“Antiques trafficking moves billions”
The newspaper El País interviews the Director General of UNESCO, Irina Bokova.
March 18, 2015
MADRID
Bokova says it is a “fact” that ISIS uses stolen works to finance itself.
Guillermo Altares, Madrid, March 17, 2015 - 11:20 CET
Antiques trafficking has become one of Jihadism’s sources of financing. In the territories of Syria and Iraq controlled by the Islamic Army (ISIS or Daesh, based on the acronym in Arabic), not only does a medieval dictatorship of horrific cruelty govern, but also any religious minority or any Muslim that does not agree with their ideas is persecuted. Moreover, the systematic destruction of cultural goods is taking place, in a region which has been a cultural crossroads since the Neolithic. On the one hand, there are videos showing the destruction of museums and archeological sites. And on the other, there are illegal excavations and pillaging of thousands of pieces that will end up in the market sooner or later. This situation has put both UNESCO and Interpol, as well as the police in several countries, on alert.
Bulgarian diplomat Irina Bokova (Sofia, 1952) has responded in writing to our questionnaire about this tragic situation from New York. She says that not only is an important part of humanity’s memory getting lost, but she also estimates that the money obtained from this pillaging –which Bokova calculates to have reached “billions, as much as that produced by arms or drug trafficking” – will lead to even more suffering, because it will undoubtedly be used to carry out further attacks. A former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Bulgaria, Bokova was chosen to be the Director General of UNESCO in 2009.
Question: In which countries has UNESCO detected the greatest art trafficking from Iraq and Syria?
Answer: Up to now, no pieces from Iraq or Syria have appeared openly in the illegal art market. However, we have detected illegal sales of small objects like coins, terra cotta lamps and statuettes on online platforms. All of the neighboring countries are affected. UNESCO is actively working with them (Turkey and Lebanon, in particular) to detect the main networks and put a stop to the trafficking. The largest art markets are the United States, Switzerland, France, United Kingdom and China. Traffickers naturally try to sell the highest-valued pieces in these markets. The challenge is alerting professionals and the population in all of these places about the extent of this trafficking and to strengthen the measures to monitor, track and verify the origin of objects.
Q: Do you have any estimