. Meanwhile, at some sites, briefings to military users specifically mention the importance and fragility of heritage, and, wherever possible, the employed archaeologists seek to promote the message of care for the heritage 1 Author’s note: Although this paper includes work done for Defence Estates it reflects the personal views and reflections of the author and in no way reflects any official position of Defence Estates or the UK Ministry of Defence.

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amongst the military. While some service personnel may be interested in archaeology and will therefore respond positively to Bronze Age barrows (burial mounds) or the ruins of a medieval farmstead, many will not perceive the archaeological significance of an earthen mound or an arrangement of stones, rather seeing a good place to situate a machine gun or a source of stones to make a bivouac. However, the experience of the archaeologists is that the interest level of troops is generally raised and more engaged when dealing with military heritage of whatever age than when discussing the niceties of later prehistoric linear earthworks. This interest can then be used as an entry point to talk about the wider heritage and its fragility, promoting the active role of the military in its protection – even of those linear earthworks. It does also offer occasion for humour: it can be pointed out by archaeologists that the modern soldier has a key advantage over the Roman soldiers who created the camps on the rainy, windy hills of the Scots border at Otterburn – the Romans were wearing skirts and sandals! One could suggest that for more recent military archaeology, such as the concrete positions at Castlemartin that were used to train World War II tank crews in advance of D-Day, there is an immediate interest in and identification with a military experience different enough to have a fascination but recent enough to have points of commonality; heavy armour still trains at Castlemartin. Nevertheless, military sites of greater antiquity and even of foreign creation can still elicit positive reactions and interest, perhaps because of a fellow feeling with soldiers of days gone by, something that Mosse has described as the ‘Myth of War Experience’ (Mosse 1990, 211). To understand this reaction it is worth considering the infrastructure underpinning the British Army, which may best be described as tribal. TRIBAL COALITIONS

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It is often said that there is no such single entity as the British Army, rather just a collection of tribes (Holmes 2004, 75–9), each with their own identities and rituals; the same may be true of the wider British armed forces and, probably, of other nations’ armed forces. The British Army as a standing force goes back to the republican Commonwealth that was established following the English Civil Wars (1642–51) (Firth 1992 [1902], 66), and its principal unit is the regiment (British Army 2009a). Many of these regiments have names with a long heritage, such as the Honourable Artillery Company or the Coldstream Guards, while others, following reorganisations, have been formed from amalgamations of older units, many of which date back to the 18th century. For example, the modern Mercian Regiment includes the Third Battalion, which was, until recently, the Staffordshire Regiment, itself an amalgamation of the North and South Staffordshire Regiments that in turn have the 18th-century 38th Regiment of Foot in their ancestry. Over such a long historical period and through many conflicts, regiments have built up strong identities and traditions which underpin them. On 1 August each year a number of regiments, including the Lancashire Fusiliers, now part of the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, hold mess dinners and ceremonial events, including the distribution of ‘Minden Roses’ to commemorate

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their service at the Battle of Minden in 1759 (MoD 2009a). During the officers’ mess dinner new junior officers are called upon to eat the Minden Rose, which has been marinated in champagne (Lancashire Fusiliers 2009). Similarly, soldiers of the Black Watch, now part of the Royal Regiment of Scotland, wear a red feather hackle and commemorate Red Hackle Day (The Black Watch 2008). Such rituals are often carried out even when troops are on active deployment. Regimental, corps, and army identity and esprit de corps are also inculcated and reinforced by other rituals, including formal parades such as Trooping the Colour, when military units parade in front of the reigning monarch (The British Monarchy 2009). The history of a particular unit or of the Army in general may also be reinforced by the battlefield tour. These tours to former battlefields, such as the Western Front of 1914–18, or the Falkland Islands (1982), are used as educational tools: they may be employed as vehicles to set troops command tasks, where they reconsider decisions made by their forebears as officers, or to engender a more basic understanding of military history and to see the place of their unit or its antecedents in the events. The author has acted as a guide for such tours, where he saw young soldiers gain a sense of what their forebears endured and achieved, all part of the process of building or reinforcing kinship. It is also common for such tours to include a ritual element, such as the laying of wreaths at memorials or in military cemeteries, further strengthening a sense of belonging and more deeply binding the individual to the organisation by recognition of sacrifice and military endeavour. Such heritage is also discernable in the relics and treasures held in the numerous regimental museums that are scattered across the United Kingdom, but it was manifested in a most unusual way at Cannock Chase in 1918 by men of the New Zealand Rifle Brigade (NZRB). The training drafts of the NZRB were based at Brocton Camp, one of two large training camps on the Chase in 1917 and 1918 (Whitehouse and Whitehouse 1996, 26). During this time the Brigade was part of the successful allied offensive on the Messines Ridge in Belgium (Oldham 2003, 82–6). Back in England men of the NZRB created a model of the village of Messines and its defences, with a scale terrain model of the Messines Ridge overlain by a cement surface that formed the base for concrete-lined trenches, roads laid out in pebbles, and buildings made from brick ends (Whitehouse and Whitehouse 1996, 21–2). The motivation for this creation is unrecorded, but it may be interpreted as a teaching aid, showing how the defences were laid out by the German defenders and then broken by the New Zealanders; as such, this model is just a more permanent version of many terrain models built to brief troops, usually, but not exclusively, prior to assaults (Brown and Osgood 2009, 49–50). However, it is also possible to see the model as a trophy, displaying not the traditional images of captured arms or booty but a captured town. In addition, it may have been intended to reinforce Brigade ethos, showing the new training drafts not only what their comrades in arms had achieved but also setting a literally concrete example of what was to be expected of the recruits when they were deployed. Both the more durable construction method than was usual for such models and the fact that it was positioned outside the headquarters seem to indicate the importance given to this model beyond that of a mere training aid. It may be that the Cannock model was intended as a simulacrum of Messines itself,

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symbolising possession and manifesting endeavour. This interpretation of meaning beyond the utilitarian and didactic is further supported by the gifting of the model to the town of Cannock by the New Zealanders when they were leaving for home following the end of the war (Brown and Osgood 2009, 49–50), as this suggests that the model had become imbued with meanings and was perceived as cultural property by the departing soldiers. For the other British armed forces the issue is less clear cut; they do not have the same number of terrestrial sites of past glory because their actions took place at sea or in the air. Nevertheless, the imperative to preserve elements of their heritage is equally strong. Nelson’s flagship HMS Victory remains a commissioned warship, despite being over 200 years old and unseaworthy. This vessel embodies a moment sometimes perceived as the epitome of British naval history, when the iconic admiral died at his moment of victory leading a fleet that destroyed Napoleon’s fleet and sank, literally, his hopes of an invasion of Britain. Similarly, the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight embodies heritage, reminding spectators of the RAF’s role in defeating Hitler’s invasion plans during the summer of 1940. This is not the only embodiment of RAF history, however; the author is engaged in discussions with RAF Halton, the home of the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) (from which the RAF was formed), about a project to involve trainees in excavating and reconstructing practice trenches from the Great War that were originally dug by RFC members in order to foster team spirit and to introduce the trainees to the origins of their service and its early history. Meanwhile, other sites take great pride in the units that served there and the actions in which they took part; examples include RAF Scampton, home to 617 Squadron ‘The Dambusters’ (RAF 2009). Whatever the service, the traditions and ethos bind the group together through common heritage and experience. The heritage should be regarded as a binding force useful not only in creating unit identity but also as part of esprit de corps, which is part of the moral fibre of both a unit and an Army (Holmes 2004; RAF 2009). Heritage may therefore be regarded as an anchor in time of stress, be that on the battlefield or in the face of reorganisation under budgetary constraints (The Black Watch 2008). It is against this background – of service people being aware, or made aware, of their traditions and their part in a kin group stretching back centuries, which is, by its nature, exclusive to those who have served – that the archaeologist engaging in projects exploring military heritage and working with members of the military, both serving and retired, is acting. In Britain, where the military is professional and represents a small portion of the population, these rituals, coupled with language and culture, combine to create a distinct kin group that is separated from the wider civilian population by experience. Where military heritage is the subject of investigation the archaeologist must be aware of the different perspectives and insights that the soldier can bring. For example, when walking part of the 1642 Edgehill battlefield, the author was accompanied by an infantry officer who was able to interpret part of a contemporary account through the lens of his own experience. He was able to see the tactical possibilities of the terrain, even though he served in the modern era rather than that of pike, shot, and cavalry. In a similar way, one volunteer, who is also serving, and who was engaged on an archaeological site from the Great War, was able to point out that the quantities of brown sauce bottles found in abandoned military

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trenches were evidence for and the result of a boring diet; he had never, in 25 years of service, gone overseas without a bottle of Tabasco for the same reason. This is a positive experience for the archaeologist, as this form of ethnographic parallel sheds genuine light on results. However, once human remains are encountered on the battlefield the dynamic changes, because both the military kinship with which servicemen have been imbued and also their perception of what is proper treatment of the fallen soldier come into play. The archaeologist must be aware of this, as it can affect dynamics on site. FALLEN SOLDIERS In August 2008 archaeologists from No Man’s Land – The European Group for Great War Archaeology – uncovered the skeleton of an Australian infantryman at Ploegsteert (Belgium). He was killed on 7 June 1917 during the Messines offensive (Brown and Osgood 2009, 135–49). The team included a number of retired servicemen and two serving soldiers, one of whom had recently been deployed with British Forces in Iraq. Following the discovery and confirmation from the authorities that exhumation should take place, a small team was assembled to work on the skeleton. One serving soldier, who was providing Explosive Ordnance Demolition cover, used his expertise as an excuse never to leave that particular part of the site and became very proprietorial toward the body, even though he was not part of the designated exhumation team. This culminated in an incident in which the author had to order him away from the trench at lunchtime in order to engage with the rest of the team who were not dealing with the skeleton, in an attempt to restore some sense of normality and allow him to clear his head. Subsequent discussion has shown that the individual was not aware of how disruptive and problematic his behaviour was becoming and that it was, in part, a result of his time in Iraq, where he had been dealing with bodies of very recent casualties. In addition, since returning from deployment he had used his leave, prior to the Ploegsteert project, to engage in other Great War excavations that had also found human remains. As a result he had not had sufficient decompression time to allow himself distance from the trauma of the contemporary conflict: this became a major factor in his behaviour. Meanwhile, other team members with military affiliations who were not engaged in the exhumation expressed discontent at what they perceived as exclusion because it had been announced that a small, specialist team would deal with the recording and exhumation and that other team members should not become spectators, as this could impede work. As a result, time for those not directly engaged in the exhumation had to be set aside. In a similar vein the archaeologist Jon Price has reported that during a project earlier in the year at Auchy (France), he watched one of the serving military from the team, recently returned from a tour in Afghanistan, walk away from the multiple burial under excavation because he was annoyed at the approach of the archaeologists and the TV crew filming them, who he felt were not according the appropriate respect to the bodies and were treating them as data, rather than as members of ‘The Fallen’ (Jon Price, pers comm). This was not how Price perceived the situation; he felt that the bodies were, in his opinion, being treated as people. Such feelings of ownership

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are not exclusive to the military. For example, the author and his co-director also admitted to proprietorial feelings when watching the Belgian Army officer responsible for exhumation taking away ‘their’ body at the end of the project. This underlines the feelings of intimacy, engagement, and tension engendered by such pressured and emotive activity as the excavation of human remains, which are not unique to this type of situation (see also Brown 2007). However, the archaeologists had the benefit of not having recently been posted to a war zone where there were much more recent casualties, while their own kin group is intimately infused with its own complex ethos, in the same way as the military. As a result they were able to empathise with the feelings described by the serving military, but a fuller understanding was difficult, partly because of their lack of military experience but also because many team members were not familiar with the wider military engagement with heritage. The continuing military ownership of the body is reflected in the tradition of providing a bearing party and honour guard for the casket at reburials of casualties from the World Wars. This may be entirely official, as was seen in the reburial of a soldier of the King’s Own discovered by the archaeological group No Man’s Land in 2003 (Brown 2009, 276), or of the so-called ‘Zonnebeke Five’ Australians (YouTube 2007). In these instances the soldiers involved in the ceremonies were provided by the relevant governments as part of the process of officially honouring the dead. However, military involvement may be unauthorised, particularly where official participation may have been seen as politically problematic: in 2004 the bodies of Jakob Hones and Albert Thielecke were interred at the German Volksbund cemetery in Labry (France) in the presence of not only the descendents of Hones and his siblings but also, by chance, a party of German soldiers who had been involved in voluntary maintenance work in the cemetery. When they saw the funeral taking shape they approached the family and asked if they could take part and pay their respects to ‘alte Kameraden’. The family agreed and an honour party was formed (Walter Rapp, pers comm). Subsequent conversations between the author and members of the Bundeswehr have confirmed that there would have been no official permission for such a ceremony because of the difficulties of German history in the first half of the 20th century. However, the feelings of the individuals overcame politics; as one German officer put it to the author following a presentation on this theme, ‘Hitler cut us off from our heritage.’ In light of this it is interesting to note that there may be a discernible change in attitude within the German Army to its heritage: in 2009 the author saw his first German troops parading at the Menin Gate (British Memorial to the Missing in Ieper, Belgium) and there was a German military presence at the funeral of the last British veteran Harry Patch in August of the same year (BBC News 2009). The involvement of soldiers, of whatever nation, in these ceremonial reburials reflects the practice of the military funeral for The Fallen of contemporary conflicts, which honour the casualty but which also serve to reinforce the bonds within the kin group through experience, tradition and ethos in a way as powerful as but more visceral than other symbolic embodiments such as Trooping the Colour, the Minden Rose or the Messines Model (Holmes 2004, 112–15). They are important for the soldiers present, not only to honour a fallen comrade who shares a common heritage of army, uniform, or regiment (the kin group) but also, as various soldiers have told the author, to reinforce

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to the soldier that, whatever happens and whoever he is, he will not be forgotten and whenever and wherever possible he will be accorded the honours of war. This has recently been highlighted by both the British and Australian governments’ funding of excavations of mass graves at Fromelles (France), where bodies from a 1916 action had lain unrecovered. Unlike a normal archaeological project, the commencement of the investigation was preceded by ceremony attended by military personnel, showing the importance placed on the appropriate and respectful recovery of casualties, even after almost a century (MoD 2009b). MEANINGFUL MONUMENTS The feelings over fallen soldiers described above are the epitome of the common bond felt between soldiers across the ages. As such, they are offered not only as a description of an engagement between heritage professionals and the military but also as an illustration of the importance of heritage within the British Army and many other armed forces. The importance placed on military heritage and its constant reinforcement, coupled with the feeling that the military is a specific kin group with history extending back through time, is probably at the root of the engagement felt by soldiers with military archaeology of whatever age. Where there is a geographic connection, such as that cited above on the Otterburn Training Area, this fellow feeling can bridge many centuries. The value of military engagement with the heritage that serving and former members of the armed forces regard as relevant is that it presents an opportunity to the culturally aware heritage professional, as noted above. As the British military seeks to engage more closely with issues of cultural heritage, both on the training area and on deployment, it is important to make these links. In the domestic sphere engagement of this sort helps the heritage professional explain why sites are out of bounds to troops or why digging is banned in certain areas where damage to archaeological sites may occur. This engagement can only assist the work of conserving the historic environment on land used by the military. At the same time it assists the military by reinforcing further the sense of cultural continuity from, for example, the Roman legionaries of Hadrian to the modern infantryman – both training in the same environment and both contending with the same elements. It underlines the kinship within the group and further supports the idea of the special group to which the soldier belongs. Meanwhile, on deployment, cultural heritage has become a significant issue, as events in Iraq in 2003 showed (Bogdanos with Patrick 2005). Whether, in the heightened situation of a conflict zone, an understanding of the importance of heritage in militarised landscapes can assist the serviceman in dealing with local cultural property is unclear, but it is worth considering that in Iraq British military heritage includes a military cemetery and memorial from the Great War and numerous traces of British military involvement from the 19th century, following interventions from British India. Indeed, following the Coalition capture of Kut in 2003, US Marines were involved in a rededication of the British military cemetery from the Great War, which had been desecrated by the Saddam Hussein regime, as a mark of respect both to their current Coalition partners and to their Fallen of days

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gone by (Daily Telegraph 2003). However, the British military in Basra was also deeply involved in engagement with local people, including archaeologists and museum specialists, not only to safeguard local cultural property but also to rebuild and enhance cultural infrastructure through the training and resourcing of Iraqi professionals (Major Hugo Clarke, pers comm; and see Clarke 2010; White-Spunner, Chapter 5). That the British military were prepared to promote such an initiative is not evidence of the whim of a senior officer, as such fancies do not result in international partnerships; nor was it a governmental act of atonement, as the story has not been promoted to the British media. However, the military did engage because they were convinced that this project was worthwhile, because it was something they could understand, because they understood the value of heritage as an anchor in turbulent times. HERITAGE MATTERS When working with the military the archaeologist needs to be aware of the feeling for history and heritage that the armed forces both employ and enjoy. For many in the military, their heritage is a living tradition that binds them together today and to their uniformed forebears. It is a tool employed to build military ethos which roots individuals and units in a long continuum, even though the world around them may be fluid (and dangerous). This engagement can be used to benefit the heritage, as the archaeologist can use it to support explanations about why heritage matters, as well as the active role of service personnel in preserving it. However, the heritage professional needs also to be aware that the military, by and large, has a different engagement to the heritage and may look at it from a perspective different from that of the archaeologist. This is particularly marked when dealing with casualties. While archaeologists may treat human remains as data, even when they are relatively recent, to the soldier the body of a member of the perceived kin group remains exactly that and while archaeology may assist in the process of recovery and identification it remains secondary to exhumation leading to an appropriate military burial that will, in itself, form part of the military process of inculcation and either initiation into the kin group or reinforcement of the individual’s place in that group. Nevertheless, assuming that this different relationship with heritage is recognised by the archaeologist, it can be used advantageously as part of the process of heritage protection on the training field and can engender a more positive environment for messages about protection of cultural property overseas. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am grateful to a number of people, including serving soldiers who wished to remain anonymous, who have been happy for me to incorporate their comments and experiences into this text. Particular thanks are due to Jon Price, with whom it has been a pleasure to work in this field and whose ideas have informed parts of this paper. Finally, my thanks go to Lt Col Joris Kila, The Dutch Armed Forces, Prof Peter Stone and the organising committee of The Hague Convention anniversary seminar, where this paper was first given.

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BBC News, 2009 Last Post salute for WWI veteran, 6 August, available from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/8186578.stm [accessed 16 November 2010] Bogdanos, M, with Patrick, W, 2005 Thieves of Baghdad, Bloomsbury, London The Black Watch, 2008, Customs & Traditions, available from: http://www.theblackwatch.co.uk/ index/customs_traditions [accessed 16 November 2010] British Army, 2009a British Army Structure, available from: http://www.army.mod.uk/ structure/structure.aspx [accessed 16 November 2010] —, 2009b 3 Mercian History, available from: http://www.army.mod.uk/infantry/ regiments/11996.aspx [accessed 16 November 2010] The British Monarchy (official website), 2009 Trooping the Colour, available from: http://www.royal.gov.uk/RoyalEventsandCeremonies/TroopingtheColour/TroopingtheColour.aspx [accessed 16 November 2009] Brown, M, 2005 Archaeology and Heathland on the Defence Estate, in Heathlands – Past, Present and Future (ed H D V Predergast), East Sussex County Council, Lewes —, 2007 The Fallen, The Front and The Finding: Human Remains, Archaeology and the Great War, Archaeological Review from Cambridge 22 (2), 53–68 —, 2009 ‘Slowly Our Ghosts Drag Home’: Human Remains from the Heidenkopf, Serre, Somme, in Contested Objects (eds N J Saunders and P Cornish), Routledge, London, 266–79 —, 2010 Good Training and Good Practice: Protection of the Cultural Heritage on the UK Defence Training Estate, in Archaeology, Cultural Property, and the Military (ed L Rush), The Boydell Press, Woodbridge, 60–72 — and Osgood, R, 2009 Digging Up Plugstreet: The Archaeology of a Great War Battlefield, J H Haynes & Co Ltd, Sparkford Clarke, H, 2010 Operation Heritage, in Archaeology, Cultural Property, and the Military (ed L Rush), The Boydell Press, Woodbridge, 138–44 Daily Telegraph, 2003 Iraqis Desecrate British War Cemetery, 20 May, available from: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/1430642/Iraqis-desecrate-Britishwar-cemetery.html [accessed 16 November 2010] Defence Estates, 2009 About the Estate, available from: http://www.defence-estates.mod.uk/ estate/aboutestate.php [accessed 20 August 2009] Firth, C H, 1992 [1902] Cromwell’s Army: A History of the English Soldier during the Civil Wars, the Commonwealth and the Protectorate, Greenhill, London Holmes, R, 2004 Tommy: The British Soldier on the Western Front 1914–1918, Harper Collins, London Lancashire Fusiliers, 2009 The Minden Day Mysteries, available from: http://www.lancsfusiliers.co.uk/Mindenroses/Mindenrosemystery.htm [accessed 16 November 2010] McOmish, D, Field, D, and Brown, G, 2002 The Field Archaeology of the Salisbury Plain Training Area, English Heritage, Swindon MoD, 2009a Minden Regiments Celebrate 250th Battle Anniversary, Defence news, 4 August, available from: http://www.mod.uk/DefenceInternet/DefenceNews/HistoryAndHonour/ MindenRegimentsCelebrate250thBattleAnniversary.htm [accessed 20 August 2009] —, 2009b Recovery of Fromelles WWI Dead Begins, Defence news, 6 May, available from: http://www.mod.uk/DefenceInternet/DefenceNews/HistoryAndHonour/RecoveryOfFromelles WwiDeadBegins.htm [accessed 12 August 2009]

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Mosse, G L, 1990 Fallen Soldiers, Oxford University Press, Oxford Oldham, P, 2003 Messines Ridge, Leo Cooper, Barnsley RAF, 2009 RAF Scampton website, available from: www.raf.mod.uk/rafscampton/ [accessed 16 November 2010] Westcott, L, 2009 A Shrine to Cocidius, Current Archaeology 232, 29 Whitehouse, C J, and Whitehouse, G P, 1996 A Town for Four Winters, Whitehouse, Brocton YouTube, 2007 Anzacs – Reburial Zonnebeke Five Part 2, available from: http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=BqrokI9YxQ8&feature=related [accessed 16 November 2010]

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Military Archaeology in the US: A Complex Ethical Decision LAURIE RUSH INTRODUCTION How did collegial disagreement over the ethics of archaeologists working with the military escalate into a requirement for police protection for speakers at an academic conference (see Introduction)? There is no question that strong personal feelings have a way of derailing collegial discourse. However, no matter where an individual finds themselves on the spectrum of opinion about archaeologists and the military, the irony of avowed pacifists behaving in a way that encouraged violent behaviour has to be appreciated. A major contributing factor to derailment of collegial discourse, no matter what the subject, is often a deficiency of accurate and detailed information. The purpose of this chapter is to provide background information about the nature of archaeology and engagement with the military in the United States from the point of view of an archaeologist who works for the United States Army. BACKGROUND INFORMATION: ARCHAEOLOGISTS WHO WORK

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During the course of careful reading of essays critical of archaeological engagement with the military it is evident that the tone of much of the discussion is theoretical in nature. It appears that the intended audience for these articles could be a small number of archaeologists who might be considering engagement with the military, and is as if the authors were unaware that there were already several hundred archaeologists employed in archaeological survey, inventory and evaluation of archaeological sites that are located on the millions of acres of land belonging to US Department of Defense (DoD) installations. Many of us began these jobs prior to the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan and many of us work on a daily basis as advocates for Native Americans who share our goal of stewardship for the Native American ancestral places that we help to manage. Military installations are active places with millions of dollars’ worth of construction and ground-disturbing military training occurring on an annual basis. A competent and experienced archaeologist who is willing to work with the military in this context is in a position to identify, evaluate and preserve hundreds of Native American ancestral places. In addition, since the US DoD has perhaps the most progressive Native American consultation policy of all the federal agencies its cultural resource managers also have the opportunity to work directly with Native Americans. Healthy Native American consultation relationships often become the most rewarding aspect of the military archaeologist’s job. We are encouraged to ask the Native Americans for help in understanding the landscape and for insight into site

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interpretation. Most rewarding of all is the opportunity to develop stewardship strategies and to work as an advocate for site preservation, often in partnership with the indigenous people whose ancestors are represented in the archaeology. Anthropologists currently work as cultural resource managers and/or installation archaeologists at all of the large acre military bases for all branches of the services located in all regions of the United States, including Alaska and Hawaii. For example, I am the Cultural Resources Manager and Army Archaeologist at Fort Drum, New York, where I am responsible for all of the archaeological sites and historic properties that could be eligible for the National Register of Historic Places that may occur within Fort Drum’s 107,000 acres. I have colleagues and counterparts who work for all of the other large acre Army Bases such as Fort Carson, Colorado, and Fort Bragg, North Carolina; for Air Force Bases such as Hill in Utah and Nellis in Nevada; and Navy Installations such as China Lake, California. The DoD Archaeology Program has been generously funded as part of the DoD Environmental Program going back to the mid-1980s. To provide a definition of generous, Fort Drum, a relatively small program, has been funded at a level of approximately US $300,000 per year over the past ten years. The DoD invests billions of dollars in environmental conservation and compliance including archaeology, preservation of historic structures, endangered species management, wetlands preservation, recycling, pollution prevention, waste management and environmental restoration. According to the US Vice-President Joe Biden, in a speech at the DoD Environmental Awards ceremony on 3 June 2009, the proposed 2010 Defense Budget includes US $4.3 billion for environmental programs. As part of the DoD Environmental Program, military archaeologists have discovered thousands of archaeological sites and in some cases have provided enough new information to rewrite the prehistory of entire regions. Many military archaeologists have worked in close collaboration with academic archaeologists for years, offering field school opportunities, lectures and field trips, as well as teaching courses and participating in professional societies. We also have counterparts in the militaries of other nations who do very similar jobs. Many people are surprised to learn that major portions of the Stonehenge landscape and many of its associated features are part of the Salisbury Defence Estate and are protected and preserved by archaeologists working for the British MoD (and see Brown, Chapter 8). In addition to the hundreds of archaeologists who engage with the DoD in a cultural resources management capacity, there are additional archaeologists who have dedicated their careers to studying military conflict. Conflict archaeology, or the study of battlefields and military features in the landscape, has been a viable subfield for over two decades at an international level (Schofield 2002; 2005; 2009; Robertshaw and Kenyon 2008; Scott et al 2006). When the number of trained archaeologists who currently work for the DoD are added to the number of colleagues who use archaeological methods to study conflict, it becomes clear that a substantial group of professionals had already made the decision to be engaged long before 2001 and the 2003 US invasion of Iraq. Soon after September 11, 2001, with military action on the horizon, a third group of archaeologists also stepped forward to become engaged. These individuals came

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from backgrounds in art history and classical scholarship and had knowledge of and concern for the archaeological resources in the path of conflict. Some of them attempted to approach the DoD to warn of the potential for significant loss and to offer expertise. The efforts of a highly respected Mesopotamian scholar resulted in the development of the Air Force no strike list for the most important archaeological sites in Iraq (Paul Green, pers comm). Even though the cultural damage and losses are now part of the historic record, owing to the no strike list no cultural or archaeological sites were damaged by US aerial bombardment in Iraq. In addition, the Archaeological Institute of America (AIA) became proactively involved. The President of the AIA and other eminent Mesopotamian scholars have been providing archaeology awareness lectures to deploying personnel at no cost to the US DoD since 2004. IS ENGAGEMENT WITH

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MILITARY ETHICAL?

Even with, and especially because of, the number of archaeologists currently working with the military, discussion of the ethics of this type of engagement needs to be ongoing. Exploration of the motivations and ethical decisions related to the choices of whether to engage with the military or to become an outspoken critic of engagement with the military, and all of the opinions in between, lends itself to a series of questions and thoughts. Do archaeologists who engage with the military wish that the critics would be silent? For me, the answer is absolutely not. The decision to engage and at what level is a continuous personal process. Thoughtful discourse is critical so that the decision to engage or to remain engaged is as informed as it can possibly be: to that end, the more informed a critic, the more powerful the argument. Unfortunately, the obverse is also true. When a critic complains that a military archaeologist is failing to wear a military uniform so that they can blend in with ‘real’ archaeologists (in the US, at least, civilian archaeologists working for the military do not have military uniforms), it is very difficult to listen seriously to anything else this critic might have to say. I am grateful in the extreme to colleagues who are willing to take the time to learn as much as possible about the work of military archaeologists and who are at that point willing to discuss the ethical choices with me in a collegial fashion and/or write about their concerns from an intelligent and informed perspective. As an anthropologist who also cannot help but be a participant observer during the course of working for the Army, it has become clear that the military is one of the most effective organisations in the world when it comes to powerful methods of enculturation. In addition, archaeologists who are interested in heritage preservation are especially susceptible to military rituals that are steeped in tradition. Regardless of one’s personal feelings, there is no denying the power of gathering on a sunny afternoon on a parade field to honour a Change of Command. The soldiers are wearing uniforms featuring symbols of history and conquest. They carry flags that have identified their units for decades if not hundreds of years. The ceremony has all the phases of a ritual, with participants sharing in the music and creeds. Few scenes are more moving than a Welcome Home Ceremony where the participants witness soldiers returning home from battle literally into the arms of their parents, spouses or

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children. The engaged archaeologist depends on concerned colleagues to provide alternative points of view. Without that contrast, in the face of powerful military acculturation, the ongoing ethical decision-making process of choosing to stay engaged would become passive and would rapidly cease to be a process at all. Are there differences between the ethical choices of archaeologists who became engaged with the military prior to or post the US invasion of Iraq? My personal response is no. There is no question in my mind that when a person makes the choice to work for a military organisation in any capacity they need to understand that the mission of the military requires the use of violence. Even in times of peace, there is always the possibility that US military personnel could be sent into battle. For those of us who work in a land management capacity, the ultimate military goal is to provide training lands where military personnel can prepare for war whether it is a time of peace or not. One could also ask whether there is an ethical difference between working only on domestic archaeological issues on training lands within the US versus working to address global archaeological issues. It is difficult for me to see a difference for the same reasons as articulated above. A different version of the global issues question is whether there is an ethical difference between helping to teach military personnel about archaeological issues and to help plan for avoidance during a pre-conflict phase of military preparation versus helping to plan for stabilisation of archaeological sites in a post-conflict situation. There have been accusations that planning for cultural property protection (CPP) would help to legitimise or facilitate aggressive military actions (see, for example, Hamilakis 2003). However, CPP is a matter of international and treaty law. Unfortunately, aggressive military actions take place whether archaeologists participate or not, and it is also critical to consider the importance of cultural preservation for the local inhabitants of an area in conflict. It is also often difficult to make a pre- and postconflict determination. How does an archaeologist decide that a conflict is over? Are military personnel still present? Have military efforts secured an area and made it safer for an archaeologist to complete field reconnaissance? Are military personnel providing transportation or personal security for a ‘post-conflict’ archaeologist? Would a post-conflict archaeologist accept rescue by members of the military if needed? If the answer to any of the above military questions is yes, is it ethical to be a post-conflict archaeologist? Would it be ethical to refuse to provide education, training or information to these same military personnel? Still another version of the global issues question is whether it would be ethical to work with the military if the military cause was ‘just’. This question goes back, of course, to political leadership issues. Members of the military, at least in the United States, do not have a choice about whether they serve in what they determine to be just or unjust conflicts. They serve at the pleasure of the civilian leadership. The requirements to preserve cultural property exist whether one believes in the nature and goals of the conflict or not. There is even a logical follow-on question: is it possible to have a just military cause?

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There is also the related and opposite question of whether a well-qualified archaeologist can ethically refuse to work with the military if there are critical stewardship and indigenous advocacy needs that would go unmet through the lack of competent participation. This question applies both domestically and globally. DoD archaeologists have identified and preserved hundreds of Native American ancestral places, and work to ensure that Native Americans can access these places safely. Some cultural resource managers serve as advocates to make sure that traditional hunting, gathering and fishing rights are respected and indigenous religious freedom is practised on military land. Native Americans currently celebrate at sacred locations on military land across the United States that could have been inadvertently destroyed had there been no access to qualified archaeological expertise. Experienced military archaeologists also had the knowledge required to address the root causes of damage to archaeological properties by military personnel during the recent conflicts. Years of learning military culture enabled these professionals to discuss the issue from within a mission framework. The willingness to engage has made it possible for archaeologists to brief the issue at Pentagon level on multiple occasions and resulted in the allocation of over US $700,000 over the past five years to develop awareness, training and educational programming in addition to archaeological avoidance mapping tools. The network established through these efforts and with the AIA partnership is now working in Iraq and Afghanistan to save archaeological properties such as the site of Tell Arba’a Kabir (Iraq), which was avoided during expansion of a US Army patrol base. The willingness to engage has offered the opportunity to change military behaviour from within the institution and has empowered the archaeologists who care deeply about CPP. AN EMOTIONAL ISSUE Why has the issue of archaeological engagement with the military been so emotional? In the United States, relationships between members of the anthropological community and the DoD have been strained since the war in Vietnam. In the heat of debate in the US it also often appears that angry constituents become angry at the military instead of at the political leaders who order the military to engage in violent conflict. Many conversations, especially conversations about the invasion of Iraq, completely forget that in the US the Commander in Chief is an elected political official and that the Secretary of Defense is a civilian political appointee. In addition to the longstanding tensions, in the United States controversy over the Human Terrain System (HTS), or anthropologists on the battlefield, overlapped into the archaeological arena and fuelled outspoken criticism of engagement in any form (and see Suchard, Chapter 12). The serious concerns about the politics and wisdom of the US invasion of Iraq added further levels of anger. For individuals who had limited knowledge or understanding of the US DoD domestic archaeology program it may have been difficult to distinguish between a military archaeologist and a member of a

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human terrain team. However, it is critically important to understand the distinctions between the nature and function of these activities, which include the nature of the legal drivers, the goals and methods, and the tone of the discourse. Legal drivers First of all, protection of cultural property during armed conflict is a matter of international and US federal law. In addition, as of September 2008, the United States ratified the Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict. As a result, this requirement is now an aspect of United States Treaty Law. In addition to the legal drivers, DoD Environmental policy and regulations specify that adverse impacts to any cultural property within a US military Area of Responsibility will be avoided and minimised. There is an expectation that competent professionals will play an important role in helping the United States DoD meet these legal and regulatory obligations, as the only way to achieve these goals is for trained archaeologists to actively work directly with the military. In contrast, human terrain and cultural awareness training activities are driven by military doctrine and tactics, not by laws and regulations. Goals and methods Second, archaeologists who engage with the military have goals of stewardship and heritage preservation. There is no question that, more often than not, in the current forms of military engagement, respect for host nation cultural property is compatible with and supportive of the military mission. However, that fact does not detract from the stewardship and preservation goals. In contrast, the goal of a program like the HTS is to provide combat commanders with a sophisticated understanding of the social structure of the local community where they are performing military operations. There are serious ethical questions about the role of the anthropologist in this activity. It is very important to note that this type of activity is completely different from what a military archaeologist does. It is also critical to note that military archaeologists use completely different methods from human terrain team members. Military archaeology, especially in conflict areas, is a completely transparent process. Military archaeologists always identify themselves and are completely open about the nature and goals of their work. There is no targeting involved. Preservation, avoidance of damage, CPP and planning for future stewardship are the goals of military archaeology. It is not unusual for military archaeologists to find themselves in partnership with members of host nation communities as they pursue these goals. Cultural awareness training is designed to help deploying personnel develop, at the very least, a basic knowledge of the culture and practices of the people who live in the area where they are to be posted. From time to time, military Cultural Resource Managers are asked to help with cultural awareness training. Teaching deploying personnel about the archaeology of the host nation and helping them to identify archaeological features could arguably be considered an aspect of cultural awareness training. In fact, it probably should be a part of any cultural awareness curriculum.

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Cultural awareness training is a transparent educational process and takes place prior to deployment. Archaeologists and anthropologists who teach cultural awareness are basically serving as military education and training faculty. Their role is very similar to the role of university faculty members, the difference being, of course, the nature of the respective student populations. Academic partnerships It is also important to point out that the nature of the relationship between academic archaeologists and the military has been different from the relationship between academic anthropologists and the human terrain and cultural awareness programs. As mentioned above, the AIA has stepped forward as a DoD partner. In addition, military archaeologists approached AIA members asking, in essence, how can we help you to help us? The archaeology partnership has been on archaeological, not DoD, terms. There are instances where colleagues approach young archaeologists who work with the military and warn them of potential compromises to their academic future. However, when leading Mesopotamian archaeologists and the President of the AIA are advocating military partnership it makes it easier for interested individuals to participate. Working together has been rewarding. Donny George, the former Director of the Iraq National Museum, offered a tremendous compliment when he described the DoD AIA Partnership Workshop at the 2009 AIA Annual Meeting as a ‘dream come true’. Another indication of encouragement for archaeological partnership is the fact that the Register of Professional Archaeologists chose to award a military archaeologist with their Special Service to the Field Award in 2009 for her work on overseas issues. Potential relationships between academic anthropologists and the military have been challenged by the nature of the human terrain program. Human terrain advocates have not emphasised a partnership approach when considering the anthropological community and appear to have left little room for meaningful discourse. There have also been unfortunate academic session events where attempts at discourse disintegrated into overt hostility. It is important for opponents of military engagement to remember that the more informed they become about the military the more power they will have in terms of their ability to express their concerns to the right people in the right context using the right vocabulary. WORKING TOWARD

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Scores of non-governmental agencies and individuals representing a wide range of professions work with military organisations every day all over the world. Their shared goal is to ameliorate the destruction that happens during the course of military conflict and to improve the lives of the individuals and communities who, through no fault of their own, find the fabric of their community shredded by violence. The goal of preserving valuable archaeological sites, historic structures, and sacred places fits with goals of providing shelter, supplying food and water, offering medical care, rebuilding infrastructure, teaching in schools and counselling the bereaved. In 2005,

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heads of major humanitarian organisations and US military leaders met at the US Institute for Peace in order to develop and establish ‘Guidelines for Relations Between U.S. Armed Forces and Non-Governmental Humanitarian Organizations in Hostile or Potentially Hostile Environments’ (see Appendix at the end of this chapter). These guidelines clarify the relationships between military and non-military personnel who operate in conflict areas and provide guidance for behaviour. This example and the document it produced are important for the issue of archaeology and the military for two reasons: first, this example of dialogue could serve as a model for archaeologists; and, second, the document itself could serve as a starting point for an archaeological dialogue that would result in a comparable set of guidelines for preservation professionals to follow. Instead of discussing whether or not to engage, perhaps archaeologists of differing opinions could work together to develop guidelines for how to engage. It is difficult if not impossible to find an organisation of human beings that one would consider ethically pure. Institutions of higher education and museums, not to mention corporations or even cultural resource management companies, suffer from serious organisational and ethical challenges. Very few of us would want to be judged on the basis of the cumulative behaviour of our agencies of employment. The critical question is how an individual chooses to behave. That is why collegial discourse about ethical issues is so very important and why developing guidelines for how to engage could be a significant contribution.

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Hamilakis, Y, 2003 Iraq, stewardship and ‘the record’: An ethical crisis for archaeology, Public Archaeology 3 (2), 104–11 Robertshaw, A, and Kenyon, D, 2008 Digging the Trenches: The Archaeology of the Western Front, Pen & Sword Military, Barnsley Schofield, J, 2005 Combat Archaeology: Material Culture and Modern Conflict, Duckworth (Debates in Archaeology), London —, 2009 Aftermath: Readings in the Archaeology of Recent Conflict, Springer, New York Schofield, J (edited with W G Johnson and C Beck), 2002 Matériel Culture: The Archaeology of Twentieth Century Conflict, Routledge (One World Archaeology), London Scott, D, Babits, L E, and Haecker, C M, 2006 Fields of Conflict: Battlefield Archaeology from the Roman Empire to the Korean War, Praeger, Santa Barbara, CA

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APPENDIX GUIDELINES for Relations Between U.S. Armed Forces and Non-Governmental Humanitarian Organizations in Hostile or Potentially Hostile Environments On March 8, 2005, the heads of major U.S. humanitarian organizations and U.S. civilian and military leaders met at the U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP) to launch a discussion on the challenges posed by operations in combat and other nonpermissive environments. The Working Group on Civil–Military Relations in Nonpermissive Environments, facilitated by USIP, was created as a result of this meeting. InterAction, the umbrella organization for many U.S. NGOs, has coordinated the non-governmental delegation.1 Representatives from the Department of Defense, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the State Department, and the U.S. Agency for International Development have participated on behalf of the U.S. Government.

1. Recommended Guidelines The following guidelines should facilitate interaction between U.S. Armed Forces and Non-Governmental Organizations (see Key Terms) belonging to InterAction that are engaged in humanitarian relief efforts in hostile or potentially hostile environments. (For the purposes of these guidelines, such organizations will henceforth be referred to as Non-Governmental Humanitarian Organizations, or NGHOs.) While the guidelines were developed between the Department of Defense (DOD) and InterAction, DOD intends to observe these guidelines in its dealings with the broader humanitarian assistance community. These guidelines are not intended to constitute advance endorsement or approval by either party of particular missions of the other but are premised on a de facto recognition that U.S. Armed Forces and NGHOs have often occupied the same operational space in the past and will undoubtedly do so in the future. When this does occur, both sides will make best efforts to observe these guidelines, recognizing that operational necessity may require deviation from them. When breaks with the guidelines occur, every effort should be made to explain what prompted the deviation in order to promote transparency and avoid distraction from the critical task of providing essential relief to a population in need. A. For the U.S. Armed Forces, the following guidelines should be observed consistent with military force protection, mission accomplishment, and operational requirements: 1. When conducting relief activities, military personnel should wear uniforms or other distinctive clothing to avoid being mistaken for NGHO representatives. U.S. 1 The InterAction delegation includes CARE, Catholic Relief Services, the International Medical Corps, the International Rescue Committee, Mercy Corps, Refugees International, Save the Children, and World Vision.

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Armed Forces personnel and units should not display NGHO logos on any military clothing, vehicles, or equipment. This does not preclude the appropriate use of symbols recognized under the law of war, such as a red cross, when appropriate. U.S. Armed Forces may use such symbols on military clothing, vehicles, and equipment in appropriate situations. Visits by U.S. Armed Forces personnel to NGHO sites should be by prior arrangement. U.S. Armed Forces should respect NGHO views on the bearing of arms within NGHO sites. U.S. Armed Forces should give NGHOs the option of meeting with U.S. Armed Forces personnel outside military installations for information exchanges. U.S. Armed Forces should not describe NGHOs as ‘force multipliers’ or ‘partners’ of the military, or in any other fashion that could compromise their independence and their goal to be perceived by the population as independent. U.S. Armed Forces personnel and units should avoid interfering with NGHO relief efforts directed toward segments of the civilian population that the military may regard as unfriendly. U.S. Armed Forces personnel and units should respect the desire of NGHOs not to serve as implementing partners for the military in conducting relief activities. However, individual NGOs may seek to cooperate with the military, in which case such cooperation will be carried out with due regard to avoiding compromise of the security, safety, and independence of the NGHO community at large, NGHO representatives, or public perceptions of their independence.

B. For NGHOs, the following guidelines should be observed: 1. NGHO personnel should not wear military-style clothing. This is not meant to preclude NGHO personnel from wearing protective gear, such as helmets and protective vests, provided that such items are distinguishable in color/appearance from U.S. Armed Forces issue items. 2. NGHO travel in U.S. Armed Forces vehicles should be limited to liaison personnel to the extent practical. 3. NGHOs should not have facilities co-located with facilities inhabited by U.S. Armed Forces personnel. 4. NGHOs should use their own logos on clothing, vehicles, and buildings when security conditions permit. 5. NGHO personnel’s visits to military facilities/sites should be by prior arrangement. 6. Except for liaison arrangements detailed in the sections that follow, NGHOs should minimize their activities at military bases and with U.S. Armed Forces personnel of a nature that might compromise their independence. 7. NGHOs may, as a last resort, request military protection for convoys delivering humanitarian assistance, take advantage of essential logistics support available only from the military, or accept evacuation assistance for medical treatment or to evacuate from a hostile environment. Provision of such military support to NGHOs rests solely within the discretion of the military forces and will not be

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undertaken if it interferes with higher priority military activities. Support generally will be provided on a reimbursable basis in accordance with applicable U.S. law. C. Recommendations on forms of coordination, to the extent feasible, that will minimize the risk of confusion between military and NGHO roles in hostile or potentially hostile environments, subject to military force protection, mission accomplishment, and operational requirements are: 1. NGHO liaison officer participation in unclassified security briefings conducted by the U.S. Armed Forces. 2. Unclassified information sharing with the NGHO liaison officer on security conditions, operational sites, location of mines and unexploded ordnance, humanitarian activities, and population movements, insofar as such unclassified information sharing is for the purpose of facilitating humanitarian operations and the security of staff and local personnel engaged in these operations. 3. Liaison arrangements with military commands prior to and during military operations to deconflict military and relief activities, including for the purpose of protection of humanitarian installations and personnel and to inform military personnel of humanitarian relief objectives, modalities of operation, and the extent of prospective or ongoing civilian humanitarian relief efforts. 4. Military provision of assistance to NGHOs for humanitarian relief activities in extremis when civilian providers are unavailable or unable to do so. Such assistance will not be provided if it interferes with higher priority military activities.

2. Recommended Processes A. Procedures for NGHO/military dialogue during contingency planning for DOD relief operations in a hostile or potentially hostile environment: 1. NGHOs engaged in humanitarian relief send a small number of liaison officers to the relevant combatant command for discussions with the contingency planners responsible for designing relief operations. 2. NGHOs engaged in humanitarian relief assign a small number of liaison officers to the relevant combatant command (e.g., one liaison was stationed at U.S. CENTCOM for 6 of the first 12 months of the war in Afghanistan, and one was in Kuwait City before U.S. forces entered Iraq in 2003). 3. The relevant military planners, including but not limited to the Civil Affairs representatives of the relevant commander, meet with humanitarian relief NGHO liaison officers at a mutually agreed location. B. Procedures for NGHOs and the military to access assessments of humanitarian needs. U.S. military and NGHO representatives should explore the following: 1. Access to NGHO and military assessments directly from a DOD or other U.S. Government Web site.

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Access to NGHO and military assessments through an NGO serving in a coordination role and identifying a common Web site. 3. Access to NGHO and military assessments through a U.S. Government or United Nations (UN) Web site. C. Procedures for NGHO liaison relationships with combatant commands that are engaged in planning for military operations in hostile or potentially hostile environments. (NGHO liaison personnel are provided by the NGHO community): 1. The NGHO liaison officer should not be physically located within the military headquarters, but if feasible should be close to it in order to allow for daily contact. 2. The NGHO liaison officer should have appropriate access to senior-level officers within the combatant commands and be permitted to meet with them as necessary and feasible. 3. There should be a two-way information flow. The NGHO liaison officer should provide details on NGHO capabilities, infrastructure if any, plans, concerns, etc. The military should provide appropriate details regarding minefields, unexploded ordnance, other hazards to NGHOs, access to medical facilities, evacuation plans, etc. 4. The NGHO liaison officer should have the opportunity to brief military commanders on NGHO objectives, the Code of Conduct of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) and NGOs Engaged in Disaster Relief, the United Nations Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) Guidelines, country-specific guidelines based on the IASC Guidelines, and, if desired, The Sphere Project Humanitarian Charter and Minimum Standards in Disaster Response. U.S. Armed Forces personnel should have the opportunity to brief NGHOs, to the extent appropriate, on U.S. Government and coalition goals and policies, monitoring principles, applicable laws and rules of engagement, etc. 5. The NGHO liaison officer could continue as a liaison at higher headquarters even after a Civil–Military Operations Center (CMOC) or similar mechanism is established in-country. Once this occurs, liaison officers of individual NGHOs could begin coordination in-country through the CMOC for civil–military liaison. D. Possible organizations that could serve as a bridge between NGHOs and U.S. Armed Forces in the field,2 e.g., U.S. Agency for International Development’s (USAID’s) Office of Military Affairs, State Department’s Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization (S/CRS), and the UN’s Humanitarian Coordinator: 1. If the U.S. Agency for International Development or the State Department’s Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization agree to serve a liaison function, they should be prepared to work with the broader NGHO community in addition to U.S. Government implementing partners. 2. The UN’s Humanitarian Coordinator or his/her representative could be a strong 2 In situations in which there is no actor to serve as a bridge, a US military Civil Affairs cell could serve as a temporary point of contact between NGHOs and other elements of the US Armed Forces.

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candidate to serve as liaison because he/she normally would be responsible for working with all NGHOs and maintaining contact with the host government or a successor regime.

Key Terms Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs): In wider usage, the term NGO can be applied to any nonprofit organization that is independent from government. However, for the purposes of these guidelines, the term NGO refers to a private, self-governing, not-for-profit organization dedicated to alleviating human suffering; and/ or promoting education, health care, economic development, environmental protection, human rights, and conflict resolution; and/or encouraging the establishment of democratic institutions and civil society. (JP 3–08/JP 1–02) Non-Governmental Humanitarian Organizations (NGHOs): For the purposes of these guidelines, NGHOs are organizations belonging to InterAction that are engaged in humanitarian relief efforts in hostile or potentially hostile environments. NGHOs are a subset of the broader NGO community. Independence for NGHOs: Independence is defined in the same way as it is in the Code of Conduct of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) and NGOs Engaged in Disaster Relief: Independence is defined as not acting as an instrument of government foreign policy. NGHOs are agencies that act independently from governments. NGHOs therefore, formulate their own policies and implementation strategies and do not seek to implement the policy of any government, except insofar as it coincides with their own independent policies. To maintain independence, NGHOs will never knowingly – or through negligence – allow themselves, or their employees, to be used to gather information of a political, military, or economically sensitive nature for governments or other bodies that may serve purposes other than those that are strictly humanitarian, nor will they act as instruments of foreign policy of donor governments. InterAction: InterAction is the largest coalition of U.S.-based international development and humanitarian nongovernmental organizations. With over 165 members operating in every developing country, InterAction works to overcome poverty, exclusion, and suffering by advancing basic dignity for all. Guidelines for Relations Between U.S. Armed Forces and Non-Governmental Humanitarian Organizations in Hostile or Potentially Hostile Environments, developed by the United States Institute of Peace, InterAction, and the Department of Defense (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace, 2007), http://www.usip.org/resources/guidelines-relations-between-us-armed-forces-andnghos-hostile-or-potentially-hostile-envi [accessed 20 November 2010].

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Akwesasne – Where the Partridges Drum to Fort Drum: Consultation with Native Communities, an Evolving Process FRANCIS SCARDERA

T

he consultation process between a native community and any DoD installation is often accompanied by a palimpsest of discussions where concerns are aired, reassurances are sought, and, when conditions permit, a working protocol is established. From cordial visits and the sharing of information to the more tenuous process of repatriation of ancestral remains, the challenges remain. However, a continuum based on trust, meaningful dialogue, access to archaeological sites and the stewardship provided by on-site, trained cultural resource managers, form the basis of an effective consultation model evolving on Fort Drum. Fort Drum, the 10th Mountain Division Military Installation, is located in Jefferson and Lewis Counties, New York. The base, located approximately 50 kilometres south of the Canadian border and 15 kilometres east of Lake Ontario, has been actively used for military training since 1908. Today, the base trains and mobilises almost 80,000 troops annually (DOIM 2008). In addition to the military activity, Fort Drum is also home to over 800 archaeological sites, and the number of discoveries continues to rise with each new field season. Under the auspices of Dr Laurie Rush, the primary objective of the Fort Drum Cultural Resources Program is to identify and protect archaeological sites located on the base that are potentially eligible for the National Register. The program also coordinates and encourages consultation between Fort Drum and federally recognised tribes with ancestral ties to the area, and continues to develop a community outreach program to sensitise both military and civilian personnel to the rich heritage present on the base (Rush and Wagner 2008). In some cases, geographical proximity or cultural affiliations may require the participation of several native communities. For almost a decade, Dr Laurie Rush has been consulting with three members of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy1: the St Regis Mohawk Tribe, the Oneida Indian Nation of New York, and the Onondaga Nation. Furthermore, the uniqueness of the political/cultural complexities of each community must also be considered, particularly when inviting representatives and sharing information. For example, Akwesasne (the place where the partridges drum), a Mohawk reservation recognised by both the Canadian and American governments, straddles the political boundaries of three jurisdictions, including the provinces of Ontario and Quebec, as well the counties of St Lawrence and Franklin in the state of New York. 1 The Six Nation Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy includes: the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, and Tuscarora Nations.

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TRUSTING ARCHAEOLOGISTS Relationships between archaeologists and native groups have, at times, been strained. ‘Archaeology in the Akwesasne community does not always have a historical relationship that is built on trust or mutual respect’ (Benedict 2004, 445). Development projects, such as the construction of the St Lawrence Seaway in the 1950s, imposed an unwelcome form of archaeology on Akwesasne. ‘Salvage archaeology’ as it was labelled, was conducted on Akwesasne mainland and islands, but the pace of the Seaway construction timeline and the modus operandi of the day where environmental assessments were still in their infancy did not allow for consultation with the community of Akwesasne. Furthermore, the catalogued inventories (Lynch 1970) of artefacts hoarded from the ‘unauthorized excavations’ carried out by amateur enthusiasts, such as George Gogo, confirm that Akwesasne has been denuded of some significant cultural resources. The ease of implementing a consultation process may sometimes reflect the symbiotic relationship between a native community and the archaeological community, including local historical societies and museums. Trust is not forged on a few isolated army-guided tours or encounters, but on a continuum that requires constant, meaningful consultation and dialogue. While Akwesasne has had its misfortunes with archaeologists and ‘pot-hunters’, it has also received support from the efforts of remarkable people such as James Pendergast. Pendergast has been eulogised by James V Wright as ‘blurring the amateur–professional dichotomy’. After retiring from military service as a lieutenant-colonel, this once avocational archaeologist would be appointed as Assistant Director of Operations at the Museum of Man (later renamed The Canadian Museum of Civilization). His seminal work on the St Lawrence Iroquois, his authorship of more than 50 books and articles combined, and his promotion of archaeology won him accolades and awards from a number of Canadian and American archaeological associations, including an Honorary Doctorate of Science from McGill University (Wright and Pilon 2004). Although Pendergast’s intentions to excavate at Fort Drum in the late 1980s, specifically at the early contact St Lawrence Iroquoian village commonly referred to as Camp Drum, never materialised, he did manage a brief visit to a Point Peninsula site before his untimely passing in 2000. Pendergast’s direct affiliation to Fort Drum was limited, but it was his more subtle (not by design or intention) lifelong efforts which would act as catalysts to opening a conduit for archaeological discussion which has inadvertently eased the consulting process evolving on Fort Drum. In 1987, during excavations of the Maynard-McKeown site, an early 16th-century St Lawrence Iroquoian village near Prescott, Ontario (Wright 2004, 1244), Pendergast, in consultation with Grand Chief Mike Kanentakeron Mitchell, hired Steve Sunday and Jerome Cook, two Mohawk youths from Akwesasne, to be an integral part of the field crew (Pendergast 1988). For many of the non-native university students on the crew it was not only their first experience of fieldwork but also their first encounter with members of an indigenous nation. In a similar spirit, Fort Drum has hosted Oneida Nation high school students interested in archaeology to work alongside the summer field crew.

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Archived correspondence suggest that it was the encouragement of James Pendergast and James V Wright that may have played a pivotal role in persuading Gogo in 1970 to donate his lifelong personal collection to the Canadian Museum of Civilization (CMC), in Hull, Quebec (Gogo n.d.). The avocational but persistent Gogo had unearthed a total of 72,644 (later corrected to 73,644) artefacts from 42 archaeological sites (Lynch 1970); based on his site maps and notes, it is estimated that almost half of this collection was recovered from the islands and shores of Akwesasne (Scardera 2007). As custodians of these artefacts the CMC has made efforts to render these collections accessible to the community of Akwesasne as well as to researchers. Akwesasne, through the Mohawk Nation Council of Chiefs and the Mohawk Council of Akwesasne (MCA), have worked to repatriate human remains from the CMC for reburial. The dedication in the publication Aboriginal People and The Fur Trade: Proceedings of the 8th North American Fur Trade Conference (chaired by Salli Benedict, Akwesasne) reads: ‘This volume is dedicated to the late Lt Col James Pendergast, a long time supporter of our people’ (Johnson 2001). While the consultation process on Fort Drum benefits from the endeavours of archaeologists like Pendergast, it also inherits the responsibility for, and is accountable for, maintaining the trust between Akwesasne and archaeologists. WIDENING

THE

ARCHAEOLOGICAL CONDUIT

The 1990 ratification of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) saw the proliferation of native-led advocacy groups to deal with the challenges of repatriation and related issues. The St Regis Mohawk Tribe has been an active member of the Haudenosaunee Standing Committee on Burial Rules and Regulations (HSCBRR), a consortium of Iroquoian Nations working together towards the protection and repatriation of cultural resources. The HSCBRR continues to develop a ‘best practice protocol’ to assist native communities on both sides of the Canada–US border (Hill 2006, 5). It is important to note that the MCA regards the Mohawk Nation as the responsible party for this initiative and assists them in their work when cultural properties are identified in Ontario or Quebec. Amendments to the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA), specifically Section 101(d)(2), as adopted by the US Congress in 1992, has fostered the evolution of Tribal Historical Preservation Officers (THPOs) by encouraging federally recognised Indian Nations to take proactive initiatives towards the preservation and stewardship of cultural resources present on tribal lands. In 2006, Sheree Bonaparte, the third Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe THPO, was the first to earn official recognised status under the National Park Service (NPS), a post whose job description continues to evolve with the consultation process on Fort Drum. However, the challenges of adequate funding remain. Furthermore, the size of an Indian Nation may pose a demographic impediment, as pools of potential candidates to fill these posts, even on the larger communities such as Akwesasne, whose current population exceeds 15,000 members, are also limited. Developing relationships with the nearby State University of New York (SUNY) at Potsdam helped alleviate this shortfall. SUNY Potsdam

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worked to build a good relationship with its Mohawk neighbours by lending the services of two professors to help launch summer archaeological field schools. In turn, the Akwesasne Museum continues to provide SUNY Potsdam anthropology students with museum internships with a native perspective. Consultation should not be confused with confrontation or the opposition to development projects. Arnold Printup, the current THPO for the Saint Regis Mohawks and Akwesasne field school participant, stated ‘We are not opposed to development projects; it’s their execution we are concerned about’. Regardless of political changes of climate in Akwesasne or the military missions and obligations engaged by the United States military, the THPO provides a point of contact and an uninterrupted archaeological conduit to archaeologists on Fort Drum. Lastly, Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act legally obligates the military to consult with preservation advocates, thus requiring consultation between THPOs and cultural resources managers before the commencement of a development project that could adversely affect cultural resources or landscapes that are potentially eligible for the National Register of Historic Places. DON’T FORGET

THE

CHILDREN

Archaeological surveys have a tendency to ‘temporalise’ archaeological sites with chronometric dating methods as a way to confirm the timeframes of events and activities past. An alternate paradigm should be considered. To the Mohawk people, these sites do not necessarily mark a temporal or cultural period, but rather they are perceived as ‘living’. In that light, a request to visit an archaeological site should not be viewed as a visit to pay homage to the dead, but closer to visiting relatives not attended to in a while. Access to an archaeological site is generally confined to adults, usually indigenous community leaders, elders, and THPOs. However, consideration and access should also be allotted to the children of these Indian Nations. In 2007, a request initiated by Sheree Bonaparte, THPO at the time, to allow students from the Akwesasne Freedom School and their families to observe the sunrise during the summer solstice at a stone feature created by the ancestors, was granted by Fort Drum. For this encounter, participation was extended beyond the three consulted Haudenosaunee communities. Also present were Seneca, Peter Jemison, site manager of the Ganondagan State Historic Site, Doug Harris, deputy THPO for the Narragansett, and Sámi native Elisabeth Holm, an exchange student from the University of Tromsø in Norway. Protecting the site from military training is undeniably essential, but allowing the children to visit ensures its continuity as a living site in a similar way to oral tradition. While some of the oral tradition may be lost or at times misinterpreted or convoluted, the site visits, particularly overnight visits where native and non-native participants engage in discussions around an open fire, demonstrates the necessity of working with Indian Nations as partners in interpreting the sometimes overlooked subtleties of hidden landscapes of ancestral importance. These encounters better equip the archaeologists and cultural resource managers in the field with new avenues of scholarly pursuit. For the children, they are educational, cultural and spiritual pilgrimages.

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The benefits of inviting indigenous nations to visit archaeological sites on military installations is clear. Once the Mohawk, Oneida and Onondaga return to their respective communities, however, the responsibility of protecting these sites remains not with a ‘military archaeologist’, perceived in a pejorative light or as a conflict of interest by some scholars, but an archaeologist working with the military. In contrast, military personnel, on occasion, have greeted archaeologists with the title ‘Tree Hugger’. Events related to 9/11 have impacted on archaeological research at Fort Drum. More imposing deadlines to ‘clear land’, to use the vernacular, primarily for military training and housing, have increased. During the summer of 2009 an estimated 3200 contractors, on some occasions outnumbering soldiers present, benefited from over US $1 billion earmarked for housing and military infrastructure on Fort Drum (Cutshaw 2009). As a result, during the past year alone, the cultural resources office received applications for 173 dig permits in addition to work orders and miscellaneous reviews, which often average 100 per quarter. The requests for dig permits often require immediate attention and, at times, need an expedient and timely dispatch of field crew to conduct surveys or to monitor development projects. Such diligence and the presence of trained, on-site personnel were responsible for reorienting both the location and shape of the expansion of the Fort Drum Inn parking lot in order to protect a pre-contact lithic quarry site, a rare find in its own right. Good stewardship is also about good management. The current site inventory at Fort Drum includes 636 Historic Sites, 215 Prehistoric Sites, and 13 cemeteries spread over 107,265 acres (ICRMP 2009). The topography of Fort Drum is as varied as the cultural and temporal sites it houses, ranging from the river valleys draining into the Great Lakes to the foothills of the Adirondack Mountain Range. With an increase in military training activities, site monitoring and revisits are essential in order to protect these cultural resources. Retired Warrant Officer Butch Schulz has familiarised himself with the Fort Drum landscape, formerly as a soldier but today as a crew chief with the fastidious task of relocating sites and assessing whether they are being altered by natural or human-induced processes. Sometimes, when the maps and aerial photographs no longer reflect the landscape now altered by military vehicles and training drills, and when GPS points do not align in as orderly a way as the satellites once suggested, it is the intimate knowledge of the land by life-long and on-site personnel like Mr Schulz that ensures that the integrity of these sites is maintained. Margaret Schulz, Cultural Resources Program Coordinator at Fort Drum, summarises the advantages of having some crew members with a military background as follows: ‘By understanding rank structure, training requirements and military protocol, they are better equipped to communicate the necessity for respecting sites to current military personnel’. The military may at times be hesitant and anxious about native consultation or onsite visits to installations, but these encounters do provide hands-on training with cultural communities. Fostering cordial relations with cultural communities at home better prepares military personnel for the challenges of missions abroad. Fort Drum has clearly benefited from the consultation process as it has not been subject to native-

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organised protests or interruptions of daily activity as witnessed on other military installations. The Fort Drum model of on-site trained cultural resource managers with local savvy has proven effective, particularly in maintaining the trust and continuum between native people and archaeologists. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Thanks are due to Salli Kawennotakie Benedict, Jesse Bergevin, Sheree Bonaparte, Shannon Keller O’Loughlin, Arnold Printup, Laurie Rush and Margaret Schulz.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

AND

REFERENCES

Benedict, S K, 2004 Made in Akwesasne, in A Passion for the Past: Papers in Honour of James F Pendergast (eds J V Wright and J-L Pilon), Mercury Series, 164, Canadian Museum of Civilization, Gatineau, Québec, 435–52 Cutshaw, J B, 2009 Cultural Resources Program Wins DoD Environmental Award, The Mountaineer, Fort Drum, 7 May, 1 DOIM (Department of Information Management, US Army), 2008 Fort Drum website, available from: http://www.drum.army.mil/aboutfortdrum/pages/history_LV2.aspx [accessed 17 January 2011] Gogo, G N, n.d. Field Notes: Sites in the Lake St Francis Area, Canadian Museum of Civilization, Hull Hill Sr, R W, 2006 Making a Final Resting Place Final: A History of the Repatriation Experience of the Haudenosaunee, in Cross-Cultural Collaboration: Native People and Archaeology in the Northeastern United States (ed J E Kerber), University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, NE ICRMP (Integrated Cultural Resources Management Plan), 2009 Fort Drum Archaeological Sites Database, Fort Drum, New York Johnston, L (ed), 2001 Aboriginal People and the Fur Trade: Proceedings of the 8th North American Fur Trade Conference, Akwesasne, Mohawk Council of Akwesasne Aboriginal Rights and Research Office with the Mohawk Nation Council of Chiefs, Akwesasne Notes Pub, Cornwall, Ontario Lynch, K, 1970 Cataloguing of Gogo Collection, Canadian Museum of Civilization, Hull Pendergast, J, 1988 The Maynard-McKeown Site, BeFv-1: a 16th Century St Lawrence Iroquoian Village Site in Grenville County, Ontario: a Preliminary Report, The Ottawa Archaeologist 15 (4) Rush, L W, and Wagner, H, 2008 Fort Drum Cultural Resources web, available from: www.drum.army.mil/publicworks/pages/culturalresources.aspx [accessed 17 January 2011] Scardera, F, 2007 Tsikaristisere/Dundee – Identification of Archaeological Resources, Phase 1A, Mohawk Council of Akwesasne Aboriginal Rights and Research Office, Akwesasne Wright, J V, 2004 A History of the Native People of Canada, Volume III, Part 1, Mercury Series Archaeology Paper 152, Canadian Museum of Civilization, Gatineau, Québec — and Pilon, J-L (eds), 2004 A Passion for the Past: Papers in Honour of James F Pendergast, Mercury Series 164, Canadian Museum of Civilization, Gatineau, Québec

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Heritage Resources and Armed Conflicts: An African Perspective CALEB ADEBAYO FOLORUNSO INTRODUCTION It has been demonstrated that archaeology can contribute to establishing the antiquity of conflict (Stone 2007). The Christian bible has also demonstrated that conflicts leading to the destruction of lives and properties have always been part and parcel of human society, with the story of Cain and Abel (Genesis 4, 1–15) being one of the earliest of such conflicts. It is therefore obvious that conflicts can occur at different levels, from that between individuals to that within and between groups of peoples, within and between communities, within and between tribes and ethnic groups, and within and between nations. Conflicts at these different levels take different forms and present different consequences for life and properties. It is important, therefore, to define the subject of conflict as used in this chapter, as ‘armed conflict’ may convey different meanings depending on the contexts. AFRICA: THE LAND

OF

CONFLICTS?

Probable archaeological evidence for, at least the potential for, violent conflicts in subSaharan Africa is represented by the discovery of defensive systems of various time periods in the form of standing mud walls, ditches and embankments. The Sungbo Eredo earth rampart in Yorubaland, south-west Nigeria, is probably one of the earliest defensive structures in Africa and is reputed to be the largest single precolonial monument in Africa. It is more than 160 kilometres in circumference and it encloses an area 40 kilometres from north to south and 35 kilometres from east to west. The age of the rampart is not known but it is speculated that it was built over 1000 years ago. Similar walls and ditches in western Nigeria include earthworks around Ile Ife, Ilesha, and the Benin Iya, forming a 6500-kilometre series of connected but separate earthworks in Edo State (Wikipedia 2010a*). These earthworks are the archaeological evidence for the formation of early states in the forest zone of West Africa that were probably comparable in age to the early states of the 14th to 16th centuries in the savannah zone. PRE-COLONIAL PERIOD The history of the early states of Western and Central Sudan is replete with internal and external conflicts leading to the rise and fall of states in succession. We can actually cite some examples, beginning with Ghana, the earliest known state of Western Sudan, which fell in 1076 to the Almoravids following a long period of

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tension between it and its northern neighbours, the Sanhaja nomads, over the control of the trans-Saharan trade (Levtzion 1971, 127). The Almoravid episode weakened both Ghana and the Sanhaja, but Ghana regained its independence following the collapse of the Almoravid movement in about 1087 and maintained its position as the greatest kingdom in the Western Sudan. Ghana was finally subdued and crushed, however, by the Sosso, their Sudanese neighbours. The second state which is known to have experienced internal and external conflicts was the kingdom of Mali, which became the next notable state in Western Sudan after it vanquished the Sosso and took all their possessions (Levtzion 1971, 130–31). The kingdom of Mali experienced territorial expansion from about 1260 that involved military action against other groups, but there were also always troubles at the centre as a result of conflicts of interest at the royal court, which usually led to revolts in the provinces. By the end of the 14th century, the kingdom of Mali had also collapsed (Levtzion 1971, 132–5). The Songhay Empire succeeded Mali as the last of the great empires of the Western Sudan. Having been a vassal state of Mali, it capitalised on the declining fortunes of Mali and in about 1420 its ruler attacked a territory of Mali, carrying back booty that included slaves. Songhay also waged several wars of expansion, ‘only to disintegrate in 1591 after its defeat by the Moroccan army’ (Levtzion 1971, 142–5). There were similar scenarios in Central Sudan. Here, the first Kanuri Empire of Kanem had emerged as an imperial power in the 13th century with its base on the eastern side of Lake Chad. The history of the Kanem Empire is full of reports of one conflict or another, including squabbles within the royal court, civil wars, and wars of secession by the vassal states. By the middle of the 14th century the Empire was in ruins and the ruling group was put to flight, re-establishing itself on the western side of Lake Chad (Smith 1971, 174–82). The succeeding second Kanuri state of Bornu on the west of Lake Chad also saw violent conflicts. The new state built a walled capital at Ngazargamu and carried out military expeditions to the west into Hausaland and to the south, and still had to contend with forces controlling the parent state of Kanem (Hunwick 1971, 205–9). State formation in Hausaland from the 15th century also showed evidence of the development of military capabilities and attendant military expeditions (Hunwick 1971, 212–23). EUROPEAN CONTACT PERIOD The European presence on the coast of West Africa from the 15th century had a tremendous impact on both coastal and hinterland peoples. The Europeans had reached Cape Verde in 1441 and had known the coastal regions of the Yoruba–Aja country between 1461 and 1471 (Akinjogbin 1971, 312). In 1482 the Portuguese had built the Casa da Mina, a permanent trading establishment on the Ghanaian coast (Wilks 1971, 344). The European trade in slaves and commodities had far-reaching implications for the peoples of West Africa such that new economic, political, and social groups emerged leading to intra- and inter-state or community conflicts. Countless incidences of conflicts across the West African region that were directly or indirectly related to the presence of the Europeans on the coast can be cited; here only a few examples are presented. In the Niger Delta region of Nigeria the beginning of the Atlantic slave trade increased the

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power of the local chiefs and ‘the history of all four delta states shows struggles over succession, and changes of dynasty resulting from the enhanced prestige and wealth of the monarchy’. Heads of the various trading houses also became very powerful, with supporting groups ‘large enough to provide a fighting contingent or war canoe in defence of the state’ (Alagoa 1971, 279–80). Piracy, head-hunting and slave raids that were carried out by some delta communities provoked wars, and the trading houses were therefore not only labour forces but also fighting units with fighting men and armaments readied against attack by pirates and trade rivals (Alagoa 1971, 289). In the Nigerian hinterlands the Oyo Empire of the Yoruba, with its capital Oyo-Ile located just south of the River Niger, flourished in the savannah of Western Nigeria in the 16th century and seems to have benefited from the trans-Saharan trade, perhaps as early as the 14th century, obtaining horses with which it eventually formed its cavalry force. Its northern neighbours, the Nupe, sacked and occupied Oyo-Ile sometime in the 15th century and Oyo forces had to use Igboho, a vassal town, to organise the reconquest of the capital at the beginning of the 16th century. Though Oyo’s influence extended to the coast by the beginning of the 17th century, European influence on Oyo appeared very minimal, as ‘guns and ammunitions, which were the most useful European import for empire building, were conspicuously absent in Oyo military equipment’ until the 19th century (Akinjogbin 1971, 311–13). The story on the coast was quite different, as the kingdoms of Allada and Whydah were weakened through economic rivalry. Following the establishment of European trading stations on the coast, the chiefs within each kingdom, ‘anxious to amass wealth, gradually weakened the traditional organisation which bound the state together’ (Akinjobin 1971, 314). After the Oyo Empire’s success in dislodging the Nupe from its capital it could turn its attention to expanding its territory to the coast to draw the necessary benefits from the European trade on the coast. The southern expansionist programme brought Oyo into conflict with the emerging states on the coast, however, as well as with other Yoruba kingdoms such as the Ijesha on the south-east route to the coast (Akinjogbin 1971, 316). The internal squabbles and the activities of the Fulani jihadists at Ilorin led to the final collapse of the Oyo Empire in the early 19th century; this was followed by the Yoruba civil wars, which devastated Yorubaland until the imposition of colonial rule. On the Gold Coast and in its hinterland similar scenarios were played out, with armed conflicts being fuelled by the desire for state formation by various groups in order to obtain advantage over one another in trading. The 16th to the 18th centuries marked the emergence and consolidation of the southern Akan forest states that correlated with the growth of the European interest on the coast. Revolutionary changes occurred ‘in the mode of warfare as in-fighting with swords and spears increasingly gave way to the use of missile weapons’ (Wilks 1971, 344), and the independent forest kingdoms were soon involved in wars to establish their supremacy. The Asante were unified, with Kumasi as the capital, through wars and submissions by other towns. No clear distinction was made between military and civil authority in the institutions of government of the new kingdom, which then waged several wars to gain access to the trade on the coast; its defeat of Denkyira opened a path to the western Gold Coast that provided the Asante with access to guns and gunpowder. In 1701 the Dutch at Elmina dispatched an ambassador to Kumasi (Wilks 1971, 372–3).

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By the late 18th century, however, the Asante had failed to effectively consolidate its control over the southern regions, which during the 19th century gradually became absorbed into a British protectorate (Wilks 1971, 380–81). On the coast, the Fante, with the support of the British, for a long time prevented the Asante from having direct access to the coastal markets as the former wanted to maintain the profitable middleman role for the European trade. It was not until the end of the 18th century and the early years of the 19th century that the Asante conquered the Fante, who then remained submissive to the Asante until 1823, when they were encouraged to join a revolt of the Wassa by the British (Boahen 1974, 176). The British later became directly involved in armed conflict against the Asante and suffered a defeat in April 1824 in which the British commander was slain (Boahen 1974, 188). The stage had also been set here, as in Ghana, for the colonial enterprise. COLONIAL PERIOD The general insecurity and disenchantment arising from the political rivalries and conflicts among the various West African peoples in their attempt to gain advantage over one another in the European trade on the coast had by the close of the 18th century weakened the region and set the stage for the its ‘Balkanisation’ and the eventual imposition of European colonial rule in the second half of the 19th century. The European governments scrambled for and partitioned Africa at the Berlin Conference of 1884/85. The resolutions of the Berlin Conference, at which Africans were not participants, had to be enforced through both peaceful and violent means, as there was bound to be resistance on the part of the Africans to the loss of their independence, which they were not ready to surrender. However, European military intervention in Africa was already a longstanding policy, evidenced by the bombardment of Lagos in 1851 and its subsequent annexation in 1861. In the same manner, King Jaja of Opobo was overthrown in 1887, the Ijebu were subdued in 1892, the Tukulor Empire fell to the French in 1893, Behanzin of Dahomey and Nana of Itsekiri were overthrown in 1894, Benin, Bida, and Ilorin fell in 1897, while Bai Bureh in Sierra Leone and Samory Toure fell victims in 1898, following European military expeditions (Afigbo 1974, 425). All indications suggest that the resistance to the imposition of colonial rule was widespread and intense, though it may have appeared on the surface to have been feeble. After the imposition of European colonial rule in Africa there continued to be pockets of resistance in the form of rebellion, riots, and civil disobedience. By 1900 ‘large areas remained either to be conquered for the first time or to be re-conquered’ (Afigbo 1974, 428). It was particularly difficult for the British in Eastern Nigeria, where there were no states to be conquered, and the imposition of colonial rule took until 1919, using small military expeditions to subdue one village at a time. Particular mention has to be made of the resistance by the Asante and Benin kingdoms, as their cultural heritage was plundered when the British invaded their lands. The Asante kingdom had been, for a long time, a thorn in the flesh of the British on the Gold Coast, having fought four wars with the British between 1823 and 1896. In 1896 the British, in their move to impose colonial rule on the Asante, created an opportunity to humiliate the Asantehene, Prempeh I, who had consistently rejected his

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kingdom becoming a British Protectorate, stating that Asante would not commit itself to any such policy of protection and that Asante should remain independent as of old, and at the same time be a friend to all white men. On 20 January 1896 British authorities, referring to a debt incurred 20 years earlier, invaded Kumasi and arrested Prempeh, members of his family and some Asante chiefs and sent them into exile (Wikipedia 2010b*). The act was a deliberate show of the greatest contempt for the traditions and cultural heritage of the Asante people. It had been suggested that Prempeh I did not resist the invasion in order to avoid a war that could be used to plunder the Asante cultural heritage and particularly the Golden Stool (Wikipedia 2010c*). The acts of contempt for the Asante nation are well illustrated in the diary of Major R S S Baden Powell, particularly in chapter xiii, entitled ‘The Downfall’. Extracts from this chapter clearly show the main objective of the invasion of Kumasi in 1896 and how the British troops were desperately searching for Asante cultural heritage: Six o’clock had been named as the hour for Prempeh and all his chiefs to be on the palaver-ground. …Prempeh should render submission to the Governor, in accordance with the native form and custom signifying abject surrender. Accordingly, with bad enough grace, he walked from his chair, accompanied by the queen mother, and, bowing before Mr Maxwell, he embraced his knees. It was a little thing, but it was a blow to the Ashanti pride and prestige, such as they had never suffered before. There could be no more interesting, no more tempting work than this. To poke about in a barbarian king’s palace, whose wealth has been reported very great, was enough to make it so. Perhaps one of the most striking features about it was that the work of collecting the treasures was entrusted to a company of British soldiers, and that it was done most honestly and well, without a single case of looting. …But a large amount of valuables known to belong to the king had disappeared, probably weeks previously – such as his celebrated dinner service of Dutch silver, his golden hat, his golden chair of state, and, above all, the royal stool, the emblem par excellence of the king of Ashanti. These were all probably hidden, together with his wives, in various hamlets in the remote bush. The ‘loot’ which we collected was sold by public auction, excepting golden valuables, which were all sent home to the Secretary of State. Finding so little of real value in the palace, it was hoped that some treasure might be discovered in the sacred fetish-houses in Bantama, the burial-place of the kings of Ashanti, about a mile out of Bantama. This place has also been piqueted, but all its priests had disappeared previously, and when we broke in only one harmless old man was found residing there. No valuables – in fact, little of any kind was found in the common huts that form the sacred place. In the big fetish building, with its enormous thatched roof, when burst open, we only found a few brass coffers – all empty! … and it may therefore be inferred that the treasure had been removed some weeks previously. (Baden-Powell 1896)

The above extracts are testimony to an army on the rampage, looting cultural heritage materials and not sparing even those places that they had identified as sacred. The

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activities of British troops in Kumasi was looting par excellence. Not satisfied by the success of the looting expedition of 1896, however, in 1900 the British Governor of Cape Coast, Sir Frederick Hodgson, arrogantly demanded without any justifiable reason that the Asante hand over the Golden Stool to him (Afigbo 1974, 428). The Asante were therefore forced to go to war against the British to assert their independence. ‘Although they lost on the battle field, they claimed victory because they fought only to preserve the sanctity of the Golden Stool, and they had’ (Wikipedia 2010c*). With the defeat suffered by the Asante in a war forced on them because they would not surrender the Golden Stool, their cherished cultural property and heritage, the British disbanded the Asante confederacy and declared colonial rule over the Asante territories in 1900. The experience of the Benin kingdom was similar to that of the Asante in terms of the humiliation meted out to the Oba. The Benin invasion was termed a punitive expedition, but it was really more than punitive: it was mindless destruction. Benin City was captured on 18 February 1897 and British marines put the palaces and the compounds to the torch. After three days the fire burned out of control, destroying the whole city as well as the equipment of the invading British force. Much of the carved woodworks in the Oba’s palace were lost to the fire, although the extraordinary collection of bronze sculptures depicting the chief events of the history of Benin did survive the fire. The objects, numbering over 900 and dating from the 16th century, were removed by the British troops and later auctioned. Most of the artefacts were bought by museums in Germany and a few found their way to the British Museum. Oba Overami, the king of Benin and the custodian of the Benin culture, was captured in August 1897, brought to his ruined city and was humiliated in a mock trial before he was sent to Calabar in exile (ARM 1997). THE 1954 CONVENTION It is apt at this point to discuss the 1954 Hague Convention on the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, as it came into being during the period of colonial rule in Africa. It is obvious that the 1954 Convention did not result from the destruction of African heritage resources during European military expeditions to impose colonial rule in Africa, but from the experiences of the European nations during the two World Wars. As Africans were absent at the Berlin conference of 1884, so were they absent 70 years later in the Hague. Could the 1954 Hague Convention have addressed the interests of African peoples who were under colonial rule when it was being formulated? This is not obvious, as they did not possess military establishments as the Convention envisages. Is the Convention of any relevance, therefore, to African states? The Hague Convention definitely tends to construe armed conflict as trans-border war involving conventional states’ armies and the use of light and heavy artilleries. Boylan (2003) expressed the view that ‘those drafting the 1954 Convention probably envisaged war in terms of well-defined international conflicts between structured and welldisciplined military commands on the pattern of the two World Wars’. He then observed that this was probably a mistake, even in historic terms, as ‘more than half of all the armed conflicts resulting in fatalities that occurred between 1820 and 1945 were mainly

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internal rather than external conflicts, or mixed conflicts, and certainly, the great majority of the perhaps almost two hundred armed conflicts that have occurred in the world since 1954 have been sub-conventional and guerrilla wars’ (Boylan 2003, 10–11). Article 18 of the 1954 Convention dealing with its application states that it: shall apply in the event of declared war or of any other armed conflict which may arise between two or more of the High Contracting Parties, even if the state of war is not recognized by one or more of them. shall also apply to all cases of partial or total occupation of the territory of a High Contracting Party, even if the said occupation meets with no armed resistance. (UNESCO 1954)

One should not, of course, expect anything otherwise in the case of conventions to be signed by state parties, but we should now wake up to the reality of these other forms of conflicts that equally witness the destruction of heritage resources. The 1954 Convention did make an attempt to address the problem of the other forms of conflict: Boylan (2003, 8) notes the importance of the decision of the 1954 Intergovernmental Conference ‘to follow Common Article 3 of the 1949 Geneva Conventions, and extend the protection of cultural property beyond the traditional definition of “war” into the difficult area of internal armed conflicts, such as civil wars, “liberation” wars and armed independence campaigns’. This is reflected in article 19, which states, among other things, that: in the event of an armed conflict not of an international character occurring within the territory of one of the High Contracting Parties, each party to the conflict shall be bound to apply, as a minimum, the provisions of the present Convention which relate to respect for cultural property.

Boylan also noted that: in the years since the adoption of the 1954 Convention non-international armed conflicts, particularly those relating to internal strife along national, regional, ethnic, linguistic or religious lines, have become an increasingly common feature of the world order and in losses of monuments, museums, libraries and other cultural repositories. (Boylan 2003, 8)

In Nigeria and, indeed, in most African countries armed conflict can be seen, beyond the use of artilleries, to include all violent activities that may involve the use of implements such as Dane guns, machetes, hatchets, axes, knives, cudgels, and even charms that could inflict injuries and bodily harm, cause death, and destroy properties. The word ‘armed’ is understood in the Nigerian legal context in the case of ‘armed robbery’ to include the possession of such items as listed above. It is also worthy of note that during the African resistance to colonial rule charms were used, but their effectiveness in the face of maxim guns cannot be assessed. However, in a conflict where there could be close contact of the opposition parties, charms could not be ruled out as arms. Almost all African peoples still believe in the use of charms as a critical aspect of armed conflicts and traditions are replete with warriors whose successes were based on the strength of their charms. One may, therefore, want to

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include the use of the term ‘violent conflict’ to accommodate all other forms of conflict that would not qualify as ‘armed conflict’ as envisaged by the Hague Convention, if the Convention is to be relevant to Africans. While a sizeable number of people in Africa may have some knowledge of international conventions guiding warfare as they relate to humanitarian issues and crimes against humanity, particularly from the publicity offered by the international and national news media on such issues, little is known about the 1954 Hague Convention, and awareness is limited to a few academics and some professionals who are interested in cultural heritage issues. In any case, as noted above, most of the African nations were still under colonial rule when the 1954 Convention was initiated and that may explain the fact that only few African countries adopted the Convention. Boylan (2003) has noted that less than half of the United Nations member states (82 countries) had become parties to the Convention, and of these 14 had rejected the additional protection offered to movable cultural property by the First Protocol. He also noted that three of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council (China, the UK and the US) had not ratified the Convention, resulting in a significant negative impact on its effectiveness. In 2010, of this group only the UK has failed to ratify the Convention. The lack of awareness about the Convention does not seem to be limited to Africa, however, as the provision of Article 25 which deals with the dissemination of the 1954 Convention by the High Contracting Parties had also been poorly effected. The parties failed to widely disseminate the Convention within their countries, among the military, and to the civilian population (Boylan 2003, 12). POST-COLONIAL PERIOD Since the period when they became politically ‘independent’ of their colonial masters, African countries have been in one crisis or another. These crises could be safely linked to problems created by the colonialists in defining boundaries as decided during the Berlin Conference. Today’s reality is that most, if not all, sub-Saharan African nations were colonial creations, amalgamating peoples of different nationalities and histories to form political entities for the convenience of the colonial powers. Opportunist African politicians, instead of confronting the problem, in the name of being nationalist where there is no one single nation but nations within the various countries, have continued to play the same game of the colonial powers, pretending that all is well while nothing is well. Unfortunately, foreign countries, particularly the former colonialists, become implicated in the conflict and support one side against the other, supplying arms and ammunition to these exploited and poor African countries. There are indeed very few African countries that have not experienced one form or another of post-colonial armed conflict. These conflicts generally occurred from 1961 to the present and might be listed roughly chronologically as follows: Ethiopia–Eritrea, 1961–91, war of independence, 1998–2000, border dispute; Guinea Bissau, 1963–74, war of independence; Chad, 1965–79 and 2005–present, civil wars; Nigeria, 1967–70, civil war; Morocco Polisario Sahara 1975–91, civil/war of independence; Mozambique, 1977–92, civil war; Libya–Egypt, 1977, border conflict;

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Uganda–Tanzania, 1978–9, cross-border conflict to overthrow Idi Amin; Senegal/Casamance, 1982–2003, civil/war of independence; Chad–Libya, 1986, crossborder conflict; Mauritania–Senegal, 1989–91, cross-border conflict; Rwanda, 1990–94, civil war; Sierra Leone, 1991–2002, civil war; Somalia, 1991–present, civil war; Burundi, 1993–2003, civil war; Congo, 1998–2003, internationalised civil war; Algeria, 1999–2002, civil war; Liberia, 1999–2003, civil war; Ivory Coast, 2002–3, civil war; Sudan, 2003–present, civil war; and Chad–Sudan, 2005, cross-border war. As noted above, the majority of these conflicts were civil wars fought either to topple or wrestle power from self-imposed regimes. The Congo war of 1998 to 2003 was, however, different; it has been described as the African World War as some African countries took sides and fought in what was essentially a civil war. Angola, Chad, Namibia and Zimbabwe fought on the side of the Hutu-aligned forces while Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda fought on the side of the Tutsi-aligned forces. All the wars, however, resulted in enormous humanitarian problems and war crimes that were adequately, and sometimes embarrassingly, reported by the international news media. It is doubtful, however, whether the destruction of cultural heritage properties was reported or, if such reports did occur, they have not been found in the course of research for this chapter. A hypothesis can therefore be tentatively advanced that cultural properties may enjoy some ‘natural’ protection from rampaging African militia because of the existing respect for traditions and culture, and that it is highly unlikely that any African militia would desecrate any cultural institution; they certainly do not loot cultural objects. This may explain why cultural institutions are never targets for attacks in civil wars in Africa, while the looting of economic institutions (banks, shops, and homes) has been rampant. In addition, archives, libraries and museums are never reported as being looted as Africans are generally not interested in antiquities, which are of no primary economic value to them; rather, the crimes committed are usually more heinous, involving genocide, rape, and, more disturbingly, in recent times the amputation of people’s limbs, as witnessed in Liberia and Sierra Leone. In light of the above, it is interesting to note that an international workshop on the subject of ‘Armed conflicts, peace culture and protection of cultural heritage in West Africa’ was organised by the West African Museums Programme (WAMP) at Conakry, Guinea, in May 2003. The objective of the workshop was stated to be the bringing together of museum professionals, military personnel, conflict resolution experts, community leaders, and representatives of NGOs to: • Discuss, analyze, and suggest alternative solutions for minimizing the impact of armed conflict on cultural and natural heritage, and to begin awareness programmes on the importance of peace, tolerance, democracy, and respect for cultural heritage; • Reflect on the role of museums and cultural institutions in the preservation of cultural and natural heritage in the event of armed conflict and natural catastrophe, and in the promotion of a culture of peace in West Africa; • Attract the attention of political leaders, the military, civil society, and international institutions to the looting of cultural property in African countries; • Demonstrate the importance of certain cultural values in conflict prevention and resolution. (ICBS 2003)

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It has not been possible to access the proceedings of the workshop and it is not certain if they have been published, but one could make some inferences from the report of the workshop as published on the website of the International Committee of the Blue Shield. It seems the objective of the workshop was not to evaluate the impact of the long list of armed conflicts in West Africa on cultural heritage; rather, what appeared to be the thrust was how the impact of armed conflict on cultural heritage could be minimised, and the role cultural heritage could play in minimising armed conflict. It has not been demonstrated that armed conflicts had in fact impacted on cultural heritage. Of the 18 presentations at the workshop, only 10 have titles that seem to address the issue of war/conflict and cultural heritage: • ‘Permanent Conflicts in Africa: Causes, Consequences and Impact on Cultural Heritage in West Africa’ by N’Deye Sokhna Gueye; • ‘Problems and Solutions for the Protection of Cultural Heritage during Armed Conflict: The Case of West Africa’ by Mamadi Koba Camara; • ‘The Impact of Armed Conflict on Cultural and Natural Heritage in West Africa and Solutions for Preservation’ by Leonardo Cardoso; • ‘The African Cultural Heritage and The Hague Convention: Seven Integrated Objectives for a Regional Strategy of Application and Promotion’ by Sekou Kobani Kourouma; • ‘National Actions to Put in Place the Convention for the Protection of Cultural Heritage in the Event of Armed Conflict: The Example of Cote d’Ivoire’ by Aminata Barro; • ‘Museums, Peace Culture and the Protection of Cultural Heritage in West Africa: The Case of Sierra Leone’ by Celia Nicol; • ‘The National Museum of Liberia, Before, During and After the War’ by Kennedy Neywan; • ‘The State of the Ethnographic Museum Before, During and After the Political Conflict in Guinea-Bissau’ by Marta Evelyne Diallo; • ‘Armed Conflict in West Africa and the Impact on Cultural and Natural Heritage: The Case of the Casamance Conflict’ by Nouha Cisse; • ‘The Effects of Conflict on Cultural Heritage: The Case of Nigeria’ by Antonia Fatunsin. (ICBS 2003)

The report gives the impression that the papers suggested that ‘cultural and natural heritage in West Africa like elsewhere in Africa is a victim of destruction and looting during armed conflict and civil war’; of the ten presentations listed above, however, only the last two explicitly deal with impact on cultural heritage using specific cases, and the last one did not qualify conflict as being armed. This is very important, as will be seen later in this chapter when referring to conflicts in contemporary Nigeria. The remaining eight presentations sound as if they were general discussions on issues that were not necessarily directly related to armed conflict. Most of the presenters were museums professionals and only one military officer participant, who did not make a presentation, was at the workshop. The nature and character of the presentations at the workshop may thus suggest that there are little or no data on the impact of armed conflicts on cultural heritage in West Africa, which may imply that the impact is insignificant. There is, however, a need to test this hypothesis through concerted case studies.

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As noted above, in the title of her WAMP workshop presentation, Antonia Fatunsin simply states ‘conflict’ without qualifying it as ‘armed’. This makes a lot of sense in sub-Saharan Africa, and particularly in Nigeria, where the nature of conflicts does not necessarily mean that they fall within the confine of what is understood in the ordinary meaning to be armed conflict – that is, war. I have qualified conflict here as ‘violent conflict’ and not ‘armed conflict’; these usually occur as communal conflicts or public disorder/riots with the perpetrators carrying all sorts of weapons, but cannot qualify as armed conflict as defined in the 1954 Hague Convention. These kinds of conflicts are common in Africa and may result from political or religious differences within a community or across communities; most importantly, however, cultural institutions are usually targets of attack in such violent communal conflicts. Unfortunately, the Hague Convention cannot cover such conflicts as they are usually spontaneous and unorganised (but nonetheless very destructive). All of the numerous violent communal conflicts and riots in various parts of Nigeria in the recent past have given rise to reports of damage to monuments and cultural properties. Communal conflicts and riots are always opportunities for arsonists and looters to operate freely. In Northern Nigeria in particular, the Muslim population attack Christians and burn churches at the slightest excuse. Such attacks have become frequent and each time valuable archival materials have been destroyed and buildings (churches, mission houses, offices and schools) dating to the colonial period that might be considered as national monuments have been torched. The Christian population, in turn, frequently carries out reprisal attacks on mosques and other Islamic institutions such as Koranic schools. In Western and Eastern Nigeria, on the other hand, communal conflicts are more frequently political in nature and cultural properties become victims when traditional rulers are accused of being partisan. In such cases, the palace, which is traditionally the repository of cultural properties of the community, becomes a target for attack by arsonists and looters. The palaces, which are monuments in their own right, are usually burned down and valuable artefacts are lost. There have been reports of beaded crowns being stolen during such incidences of violent communal conflicts. These kinds of conflict usually last for some hours or a few days before they are brought under control by the police. Other kinds of violent communal conflicts, by contrast, have necessitated the deployment of armed soldiers. They usually last for over a week and are generally caused by claims and counter-claims relating to farmlands or control of markets. Central Nigeria is noted for such conflicts, the most recent being that between the Tiv and the Jukun at Wukari in Taraba State in 2002. Whole settlements on both sides of the conflict were sacked and razed with unknown and unquantifiable loss of cultural properties. In 1992, in the Zangon Kataf crisis, the indigenous Kataf population fought with the Hausa/Fulani migrant population in an attempt to resolve questions of cultural imperialism (Falola 2001; Buhari 2008); while the re-occurring IfeModakeke conflict has been very deadly and destructive (Osinubi and Osinubi 2006). In the Niger Delta region of Nigeria militant youths have been involved in armed protest against the federal government and the oil companies and in 1999 at Odi, an

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Ijaw town in Bayelsa State, the government had to deploy soldiers to engage the militants; this action led to the total destruction of the settlement, with the attendant implication for cultural properties. The military intervention at Odi has been termed a massacre as every building in the town except the bank, the Anglican Church, and the Health Centre was burned to the ground (Wikipedia 2010d*). The above examples provide insight into the nature of conflicts that may and do impact on cultural properties in Nigeria in ways which conventions cannot prevent. CONCLUSION In conclusion, we should now look at the question of what the African perspective on heritage resources and armed conflict should be. It has been demonstrated in this chapter that conflicts have always been part of Africa’s history; conflict was not imported or introduced by external influences. What has become evident, however, is that the nature of conflicts has changed over time, particularly with the arrival of the Europeans and the imposition of colonial rule. Prior to the period of the European colonial project there was no evidence that cultural property was in danger during armed conflicts. The wars waged by the colonialists, however, introduced the dimension of wanton looting and destruction of cultural properties and values. It also appears that cultural properties have not really fallen victim to post-colonial conflicts, and the 1954 Convention may thus appear not to have any immediate relevance. However, we should not rule out possible extra-African aggression/invasion similar to the colonial wars. It is in this light that we may consider how cultural heritage is conceived in Africa and how it has been rendered in the Hague Convention. Article I of the Convention, which deals with the definition of cultural property, states that: For the purposes of the present Convention, the term ‘cultural property’ shall cover, irrespective of origin or ownership: (a) movable or immovable property of great importance to the cultural heritage of every people, such as monuments of architecture, art or history, whether religious or secular; archaeological sites; groups of buildings which, as a whole, are of historical or artistic interest; works of art; manuscripts, books and other objects of artistic, historical or archaeological interest; as well as scientific collections and important collections of books or archives or of reproductions of the property defined above; (b) buildings whose main and effective purpose is to preserve or exhibit the movable cultural property defined in sub-paragraph (a) such as museums, large libraries and depositories of archives, and refuges intended to shelter, in the event of armed conflict, the movable cultural property defined in subparagraph (a); (c) centres containing a large amount of cultural property as defined in subparagraphs (a) and (b), to be known as ‘centres containing monuments’. (UNESCO 1954)

The above definitions suggest that the Hague Convention appears to be concerned with cultural property as merely a component of cultural heritage. Africans generally prefer to talk about cultural heritage in its fullest sense, including traditions and values. In other words, the preservation of cultural property (material) without the preservation of the traditions and values associated with them would be incomplete, as

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they are inseparable. For the Hague Convention to be relevant to Africans it should go beyond the materialist paradigm of cultural property to include respect for traditions and values of peoples in the event of armed conflicts. It is interesting to note from recent media reports that the US Army has anthropologists attached to its forces in Afghanistan and Iraq to teach soldiers proper behaviour within the cultural context in which they find themselves (BBC Radio 4, 2009). Respect for and preservation of traditional cultural values should therefore form part of the Hague Convention, which would increase the chance of protecting sites and monuments considered to be sacred. With such a provision, the actions of the British forces in Kumasi and Benin in the 19th century would not be repeated in the future. Close watchers of events in Iraq may consider that similar crimes were probably committed by some over-zealous soldiers. Finally, should archaeologists provide their expertise in the course of armed conflict to save cultural properties? I do not intend to rehearse the different arguments surrounding this moral and ethical question here, but I do agree with the view that the decision to go to war is made neither by soldiers nor by archaeologists, but by politicians. Though some military personnel might be arrogant and over-zealous, they do not have control over the waging of war. For me, failing to engage with the military is shying away from reality, and it is not clear what purpose such action serves. It does not stop the war, nor on its own protect heritage, about which we are passionate. All aggression should be condemned because of the attendant destruction of lives and properties; but it also seems that conflicts, justifiable or not, will continue to occur, and archaeologists should, no matter on which side of the conflict they fall, reply to their professional calling of protecting and safeguarding cultural heritage in the course of conflicts. If such proactive steps had been taken in the course of the Iraqi conflict the monumental losses suffered by the Iraqi heritage resource could probably have been lessened. BIBLIOGRAPHY

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REFERENCES

Adeleye, R A, 1971 Hausaland and Bornu 1600–1800, in History of West Africa, Vol I (eds J F A Ajayi and M Crowder), Longman Group Ltd, London, 485–529 Afigbo, A E, 1974 The Establishment of Colonial Rule, 1900–1918, in History of West Africa, Vol II (eds J F A Ajayi and M Crowder), Longman Group Ltd, London, 424–83 Akinjogbin, I A, 1971 The Expansion of Oyo and the Rise of Dahomey 1600–1800, in History of West Africa, Vol I (eds J F A Ajayi and M Crowder), Longman Group Ltd, London, 304–87 Alagoa, E J, 1971 The Niger Delta States and their Neighbours 1600–1800, in History of West Africa, Vol I (eds J F A Ajayi and M Crowder), Longman Group Ltd, London, 269–303 ARM (Africa Reparations Movement), 1997 The Looting of Benin, reproduced from The Independent, February 22, available from: http://www.arm.arc.co.uk/lootingBenin.html [accessed 17 November 2010] Baden-Powell, R S S, 1896 The Downfall of Prempeh: A Diary of Life with the Native Levy in Ashanti 1895–96, Methuen & Co, London, available from: http://www.pinetreeweb.com/bpprempeh-00.htm [accessed 17 November 2010] BBC Radio 4, 2009 Anthropology at War, broadcast 24 April Boahen, A, 1974 Politics in Ghana, 1800–1874, in History of West Africa, Vol II (eds J F A Ajayi and M Crowder), Longman Group Ltd, London, 167–261

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Boylan, P J, 2003 The 1954 Hague Convention on the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict and its 1954 and 1999 Protocols, in A Blue Shield for the Protection of our Endangered Cultural Heritage, Proceedings of the Open Session Co-organized by PAC Core Activity and the Section on National Libraries (ed C Koch), International Preservation Issues 4, 4–15 Buhari, R, 2008 Kaduna – Building a Crisis Free State, Law and Custom in Nigeria, 10 March, available from: http://www.africonsult.net/en/countries/nigeria/newsPLUS/ [accessed 17 November 2010] Falola, T, 2001 Violence in Nigeria: The Crisis of Religious Politics and Secular Ideologies, University of Rochester Press, Rochester, NY Hunwick, J, 1971 Songhay, Bornu and Hausaland in the Sixteenth Century, in History of West Africa, Vol I (eds J F A Ajayi and M Crowder), Longman Group Ltd, London, 202–39 ICBS (International Committee of the Blue Shield), 2003 International Workshop on: ‘Armed Conflicts, Peace Culture and Protection of Cultural Heritage in West Africa’: General Report, available from: http://ifla.queenslibrary.org/VI/4/admin/wamp-may03.htm [accessed 17 November 2010] IRIN, 1999 Nigeria: IRIN Background report on communal conflicts [19990623], available from: http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Newsletters/irinw62399.html [accessed 17 November 2010] Levtzion, N, 1971 The early states of the Western Sudan to 1500, in History of West Africa, Vol I (eds J F A Ajayi and M Crowder), Longman Group Ltd, London, 120–157 New Spirit-Filled Life Bible, 2008 Genesis, New King James Version (South Africa edition), LuxVerbi.BM, Wellington Osinubi, T S, and Osinubi, O S, 2006 Ethnic Conflicts in Contemporary Africa: The Nigeria Experience, Journal of Social Science 12 (2), 101–14 Smith, H F C, 1971 The early states of the Central Sudan, in History of West Africa, Vol I (eds J F A Ajayi and M Crowder), Longman Group Ltd, London, 158–201 Stone, P, 2007 Archaeology and Conflict, Bassey Wai Andah Sixth Memorial Lecture, Textflow Limited, Ibadan, Nigeria UNESCO, 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, available from: http://portal.unesco.org/culture/en/ev.php-URL_ID=35744& URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html [accessed 17 November 2010] Wikipedia, 2010a Sungbo’s Eredo, available Sungbo%27s_Eredo [accessed 17 November 2010]*

from:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/

—, 2010b Prempeh I, available from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prempeh_I [accessed 17 November 2010]* —, 2010c Ashanti, available from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashanti [accessed 17 November 2010]* —, 2010d Odi massacre, available from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odi_massacre [accessed 17 November 2010]* Wilks, I, 1971 The Mossi and Akan States 1500–1800, in History of West Africa, Vol I (eds J F A Ajayi and M Crowder), Longman Group Ltd, London, 344–86 * Given the difficulty of accessing appropriate academic references from Nigeria, Wikipedia references (also marked in text with an asterisk) are given here to provide an introduction to issues on which little information is publicly available.

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hose who continue to harbour a late 20th-century view of war and the armed forces would be surprised if they were to visit a Western military brigade-level or higher headquarters in any of the several fronts in what has recently been described as the ‘continuous war’ currently on-going. There are some strange people to be found there. In addition to the professional – almost exclusively since the abolition or suspension of conscription in most Western countries – military personnel trained in infantry operations, fire-support, PsyOps and the host of other military specialities that one should reasonably expect to find, there are also anthropologists, archaeologists, art experts, the occasional theologian (in addition to the chaplains, who have other concerns), and representatives from disciplines that have apparently nothing to do with what is perceived to be the dirty business at hand: to wit, killing people and blowing things and people up. The deployment of anthropologists with combat forces has probably attracted the most attention in the popular press since it became known that the US was using them in Iraq as part of General Petraeus’ counter-insurgency doctrine (see, for example, Rohde 2007). Their role as part of the Human Terrain System (HTS) (see US Army 2009) – which involves collecting and/or analysing information about the societies and groups within them in areas of combat operations and providing the results of that analysis to the local and higher-echelon commanders for consideration in their operations – has been discussed and criticised at length (see below). Those who look favourably on the use of anthropologists in this way point out that the information they provide makes it possible for commanders to better understand the human side of the often extremely alien social environments in which they are operating and thereby to make choices that do not exacerbate through ignorance an already difficult situation. It can also help them to be more effective militarily, so that, for example, they target the actual combatants rather than indiscriminately selecting from a group all of whom – given the tendency of nonconventional forces to avoid the Geneva-mandated ‘fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance’ (ICRC 1949) denoting armed forces affiliation – dress alike. Critics, of whom anthropologist Roberto J González – author of American Counterinsurgency: Human Science and the Human Terrain (2009) – has probably the highest profile, say that anthropologists have been specifically recruited to be intelligence assets and the HTS programme is an ‘attempt to whitewash counterinsurgency’ (Redden 2009). One of González’s prime objections is that the work of the anthropologists and other social scientists deployed in the HTS teams could be used to target individuals and/or societies, which violates the ethical principle that the

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subjects studied by social scientists should not be harmed by the study. González further points to the ethical dilemmas that could (should?) be encountered by anthropologists studying a society in which the military unit to which they are attached is operating: how can they in good conscience provide research notes or information to the commander if that information is to be used to, for example, identify groups or individuals who have ties to opposing military forces? A group of military and civilian experts in Cultural Property Protection in Conflict Situations encountered similar objections in the summer of 2008 during an academic session at the sixth World Archaeological Congress in Dublin. Protesters accused the experts, and especially one Dutch and several American experts who had been militarised and were actually serving members of their countries’ armed forces, of having ‘blood on their hands’ for collaborating with armed forces engaged in, with specific reference to Iraq and, to a lesser extent, Afghanistan, illegal or at least unjust wars (and see Introduction). In October 2007 the Executive Board of the American Anthropological Association issued a statement opposing the HTS programme, which, in the view of the American Anthropological Association (AAA), could lead to violations of the association’s code of ethics and put other anthropologists and the people they study at risk (AAA 2007). The AAA statement is not a blanket condemnation, however, but is specifically related to the war in Iraq, stating: ‘In the context of a war that is widely recognized as [constituting] a denial of human rights and based on faulty intelligence and undemocratic principles, the Executive Board sees the HTS project as a problematic application of anthropological expertise, most specifically on ethical grounds’ (AAA 2007). Nevertheless, the statement’s conclusion does support the use of anthropology as a legitimate and effective guide to US policy to serve the humane causes of global peace and social justice (AAA 2007). Quite apart from the inherent contradiction in the AAA statement’s conclusion (ie that the HTS or a similar programme, with all of its ethical conundrums intact, might be acceptable in a war that had not been ‘widely recognized as a denial of human rights … and undemocratic principles’1), there are several other things that one can say about social sciences professionals working in a conflict situation. One of the first issues relates to the not-insignificant question of the proper role and station of a nation’s armed forces. Especially with regard to militarised reserve or regular-force officer anthropologists, the implication of the critics’ position is that they should not carry out their duties as serving members of their country’s armed forces. This would, in the opinion of the critics, require them to take an ethical stand as individuals and refuse to carry out a legal order from a superior. In 20th- and 21st-century armed forces, refusal to carry out an order on ethical grounds is well founded in law and military regulation. With the stark example of the Nuremberg defence (‘I was just following orders’) following the collapse of the National Socialist regime in Germany at the end of World War II, armed forces quickly moved to embed such provisions to forestall such a defence in future in their own regulations, providing for individual 1 How it is undemocratic, when the decision to go to war was issued, under the US constitution (Article 1, Section 8) by the Congress, a democratically elected body, is left unstated.

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military personnel to refuse to carry out an illegal order, though the phrasing is usually positive: personnel must carry out a legal order. As Sparrow and Inbody point out (Sparrow and Inbody 2005), military personnel, especially officers, who have received extensive training in ethics tend not to distinguish between an illegal and an unethical order. An illegal order is by definition unethical and an unethical order is by definition illegal. Sparrow and Inbody contend that this is quite distinct from the commonly held civilian view, which holds that there is ‘more of a difference between illegal decisions … and unethical … orders’ (Sparrow and Inbody 2005, 13). They further note that civilians tend, as the AAA has done, to support disobeying what they perceive to be an unethical order (ie that the militarised anthropologists and other social scientists provide information gleaned by the application of their professional skills to the military chain of command), even though it may be a legal order. This distinction, which consequently represents differing views of ‘what constitutes military obedience and insubordination … could’, Sparrow and Inbody contend, ‘have considerable consequences’ (Sparrow and Inbody 2005, 13). From the perspective of the serving officer or other rank, the civilian position as stated by Sparrow and Inbody would undermine the very basis for effective armed forces. The very point of the armed forces is – within the frameworks provided by codes of military justice, national and international civil law, treaties, memoranda of understanding and status of forces agreements, and the law of war – to carry out the missions that they are assigned. Disobeying a legal order renders moot the entire concept of national armed forces: obedience to the chain of command and under civilian control. The critics are therefore asking the individual militarised social scientist to intervene in place of, and place themselves above, the democratic political entities that are to decide when and how the armed forces are to be deployed. With specific reference to cultural property protection (CPP), they are, furthermore, asking the social scientists to cause their countries to violate their international obligations under the Hague Convention with respect to the protection of cultural property. In the British context, joining the armed forces (especially the army) is known as ‘taking the Queen’s penny’. Once one has done that, one has voluntarily (in today’s armed forces) waived something of the autonomy that civilian personnel enjoy.2 Those who object to this principle are, in fact, calling for the armed forces to cease being an effective instrument of the political leadership and are asking the serving social scientist to do on his own what the critics and their supporters are unable to do politically, to wit: reduce the ability of the armed forces to carry out their mission. A second issue relates to whether the subjects of the social scientists’ interest are worthy of particular treatment. In the anthropological realm, this relates to people 2 It should be noted here that while that freedom may be waived, it is never surrendered. Depending on the armed forces concerned and the operational situation, however, the consequences of exercising that freedom in disobeying a legal order can range from reprimands to suspensions to incarceration. The author is unaware of any armed forces of the Western Alliance in the 21st century (or that could broadly be considered Western, though not necessarily part of the North Atlantic Alliance) that still have the death penalty for insubordination.

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being treated in accordance with the laws of war, the Geneva Conventions, and similar undertakings with regard to personal dignity and personal integrity. In the Western armed forces, at least, the consensus view is that they should. The contribution that social scientists can make in helping commanders understand what a population that is within the forces’ sphere of action, if not outright control, understands as personal dignity and personal integrity can be a very important contributor to complying with all of the principles and regulations in this regard. To use a very obvious example: if one is distributing food packages to a local population and does not know that pork is not only unwelcome but is in fact religiously ‘unclean’, a situation can potentially arise that leads to social unrest, armed incidents, and escalation, which not only interferes with the military mission of the unit but, more seriously, is also disruptive, at the least, to the social stability of the indigenous population. If we place the same issue in the context of cultural property, which has been specifically designated by international treaty as being worthy of protection during conflicts, then one is hard pressed to understand what the criticism is based on in substance, beyond opposition to anything that could be perceived as support to an armed force engaged in combat operations in war. If a cultural property or artefact is worth protecting, then efforts to ensure that it is protected should be welcomed by all concerned. Where it is not protected, as was the case during the early weeks of the US/British invasion of Iraq in 2003, when looters emptied the National Museum of artefacts that were (and are) important to understanding the cultural history of Iraq and much of the rest of the world, popular opinion turns massively and immediately against those perceived to be culpable for the loss of human heritage. ‘If only there had been someone high enough in the chain of command to have ensured that resources were reserved to protect them!’ The creation of the International Committee of the Blue Shield in 1996 to support the provisions of the Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict of 1954 is only the most obvious expression of the national and international obligation to protect cultural property. Since 1954 an increasing number of countries have ratified and/or implemented the provisions of the Hague Convention in legislation and regulation, thereby taking upon themselves the legal obligation to provide the protection called for in the Convention. To a certain extent, the Blue Shield organisation is analogous to the International Red Cross, which was founded following the harrowing Battle of Solferino in 1862. The creation and operations of the Red Cross since 1862 have not ended war or armed conflicts of other kinds. It has, however, though not with complete success, made the treatment of combatants and non-combatants more humane than it had been. Almost no-one would ask a doctor not to go to a conflict zone as part of a military force, even though one consequence of a military doctor or surgeon’s activities is to render the armed forces more effective.3 People have asked social scientists not to participate in military activities, however. Logic would seem to dictate, therefore, that, based on the consequences of excluding 3 One course module in Military Medical Ethics, for example, states unambiguously that ‘The role of the physician in a combat theatre is to treat and conserve the fighting strength’.

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social scientists from the military activities, the critics who make those calls would prefer that the negative consequences take place rather than that the professional reputation of a branch of research be compromised. If we extend that argument to archaeologists, the act of preventing military action from destroying an archaeological artefact (eg by pointing out to a commander that there is one in his field of fire) is less preferable than the archaeological community dissociating itself from the military operation – with the result that the artefact might be destroyed, leaving the archaeologists, and society at large, with pictures (perhaps) or with nothing but grounds for academic papers assailing the heartless soldiers who destroyed it. It is simply not the case that failing to have an archaeologist on the military staff would somehow bring the operation to a halt. The foundation for a great deal of military ethics, especially with regards to war and other combat operations, goes back to Aristotle and the principles of the ‘Just War’ as they have subsequently evolved. The concept of the Just War has traditionally been based on two principles: ius ad bellum – go to war justly – and ius in bello – conduct the war justly. As Desiree Verweij shows, both of those pillars contain aspects that relate to the deployment of social scientists in wartime (Verweij 2007). Ius ad bellum is concerned with several things: righteous cause, correct intention, proper authority, and creating peace. If we, as Verweij has done, examine each of those in the context of the war in Iraq with specific attention to the deployment of social scientists, we can draw several conclusions. ‘Righteous cause’ with respect to Iraq is usually dismissed, especially given the evidence that has come to light since the war began: that the officials in the George W Bush administration manipulated the data and public opinion to justify invading Iraq. There were no weapons of mass destruction; therefore there was no legitimacy to the war. Whether Bush cum sui had other ‘righteous reasons’ that rise above the suspicions of most that it was really about oil and ‘getting the man who tried to kill my daddy’ (King 2002) is not yet known (and may never be). It is possible, however, to conceive of several, but as it is not germane to the subject at hand and does not involve personnel at the level that we are concerned with here, I do not explore this further. The same applies to ‘Correct intention’, which Verweij says goes to the deeper motivations for going to war. The third and fourth aspects are directly relevant to our discussion here. The principle of proper authority goes to the question of whether the US Congress is the properly constituted body for declaring war and whether it did so legally. That it is the properly constituted body, from a domestic US position, is beyond doubt. Article 1, Section 8 of the US Constitution gives Congress – and not the President, contrary to popular belief, which makes Iraq President Bush’s war – the sole authority among the three of the separated branches of power to declare war, which it did by means of the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002, a joint resolution of the House of Representatives and the Senate passed on 16 October 2002. The broader question of whether Congress was the competent authority goes to the status of the United Nations Charter, which states that only wars of self-defence or wars that are sanctioned by the United Nations Security Council are legal.

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There is some grey here that is still being debated by legal scholars (of which I am not one) as to whether, as the Bush administration maintained, the series of UN Security Council resolutions dating back to 1990 constituted approval. At the level under discussion here, however, an individual might reasonably conclude that, based on previous UN Security Council resolutions and the authority of the US Congress, the proper authorities had acted, thus eliminating this, or at least weakening it substantially, as grounds for insisting that individuals withhold their participation. The fourth principle, that of creating peace, is the most relevant of the categories of ius ad bellum that concerns us here. If the efforts of the social scientists contribute to achieving peace, either by making the conflict shorter through their efforts or by helping to create the conditions for lasting peace when the combat stage is over, then a justification for participating is clearly present. This is even more the case in view of the increased importance of the principles expressed in the Constitution of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO): That since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be constructed; That ignorance of each other’s ways and lives has been a common cause, throughout the history of mankind, of that suspicion and mistrust between the peoples of the world through which their differences have all too often broken into war; That the great and terrible war which has now ended was a war made possible by the denial of the democratic principles of the dignity, equality and mutual respect of men, and by the propagation, in their place, through ignorance and prejudice, of the doctrine of the inequality of men and races; That the wide diffusion of culture, and the education of humanity for justice and liberty and peace are indispensable to the dignity of man and constitute a sacred duty which all the nations must fulfil in a spirit of mutual assistance and concern. (UNESCO 1945)

Where the activities of the deployed social scientists are focused on these issues – and current strategic thinking seems to indicate that no one believes that wars and conflicts will be decided over the long term by arms alone – then those social scientists, even when working as deployed militarised experts or embedded civilian consultants, are justified in participating in pursuit of the long-term peace.4 With Verweij, I agree that the ius in bello criteria are concerned with how force is applied. The criteria were created to bind to rules the force that the armed forces, by definition, apply in exercising their role as instruments of force, and thereby to restrict and legitimise them. From that perspective, and based on the principle of humanity, one proceeds on the basis of the immunity of non-combatants (Verweij 2007). Those social scientists whose activities led to the protection of even one noncombatant are therefore also acting in keeping with the ius in bello principles. Where opposing military force combatants are identified in a larger group – targeting them 4 I note in passing that these principles are not only of interest to the anti-military section of the population, but they have become a common introduction to a great many strategic papers by highranking military personnel (some of which are for internal Ministry of Defence consumption and can therefore not be seen to be a sop to public opinion).

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for military action, say the critics correctly – the non-combatants are also being identified at the same time, thereby protecting, or making a ‘best-efforts’ attempt to protect them, from military action. This is an admirable objective, and in keeping with the principles of force proportionality.5 Social scientists who are concerned with the protection of cultural infrastructure – archaeologists, museum curators, etc – and who advise military commanders on, for example, where not to direct their fire and where not to build an encampment are similarly advising with respect to proportionality and are thereby limiting the military force applied, again contributing to the attainment and maintenance of peace and thus reinforcing the pursuit of peace which is the fourth pillar of ius ad bellum. CONCLUSION The critics claim embedding social scientists either structurally or organisationally in the combat organisation means that they are aiding and abetting the evil, jackbooted forces of oppression. Such a claim completely reverses the actual role of the social scientists concerned. While John Rambo (as portrayed by Sylvester Stallone in a series of movies that turns the point of the character in the original book by David Morrell completely on its head) is not the typical professional soldier of my acquaintance,6 it must be said that soldiers are concerned primarily with accomplishing the missions they are assigned, and taking shortcuts is a not unacceptable way of doing that. The social scientists, whether concerned with the much-maligned phrase ‘human terrain’ or with cultural artefacts or with some other area, are in fact often a hindrance to the most expeditious tactical execution of some missions. While they are arguably an important contributor to the strategic success of the mission, they can tend to get in the way when an officer’s or a senior NCO’s prime concern is to clear a village of insurgents. It is their task to inform the planners that, for a variety of reasons, some actions in this theatre are inadvisable and/or unacceptable to the indigenous population and would do more harm than good or that there are artefacts in the area that must be taken into consideration when planning operations. The 5 ‘Proportionality’ as used here is a technical term that is not completely equivalent to its less rigorous civilian usage. ‘Proportionality’ as used in civilian sources, such as newspaper reports, usually relates to the size of opposing forces: ie using a battalion to engage three teenage boys with a rocket-propelled grenade launcher is disproportional. Although there is no official NATO definition of ‘Proportionality’ or ‘Proportional Force’ in the NATO Glossary of Terms and Definitions (the document of terms whose meaning have been agreed by terminologists of the NATO Members States, more commonly referred to as AAP-6), a working definition of ‘proportionality’ from a military perspective could be ‘the degree of force required to achieve the mission, and no more’. With that definition, using a battalion might be proportional to engaging the three youths with the RPG7 referred to above, especially if a search had to be mounted first to find out where they were, but using cluster bombs or an artillery barrage to ‘lift the [map] grid’ (it’s a technical term) in which they were located would clearly be disproportionate, regardless of how effective. 6 Full disclosure: the author spent six years in the Canadian Armed Forces, participating in international exercises and deployments, including the UN UNIFIL mission in Lebanon in 1978, ending his career as an NCO, and has worked for nearly a decade in the International Military Cooperation Branch of the Netherlands Defence Staff.

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social scientists, therefore – and I am putting this entirely in the context of the modern, professional armed forces that I have worked with and not in the historical contexts that González and others would like to bring into the argument regarding oppressing colonial, occupied or subject populations or worse – are on the side of the indigenous population and the cultural artefacts of, first, that society and only secondarily of humanity in general. Social scientists being attached to or deployed with Western military organisations in combat are operating in complete accord with the principles of the Just War and within the social framework of the civil–military relationships that define how our countries use military organisations. The critics of the support of embedded or professional social scientists in a military organisation should rather welcome the presence of such professionals, therefore: they are mitigating, perhaps not as much as we would like, but mitigating nonetheless, the damage being done in both the human and cultural spheres. They are, in fact, the human shields, protecting indigenous populations and artefacts from our armed forces and protecting our armed forces from the consequences of their own potential excesses. POSTLOGUE On 23 February 1967 – Stardate 3192.1 – an episode of the Gene Rodenberry television series Star Trek entitled ‘A Taste of Armageddon’ (Hamner and Coon 1967), which examined the question of CPP at its most extreme, was aired for the first (but, through the magic of reruns, far from the last) time. Two societies in the solar system of star cluster NGC 321 – Eminiar Seven and Vendikar – have been at war for 500 years. So concerned are the warring parties that the conflict would destroy their infrastructure and cultural property that they have abolished the use of actual troops and weapons and fight the entire conflict via computer simulation. Casualties, by name and numbers, are calculated by the simulation and the population is expected to voluntarily appear at death stations to be killed. Failure to do so would see the conflict degenerate into actual conflict, with all of the concomitant damage to cultural property: suicide as an obligation of civic duty. Captain James Tiberius Kirk of the United Starship Enterprise immediately sees the inherent moral evil in this situation and sets about destroying the death chambers, thereby throwing the computer simulation off and raising the very real threat of actual, bloody, messy and cultural property-unfriendly conflict. Faced with that reality, the parties immediately begin serious peace negotiations. In the real world, the author is not aware of anyone in anything resembling a position of authority who suggests that cultural property should be protected at the expense of the real population as was portrayed in the Star Trek episode. One could point to a slight deviation from that position, in practice if not in policy, with the development, initially by the United States, and the planned (threatened?) deployment of the enhanced-radiation weapons (ERW) known collectively as the neutron bomb, whose stated objective was precisely that – human death and injury with little to no damage to non-biological materials, ie infrastructure and most types of cultural property. That programme, developed in 1958 by Samuel Cohen of the Lawrence

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Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California, led to weapons testing in 1963. The US programme was terminated by US President Jimmy Carter in 1978 following international protests against the planned deployment of ERW weapons in Europe, but was then restarted by President Ronald Reagan in 1981. According to published reports the US no longer has any ERW weapons (though media reports from 2007 hint that an ERW weapon may have been used in Iraq during the Battle of Baghdad in 2003) (see, for example, Wilson 2007); the same is true of France, which also developed and tested them. China, Russia, and Israel are all said to have arsenals of, according to some estimates, considerable size. Be that as it may, the author is not aware of the military doctrine of any country putting the preservation of infrastructure and cultural property above the protection of the human population, especially the non-combatant population. In the opinion of the author of this paper, CPP – both physical cultural property and intangible cultural traditions and forms of expression – can only be considered as being worth saving as an extension of mitigating the overall damage that armed conflict inevitably brings to the people involved; and if social scientists can contribute to that mitigation, so much the better. REMARKS Late in 2009, as the production processes for this book were far advanced, the AAA released a more detailed consideration of the role of the anthropologists in particular and social scientists in general in armed conflicts (AAA Commission 2009). The 73page report focuses primarily on the use of anthropologists within the context of the US HTS programme. Time and space do not unfortunately permit a detailed analysis of that report here. I hope that I shall have an opportunity to address it in more detail elsewhere. Suffice it to say that, while the 2009 report is incomparably superior to the 2007 statement referred to earlier in this chapter in terms of philosophical coherence and logical reasoning, it is still, in my opinion, too much concerned with the impact that the participation by anthropologists in HTS and similar structures might or does have on the anthropologists themselves and the practice of anthropology, and not enough concerned with the broader philosophical and ethical considerations of the results of that participation in reducing suffering and destruction and contributing to the creation and maintenance of peace and security, not in the last place for the indigenous populations in conflict areas. I note, in closing, that the position of the AAA Commission also opens an interesting philosophical discussion (and one that seems to be being carried out solely in Western liberal democracies) about the disconnect between the interests and values of a society as a whole and those of its component parts. Is it reasonable for a body such as the AAA to justify non-participation in questions of national interest on ethical grounds where the national interest is being putatively pursued on the basis of similar or equal ethical grounds? Discuss.

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AAA, 2007 Executive Board Statement on the Human Terrain System Project, 31 October, available from: http://www.aaanet.org/about/Policies/statements/Human-Terrain-SystemStatement.cfm [accessed 17 November 2010] AAA Commission on the Engagement of Anthropology with the US Security and Intelligence Communities (CEAUSSIC; Robert Albro, Chair), 2009 Final Report on The Army’s Human Terrain System Proof of Concept Program, submitted to the Executive Board of the American Anthropological Association October 14, available from: http://www.aaanet.org/cmtes/ commissions/CEAUSSIC/upload/CEAUSSIC_HTS_Final_Report.pdf [accessed 17 November 2010] Constitution of the United States of America, 1787 Article 1, Section 8, available from: http://www.house.gov/house/Constitution/Constitution.html [accessed 17 November 2010] González, R J, 2009 American Counterinsurgency: Human Science and the Human Terrain, Prickly Paradigm Press, Chicago, IL Hamner, R and Coon, G L, 1967 A Taste of Armageddon, Star Trek, Season 1, episode 23, original air date 23 February ICRC, 1949 Convention (I) for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field: Geneva, Chapter II, Article 13, available from: http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/7c4d08d9b287a42141256739003e636b/fe20c3d903ce27e3c12564 1e004a92f3 [accessed 17 November 2010] King, J, 2002 Bush calls Saddam the ‘guy who tried to kill my dad’, CNN.com, 27 September 2002, available from: http://archives.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/09/27/bush.war.talk/ [accessed 17 November 2010] National Capitol Consortium Pediatric Residency Program, 2007 Military Medical Ethics Module, available from: http://www.nccpeds.com/ContinuityModules-Spring/Military% 20Medical%20Ethics.pdf [accessed 17 November 2010] Redden, E, 2009 American Counterinsurgency, Inside Higher Ed, 29 January, available from: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/01/29/humanterrain [accessed 17 November 2010] Rohde, D, 2007 Anthropologists help US Army in Afghanistan and Iraq, The New York Times, 4 October, available from: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/04/world/asia/04iht-afghan. 4.7755039.html [accessed 17 November 2010] Sparrow, B H and Inbody, D S (Capt), 2005 Supporting our Troops? US Civil–Military Relations in the Twenty-first Century, available from: http://www.allacademic.com/meta/ p40152_index.html [accessed 17 November 2010] UNESCO, 1945 Constitution of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, available from: http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=15244&URL_DO= DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html [accessed 17 November 2010] US Army, 2009 Human Terrain System, available from: http://humanterrainsystem.army.mil/ [accessed 17 November 2010] Verweij, D, 2007 Military Ethics: A Contradiction in Terms?, in Ethical Education in the Military: What, How and Why in the 21st Century? (ed J Toiskallio), Finnish National Defence University, ACIE Publications, Helsinki Wilson, G, 2007 Did US use Neutron Bomb in Battle of Baghdad? in Workers World, 5 May, available from: http://www.workers.org/2007/world/neutron-bomb-0510/ [accessed 17 November 2010]

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Politicians: Assassins of Lebanese Heritage? Archaeology in Lebanon in Times of Armed Conflict JOANNE FARCHAKH BAJJALY ‘My country is a hundred, a thousand years old … My country has existed since the dawn of time.’

T

hese lyrics from a famous song by Fairouz, Lebanon’s most famous singer and a mainstay of Lebanese folk music, sum up the relationship between the Lebanese people and their heritage. In the collective memory and culture passed down through the generations, archaeology and heritage are seen as knowledge in Lebanon. Moreover, people are in the habit of saying ‘no matter where you dig you will find archaeological remains’. This naïve conception of the importance of heritage has very often been the cause of the destruction of a great number of archaeological sites which are packed into the earth of the land of cedars (Lebanon). In this part of the world – inhabited since the Upper Palaeolithic (c.70,000 BC), with some of the earliest sedentary societies – more than 1500 archaeological sites have been officially recognised and hundreds of others await discovery. Unfortunately, this apparent ‘saturation’ of archaeological evidence has caused the loss of much material because, for the large majority of Lebanese people, the destruction of an archaeological site is not necessarily a ‘drama’ but simply a sad state of affairs which will, in all probability, be compensated for by new discoveries. This view was first reinforced during the civil war (1975–92) and subsequently during the conflict known as ‘the 33 day war’ of July 2006. During periods of armed conflict, archaeology – not a priority in Lebanese national politics to begin with – is relegated to third or fourth place: it is often even judged ‘ridiculous’ to bring up issues of heritage and archaeology when the very existence of the country itself is under threat. During the long years of civil war it was forbidden to raise the question of heritage, looting, or the use of archaeological sites as military bases. The Syrian army did not hesitate to set up camp in the Temple of Mercure, situated in the high ground at Baalbek, and were quick to level the land there, while the Lebanese army is currently using the site of the Roman town of Khaldé, excavated in the 1960s by a team of archaeologists from the Direction Générale des Antiquitiés under the direction of Roger Saidah: today soldiers’ tents are pitched on top of the mosaics. Even once fighting is over, attempts to raise the issue are never successful. This sad reality has become the norm and responsible archaeologists from the Direction Générale des Antiquitiés, along with university teachers, have come to accept this and have rarely attempted to speak out publicly about heritage

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preservation (although see, for example, Seeden 1994a; 1994b for discussion of these topics in the academic literature). Archaeology has become a point of compromise within conflicts. If a sacrifice needs to be made in order to resolve whatever problem is at stake, heritage will very often pay the price, as was the case during the urban excavations in Beirut that followed the civil war. The excavations, carried out in great haste in order to facilitate the reconstruction of the commercial and administrative city centre, resulted in the destruction of some hundred archaeological sites (Lefèvre and Durand-Godiveau 1995; Lefèvre 1995). In fact, the infilling which took place in the city centre and which has been much-discussed in the Lebanese press created a feeling of general apathy towards heritage, and now, when the issue of safeguarding an archaeological site is raised, the response is ‘go and save the capital before coming to preserve the heritage in rural areas’. This attitude was also clearly evident following the 33 day war in 2006. Israeli bombardments devastated the historic heart of the town of Bint Jbeil (Fig 13.1), demolished the outer wall of the medieval fortress of Chamaa, ripped open the World War II Khiam military hospital, and ravaged hundreds of historic houses in the villages of southern Lebanon. During the war, the Lebanese minister of culture had asked Israel, through a letter to UNESCO (the two countries having ratified the 1954

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Hague Convention on the Protection of Cultural Property in The Event of Armed Conflict), to respect the Convention, in particular with respect to the protection of archaeological sites included on the World Heritage List. The Israeli authorities responded to this request by demanding the protection of their archaeological sites. No response from Hezbollah was recorded, but the Israeli sites were not targeted. However, the situation clearly demonstrated the powerlessness of the Direction Générale des Antiquités. During the bombardments of the town of Baalbek rumours spread that a section of the civil population had sought shelter in the Roman temples, thereby turning a site on the UNESCO World Heritage list into a refuge. The guards responsible for the site’s protection appear to have been unable to refuse civilians access to the site and the Direction Générale des Antiquités were unable to demand that the site doors were locked. The issue of whether the lives of the town’s inhabitants or the protection of the archaeological site should have been prioritised was not discussed in the media during the war, however. After the conflict, senior Hezbollah staff were asked whether their soldiers had tried to avoid damaging archaeological and historical remains during the fighting. The response was: They tried, as much as was possible and to the extent that combat permitted. We had our combat strategies and the archaeological sites were not within our zones. We avoided them but I cannot comment on the bombardments. On the other hand, in the historic town of Bint Jbeil, fighting took place within the streets and buildings. The question of safeguarding the historic environment was not an issue as the town was occupied and it had to be liberated. Consideration of heritage issues did not figure in the plan.

Once the fighting had ended, widespread archaeological remains dating from the Byzantine and Roman eras were uncovered during the reconstruction work in the villages. A lack of resources and personnel meant that the Direction Générale des Antiquités was unable to oversee the work and no other archaeologists within the country took on the responsibility to save, or record, or help safeguard, the heritage. Hundreds of sites were therefore filled in or destroyed owing to the ignorance of the inhabitants, who wanted the construction work to be over as quickly as possible in order that they might benefit from the funding available for reconstruction. ARCHAEOLOGY

OR THE

RIGHTS

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REFUGEES?

The 2006 war followed the classic and habitual pattern seen in regard to heritage conservation in Lebanon. However, in 2009 something unusual took place regarding the protection of the 175,000m2 site of a Roman town, which interfered with plans to reconstruct a Palestinian refugee camp called Nahr al-Bared on the Akkar Plain in northern Lebanon. Established in 1949, the refugee camp had covered and concealed the entire Roman town of Orthosia. The town’s remains were buried beneath the camp until June 2007, when fighting broke out between the Lebanese army and the Fath El Islam militia. Four months of bombardment destroyed the refugee camp, allowing the Roman town to emerge from beneath the rubble (Figs 13.2 and 13.3). However, a whole host of political and humanitarian questions also exploded into

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FIG 13.2 ROMAN AND

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existence and issues of priority were raised. Should priority be given to the protection and care of the 20,000 refugees who had lost their pitiful homes and now found themselves homeless and destitute, or to the preservation of the archaeological site? The debate continued for months, dividing the country’s political classes and leading to public protests in large towns and cities. ‘We are more important than archaeological remains’; ‘the whole issue of archaeology is just a lie to avoid rebuilding our houses’; ‘we are human beings and have more rights than fictional artefacts’ – these were some of the slogans on signs brandished by the Palestinian refugees from the Nahr al-Bared camp during demonstrations that took place on 16 September 2009 in Beirut and Tripoli (Lebanon’s second-largest city). More than 1500 people congregated at the Lebanese Supreme Court to describe their miserable existence in the camp and to argue their priority over archaeology.

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The issue of archaeological remains at Nahr al-Bared was first raised in February 2009 when Lebanese army bulldozers, clearing the refugee camp of rubble from the destroyed houses, unearthed granite columns. Three columns were discovered and removed to a warehouse where traditionally cut limestone was being collected. The army notified the Direction Générale des Antiquités of the archaeological discoveries. A few days later archaeologists inspected the area and found the columns and other remains, including olive presses, dating from the Roman era. The columns and olive presses suggested a dwelling. For the archaeologists, there was no doubt – this was definitely the town of Orthosia, described by French researcher René Dussaud at the beginning of the 20th century in his book Topographie Historique de la Syrie Antique et Médiévale: The name Orthosia or Artousia belongs to the locality Art Artousi. This was a maritime town of secondary importance as it had only produced its own currency from the first century BC. It can be distinguished from the ruins at the river mouth and on the left bank of the Nahr el Barid river. The other side of the river, immediately after the bridge which even until the 15th century still carried the name ‘Orthosia bridge’, ‘djisr Artousia’, Khan Abdé, where all the caravans still stop, represents the ‘mutatio Bruttus’ from the Bordeaux to Jerusalem itinerary, and from this it can be assumed that the current name of the river stems from antiquity. Astarté was considered to be the protective goddess of the town of Orthosia. In the town’s main temple, which is represented on coinage, she appears standing upright, crowned by victory whilst at her feet flows the river.

Some archaeologists and university professors have no doubt about the importance of this site, given that it dates to the 3rd millennium BC. One academic, who asked to remain anonymous, commented: At the time, the Akkar Plain formed part of the Mediterranean trading routes, as has been proved by the excavations at Tell Arqa (a site excavated since the 1970s by a French team under the directorship of Dr Jean-Paul Thalaman), situated a very short distance from Orthosia. Undoubtedly the two towns were in contact, all the more so since Orthosia was close to the sea and served as a port. In addition to this point of interest, this site must contain evidence of the first inhabitants, another unknown phase in the history of the Akkar Plain. In brief, the excavation of this site should provide us with a long chapter of the region’s history.

In view of the site’s great importance, the archaeologists, having inspected the remains exposed through the post-fighting clearance, sent a preliminary expert’s report to the Ministry of Culture demanding the immediate cessation of construction work and camp clearances. The report also suggested that the authorities change the camp’s location, moving it away from the archaeological tell, instead rebuilding the houses in nearby agricultural fields. The correspondence between the various ministries remained secret, as did the meetings between the different departments, and construction work was not suspended. But, in May 2009, the issue was raised by the press when photographs of the archaeological discoveries were supplied to the author in her role as editor of the

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Archéologie section of the Al Akhbar newspaper, by humanitarian militants who refused to see discussion of the report closed without the public having been notified. This brought the issue into the open, but politicians refused to respond to the debate and to publicly attribute any importance to the report. Worse still, in June 2009, the Council of Ministers passed a decree which would result in the complete backfilling of the site under a one-metre layer of concrete and the assignation of a $5 million budget to the rebuilding work on the exact site of the former camp, ignoring all requests to change the camp’s location. A second article in Al Akhbar raised the decree’s illegality: it neither followed the required administrative format nor respected the law of antiquities. According to lawyers (who requested anonymity), ‘it is possible to prove the illegality of the decree and to suspend the backfilling work if a Lebanese citizen brings a case before the Supreme Court’. For the first time since the end of the civil war the notion of heritage protection was raised. General Michel Aoun, leader of a group of deputies and president of a political party, objected to the Council of Ministers’ decision before the Supreme Court. General Aoun’s lawyer explained that their case was based upon ‘UNESCO’s definition of heritage as being communal property and its protection is therefore of common interest. Moreover, a solution is possible and consists of changing the initial positioning of the camp for the orange-tree meadows situated nearby.’ In fact, it was entirely possible to change the location of the refugee camp, were the will there to do it, but the Council of Ministers rejected the suggestion because politicians had ‘promised’ the Palestinian refugees that the camp would be rebuilt on its original site, and they feared that a change of geographical position would pose a problem in terms of the refugees’ rights and statutes. This was a pioneering legal case in Lebanon. For more than a decade the decisions of State Councils vis-à-vis archaeology had not respected the antiquities law, but, until this incident, no politician had considered that such ‘nonsense’ was worthy of their being called before the judicial authorities. Unfortunately, though, the case did not remain in its judicial framework and the matter was very quickly manipulated, adopting a political, even racial, twist. Deputy Michel Aoun and everyone else wishing to defend the heritage and archaeology of Orthosia were accused of acting against the Palestinian cause and of renouncing the refugees’ right to a life of dignity. Suddenly the media started to talk and write of ‘the precedence that shards of pottery take over human rights’. In just a few days the issue had turned around entirely: it was no longer about the protection of an archaeological site but rather ‘the clear intention to maintain the suffering of Palestinian refugees’. Correspondence sent to the Al Akhbar newspaper reflected the anger of the refugees, anger which had started emerging in the Nahr al-Bared camp and which was echoed by refugees living in other Palestinian camps (Fig 13.4). Feelings were running so high that there was a renewed risk of rioting and unrest in Lebanon. This was all happening with the full blessing of the government and, furthermore, new terminology was emerging in press packs and being used by spokespeople. There was talk of ‘scientific approaches to the backfilling of archaeological sites’; ‘site backfilling techniques used in Western countries’; ‘experts in backfilling supervising

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HOLDS PLACARD DEMANDING ‘IMMEDIATE REBUILDING OF THE CAMP’

the work’. This approach worked because, in the general public’s mind, while the government certainly did not prioritise archaeology, it was being seen to protect it nonetheless. It was left up to a coalition of archaeologists to argue via the media that the terminology used was false and manipulative – a response that in fact never took place. In fact, the few anonymous people who had previously assisted journalists and provided supporting documentation and research findings now silently vanished. The fear of new outbreaks of rioting was very real; moreover, noone wanted to prolong the Palestinians’ suffering, so the manipulation of information and statements continued. A very simplistic refrain was repeated by members of the Council of Ministers and by the president of the committee for the rebuilding of Nahr al-Bared, Khalil Makawi. They said ‘the Roman town has laid here for 2000 years; it can wait another 1000 years. When the refugees return to Palestine, archaeologists will then be able to unearth it from beneath the concrete’ – reasoning which suddenly seemed acceptable to everyone and was seen as being the only valid solution. The notion of changing the camp’s location was not raised again and decisions on the fate of the archaeology were played out in the corridors of the Supreme Court. Case judge Choukri Saber stipulated that:

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the case could only be heard on two conditions: (i) The legal status of the person bringing the trial must be a body proven to be working to safeguard heritage and the backfilling of the archaeological site must be shown to truly endanger or impede their work; (ii) If the complainant does not provide the necessary documentary evidence, the request for the case to be heard will thereby be annulled and the Council of Ministers’ decision will remain valid and will be put into force.

This was what in fact happened. The Supreme Court trial judge refused to consider that any impact on or damage to the Roman town of Orthosia would be a loss for the Lebanese people as a whole. The matter was never discussed before the courts. The Council of Ministers’ illegal decision was accepted as valid and the backfilling of the site began. Ground clearance revealed the existence of a vast hydraulic system unparalleled in Lebanon. Archaeologists who saw the remains confirmed that the pipework installed there would not have been put in place had the town not been very large. Unfortunately Orthosia will now never see the light of day and the site remains buried beneath concrete. This affair, the first of its kind in Lebanon (and in the Middle East) will not pass unnoticed in the specialism of the protection of heritage. The attempt to take the case to court was courageous and could have brought about a different result had it gone ahead. After all, General Aoun was not simply led by his love of ‘old stones’ – he had also been advised by archaeologists who wanted to bring about a change in attitudes. But it did not go ahead. Worse still is the bitter taste the episode leaves behind. The whole issue was certainly complex, and was certainly extensively manipulated by the media. However, such manipulation is a constant in Lebanon and is not set to change in the near future. This is a country of opponents and political manipulation. Everything in Lebanon has a political and ‘confessional’ slant. Archaeology attempted to raise the bar with this episode but defeat has set back the cause; the discipline will only ever become a priority in times of conflict if it can raise its profile in times of peace. EXPLANATORY NOTES REGARDING

THE

GENERAL CONTEXT

OF

NAHR

AL-BARED

The inhumane plight of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon The situation for Palestinian refugees in Lebanon is distressing. Having arrived in Lebanon following the fighting and population expulsions that accompanied the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, thousands of civilians found themselves homeless and without immigration papers in a country which received them only to redistribute them between 12 camps. At the time it was believed to be a temporary situation that would only last a few weeks – the time it would take for the Arab army to win the battles necessary for these thousands of civilians to return to their villages. But Israel won the war and proclaimed Palestinian land to be Israel. Overnight Lebanon found itself with 200,000 additional civilians on its territory and, not being a signatory to the Geneva Conventions on the rights of refugees, the Lebanese State refused to meet their most basic civil rights. The Palestinians in the camps do not have the right to a concrete dwelling with basic infrastructure; they do not have the right

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to advanced University study (more than 75 discipline specialisations are refused to them); they do not have the right to nationality or social security. In short, their lives, to a large extent, depend on the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the organisation created by the United Nations to take care of Palestinian refugees. Aside from their very difficult humanitarian situation, the Palestinian refugees became part of the Lebanese civil war; some Lebanese even consider that the Palestinians were the trigger for 17 years of fighting. This has generated a feeling of hatred towards them, and Christian militia have carried out ‘ethnic cleansing’ massacres within the refugee camps. This situation has placed the issue amongst the most delicate faced by Lebanon, not least because of the State’s decision to refuse to grant Lebanese citizenship to refugees and their children (who today number 450,000), in order to maintain their ‘right to return to Palestine’. While awaiting their return thousands of people live in camps fenced in by barbed wire with entrances guarded by Lebanese army checkpoints. The armed military factions of various Palestinian political parties control daily life in the camps, while the Lebanese State intervenes very little. The subject of the camps is, on the political and human level, among the thorniest in Lebanon. Wiping out Al Qaida from the Nahr al-Bared camp For the inhabitants of Nahr al-Bared, 20 May 2007 has become an impossible date to forget. On that day the Fath el Islam militia (a small Sunni group claiming ideological links with Al Qaida) launched a war against the Lebanese army, carrying out a massacre by slitting the throats of sleeping soldiers. The army responded by launching open war against the militia, which lasted for three months and resulted in the complete destruction of the camp. The military operation came to an end when the last militia were killed in the camp after attempting to escape by forcing a passage through the troops deployed around Nahr al-Bared. Prime Minister Fouad Siniora hailed it the ‘biggest victory’ against terrorism in Lebanon and committed to rebuild the ruined camp, calling on donating countries to convene on 10 September. Mr Siniora made assurances that, henceforth, the camp would be classed as ‘under the authority of the Lebanese State’, whereas the 12 Palestinian camps had until then escaped the authority of the State. The meeting between the donating countries took place and funding was promised to kick-start the immediate rebuilding of the camp. It was then that an army spokesperson explained that soldiers would explore the ruins of the camp, which was dotted with explosives. The army called on the 40,000 inhabitants of Nahr al-Bared, who had fled at the outbreak of fighting, to wait until the camp had been cleared before returning. In the meantime these people were placed in makeshift shelters made partly from metal containers and therefore completely uninhabitable owing to the extremes of summer heat and winter cold. There were also small concrete houses but with iron roofs and untiled floors, giving insects and reptiles free access. These inhumane living conditions were, perhaps understandably, behind the inhabitants’ refusal to accept the existence of the archaeological discoveries and their belief that this claim was a lie used simply as an excuse to abandon them to fester in their miserable dwellings.

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REFERENCES

Farchakh Bajjaly, J, 2006 Liban: le patrimoine du sud après 34 jours de guerre, Archéologia 437, 20–33 Dussaud, R, 1927 Topographie Historique de la Syrie Antique et Médiévale, Librairie Orientale Paul Geuthner, Paris Lefèvre, A-C, 1995 Beyrouth: l’archéologie par le vide (III), in Archéologia 318, December, 4–9 — and Durand-Godiveau, H, 1995 Beyrouth: le plus grand chantier d’archéologie urbaine du monde (I), Archéologia 316, October, 14–0 Seeden, H, 1994a Search for the Missing Link: Archaeology and the Public in Lebanon, in The Politics of the Past (eds P Gathercole and D Lowenthal), Routledge, London and New York —, 1994b Archaeology and the Public in Lebanon: Developments since 1986, in The Presented Past (eds P G Stone and B L Molyneaux), Routledge, London and New York

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Relations between Archaeologists and the Military in the Case of Iraq: Foreword IAIN SHEARER Forum Editor

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he complex and emotive issues surrounding ‘engagement’ by archaeologists with the military have been recently and vocally aired in a number of different professional forums and media. The Papers from the Institute of Archaeology (PIA) forum editor felt that this topic deserved greater illustration – for and by some of the archaeologists involved – as a series of strongly voiced opinions, some informed and some less so, has been expressed on the open weblist of the World Archaeological Congress (WAC). Dr John Curtis, Keeper of the Department of the Middle East at the British Museum, was approached and kindly agreed to be the PIA Forum Primary Correspondent, as, despite both public and vocal opposition to military action in Iraq prior to the recent invasion, he found himself and his institution playing an active role in attempting to ameliorate the situation regarding further destruction of Iraq’s cultural heritage and heritage institutions and working with and alongside the British military in his efforts to do so. Three of the forum correspondents were approached and agreed to discuss the issues raised by Dr Curtis on the basis of their own recent experiences in working with either the UK or US militaries, both inside and outside Iraq. The final correspondent was approached and agreed to respond to Dr Curtis’ lead article both as a non-archaeologist and a representative voice for those many academics without direct personal experience of working with the military in any professional capacity, but whom nonetheless have very strongly held and voiced opinions on the subject. The forum editor would like to reiterate that there is still no consensus by archaeologists and heritage professionals on this complex topic and although a number of the most vocal opponents of any engagement by archaeologists with the military from the WAC weblist were approached to be correspondents, all, unfortunately, refused to be directly engaged by Dr John Curtis. The following articles are the respective authors’ personal opinions and do not necessarily represent their respective institutions’ views on the recent invasion of and subsequent conflict within Iraq. The PIA forum editor deeply thanks the correspondents for their time and hopes that the following articles stimulate further constructive discussion on this contentious subject and that PIA’s readership finds them informative.

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Relations between Archaeologists and the Military in the Case of Iraq JOHN CURTIS Keeper, Department of the Middle East, British Museum

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n this short paper I want to consider the controversial question of whether archaeologists should work with the military, principally in Iraq. During the course of 2008, the British Museum and the British Army collaborated in a project to inspect archaeological sites in the south of Iraq and to develop plans for a new museum in Basra. I shall describe the background to this collaboration, and consider the ethical questions arising from this arrangement. Firstly, the engagement with the British Army needs to be put into its proper context. Since the invasion of Iraq by Coalition forces in Spring 2003, and the looting of the Iraq Museum in Baghdad on 10–11 April 2003, the British Museum has been working alongside other organisations to help our Iraqi colleagues in their attempts to protect and save Iraqi cultural heritage (Curtis 2008a and 2008b; http://www.britishmuseum.org/the_museum/museum_in_the_world/middle_east_ programme/iraq_project.aspx). A large part of this work has consisted of providing condition reports and listing damage. I shall describe these attempts in chronological order because they are germane to the question of why we eventually sought the assistance of the British Army. Following the looting of the Iraq Museum, a press conference that had been arranged at the British Museum on 15 April to promote its 250th anniversary was dominated by this shocking news. Through the good offices of Channel 4 News, a link-up by satellite telephone was established with Dr Donny George, then Director of the Iraq Museum, in the Iraq Museum. He reported that the museum was still unguarded, and urged me to come out to Baghdad as soon as possible to witness the situation at first hand. When it became known that we were planning a visit to Baghdad, a number of journalists and film crews offered to join forces with us. We decided to link up with a BBC team which wanted to produce a programme to be presented by Dan Cruickshank. We needed each other. I would be able to get the BBC team into the Iraq Museum (they would not have got access otherwise), and they would be able to get me into Iraq, with protection from the security firm Pilgrim Elite. It was not a bad arrangement. The advantages were that I was able to spend 25–26 April 2003 in the Iraq Museum (with the BBC team) photographing and recording the damage, and Donny George came back with me to London to appear at a press conference in the British Museum on 29 April at which he was able to tell the world’s media exactly what had happened in the museum. Also at this time we made a list of the 40 or so most important objects stolen from the galleries. The disadvantages of this collaboration with the BBC were that they produced a film of which I strongly

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disapproved in which it was suggested that the Iraqi curators were somehow complicit in the looting of the museum. I was, and still remain, firmly convinced that the curators were entirely blameless. As an American colleague has remarked: they may have been Baathists, but they weren’t criminals. The next opportunity to visit Iraq came in June 2003. At the press conference on 29 April Donny George had said that he wanted the British Museum to coordinate efforts to provide assistance to the Iraq State Board of Antiquities and Heritage (ISBAH), particularly in the field of conservation.1 Accordingly, a small British Museum group, which included two conservators, spent the period 11–26 June in Iraq. The visit was funded by the Packard Foundation and security was again provided by Pilgrim Elite. The early summer of 2003 was actually the only time since the war in Iraq began when it has been possible to travel around the country relatively safely, and we were able to make full use of this window of opportunity. In Baghdad we made further observations in the Iraq Museum and the conservators drew up a detailed conservation plan, which was in fact not possible to put into effect because of the rapidly deteriorating security situation thereafter. We also inspected the material in the Rafidain Bank that had been recently unpacked – chiefly goldwork and ivories – and we made a visit to the north. During this tour we visited Nimrud, Nineveh, and Balawat, and were the first Western archaeologists to visit the Mosul Museum, which was looted at exactly the same time as the Iraq Museum in Baghdad. Lastly, we went to Babylon, which at that time was guarded by a very small detachment of Coalition troops. Throughout this visit, we were accompanied by two filmmakers from Cicada Films, but sadly no film has ever appeared. At the time, it appeared to be difficult to reconcile the agendas of the filmmakers on the one hand and we archaeologists on the other. As I have said, the military detachment at Babylon in June 2003 was small. However, the camp continued to grow through the second half of 2003 and the first part of 2004 so that, by the summer of 2004, it occupied an area of 150 hectares and housed 2000 soldiers. Following a storm of protest in the international press and on the internet, the Coalition took a decision to vacate the camp. A handover ceremony was arranged by the Polish ambassador – Polish troops being at that time the last residents of the camp – and, in preparation for the handover, a lengthy report on the overall condition of Babylon was prepared by Polish archaeologists embedded in the Polish army. At the same time, I was invited by Dr Mufid al-Jazairi, then Iraqi minister of culture, to visit Babylon and prepare an independent report focusing on the damage that had been caused during the time that Babylon was a military camp. With the assistance of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) and the British Embassy in Baghdad, and with the help of American forces in Iraq, I was able to join the inspection team at Babylon for the period 11–13 December 2004. Security cover was provided by Control Risks Group. In due course I prepared a report (Curtis 2005) which attracted considerable publicity (The Guardian 2005). This report highlighted 1 This request caused some resentment among a small minority of the audience who felt that a museum with large collections of Iraqi material was not an appropriate body to lead efforts to help the Iraq Museum, and they questioned whether an institution with close ties to the British government should be involved, given that the British government had sanctioned the invasion. However, none of the doubters had themselves previous experience of working in Iraq.

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problems such as the digging of long trenches through previously undisturbed archaeological deposits, the removal of large amounts of surface deposit, the flattening of areas which were then covered with compacted gravel, the filling of sandbags and HESCO containers with earth from outside Babylon (thereby contaminating the record at Babylon itself), the driving of heavy military vehicles along the ancient Processional Way, and the damaging of dragon (mushhushu) figures in the Ishtar Gate. At the time of writing a final assessment of damages has still not been officially agreed, but a UNESCO report incorporating my findings together with those of Iraqi colleagues and others will be released shortly. The work I was able to undertake at Babylon is an example of how such visits can be facilitated if the invitation has been extended at a senior level – in this case by the Iraqi Minister of Culture. In the course of 2005–6, as a result of the worsening security situation, I was not able to visit Iraq at all to continue the task of monitoring damage to cultural heritage. This was in spite of the fact that, in March 2006, reports began to circulate that inscribed stones had been taken without the permission of the Iraqi antiquities authorities from the famous site of Ur of the Chaldees to Nasiriya Museum by Italian archaeologists working with Coalition troops. Dr George sent his staff to investigate and received reassuring reports from them, but he was still anxious to visit Ur himself and invited me to join him there for a tour of inspection. I was keen to do this, as it would provide an opportunity to see if Coalition troops from the adjoining Tallil Airbase had caused any damage at Ur, a site of special interest to the British Museum because of the excavations there by Sir Leonard Woolley between 1922 and 1934. However, the visit took so long to organise that by the time it came about Dr George had left Iraq for the US and had been replaced as Chairman of the State Board by Dr Abbas al-Husseini. I was eventually able to go out to Ur in February 2007. The trip was facilitated by the FCO and security was again provided by Control Risks Group. The plan was that I should meet up with Dr al-Husseini at Ur, but it went horribly wrong. The site is incorporated within the perimeter fence surrounding Tallil Airbase, so all access to the site is controlled by US forces. When Dr al-Husseini arrived at the main gate, after having driven down especially from Baghdad, he refused to be searched and was therefore denied access. His entirely reasonable argument was that, as Director of Antiquities, he had responsibility for all archaeological sites in Iraq and should have unrestricted access to them. The stand-off lasted several hours, but Dr al-Husseini’s protests were to no avail and he was unable to enter the site. In these circumstances my own inspection had to be aborted, but I was able to ascertain before leaving that shrapnel damage to the façade of the ziggurat had been caused during the First Gulf War (1990–91), and bomb craters to the north-east of the site also dated to that time (Curtis 2007). More worrying was the realisation that the new Visitor Control Centre at the main gate complex had been built on top of the ancient suburb of Ur known as Diqdiqqa. The construction of the Centre will inevitably have caused some damage to the archaeological deposits in this area which could have been avoided if archaeologists or experts in cultural heritage had been consulted beforehand. The fiasco at Ur was not only deeply embarrassing but also very frustrating. We were keen to do more to record and rebuild Iraqi cultural heritage, but it was proving

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very difficult to go to Iraq and engage with Iraqi colleagues. Therefore, it was a welcome breath of fresh air when Major General Barney White-Spunner, the British commanding officer, came to the British Museum in September 2007, in advance of the deployment of the Third Division to Basra, and asked what he could do to help protect cultural heritage. By now the advantages of working with the Army were obvious, as we shall see, but I recognise that our ready agreement to do so requires some explanation. This is particularly so in view of the heated debates on this subject, such as at the recent World Archaeological Congress in Dublin. Before the war started I had been unwilling to provide a list of sites for the military.2 In fact, the British MoD never asked me or the British Museum for any information, but I was approached (in a private capacity) by a person collecting information for the US DoD. I declined to give any information for the following reasons: (i) Iraq is a vast archaeological site: providing a list of selected sites would give the army carte blanche to do whatever they wanted elsewhere. (ii) Providing information would somehow be collusion, assisting in the preparations for the war. (iii) Providing information was, I thought, a political rather than a military gesture – in fact dancing to a political agenda.

For the same reasons, I had not been willing to contribute a chapter to Larry Rothfield’s book Antiquities under Siege: Cultural Heritage Protection after the Iraq War (2008), even though I had participated in the original conference organised by the Cultural Policy Center of the University of Chicago in August 2006. My reluctance was based on the fact that I was unhappy to write about what should be done to protect cultural heritage in the event of an invasion when, to my mind, an invasion could hardly ever be justified. Also, to put this decision into context, it was at this moment that an invasion of Iran was being widely spoken of.3 As regards the question of working with the army, I draw a sharp distinction between providing advice preconflict and post-conflict. The pre-conflict situation is, in fact, governed by political considerations over which the army has no more control than archaeologists, but in the post-conflict situation, when the damage has occurred, both the army and archaeologists have an obligation to rebuild the infrastructure, including cultural heritage. Working with the army post-conflict is, therefore, a pragmatic solution. It is only they who have the resources to facilitate visits and provide protection. They also have a great deal of expertise that can be harnessed for archaeological work. For these 2 In fact, supplying lists of sites does not seem to have been a very useful exercise – witness the lack of care taken at Babylon, Hatra, Kish, Samarra, and Ur, and of course the gross neglect of the Iraq Museum and provincial museums. 3 It was suggested at the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities conference in Cambridge on 12 December 2008 that I had provided a list of sites in Iran to the press to be avoided in case of conflict, but I did nothing of the sort. The article in The Guardian on 5th March 2007 (Kennedy, M, ‘Iran’s rich architecture and rare treasures threatened by possible US strikes’) sought to point out that an aerial bombardment of nuclear facilities in Iran would have disastrous consequences for nearby sites of cultural heritage interest.

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reasons I have come to the conclusion that cooperation between the military and archaeologists post-conflict is very useful and desirable, and, indeed, if there had been closer collaboration, disasters such as the building of a military camp at Babylon or the building of a gate complex on an ancient suburb of Ur could have been avoided. In the initial discussion with Major General White-Spunner, we indicated that the greatest need was to undertake condition assessments at sites in the south of Iraq which had not been reported on and where looting was believed to be ongoing, and also to refurbish some of the provincial museums in Southern Iraq. Major Hugo Clarke was shortly thereafter appointed the project manager, a post which he still holds, and we have been working with him throughout. To test the feasibility of the project I stayed with the British Army at Basra Airbase between 12 and 16 April 2008 and during this time visited Eridu, Warka, and Ur by helicopter, landing at two of the sites. It was clear from this brief reconnaissance trip that it would indeed be possible to survey a number of sites, and this was reported at a meeting at the British Museum on 29 April. At the same time, Major Rupert Burridge described how the Lakeside Palace of Saddam Hussein at Basra could be adapted for use as a new museum for Basra, if this suggestion was approved and taken forward by the Iraqis. By this stage, it was clear that there would be resources to concentrate on only one museum, and Basra was the obvious choice. The next phase of the project was planned for the period 1–10 June 2008. It was conceived of and still remains as a joint project with the ISBAH, and their full involvement in it is seen as crucial. I was joined by three Iraqi colleagues (Qais Hussein Raheed, Mehsin Ali, and Abdulamir al-Hamdani) and three foreign colleagues (Elizabeth Stone, Margarete Van Ess, and Paul Collins). We were based at Basra and Tallil, and managed to inspect eight different archaeological sites: Ur, Eridu, Ubaid, Warka (Uruk), Larsa, Tell el-’Oueili, Lagash (Tell al-Hiba), and Tell al-Lahm. We visited the sites by Merlin helicopter and, apart from the archaeological team and Majors Clarke and Burridge, there was a seven-man protection force, a signaller, a medic, a two-person combat camera team, and five crew. The results were both informative and unexpected. We found the following: (i) Damage from neglect. For nearly 30 years (since the beginning of the Iraq–Iran War, 1980–88), little attention has been paid to sites and monuments. At Ur, reconstructed buildings are now in poor condition and there is damage from erosion at a number of sites, particularly Eridu and Tell al-Lahm. (ii) Damage resulting from the conversion of sites into military defensive positions apparently by the Iraqi army in the period leading up to the Coalition invasion of 2003. This situation was evident at Ubaid and Tell al-Lahm. (iii) Damage resulting from Coalition activities. This applies mainly to Ur, where, as noted above, a new Visitor Control Centre was built on the site of Diqdiqqa. In addition, some accidental damage may have been caused to the site by the uncontrolled visits of large numbers of Coalition troops stationed at Tallil. Discarded food wrappers were noted at Tell al-Lahm, testifying to the erstwhile presence there of US troops, but there was no damage that could be definitely associated with them. (iv) Damage from looting. There was clear evidence of looting holes at Larsa, Tell el-

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’Oueili, Tell al-Lahm and Lagash. At Eridu, inscribed bricks had been looted from the collapsed dig-house. However, as far as we could see this looting had mainly occurred in 2003–4, and there did not seem to be evidence of very recent looting.

It is undeniable that this work could only have been carried out under the auspices and with the assistance of the army. Important results were obtained, but they have not been entirely uncontroversial. We made it very clear in our full report on the internet4 that our conclusions about the probable cessation of looting since 2004 applied only to the eight sites visited and not necessarily to sites in other parts of the country or indeed to sites in the north part of Dhi Qar Province where looting was known to have been very bad in 2003–4. However, the findings have been contested by a small number of people.5 Some hostile critics, apparently motivated by political considerations, have even suggested that we were taken by the army to sites that they knew were in good condition. Needless to say, such claims are entirely baseless and, indeed, the selection of sites was made entirely by the archaeological team in consultation with the Iraqis. Nevertheless, we recognise the importance of undertaking further site visits and we hope to do this, as part of the ongoing collaboration with the army, in the early part of 2009. In conclusion, working with the army has enabled archaeologists to engage with these sites in a way that, because of the security situation, would otherwise have been completely impossible. The benefits of this cooperation are, I think, self-evident. Above all, I very much hope that one of the fruits of this relationship will be a new museum for Basra, which would be a small compensation for some of the damage that has been caused to Iraqi cultural heritage because of the war.

4 ‘Overview of site visits 2008’ is an assessment of archaeological sites in June 2008: an Iraqi–British project. This report will also be published in full in the next volume of Iraq (vol LXX for 2008): http://www.britishmuseum.org/the_museum/museum_in_the_world/middle_east_programme/iraq_project/ overview_of_site_surveys.aspx [accessed 20 November 2010]. 5 In its issue for July–August 2008 (no 193), The Art Newspaper reported that ‘Archaeological sites in south Iraq have not been looted, say experts’. It is true that this was a misleading headline, but the body of the text reported our findings fairly, namely emphasising that the absence of recent looting applied only to the eight sites that were visited. Nevertheless, the validity of our findings was questioned on various websites, which led Art Newspaper reporter Martin Bailey to interview Dr Abbas al-Hussaini, recently retired as Director of Antiquities. The next number of The Art Newspaper (no 194 for September 2008) carried the headline ‘Iraq’s top archaeologist says looting is over’, which resulted in Dr Abbas being unfairly criticised by archaeologists who insist that the looting is ongoing (Bailey 2008a; Bailey 2008b).

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Bailey, M, 2008a Archaeological Sites in South Iraq have not been Looted, say Experts, The Art Newspaper 193, July–August, available from: http://www.theartnewspaper.com —, 2008b Iraq’s Top Archaeologist says Looting is Over, The Art Newspaper 194, September–October, available from: http://www.theartnewspaper.com). British Museum, 2008 Overview of site visits 2008, British Museum, available from: http://www.britishmuseum.org/the_museum/museum_in_the_world/middle_east_programme/ iraq_project/overview_of_site_surveys.aspx [accessed 19 November 2010] Curtis, J E, 2005 Report on Meeting at Babylon 11th–13th December 2004, British Museum, available from: http://www.britishmuseum.org/PDF/BabylonReport04.pdf [accessed 19 November 2010] —, 2007 Ur of the Chaldees in February 2007, British Museum, available from: http://www.britishmuseum.org/PDF/Ur%20Report%20doc.pdf [accessed 19 November 2010] —, 2008a The Role of the British Museum in the Protection of the Iraqi Cultural Heritage, in The Destruction of Cultural Heritage in Iraq (eds P G Stone and J Farchakh Bajjaly), The Boydell Press, Woodbridge, 201–12 —, 2008b Days of Plunder: Who Emptied the Cradle of Civilization?, The Sunday Times Magazine, 13 April, 32–9 The Guardian, 2005 Cultural Vandalism, 15 January, available from: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/jan/15/iraq.guardianleaders [accessed 19 November 2010] Kennedy, M, 2007 Iran’s Rich Architecture and Rare Treasures Threatened by Possible US Strikes, The Guardian, 5 March Rothfield, L (ed), 2008 Antiquities Under Siege: Cultural Heritage Protection after the Iraq War, Altamira Press, Lanham, MD

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Response to ‘Relations between Archaeologists and the Military in the Case of Iraq’ JON PRICE Northumbria University No Man’s Land WAC Council and Executive

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y response to this paper is informed by my knowledge and the context to that knowledge. It is not intended as an ad hominem response, but statements in John’s paper are instead taken to stand for and represent similar statements by other commentators made elsewhere. I am an archaeologist. A long time ago I studied the Sassanian dynasty of Persia (modern Iran) under Dr Bivar at the School of Oriental and African Studies. The opportunity for fieldwork never arose for socio-political reasons. For a number of years I have worked closely with serving military personnel dealing with military archaeology (the archaeology of military sites and personnel) in Britain, Belgium, and France, and with MoD archaeologists who work with the military on training ranges in Britain. I was actively involved in political debate prior to the invasion of Iraq, being at the time a Labour Party officer in the constituency of a cabinet minister. I was then, and remain now, opposed to the invasion of Iraq, in itself and as part of the ‘War on Terror’. I organised a session at the 2008 World Archaeological Congress (WAC) in Dublin entitled ‘Working with the Military: Not Evil, Just Necessary’ which contained papers by US and Dutch military archaeologists, UK MoD personnel, a lawyer, and myself. This session ran despite massive opposition from those elements within WAC who refuse any dialogue with the military. It also had the dubious privilege of close police protection after the police received ‘credible threats of disruption’ (C Smith, pers comm). The British military is a legitimate arm of this Western capitalist state. If we are to take a moral stance on working with the military we must also do the same in relation to the police (forensic work), the education system, and ultimately any source of funding derived from capitalist organisations rather than from open public collection. The fact that we do not is an indication of pragmatism. There are archaeologists who refuse/oppose all these things, though largely they remain employed by and within the education system. If we are to single out the military for our boycott, then we should apply that boycott at all locations where archaeology and the army intersect. All army training ranges were used in the preparation for the invasion of Iraq and support the continued occupation. A refusal to work with the army in Iraq should be accompanied, inter alia, by a refusal to work with them on Salisbury Plain and on the Otterburn ranges in Northumberland. Both of these locations contain significant remains of human activity which are essential to an understanding of our national past.

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Those archaeologists who would choose to work in Iraq without overt cooperation with the army have difficulty gaining access to sites, as John explains, and so are unable to carry out the archaeological work they set out to do. More critically, visiting archaeologists have to work in close cooperation with mercenary organisations. John specifically mentions Pilgrim Elite and Control Risks Group. Mercenaries are military organisations operating outside the checks and balances applied to the state military. They are implicated in significant contraventions of ethical, moral, and legal norms. Nevertheless this is not addressed as an issue by groups who carry out, or suggest carrying out, work without cooperating with the army. For example, on a personal, moral, and ethical level, I would rather be associated with the US Army than with Blackwater USA. In the film Apocalypse Now (1979) Willard, the Special Forces officer, says, after his crew have massacred the civilian occupants of a boat: ‘It was a way we had over here of living with ourselves. We’d cut them in half with a machine gun and give ’em a band aid. It was a lie.’ This principle is similar to archaeologists refusing to cooperate with the military before and during the invasion on the basis of a statement of political, moral, or ethical belief, but then agreeing to go into Iraq to survey and ‘rescue’ archaeology. The first position claims the moral high ground by refusing to support aggression against the population of Iraq. The second position appears to support the Iraqi people, but in fact is actually driven by an attachment to the archaeology of Iraq. The archaeology is seen as detached and separate from the Iraqi people, who are implicated both in its destruction through the construction of defensive works during the war and in its neglect during the long and costly war between Iraq (as a US surrogate) and Iran. Aside from this, the Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (1954) is clear in stating that States must attempt to minimise damage to cultural heritage during armed conflict. This needs preparation, and archaeologists, as citizens of these States, are the logical personnel to engage in this process, unless we consider the Hague Convention to have no relevance. Archaeologists are implicated in the colonisation of Iraq, as they always have been. The British Museum has national status, is part of the British establishment and is (in the eyes of the colonised) as much an arm of the state as is the army. The simple statement that the Museum has a special interest in Ur because of Woolley’s excavations there from 1922 to 1934 has huge implications for colonial attitudes, responses, and relationships. The statement ‘contaminating the record at Babylon’ seems innocent except that it isolates the early human activity and neutralises the cultural heritage of Babylon by removing this record from association with the surrounding Iraqi population. It also implies that the activities of the invading armies of the 21st century are somehow different from the activities of invading armies from earlier centuries, and so do not constitute part of that continuum of heritage and history. Finally, there is the question of the psychology of cooperation with the army. John says that ‘[the army] have a great deal of expertise that can be harnessed for archaeological work’. I’m not sure about this attribute, but they do have lots of exciting stuff, which introduces questions concerning how individuals view the military on a personal level. There are lots of images of archaeologists in Iraq taking

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an obvious delight in the wearing of military dress and equipment (which they would plead is essential), behaviour which chimes intriguingly with the adoption of military gear on sites in the UK, from the entrenching tools and gas-mask bags of the 1950s and 1960s to the combat trousers and camouflage gear of the 21st century. At one point John lovingly names his transport (not just a helicopter but a Merlin helicopter), and lists the team (not a first aider, but a medic; not just a camera team, but a combat camera team) with a care bordering on fetishism. Our relationship with the army is complex; however, the army is not separate from our society, but part of it. We must develop a sophisticated response to the question of how we interact with it in the same way that we do for any aspect of our complex society.

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Ford Coppola, F, 1979 Apocalypse Now, United Artists UNESCO, 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, available from: http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0008/000824/ 082464mb.pdf [accessed 19 November 2010]

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Response to ‘Relations between Archaeologists and the Military in the Case of Iraq’ MIKE ROWLANDS UCL Department of Anthropology

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n this short paper I want to consider the controversial question of whether archaeologists should work with the military, principally in Iraq.’ The author obviously implies that, while this question has been raised in particular by the Iraq war, it is more generally controversial for archaeologists dealing with conflict and post-conflict situations. John Curtis sees some involvement by archaeologists with the military as inevitable and, in post-conflict situations, as desirable. Any earlier engagement with the military, he argues, should be avoided on ethical grounds – in particular, giving information or advice could appear as collusion and as taking the political stance of encouraging the war preparations. The ethical questions raised are whether to have relationships with the military (on the perhaps benign assumption that whatever their motives to destroy an enemy, somehow ‘culture’ will escape their attention if sufficient information or warnings are given), thus appearing to collude with the destruction of human life and property that must inevitably ensue from conflict, or not. If the latter, then it is the best of a bad job not to provide the advice and information needed to avoid accidental destruction and to focus instead on postconflict recovery and cleaning up. I am not sure where the ethics lie in this position. It seems to me that the real question raised here is not whether archaeologists should work with the military, but how to avoid the need to do so at all. Whether pre- or post-conflict, to work with a military organisation that is planning a campaign of destruction is surely like relying on ‘poachers to conserve the game’. We can adapt the old adage that ‘with war comes opportunities’ to a more specific rendition that with war comes opportunities for cultural revenge and looting. In the case of the Iraq war, the idea that the American or British armies would want to participate in the destruction of the origins of ‘Western civilisation’ is barely conceivable (but I guess not impossible) to many archaeologists. This may, of course, be crediting the American and British armies with too much foresight and not enough recognition of their incompetence. McGuire Gibson’s complaint about being involved with advising the Pentagon on the lead up to the Iraq war is precisely that, even with all the data on site itineraries and map coordinates he provided the officials preparing for war, the ‘rush to Baghdad’ meant that none of the relevant people were there in time and there were not enough troops on the ground to do anything much except protect the site of first priority, the Oil Ministry. As he says at one point: Perhaps it is America’s general disregard of and suspicion of ‘culture’, relegating it to non-governmental bodies and individuals to support (with the exception of much

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debated funding for the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities and a few other programs) that caused it to be left out of the planning. Perhaps culture, as a government concern, is considered too European or too Socialist. (Gibson n.d.)

By mid-May 2003, the Pentagon had sub-contracted ‘culture’ to the Italians, and the Italian ambassador to Iraq was put in charge of the Iraq Ministry of Culture. Gibson’s account is one of continuing American neglect and incompetence, mainly relating to the fact that the whole question of cultural preservation was never an important part of the agenda. Even with good will and enthusiasm from some ‘lower ranks’, the fact that orders never came down from on high meant that, usually, nothing was done. Curtis’ account of much the same period reflects a more British way of doing things. When the destruction of cultural property in Iraq first became apparent a press conference and crisis meetings held at the British Museum in London were followed by an emergency satellite phone call to Donny George, the Head of the National Museum in Baghdad, who appealed for help from the British Museum. Within a day, Curtis was on a flight to Baghdad to meet the beleaguered staff of the Iraq National Museum. As he describes it, lots of good things were done, in a rather British shuttingthe-stable-door way, and no doubt the situation would have been much worse otherwise. However, it all flowed from the ethical stance taken (unlike Gibson) by Curtis and the British Museum, who presumably did not and would not have any dealings (nor were they asked) with the MoD about cultural preservation before the Iraq War began. Was it all a bit ‘stand-offish’/stiff upper lip/we won’t ask and they wouldn’t volunteer anything and does it matter anyway? Suspicion of the MoD and its machinations is complemented by faith in the integrity of the staff of the Iraq National Museum and condemnation of the dastardly Dan Cruickshank, who turns up with a BBC film crew casting gross aspersions. Curtis’ article, from June 2004 on, is a narrative of visits and inspections of the damage to archaeological sites, of the writing of reports and the bringing of the weight of culture (and the British Museum) to bear on the British Army in Basra. Unlike the American situation, with archaeologists trying in vain to get the Pentagon to take cultural matters seriously, British Major Generals with impossible-sounding names come to visit Curtis at the British Museum, and involvement with the army in Basra is a natural follow-on from these meetings. The natural affinity between the hierarchies of the British Museum and the British Army in the field is such that you can scarcely tell the difference between them. An Army Major is put in charge of converting an old palace into a museum for Basra, and joint expeditions are made in Merlin helicopters to explore the damage to archaeological sites. Somewhere in all this are the chosen officials of the Iraq National Museum, who are drafted in to be consulted, to agree, and to join in in what is, after all, how the ‘Brits’ always do things. That there is a cultural logic to cultural preservation shouldn’t be a surprise. However, we have to ask: is this the best way to do things? Are there other ways for archaeologists to have an effect? I am sure there are lessons to be learnt from situations like Iraq, and they have been. One seems to be the need for training and infrastructure to be available on the ground, particularly in sensitive situations where

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conflict is a high probability. After the experience of the First Gulf War, in which significant looting and damage to archaeological sites occurred, there was a widespread recognition of the likely consequences of the Iraq invasion and both UNESCO and the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) made presentations to the Bush administration, presumably to no avail. Institutions, however, tend to produce their own cultural ideologies in the cases revolving around the need for inventories and trained personnel to produce and implement them. We hear that the Getty Conservation Institute and the World Monuments Fund held a meeting in October 2003. By March 2004 they had signed a collaborative agreement with the Iraq State Board of Antiquities and Heritage (ISBAH) to form the Iraq Cultural Heritage Conservation Initiative and to assist ISBAH in redeveloping its professional and managerial capabilities. In addition, by 2004 there was an initiative to bring in an American private consultancy firm to carry out a GIS survey of all archaeological sites affected by the war in Iraq. Big money was involved, with agreements on interregional collaboration, and the institutionalisation of cultural heritage management was rapidly established to take over responsibility from the military in Iraq. One can imagine the last scenario being already drafted as more or less the recognised response of the institutions of cultural heritage management to conflict and post-conflict scenarios. In a crazy sort of way, heritage management transcends the reality of the conflict and the suffering of people into an abstract logic of GIS mapping and the provision of cultural security in order to preserve sites and objects from the madness of civil strife and conflict. Mullah Omar, it is claimed, said to the Director of UNESCO that he couldn’t understand how the ‘West’ could be more concerned for the preservation of the Bamiyan statues when UN sanctions were leading to deaths of thousands of Afghani children. It would appear that ‘crimes against culture’ still need to be put in their proper place, which is with the people involved in the conflicts.

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Gibson, M, n.d. Culture as Afterthought: U.S. Planning and Non-Planning in the Invasion of Iraq, unpublished manuscript

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Response to ‘Relations between Archaeologists and the Military in the Case of Iraq’ LAURIE W RUSH PhD, RPA

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n the United States a comedian named Stephen Colbert has a daily television programme called The Colbert Report. One of his regular features is called ‘Stephen Colbert’s Formidable Opponent’. In these sketches, Mr Colbert puts on a red necktie, then a blue necktie, and debates with himself. In searching for a metaphor for the agonising ethical process to which thoughtful archaeologists who work with the military subject themselves on a daily basis, the ‘Formidable Opponent’ strikes me as the most descriptive. Dr Curtis reflects on the back and forth aspect of his own ethical journey as he discusses his decision to participate in Iraqi projects and his recognition of the fact that he has accepted protection from, and cooperated with, active duty military personnel representing a variety of countries. For me, the internal debate pre-dates the conflict in Iraq. I began to work in a military setting during peacetime, five years prior to the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. It strikes me that most of the current discussion focusing on the ethics of archaeologists working with the military fails to address the fact that the archaeologists actively working on military installations in the United States have numbered in the hundreds for over two decades. One of our primary responsibilities is to identify, evaluate, and protect Native American ancestral places (also known as prehistoric archaeological sites). In the late 1990s, when the United States DoD adopted one of the most proactive indigenous community consultation policies in the world, many DoD archaeologists took responsibility for diplomatic relations between military installations and Native Americans. Effective consultation often put the archaeologist in a position of advocacy for access to, and preservation of, ancestral places. Ironically, these activities directly supported increasing the availability of land for military training. During this time, however, there was virtually no comment or notice from the academic community, let alone a questioning of the ethics of military archaeologists. In fact, many academic archaeologists benefitted from DoD funding for archaeological survey and investigation in these settings. This historical perspective highlights the complexity that may not be obvious in Dr Curtis’ process of arriving at his personal resolution of the ethical challenge, in which he divides his participation into pre-conflict activities (which he views as unethical) versus post-conflict activities (in which he is participating). In following this dichotomy, land management for military training, including its indigenous advocacy component, clearly falls in the pre-conflict category and so would be considered unethical.

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Dr Curtis, however, is more specifically referring to the process of mapping archaeological sites in areas where conflict may be imminent and sharing these locations with military planners. In addition, training military personnel about appropriate, respectful and cautionary behaviour when operating in the midst of valuable archaeological properties in order to prevent unnecessary damage would fall into Dr Curtis’ realm of unethical behaviour. There is no question that I have chosen to work in both of these areas from before the time that the US military was globally criticised for damage at Babylon. From my perspective, the only way to avoid damage to cultural property during times of armed conflict is through planning and education. The text of the Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (1954) supports this view and, in fact, requires this preparation of the signatories. I cannot think of better people to support these efforts than archaeologists. To make matters even more complex, the preponderance of damage to archaeological properties in Iraq resulting from military activity happened during the post-conflict phase, the phase often referred to as Stability Operations. All of the damage at Babylon described in Dr Curtis’ article, for example, happened during this phase. From the planning perspective, this damage might have been prevented through better military planning and training – both pre-conflict activities. In addition, the damage might never have been systematically documented in a timely way without the embedded Polish archaeologists – individuals who clearly made ethical choices to work with the military. Given the complexity of the situation, dividing the demands of cultural property preservation into pre- and post-conflict phases is, to me, an artificial construct. Where is the dividing line between the phases? Would it be fair to criticise a military that failed to plan or train for encountering heritage and archaeology because all the subject matter experts decided it was unethical to educate them about these issues? Clearly, given my connection with the DoD In Theater Heritage Training Program for Deploying Personnel, the results of my personal ethical deliberations show that I have chosen to work in both the pre- and post-conflict phases of military activity. What, then, were the considerations on both sides of my personal version of ‘Formidable Opponent’? Back in 1998, the first choice that I made was to take a job working for an institution that trains people to use whatever means necessary to defend the United States. I recognise the fact that many of these means are violent and that innocent people are killed and injured in the course of such conflicts. Those would be reasons not to participate. During peacetime, those concerns have a way of fading into the background. If we think about ethics as working toward an outcome that benefits the greater good, in 1998 the opportunity to develop an archaeological stewardship programme at Fort Drum and to become an advocate for the Haudenosaunee people, whose ancestors lived on our installation, outweighed the military training aspect. In fact, the potential for Fort Drum soldiers going directly into combat seemed almost hypothetical. It may be hard to believe, but the main sign welcoming people to Fort Drum at that time read, ‘Fort Drum, Dedicated to Preserving the Environment’. At that time, two additional considerations fell into the negative category. One

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consideration for me was that I was uncomfortable with military culture, and the second was that I mistakenly assumed that the Fort Drum leadership would be opposed to setting aside training land in order to preserve archaeological sites. However, during the five years between 1998 and 2003, my anthropological training helped me understand and appreciate military culture. There are few organisations that embody heritage preservation in their daily activities as effectively as the US military. I also discovered enthusiasm and support for sound land management and archaeological preservation among members of the 10th Mountain Division Command Group and the Fort Drum Garrison Leadership. During the demanding days of preparing to deploy overseas from Fort Drum, one of the Division Commanders graciously allocated an entire afternoon and two Black Hawk helicopters to help Native American elders to visit ancestral places. On a personal level, I look up to and respect individuals who offer these kinds of examples in their own behaviour and deportment, whether they are wearing a military uniform or not. Dr Curtis doesn’t discuss his considerations with respect to the privileges of living in England and working for an institution like the British Museum, an institution, I would add, that has ethical challenges of its own. From my perspective, it is a privilege to be a citizen of the United States. I live in a peaceful place with a more than reasonable social order. I am very aware of the fact that, every day, hundreds of people view the United States as a good enough place to risk their lives to attempt to enter. I was privileged to vote recently in a very historic election. For people who believe that this conflict is about oil, I am also using my share of petroleum products. I now work on a daily basis with people who are willing to risk their lives to defend this way of life. Military leaders who care about the preservation of archaeology in Iraq and Afghanistan now see value in my archaeological knowledge and expertise and are requesting my help as well as the help of my colleagues. At this point in time I feel it would be unethical for me to withhold this expertise from them. As one Colonel told me, you will never find a more committed pacifist than a combat veteran. I have attended events where a Commanding General led a prayer for peace. Here is the critical point – conspicuously absent from the military and archaeological ethics debate in both the US and the UK: Dr Curtis and I both live in countries where civilian politicians made the decision to engage the military in the current overseas conflicts. Our ethical arguments are with these leaders, not with the honourable men and women who are serving what is supposed to be the will of the people. In summary, ethics boils down to how individuals decide to behave in any given situation. These decisions are best made independently, with as many facts and as much first-hand information as possible. Many of the most severe critics of archaeologists who work with the military have had the least first-hand experience with military activity. Many of them have never met a military officer. Many of them have no idea that the United States has a robust domestic cultural property protection (CPP) programme providing millions of dollars for archaeological investigation. Even fewer of them know how many of their colleagues have been funded for years by these programmes. Many of these critics also appear to be unaware of well-established

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cultural property programmes in a wide range of ministries of defence with qualified archaeologists serving as reserve officers. Many of these heroic individuals have saved artefacts, archaeological sites, historic buildings, and valued cultural properties. Dr Curtis and I have made different determinations. That does not mean that either of us agonised less. I am sure that we have comparable internal ‘Formidable Opponents’. I admire Dr Curtis for giving these issues such careful consideration and for coming to a decision that has enabled him to make such significant and valued contributions to cultural preservation in Iraq. I offer him my deepest respect.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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The Colbert Report, 2005–present, Comedy Central (US) UNESCO, 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, available from: http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0008/000824/ 082464mb.pdf [accessed 19 November 2010]

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Response to ‘Relations between Archaeologists and the Military in the Case of Iraq’ RENÉ TEIJGELER Former Senior Adviser to the Iraqi Ministry of Culture

Utrecht, 8 January 2009 Dear Dr John Curtis, I read your Forum Paper with great interest and I thank the Institute of Archaeology for giving me the opportunity to write this response. The issue of whether archaeologists should work with the military or not indeed needs much debate. My main point is that we are in great need of guidelines. Such guidelines would make things clear for all parties involved: the archaeologists, the military, and quasigovernmental and international heritage non-governmental organisations (NGOs). Allow me to make a few remarks at the start: • The present discussion involves only those who work with the military and not for them. In the latter case, the ethical considerations are partly different and perhaps even more subtle. • Dr Curtis distinguishes two phases in an armed conflict: Pre-Conflict and PostConflict. His decision to cooperate with the military depends on the phase of the conflict. I would like to add another phase to that model: Peri-Conflict, defined as during the period of fighting or conflict. Today, conflicts have become increasingly interrelated. Modern wars have no limits; attacks on civilians and relief workers and other abuses of international humanitarian law have become deliberate strategies. Many conflicts are ‘frozen’ and the status of many countries is often described as ‘a stable situation of instability’ (quoted in Volberg Ruhr 2006). Under these altering circumstances, the phases of conflict are easily shifting from peri-conflict to postconflict and back again. This situation makes it much more difficult for archaeologists to decide what position to adopt, as they have no way of predicting the extent of the violence and thus the necessity of working directly with the military. • The first and most crucial question in this discussion is whether a mission is sanctioned by international law. It should be crystal clear that archaeologists can only cooperate with the military if a peace mission is approved by the UN Security Council, the European Union, NATO, the African Union or any other generally accepted international body. • Humanitarian principles, ie the moral responsibility to address human suffering wherever it is found, can be translated to our profession. For archaeologists, it should read that we have the moral obligation to assist in the protection of cultural heritage of any origin all over the globe. This principle should be accepted by all who partake in this discussion.

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Having said this, let me address some of the arguments Dr Curtis puts forward. In the case of Iraq, I agree with Dr Curtis’ refusal to supply a list of sites to the military. However, I am in agreement for a different reason. When the ‘Coalition of the Willing’, including the UK, invaded Iraq on 20 March 2003, they did so without approval from the international community. Two months later, on 22 May 2003, UN Security Council Resolution 1483 was passed (UN Security Council 2003), recognising the USA and the UK as occupying forces.6 Thus, before 22 May 2003, Operation Iraqi Freedom was illegal according to international law. Ergo, I could not and will never support such a mission. I can understand the reasons Dr Curtis lists for his rejection of pre-conflict cooperation, but for me his points are open to discussion – providing the mission is sanctioned. As to his assertion that Iraq should be considered one huge archaeological site, and that making a selection of sites would give the military carte blanche over the rest, I would argue that heritage professionals always have to establish priorities. For example, when organising a disaster preparedness plan (required from every modern heritage institution), the curators have to make a priority list. This way there is a good chance that the best of the collection, according to the institution’s own criteria, will be saved in the event of an emergency. For reasons of planning operations, the military can ask that information provided to them is not disclosed to anyone else. After all, you don’t tell your opponent what object you will spare because of the risk of the enemy using that information to their advantage. Yet it is often possible to cut a deal with the military (as is not uncommon with journalists): for example, to keep the information to yourself for a limited time. For reasons criticised above, Dr Curtis was unwilling to contribute to Lawrence Rothfield’s book Antiquities under Siege: Cultural Heritage Protection after the Iraq War (2008). I dismiss Dr Curtis’ argument that ‘an invasion could hardly ever be justified’ and remind him that we can only work with the military when a mission is sanctioned. I repeat that such was not the case during the invasion in Iraq, or with respect to the suggested invasion of Iran. In both cases, I find it justified to speak of an invasion instead of a peace mission. However, there are many international missions sanctioned by international law and therefore justified. Nobody in their right mind likes to wage war. Yet, in my opinion, there are exceptional circumstances in which the international community should acknowledge their moral obligation and defend the weak. The fact that the world stood by and did not act, at least not until much too late, while the Tutsis and Hutus slaughtered each other in Rwanda in 1994 (with the end result of at least one million dead), was a horror scenario, leading directly to a crisis within the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. The same goes for the protection of cultural heritage in times of war: do we stand by and watch, or do we act? Dr Curtis continues his argument in favour of withholding his contribution to 6 This resolution includes this paragraph: ‘Noting the letter of 8 May 2003 from the Permanent Representatives of the United States of America and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to the President of the Security Council (S/2003/538) and recognizing the specific authorities, responsibilities, and obligations under applicable international law of these states as occupying powers under unified command (the ‘Authority’)’. For the complete text, see http://www.un.org/Docs/sc/unsc_ resolutions03.html [accessed 20 November 2010] and select Resolution 1483.

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Rothfield’s book by explaining that he would never work together with the military in the pre-conflict phase. I strongly disagree with him on this point. In general, I consider training and educating military personnel in CPP during peacetime to be a duty for most archaeologists (see also Emberling 2008). How can we criticise the military for damaging heritage in times of disaster and, at the same time, withhold from them adequate information on what should be protected? I don’t think that is fair. This attitude could be based on a preconceived image: the soldier as a tough, brainless person who can only follow orders; but, in most armies, officers need at least a college degree and, before deployment, all soldiers receive intense training in civil skills – including cultural awareness training. Moreover, most Western armies accept the notion of the ‘3D policy’, which means that a conflict cannot be solved by military means only (Defence), but that Diplomacy and Development are valued equally. Dr Curtis gives a splendid example of peri-conflict cooperation when he recounts the approach he received from the future UK commander of Basra in 2007. The Iraq mission was well underway, and sanctioned by the UN. This cooperation between the military and archaeologists is a clear case of how two parties can have common goals. I am, however, curious as to why Major General Barney White-Spunner contacted the British Museum before his deployment. If archaeologists would put more effort into the training of army personnel in CPP before deployment, such contacts might become a normal course of events. My last point of criticism relates to the use of private security companies. Directly or indirectly, Dr Curtis’ travels to Iraq were made possible because his party was protected by security firms. After reading Scahill’s book on Blackwater (2007), I now know what damage a private mercenary army can cause. In some instances it is worse to cooperate with these security firms than with a regular army. The tendency in the world of developmental aid to make increasing use of these companies in conflict situations greatly worries me, the more so when these NGOs are very critical of regular armies, which operate under an international mandate. I am sure that not all security companies are the same, but nonetheless we should be aware of the fact that mercenaries might be in charge of our protection. In preparation for the 6th World Archaeological Congress in Dublin in 2008, I searched for professionals who might be experiencing similar problems in their relationships with the military. It soon became clear that emergency workers of humanitarian organisations are facing the same ethical and moral problems in their relationship with the military. However, these workers still cooperate with the military, but only under strict conditions. Emergency workers apply several UN guidelines from which I would like to summarise the most crucial principles and concepts below:7 • UN core principles: • no direct assistance • adherence to the Red Cross Code of Conduct: humanity, neutrality, impartiality and independence • no aid from belligerent forces 7 The most important guidelines are: Oslo Guidelines 2006; UN/MCDA 2003; UN/IASC 2008. For more specific guidelines see: http://ochaonline.un.org/ [accessed 20 November 2010].

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• UN key concepts: • on request of assistance from host state or recognised governments • appointed Emergency Relief Coordinator for all bodies involved in crisis • provider of help at last resort • at no cost • maintain civilian character of assistance mission; not to be used for military advantage by any participant • UN mission under civilian not military control • limited assistance • avoid reliance on assistance by host state • complemented by political efforts to relieve crisis • identification markings that are culturally acceptable to host states’ population • unarmed missions of assistance

There is no room to explain all the above points, although some of them speak for themselves. It just shows you, Dr Curtis, that we are not the only ones struggling with our ponderous relationship with the armed forces. Possibly archaeologists could learn from emergency aid workers; in our next discussion, we could exchange our views on this matter. For now it does not come as a surprise to you that I fully agree with your end conclusion: ‘working with the army has enabled archaeologists to engage in a way that because of the security situation would otherwise have been completely impossible’. However, I might add, only under certain conditions. BIBLIOGRAPHY

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REFERENCEs

Emberling, G, 2008 Archaeologists and the Military in Iraq, 2003–2008: Compromise or Contribution? in Archaeologies: Journal of the World Archaeological Congress 4(3), 445–59 Oslo Guidelines [Consultative Group on the Use of Military and Civil Defence Assets and Civil–military Coordination Section], 2006 Guidelines on the Use of Military and Civil Defense Assets in Disaster Relief – ‘Oslo Guidelines’, Oslo 1994, updated Nov 2006, OCHA, Geneva Rothfield, L (ed), 2008 Antiquities Under Siege: Cultural Heritage Protection after the Iraq War, Altamira Press, Lanham, MD Scahill, J, 2007 Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army, Serpent’s Tail, London UN/IASC (2008) – Civil–Military Guidelines & Reference for Complex Emergencies; 4. UN (2008) – United Nations Civil–Military Coordination Officer Field Handbook (Version E 1.1). UN/MCDA [Consultative Group on the Use of Military and Civil Defence Assets], 2006 Guidelines On the Use of Military and Civil Defence Assets To Support United Nations Humanitarian Activities in Complex Emergencies (revised Jan 2006), OCHA, Geneva UN Security Council, 2003 Resolution 1483: The Situation between Iraq and Kuwait, available from: http://www.un.org/Docs/sc/unsc_resolutions03.html [accessed 19 November 2010] Volberg, T, 2006 The Sovereignty versus Intervention Dilemma: The Challenge of Conflict Prevention, Geopolitics and World Society NOHA 2005/6, Ruhr-Universität Bochum Institute for International Law of Peace and Armed Conflict

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Relations between Archaeologists and the Military in the Case of Iraq – Reply to Price, Rowlands, Rush and Teijgeler JOHN CURTIS Keeper, Department of the Middle East, British Museum

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ll aspects of the war in Iraq excite strong emotions and argument, and this is particularly true of the role that archaeologists should play in the protection of Iraqi cultural heritage. There has been much debate about whether archaeologists should engage with the military, and if so under what terms, and there is no doubt that such debates will continue in the future. Jon Price reminds us that a session on this subject at the World Archaeology Conference in Dublin in summer 2008 was so controversial that police protection was necessary. Opinion on this and related matters is sharply divided, and it is no surprise that this is reflected in the comments of the four respondents. The four respondents all have some connection with cultural heritage: Jon Price is a senior lecturer in the Cultural Management Unit at Northumbria University, and has, by his own account, worked closely with serving military personnel for a number of years; Laurie Rush is Cultural Resources Program Manager at Fort Drum, New York; Mike Rowlands is Professor of Material Culture in the Department of Anthropology at UCL with a particular interest in cultural heritage; and René Teijgeler served as senior adviser of the US Embassy to the Iraqi Ministry of Culture from July 2004 to March 2005. Of the four respondents, one (Teijgeler) has had extensive experience of working with the military in Iraq, one (Rush) has worked with the military and has limited experience of Iraq, one (Price) has had experience of working with the military but not in Iraq, and one (Rowlands) has had no experience of either, and these varying degrees of exposure are closely reflected in the value of the responses. The issues which have attracted most attention are clearly whether archaeologists should provide information and advice pre-conflict and whether they should work with the military post-conflict. Both Rush and Price believe that archaeologists should work with the military pre- and post-conflict, Teijgeler believes archaeologists should work with the military in certain circumstances, and Rowlands seems to say that archaeologists should never work with the military (although the thrust of his argument is not entirely clear). Let me clarify my own position. I certainly was not attempting to claim the moral high ground (pace Price), or suggest that there are never circumstances in which archaeologists should provide advice and information pre-conflict. The point I was making was that in the case of Iraq I was strongly opposed to the war and I was reluctant to supply any information that might have been used to support, justify or excuse the invasion. I should stress that this is very much a personal view and not

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necessarily the view of the British Museum which, as has been pointed out, is a government-sponsored (although independent) institution. I would have found it very uncomfortable trying to maintain good relations with Iraqi colleagues who were all fervently hoping there would not be a war while at the same time supplying information about which targets to avoid. The same applies to Iran, and I wonder if those archaeologists who argue that archaeologists should always collaborate pre-conflict are now ready to hold up their hands and offer to supply information that would effectively underwrite a battle plan for a possible attack on Iran. In this respect, I would like to reiterate what I said before, namely that ‘the pre-conflict situation is in fact governed by political considerations over which the army has no more control than archaeologists’. It is surely true that any decision whether or not to engage is political rather than military, and I actually agree with Rush when she says that ‘civilian politicians made the decision to engage the military in the current overseas conflicts’ and ‘our ethical arguments are with these leaders’. This is one of the main reasons for not supplying information to politicians (or civil servants working for them) who are seeking assurance that war can be waged with minimum collateral damage. I actually wrote a number of letters, not to senior army figures but to senior British politicians (including the then Secretary of State for Defence, Geoff Hoon), pointing out the likelihood of damage to the Iraqi cultural heritage. Any quarrel, then, should be with politicians, and like three of your correspondents, I have a great deal of respect for the army. Pace Teijgeler, I certainly have no problem with archaeologists ‘training and educating military personnel in cultural property protection during peacetime’ – I would consider this as a very worthwhile and important activity. As regards the choice of reviewers, I was very surprised – in fact astonished – that my piece was not sent to an Iraqi reviewer for comment. This is an insensitive omission, and it would have been particularly valuable to have had an Iraqi viewpoint on what the British Museum has done in Iraq. This oversight is particularly unfortunate as there are some ill-informed comments regarding our relations with Iraq. Thus, Rowlands implies that the involvement of Iraqi colleagues in our survey of sites was a token gesture. In fact, out of seven visits that I have made to Iraq since the invasion, three have been at the direct invitation of the Iraqis, one has been at the request of UNESCO, and two (the site visits in the south) have closely involved Iraqi colleagues. It would actually have been unthinkable to do any of the work described without the cooperation and collaboration of the Iraqis. Then, there is the question of Ur. In the context of possible damage having been caused at Ur, I said that Ur was ‘a site of special interest to the British Museum because of the excavations there by Sir Leonard Woolley between 1922 and 1934’. What I meant by this was that, because of Woolley’s excavations there, the British Museum now holds the site archive and is therefore in a good position to assess damage to monuments excavated by Woolley. This is hardly justification for Price to write that my statement ‘has huge implications for colonial attitudes, responses, and relationships’ and he might like to know that we are now in the process (in collaboration with the University of Pennsylvania) of digitising the excavation record and photographs and creating a list of objects from Ur (of which Baghdad has the lion’s share) so that colleagues in Iraq can have a full

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set of the records and start to create a list of missing objects. It is regrettable that three of the responses tell us more about the political views of the respondents than they do about the question in hand. Thus, Price informs us that although he was ‘opposed to the invasion of Iraq in itself’, he still acted as a Labour Party officer in the constituency of a cabinet minister. It would be interesting to know whether the minister in question supported the war or not, and if the former how Price was able to justify putting the interests of his party before his principles. Then, Laurie Rush seems to suggest that the Iraq war was justified in order to defend Western values and lifestyles – this hardly needs any comment. Lastly, Rowlands sarcastically asserts that ‘the natural affinity between the hierarchies of the British Museum and the British army in the field is such that you can scarcely tell the difference between them’, but he does not explain what he means by this. In spite of this, some interesting points emerge. For example, Price flags up the fact that it is illogical to refuse to work with the official military while at the same time working with mercenary organisations which are not subject to the same checks and balances. Teijgeler also warns against the use of private security companies, and this is clearly an area that requires careful thought, especially in view of the fact that the UK government makes extensive use of Control Risks Group. Actually I found Teijgeler’s paper to be very useful and constructive and to make an interesting contribution to the debate. I thought he made two important suggestions. The first is that archaeologists should only cooperate with the military if a mission has been approved by the UN Security Council or another generally recognised body, and in the case of Iraq this did not occur until 22 May 2003 (UN Security Council Resolution 1483: UN Security Council 2003). And secondly, he suggests that archaeologists should look to emergency workers in humanitarian organisations who face the same ethical and moral problems in working with the military as do archaeologists and who have strict guidelines. At this point, it is appropriate to pay tribute to the valuable work that Teijgeler did in Iraq. Among other things, he was instrumental in salvaging many important records and archives. Lastly, there seems to be some resentment on the part of some correspondents that the British Museum should have played any role in attempts to protect the cultural heritage of Iraq. This echoes sentiments apparently felt by some participants in the meeting at the British Museum on 29 April 2003 when Donny George called on the British Museum to lead efforts to salvage the Iraqi cultural heritage (Stone and Farchakh Bajjaly 2008, 79). In the event, because of the deteriorating security situation, the British Museum was not able to fulfil this role, but had the situation been different it is doubtful whether any other British organisation would have had the contacts in Iraq, the knowledge on the ground, the conservation capacity, and the museological expertise to provide rapid assistance. It would be nice to think that organisations such as UNESCO or Blue Shield could have taken a lead, but at that time they were not prepared. There is no doubt that the Iraq situation will be central to debates on cultural heritage for many years to come. There are no easy answers and no facile solutions. Above all, it is very much to be hoped that some constructive recommendations will emerge from the Iraq debacle, but this will happen only if old prejudices are cast aside and the arguments are depersonalised and deinstitutionalised. Only then will we all be able to join together to provide maximum help to our Iraqi colleagues.

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REFERENCES

Curtis, J E, 2007 Ur of the Chaldees in February 2007, British Museum, available from: http://www.britishmuseum.org/PDF/Ur%20Report%20doc.pdf [accessed 19 November 2010] Stone, P G, and Farchakh Bajjaly, J (eds), 2008 The Destruction of Cultural Heritage in Iraq, The Boydell Press, Woodbridge UN Security Council, 2003 Resolution 1483: The Situation between Iraq and Kuwait, available from: http://daccessdds.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N03/368/53/PDF/N0336853.pdf?OpenElement [accessed 27 July 2009]

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List of Contributors Fritz Allhoff, PhD, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Western Michigan University and a Senior Research Fellow in the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the Australian National University. His primary fields of research are applied ethics (especially biomedical ethics and technology ethics), ethical theory, and philosophy of biology/science. He has published work in the American Journal of Bioethics, Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics, International Journal of Applied Philosophy, and Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal, among others. His recent book, Physicians at War: The DualLoyalties Challenge (Springer) explores ethical issues arising from physician involvement in war, a discussion he extends to archaeology in the present volume. Martin Brown is a professional archaeologist employed by the UK’s Defence Estates, where he is part of the Historic Environment Team responsible for the stewardship of cultural heritage on military land-holdings. In this post Martin works alongside many service personnel. In addition, Martin is involved in research in conflict archaeology and has led a number of excavations on sites from the Great War (1914–18) in Britain, France, and Belgium. Martin’s work in both spheres led him to develop an interest in the relationship between the armed services and their own heritage. Andrew Chandler is Director of the George Bell Institute and Reader in Modern History at the University of Chichester. Between 1990 and 1996 he lectured in modern history at the universities of Birmingham and Keele, also becoming Visiting Lecturer at the University of British Columbia in 1995. In 1996 he set up the George Bell Institute, an international fellowship of scholars and creative thinkers working across the disciplines, from the Queen’s Foundation in Birmingham. In 2007 the George Bell Institute moved to the University of Chichester. Andrew is the author of a succession of books and articles in the field of 20th-century history, ethics and international politics and in a variety of forms he seeks to support and develop new thinking in this area. His most recent publication is Piety and Provocation: A Study of Bishop George Bell (Humanitas, 2008). John Curtis is Keeper of the Department of the Middle East at the British Museum and specialises in the archaeology of Iraq and Iran between 1000 BC and 330 BC. He has published widely on these subjects. Between 1983 and 1989 he directed excavations at eight sites in Iraq including Nimrud. He maintained close links with colleagues in Iraq even after the First Gulf War in 1991 and was the first foreign archaeologist to visit the Iraq Museum after it was looted in April 2003. He returned for a longer visit in June 2003, and in December 2004 he inspected the site of Babylon. Joanne Farchakh Bajjaly is a Lebanese archaeologist and a journalist; she is responsible for the ‘Archaeology & Heritage’ pages at the Lebanese newspaper Al Akhbar and is the Middle East correspondent for the French magazine Archéologia. She has been working on the situation of, and events surrounding, the Iraqi heritage since 1998 and has visited Iraq more than ten times over the last few years. She investigated the looting of the Iraq

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Museum and witnessed the destruction and looting of the archaeological sites in southern Iraq before and after the 2003 invasion. In 2005 she was invited to lecture in 14 universities in the USA on this issue. Caleb Adebayo Folorunso studied archaeology at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, obtaining Bachelor of Arts and Master of Science degrees in 1979 and 1981 respectively and the doctorate degree at Université Paris I, Sorbonne, in 1989. He has been teaching and researching in archaeology at the University of Ibadan since 1981 in the areas of ethnoarchaeology, historical archaeology, and cultural resource management. One of his most recent publications (2008) is entitled ‘Archaeological sites and heritage in the face of socio-economic development in Nigeria, since independence’, and he is generally interested in the subject of heritage conservation. He is currently a professor and the head of the Department of Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of Ibadan. Katharyn Hanson is a PhD candidate in Mesopotamian Archaeology in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago. She co-curated the Oriental Institute’s special exhibit Catastrophe! The Looting and Destructions of Iraq’s Past. She is also co-editor of the exhibit’s same named companion volume. Katharyn received her Masters from the University of Chicago with a thesis entitled the ‘Commodification and Politicalization of Iraq’s Looted Artifacts’. Margaret M Miles is an archaeologist, Professor of Art History and Classics at the University of California, Irvine, and currently the Andrew W Mellon Professor of Classical Studies at the American School of Classical Studies in Athens, Greece. Her previous publications include a study of the Temple of Nemesis at Rhamnous, a volume on the Sanctuary of Demeter and Persephone in the Athenian Agora, and her most recent book, Art as Plunder a study of the impact of Cicero’s ideas about the ethics of collecting art on our modern concept of cultural property. Jon Price has an MA from the Institute of Archaeology and SOAS, where he studied the Late Roman and Sassanid Persian periods. Since 1979 he has held a variety of fieldwork and curatorial posts and is now programme leader for the cultural management MA programmes at Northumbria University. He is currently a member of the executive of the World Archaeological Congress, and since 1996 has specialised in the heritage of conflict and conflict over heritage. His research into the heritage of war dead has led him into an examination of the role archaeologists and anthropologists play in modern warfare. Mike Rowlands teaches cultural heritage and museum anthropology at the Department of Anthropology, University College London. His research interests include the theorisation and conceptualisation of cultural heritage, material culture studies and cultural property in relation to long-term social and cultural change. He has conducted fieldwork research in West Africa (Nigeria, Cameroon, Liberia) to investigate negotiations of material culture, heritage, and museums. He currently coordinates a cultural heritage research project between China and Europe funded by the EU and works in partnership with the National Taiwan University on the revitalisation of indigenous cultural knowledge. His research also focuses on post-conflict recovery through the Global Post-Conflict Recovery Network. In 1973 he was awarded a PhD in Anthropology by University College, London.

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Laurie Rush is an anthropologist and archaeologist who has served 11 years managing Cultural Resources at Fort Drum, NY. Since 2006, she has also directed the Office of the Secretary of Defense Legacy Project called ‘In Theater Heritage Training for Deploying Personnel’. She has a BA from Indiana University Bloomington and an MA and PhD from Northwestern University. She has won numerous Army and Department of Defense Awards and her Fort Drum programme and team were selected as best in the DoD for 2007 and 2009. At the request of M G Oates and the US State Department, Dr Rush was the military liaison for return of the Mesopotamian City of Ur to the Iraqi People in the spring of 2009. She also represented Central Command and shared the podium with the Director General of Afghan Heritage, Mr Abdul Wasey Ferauzi, at an Environmental Shura in Kabul, Afghanistan, in February 2010. Dr Rush has been invited to speak internationally on the subject of partnering with the military to achieve preservation stewardship in conflict areas, including the 2009 Hague Conference on Cultural Preservation sponsored by the Netherlands Ministry of Defense. Dr Rush has been recognised by her peers with the Register of Professional Archaeologists Special Achievement Award, the Chairman's Award for Federal Achievement in Historic Preservation, and the Booth Family Rome Prize in Historic Preservation. Francis Scardera has for the past two decades conducted archaeological assessments for a variety of organisations and cultural communities whose ethical standards, based on diverse cultural heritage paradigms, at times conflict. His work as Crew Chief for the past ten field seasons at Fort Drum – an American military installation in northern New York – and as Archaeological Consultant to the Mohawks of Akwesasne since 2006, provides comparative anecdotes on how archaeologists conduct themselves in the field. He is currently working as a Senior Archaeologist for Golder Associates in Ottawa. Iain Shearer is an archaeologist and Research Affiliate at The Centre for Applied Archaeology, Institute of Archaeology, University College London. Iain works extensively on development and conflict archaeology and during the last decade has excavated at The Minaret of Jam in Afghanistan, the city of Nishapur, Iran, and in the Ferghana Valley of Uzbekistan. He is a Fellow of The Royal Asiatic Society of the United Kingdom & Ireland and works with the London Metropolitan Police, Arts & Antiques Unit, New Scotland Yard. Peter Stone is Head of the School of Arts and Cultures and Professor of Heritage Studies in the International Centre for Cultural and Heritage Studies at Newcastle University, UK. He has published widely on heritage management, interpretation and education. He was Honorary Chief Executive Officer of the World Archaeological Congress between 1998 and 2008 and had worked for the organisation since 1984. In 2003 Peter was the archaeological adviser to the UK MoD. He co-edited, with Joanne Farchakh Bajjaly, The Destruction of Cultural Heritage in Iraq (2008). In 2008 he worked with staff of the Oriental Institute in Chicago to produce a travelling version of their exhibition Catastrophe! The Destruction of Cultural Heritage in Iraq. Derek Suchard As a soldier, Derek Suchard served with the Canadian Armed Forces, participating in UN peacekeeping operations in Lebanon (UNIFIL, 1978). As a theologian with a particular interest in inter-religious issues, he is very interested in theological and

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ethical questions as they apply to military issues. Dr Suchard is currently with the International Military Cooperation Branch of the Armed Forces of the Netherlands and has recently been part of a working group working to embed Cultural Property Protection in the operations of those armed forces. René Teijgeler is a conservator, sociologist, and cultural anthropologist. Following employment at the Amsterdam School of Printing, the Koninklijke Bibliotheek (National Library of the Netherlands), and Leiden University (Department of Languages and Cultures of Southeast Asia and Oceania), he started Culture in Development in 1996 and has since advised many heritage projects in the Netherlands and overseas. Throughout his career he has developed a keen interest in preservation issues in non-Western countries and the many disasters they have to face, one of them being war. After serving as cultural adviser in Iraq (2004–5) and in Afghanistan (2009), he knows what it means to preserve heritage in times of conflict. Oliver Urquhart Irvine is head of Asian and African Studies at the British Library. From 2005–2010 he was the British Library’s Cultural Property Manager and was responsible for managing the Library’s approach to its holdings of significant cultural property, national and international, taking account of the increasingly complex external environment of legislative changes and political, faith, and other cultural sensitivities, across all academic disciplines. He studied Art History at the Courtauld Institute and the University of Amsterdam, followed by law at the College of Law and the Institute of Art and Law, and has written articles on art history and cultural property law. Current research interests include the ownership of cultural property when one state succeeds another. Prior to working at the Library he worked as a specialist in books and manuscripts at Christie’s and then as a dealer in early British printed books for Maggs Bros Ltd. He is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. Lieutenant General Barney White-Spunner CBE is Commander Field Army. He joined The Blues & Royals in 1979, before attending the Army Staff College and serving in the UK and with the UN. In 1996 he became Military Assistant to the Chief of Defence Staff. From 1996 to 1998 he commanded The Household Cavalry Regiment. In 1998 he became Deputy Director of Defence Policy in the Ministry of Defence, dealing with long-term defence planning issues. Promoted to Brigadier, he assumed command of 16 Air Assault Brigade in 2001 serving in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, and the Kabul Multi-National Brigade in 2002. He took over as Chief of Joint Force Operations in 2003 and became Chief of Staff of the National Contingent in the Middle East (Op TELIC). In 2005 he was promoted Major General and became Chief of Staff at Headquarters Land Command, assuming command of the 3rd Division in October 2007. He commanded Multi-National Division South East in Iraq in 2008 and assumed his present appointment in July 2009.

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Index 38th Regiment of Foot 130 617 Squadron ‘The Dambusters’ 132 ‘3D strategy’ (Development, Defence and Diplomacy) 21, 91, 94, 109, 212 Aboriginal People and the Fur Trade: Proceedings of the 8th North American Fur Trade Conference 154 Abu Ghraib prison 88 Academy of Arts, Philadelphia 33 Adirondack Mountain Range 156 Adriaensens, Dirk 18 Aemilianus, P Cornelius Scipio 31 Afghanistan (see also war(s)) 7, 9, 16, 17, 21, 23, 82, 91, 92, 94, 95, 97, 100, 126, 133, 139 Africa (see also war(s)) 34, 70, 158–170 African Rights 94 African Union 99, 201 Allada 160 Asante 160, 161, 162, 163 Asantehene, Prempeh I 161, 162 Bantama 162 Bai Bureh 161 Behanzin of Dahomey 161 Benin 161, 163, 170 Benin Iya 158 Bida 161 Bornu 159 Cape Verde 159 Denkyira 160 Edo State 158 European trade 160, 161 Fante 161 Ghana 158, 159, 161 Casa da Mina 159 Gold Coast 160 Golden Stool 162, 163 Hausaland 159 Ille Ife, Ilesha 158 Ilorin 161 Ijebu 161 Ijesha 160 Kanuri Empire of Kanem 159 King Jaja of Opobo 161 Kumasi 160, 162, 163, 170 Lake Chad 159 Mali 159 Nana of Itsekiri 161 Ngazargamu 159 Nigeria 158, 164, 168 Oyo-Ile 160 Rwanda 211 Samory Toure 161 Sanhaja 159 Sierra Leone 161 Songhay Empire 159 Sudan 94 Sosso 159 Tukulor Empire 161 Wassa 161

Whydah 160 Yorubaland 158 Sungbo Eredo earth rampart 158 Zangon Kataf crisis 168 Aga Khan Foundation 8 Agamben, Giorgio 94, 96 Agenda for Peace 94 Akkadian cylinder seals 125 Alaska 140 Albarella, Umberto 6, 7 al-Bashir, Omar Hassan Ahmad (president of Sudan) 93 Alexander, Tsar of Russia 36 Al Hamdani, Abdulamir 83, 125, 197 Al-Hussein, Abbas 195 Ali, Mr Mehsin 83, 197 Ali, Pasha of Baghdad 77 Almoravids 158, 159 American Anthropological Association (AAA) 22, 173, 174, 180 Commission on the Engagement of Anthropology with the US Security and Intelligence Communities (CEAUSSIC) 14 Commission on the Engagement of Anthropology with the US Security and Intelligence Communities report 14 American Medical Association (AMA) Council on Ethics and Judicial Affairs 43 The Code of Medical Ethics 43 American Philosophical Association (APA) 51, 52 American Society of Bioethics and the Humanities 44 ancestral remains (see also human remains) 152 Andes 70 Aoun, General Michel 187 Apollo Belvedere 39 Apoloniagallery 122 Arabia 80 Arc de Triomphe 37, 39 Archaeological Institute of America (AIA) 141, 143, 145 Archaeologist(s) (see also cultural property/heritage) 15, 55, 129 Archaeologists Against the War 4, 103 Archaeologist for Global Justice 5, 103 association and relationship with the military 19, 50–3, 79, 139–51, 192–216 Archéologie 187 Archbishop Davidson 57 Archbishop Lang 60 Archimedes 30 Aristotle 176 Arsantiqua-online 122 Asia 34 Assyrians 29 Astor, David 67 Atlantic slave trade 159 Auchy, France 133 Austria 37 Australian Defence Force Academy 43

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Babylon 23, 29, 104, 194, 195, 197, 201, 207 Baden-Powell, Major R S S 162 Baghdad 76, 92, 113, 125, 203 US Embassy 104 Bajjaly, Joanne Farchakh 125 Balkans 87 Bamiyan Buddhas 8, 100, 106 Bamum Palace Archives, Cameroon 74 Basra 20, 80, 84, 198, 212 Bathurst, Earl (Secretary of State for War) 36, 37 Battle of Britain Royal Memorial Flight 132 Battle of Minden 131 Batwa tribesmen 76 Rutwa dialect 76 Belgium 40 Army 134 Ieper 134 Belgrade 63 Bell, George 55–68 Bell, Gertrude 80, 83 Benedict, Salli 154 Beneventan Missal 75 Berlin 64 Berlin Wall 89 Berggrav, Bishop 65 Bernbeck, Reinhard 7 Biafra crisis 99 Biden, Joe 140 Bishop Henson of Durham 59 Bishop Hone of Wakefield 67 Black Watch 131 Bloche, Gregg 43 Bogdanos, Matthew 126 Bonaparte, Sheree 154 Bonhoeffer, Dietrich 56, 61 Borden Institute, The 44 Boutros-Ghali, Boutros (president of the UN Security Council) 94 Braude, Joseph 125 Breasted, James Henry 83 British Army 79, 82, 83, 84, 130, 133, 135 British India 135 British Institute of Records Sound 72 British Iraqi Friendship Society 83 British Library 16, 17, 70, 74, 76 British Library Act 1972 71 digitisation 70, 76 Endangered Archives Programme (EAP) 74 Ethical Future Acquisitions Policy 73 British Museum 34, 71, 79, 82, 83, 84, 163, 192, 193, 194, 195, 196, 197, 204, 215, 216 British Museum Library 75 British National Bibliography 71 Brocton Camp 131 Brodie, N 122 bronze horses from Venice 37, 39 Brooks, Nick 83 Brown, Martin, 67 Bundeswehr 134 Burma 70 Bush, George 104, 176 Byron, Lord 32

Canadian Museum of Civilisation (CMC) 154 Cannock Chase 131, 132 Canova, Antonio 37 Canterbury 63 Carthage 31 Castlemartin 130 Central Asia 99 Chalgrove Field 129 Chichester Cathedral 61 Chichester Observer 61 China 70, 73 Churchill, Winston 80 Cicero 31, 33 Clarke, Major Hugo 197 Cocidius 129 Cohen, Samuel 179 Coldstream Guards 130 Colbert, Stephen 206 The Colbert Report 206 Collector-antiquities 122 Collins, John (chaplain at RAF High Wycombe) 65 Collins, Paul 197 Columbia College/University 40 Conference Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art 72 Congress of Vienna 34 Control Risks Group 194, 201, 216 Coventry 63 Cox, Percy 80 Cranborne, Lord 65 Cripps, Stafford 65, 66 Croatia 106 Croke, Judge 34 Cruickshank, Dan 193 Cuellar, Perez de (UN Secretary General) 93 Cultural property/heritage 13 Cultural Property Protection in Conflict Situations 173 Protection (CPP) 3, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 113, 142, 144, 174, 179, 180, 208–9, 212 relationship between cultural heritage experts and the military 9, 79–85, 86–112, 129–39, 192–214 Curtis, Dr John 82, 192, 203, 206, 207, 209, 211, 212 Cyrus Cylinder 29

Cairo 80 Cambodia 8 Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 44 Canada 94

East India Company 77 eBay 121 Edgehill Battlefield 132 Eisenhower 82

Daily Telegraph 62, 83 Dcancientart 122 Delp, Alfred 56 Denon, Vivant (Director of the Musée Napoléon) 33 Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) 76 Der Stürmer 58 Description de l’Egypte 34 Disaster Relief, the United Nations Inter-Agency Standing Committee 150 Do No Harm 97 Dschang, University 74 Duke of Wellington 35 Duncan-Jones, A S 61 Dunhuang 73 Dussaud, René 186 Dutch CIMIC 93, 98

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El Alamein 79 Elba 34, 39 Elgin, Lord 32, 36 Eliot, T S 67 England 38 English Heritage 81 Eskander, Saad (Director of the Iraq National Library and Archive, INLA) 17, 76 Ess, Margarete van 197 Europe 13, 39 European Union 34, 99, 210 Fairouz 182 Farington, Joseph 36 Fatunsin, Antonia 168 Feibusch, Hans 67 Fort Carson 140 Fort Bragg 140 Fort Drum 15, 140, 152–7, 207, 208, 214 Cultural Resources Program 152 Fortnightly Review 59 France 8, 34, 35, 38, 39, 40, 57, 73 Fromelles 135 Ganondagan Historic Site 155 Gaza Strip 88 General Richards 82 Geneva Convention(s) 2, 175 Additional Protocol I to the 1949 Geneva Conventions 20 George, Donny (Director of Research at the Iraq National Museum) 17, 145, 193, 204 George, Lloyd 80 Germany 55, 58, 73, 173 German Army 134 Gerstenblith, Patty 5 Getty Conservation Institute 205 Gibson, McGuire 203 Gonzales, Roberto J 172, 179 Gozo 154 Grand Tour 32 Gross, Michael 44 Grotius, Hugo 33 Guatemala 8 Hadrian 135 Hague Convention on the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (1954) 3, 11, 13, 20, 144, 163, 164, 168, 169, 170, 174, 175, 184, 201, 207 First Protocol 165 Manual of the Law of Armed Conflict 20 Second Protocol 9, 102, 105 Hague Regulations of 1957 63 Hamburg 62, 64 Hamilakis, Yannis 5, 6, 7, 5, 52, 142 Hamilton, William Richard 36, 37 Harlan J Berk’s 122 Harris, Sir Arthur 64 Harris, Doug 155 Hawaii 140 Heritage (Return of Cultural Objects) Act 75 Hitler, Adolf 63, 132, 134 HMS Victory 132 Hodgson, Sir Frederick 163 Holland 37 Hones, Jakob 134

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Honourable Artillery Company 130 Hoon, Geoff 215 Horne, Pete 81 House of Lords 56, 58, 62, 65, 67 human remains (see also ancestral remains) 133, 134, 136 Hritz, Carrie 114 Hussein, Saddam 104, 135, 197 Destruction of Saddam Hussein statue by US forces 8 India Office 72, 76 Institute of Archaeology (University College London) 80, 210 Institute for Ethics of the American Medical Association (AMA) 43 InterAction 147, 151 Inter-Agency Standing Committee 89 International Committee of the Blue Shield 175, 216 International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) 7, 8, 86, 88, 89, 92, 96, 97 International Council of Museums Code of Ethics for Museums 72 International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) 205 International Criminal Court (ICC) 93 International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia 106 International Dunhuang Project, the 73 International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies 86 Code of Conduct of 150, 151 International Humanitarian Law (IHL) 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 97 International Peace Academy 99 International Red Cross 88, 175 International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement 87, 211 Iraq (see also war(s)) 7, 8, 9, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 29, 50, 51, 70, 76, 82, 87, 91, 94, 95, 100, 104, 106, 113–28, 136, 139, 140, 192–216 Antiquities Board 104 BRussells Tribunal List 18 Iraq Cultural Heritage Conservation Initiative 205 Iraq National Museum 2, 4, 16, 101, 103, 113, 125, 126, 145, 193, 204 Iraq National Library and Archive (INLA) 76, 77, 100, 103 Iraqi Ministry of Culture 103, 104, 204, 214 Ishtar Gate 195 Ministry of State for Antiquities and Tourism of Iraq 79, 83 Sassanian dynasty of Persia 200 State Board of Antiquities and Heritage 23, 103, 114, 194, 205 Ur 195, 201 WMD 18 Iran 12, 196 Israel 88 Isin 114 Italy 9, 32, 40, 75, 120 Jemison, Peter 155 Jena Bridge 35 Jenkinson, Robert Banks (Earl of Liverpool and British prime minister) 29 Josephine (empress) 36

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Kellog-Briand pact 58 Kennedy, Professor Liam 82 Kidd, Chris 76 King Cyrus the Great 29 King of Austria 38 King of the Netherlands 36 King’s Own 134 Kosovo 106 Kouchner, Bernard 87, 88 Kut 135 Kuwait 87, 149 Labry, German Volksbund cemetery 134 Lakeside Palace, Basra 84, 136, 197 Lambeth Palace 57 Lancashire Fusiliers 130 Lancet, The 43 Lang, Cosmo Gordon 57, 58, 65 Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory 180 Lawrence, T E 19, 80, 83 League of Nations 58 Lebanon (see also war(s)) 120, 182–191 ‘33 day war’ 182, 183 Akkar Plain 186 Al Akhbar 187 Al Qaida 190 Baalbek 182 Beirut 183 Bint Jbeil 183 Chamaa 183 Council of Ministers 187, 188 Direction Générale des Antiquitiés 182, 184, 186 Fath El Islam militia 184, 190 Hezbollah 184 Ministry of Culture 186 Nahr al-Bared 184, 185, 186, 187, 190 Orthosia 186 Orthosia Bridge 186 Temple of Mercure 182 Leibholz, Gerhard, 67 Liddell Hart, Basil 62 Lieber Code 9, 40 Ligny 40 Lincoln, Abraham 40 Liverpool, Lord 35, 36, 38, 39 Local Capacities for Peace Project 104 London 37, 63 London Museum 79 looting 21, 22, 34, 75, 113–26, 163 Louis XVIII 35 Louvre 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40 Lusieri 32 Lutyens, Edwin 61 MacGregor, Dr Neil (Director of the British Museum) 83 Maliki (prime minister) 84 Marks, Jonathan 43 Makawi, Khalil 188 McAleese, Mary (President of Ireland) 6 Médecins Sans Frontières 11, 87, 96, 103 Medusa Art 122 Meinecke 56 Menin Gate 134 Mercian Regiment Third Battalion (previously the Staffordshire Regiment) 130 Mesopotamia 113, 114, 121, 122, 125

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Messines Ridge, Belgium 131, 133, 134 Middle East 99 Miles, Steve 43, 44 Milosevic, Slobodan 106 minaret 21 of Jam 100 Minden Roses 130, 131, 134 Ministry of Aircraft Production 65 Moltke, James von 56 Moore, Charles 83 Mountbatten 82 Mullah, Omar 205 Museums Association Code of Practice for Governing Bodies 72 Museums and Galleries Commission ‘Restitution and Repatriation: Guidelines for Good Practice’ 72 Native American Grave Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) 154 Native Americans 139, 140, 143 Akwesasne Mohawk reservation 152, 154 Akwesasne Museum 155 ancestral places 206, 208 Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) 152, 155 Haudenosaunee Standing Committee on Burial Rules and Regulations (HSCBRR) 154 Mohawk 155, 156 Mohawk Council of Akwesasne 154 Mohawk Nation Council of Chiefs 154 Oneida Indian Nation of New York 152, 156 Onondaga 156 National Museum Directors’ Conference ‘Statement of Principles and Proposed Actions’ 72 NATO 21, 99, 210 Napoleon 32, 33, 35, 39, 79, 132 Nasiriya 125 National Central Library 71 National Gallery (London) 64 National Lending Library for Science and Technology 71 National Library of Iraq 77 National Museum of Baghdad 80 National Reference Library of Science and Invention 71 National Sound Archive 72 Nebuchadnezzar II 29 Nelson 132 Netherlands 37, 38, 39, 40, 120 Medical Committee Netherlands 96 Neutrality 95–109 New England Journal of Medicine 43 New York 152 art market 121 State University of 154 New Zealand Rifle Brigade 131, 132 Niemöller, Martin 58 Nimrud 126, 194 No Man’s Land – The European Group for Great War Archaeology 133, 134 Non-Governmental Organisations in Disaster Relief 87 North and South Staffordshire Regiments 130 Norway 94 Norwegian People’s Aid (NPA) 96 Nuremberg 173 Nuremberg Laws 58 Nuremberg Trials 106

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INDEX

Office for Scientific and Technical Information 71 Operation Heritage 79, 83 Oslo Guidelines 16 Otterburn 129, 130, 200 Pakenham, Lord 62 Palestine 88 Nahr al-Bared refugee camp 3, 184 Pa’O 75 Papers from the Institute of Archaeology (PIA) 22, 192 Paris 29, 32, 36, 39, 40 Patch, Harry 134 Paullus, Lucius Aemilius 29, 30, 32 Peace of Amiens 39 Peace of Westphalia 94 Pendergast, James 154 Pentagon 143, 203, 204 Perseus (Macedonian king) 30 Peru 74, 120 Physicians at War: The Dual-Loyalties Challenge 44 Pilgrim Elite 193, 201 Pitt Rivers, Augustus 19, 79 Plenipotentiaries of the Allies 37 Ploegsteert project 133 Poland 35 Polybius 9, 30, 31, 33, 34 Pope(s) 37, 38 Pope Pius XII 55 Portal, Sir Charles (Chief of Air Staff) 61 Portsmouth 63 Price, Jon 133, 213, 215 Prince Regent 37, 38, 39 Printup, Arnold 155 Prussia 35, 36, 38, 39, 40 Prince Blücher 35 Prussian army 35 Puffendorf, Samuel von 33 Pydna 29, 30 Quatremère de Quincy, A–C 33, 34 Raheed, Mr Qais Hussein 83, 197 Reagan, President Ronald 180 reburial (see also repatriation) 152 Red Cross 86, 87, 88, 92, 108 Code of Conduct (CoC) 87, 91, 96, 212 Red Crescent 86 Red Hackle Day 131 Renfrew, Colin 120 repatriation (see also restitution) 152 restitution (see also repatriation) 29, 36, 39 Rochefort 35 Roman legionaries 135 Rome 29, 30 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court 20 Roosevelt (President) 63 Rothfield, Larry 196, 211, 212 Rowlands, Mike 214 Royal Engineers’ Balloon Section 80 Royal Naval Dockyard, Portsmouth 129 Royal Regiment of Fusiliers 130 Royal Regiment of Scotland 131 Rubens 32 Rumsfeld, Donald (US Secretary of Defense) 2 Rush, Laurie 152, 214 Russia 73

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Saber, Choukri 188 Saidah, Roger 182 Salisbury Plain 81, 129, 140, 200 Sasanian period 123 Schönfeld, Hans 61 Schulz, Butch 156 Schulz, Margaret 156 Sharpe, Lieutenant Phillip Henry 80 Sicily 31, 32 Sinclair, Archibald 65 Siniora, Fouad 190 Society of Antiquaries 81 Söderblom, Nathan 58 Solz, Adam von Trott zu 56 Somerueles, Marquis de 33 Sphere Handbook 93 Sphere Project Humanitarian Charter and Minimum Standards in Disaster Response 150 Spoilation Advisory Panel 75 Sri Lanka 105 stewardship 140 Stewart, Robert (Viscount Castlereagh and British foreign secretary) 29, 35, 36, 37, 38 Stone, Elizabeth 114, 197 Stonehenge 80, 140 St Thomas Aquinas 19 Sun Tzu’s The Art of War 21 Syracuse 30 Syria 120 Taliban 8, 106 Talleyrand 35 Tate 64 Tate Britain 73 Teijgeler, René 214 Tell Arba’a Kabir 143 Temple of Minerva (Parthenon) 32 Temple of Solomon 29 Temple, William 67 Tower of Babel 84 The Times 58, 61 Thervada Buddhists 74–5 Thielecke 134 Treaty of Paris 38 Treaty of Tolentino 32, 37, 40 Treaty of Vienna 9 Trinidad 32 Trooping the Colour 131, 134 UAE 120 Umma 114–20 UNESCO 100, 106, 177, 183, 187, 205, 206, 215, 216 Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property 105–6 UK National Commission for 2 World Heritage List 12, 184 African heritage 13 UNIDROIT Convention on stolen or illegally exported cultural objects 72, 106 United Kingdom Foreign Office 60 Ministry of Defence (MoD) 1, 2, 22, 101, 200, 204 Area of Responsibility (AoR) 20 Defence Estates 129

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CULTURAL HERITAGE, ETHICS,

Defence Estates archaeologists 15 Training Areas 3 National Health Service 11 RAF 132 RAF Halton 132 RAF Scampton 132 United Nations (UN) 89, 92, 94, 97, 108, 212 2005 World Summit 93 Security Council 99, 165, 177, 210, 216 Resolution 1483 211, 216 United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) 190 United Services Club 66 United States 120, 142, 143 Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution 176 Armed Forces/military 4, 139, 147, 148, 149, 170 China Lake, California 140 Defence Cultural Specialist Unit (DCSU) 15 Hill Air Force Base, Utah 140 Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada 140 trade in illicit antiquities 8 US Agency for International Development (USAID) 150 US Air Force Academy 43 US Army Medical Department Center and School (Fort Sam Houston, Texas) 43, 44 US Naval Academy 43 US Military Academy at West Point 43 Department of Defense (DoD) 3, 14, 21, 139, 141, 143, 144, 145, 147, 152, 196, 206 Archaeology Program 140 Environmental Program 140 Environmental Awards 140 Human Terrain System (HTS) 14, 15, 98, 143, 144, 172, 173, 180 Human Terrain Teams (HTTs) 9 In Theater Heritage Training Program for Deploying Personnel 207 National Historic Preservation Act 154, 155 National Register of Historic Places 140, 155 President Obama, health reforms of 11 US Institute for Peace 146, 147 Guidelines for Relations Between U.S. Armed Forces and Non-Governmental Humanitarian Organizations in Hostile or Potentially Hostile Environments 16, 146 Working Group on Civil-Military Relations in Nonpermissive Environments 147 University Services University of the Health Sciences (Bethesda, Maryland) 43 Upper House of the Convocation of Canterbury 61 Ur 23, 195, 197, 201, 215 Valland, Rose 8 van Dyke 32 Vassinart, Lord 61 Vatican 38 Vattel, Emmerich de 34 Droit des gens, ou principes de la loi naturelle appliqués à la conduit et aux affaires des Nations et des Souverains 33 Venice 37, 39

AND THE

MILITARY

Verres, Gaius 31, 33 Versailles 60 Verweij, Desiree 176, 177 Vice-Admiralty Court of Halifax, Nova Scotia 33 Vienna 35, 36 Vietnam 143 Wall Street Journal 88 Walzer, Michael 48 war(s) 6 Afganistan 86, 99, 103, 105, 143, 173, 208 Africa 165–6 American Civil War 40 Battle of Solferino 175 Battle of Waterloo 9, 29, 35, 40 English Civil Wars (1642–51) 129, 130 Falkland Islands 131 First Gulf War 205 French invasions of Belgium and the Netherlands 32 Great War 132, 133, 135 Iraq 5, 12, 6, 88, 97, 99, 102, 103, 105, 113, 135, 143, 149, 173, 176 Napoleonic Wars 9, 32, 34, 37 Waterloo 29, 34, 35, 36, 37, 40 Wellington and the Army of Occupation 9, 36, 38, 40 ‘The Fallen’ 133, 134, 135 of 1812 33 war booty 9 Western Front 131 World War II 8, 10, 11, 55, 61, 67, 75, 88, 106, 129, 130, 183 Allied Monuments and Fine Arts Unit 3 Bishop Bell 10 Warsaw 63 Washington Conference on Limitation of Armaments 63 Wellesley, Arthur (Duke of Wellington and Field Marshal of the Army of Occupation) 29 Wellington 35, 36, 38 Western Sahara 83 Wheeler, Mortimer 19, 79 White-Spunner, Major General Barney 196, 197, 212 Woolf, Virginia 80 Woolley, Sir Leonard 80, 195, 201, 215 Woolton, Lord 62 Woolwich Barracks 129 World Archaeological Congress (WAC) 11, 16, 51, 52, 173, 192, 196, 200, 212, 213 ‘Archaeology of Conflict’ Inter Congress 6 Hall, Martin (President of WAC) 4 Task Force on ‘Archaeologists and War’ 5, 6, 7 Task Force on the ‘Destruction of Cultural Property in Conflict Situations’ 5 WAC-6 5 Ryan, Michael (WAC-6 President) 5 World Monuments Fund 205 Wright, James 154 Xenophon 29, 40 Yugoslavia 2, 89, 94, 105 Zamoyski, A 34

The ‘Heritage Matters’ Series Editorial Board

H 

    eritage Matters is a series of edited and single-authored volumes which addresses the      whole range of issues that confront the heritage sector as it faces the global challenges of the twenty-first century. The series follows the ethos of the International Centre for Cultural and Heritage Studies (ICCHS) at Newcastle University, where these issues are seen as part of an integrated whole, including both cultural and natural agendas, and thus encompasses challenges faced by all types of museums, art galleries, heritage sites and the organisations and individuals that work with, and are affected by, them.

Heritage Matters Series: volume 4

4

Cultural Heritage, Ethics and the Military

T

an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd PO Box 9, Woodbridge IP12 3DF (GB) and 668 Mt Hope Ave, Rochester NY 14620-2731 (US) www.boydellandbrewer.com

Cultural Heritage, Ethics and the

Military Edited by Peter G. Stone

Peter G. Stone (ed.)

he world reacted with horror to the images of the looting of Iraq’s National Museum in 2003 and the subsequent damage and destruction to other museums and archaeological sites across the country. Many archaeologists had foreseen this, and some had offered to work with the military to identify museums and sites to be avoided and protected, but such offers received a mixed response from others concerned with heritage issues, who claimed that such collaboration lent legitimacy to the invasion. Faced with such divergence of views, the studies in this book therefore focus on the broader issue of whether archaeologists and other cultural heritage experts should ever work with the military, and if so, under what guidelines and strictures. The essays are drawn from a series of international conferences and seminars on the debate, and provide a historical background to the ethical issues facing cultural heritage experts. Can medical and religious experts justify close working relationships with the military? Is all contact with those engaged in conflict wrong? Does working with the military constitute tacit agreement with military and political goals, or can it be seen as contributing to the winning of a peace rather than success in war? These and other crucial questions are explored here.

Cultural Heritage, Ethics and the Military

Professor Peter Davis, Professor Peter G. Stone, Dr Chris Whitehead

The International Centre For Cultural & Heritage Studies

Newcastle University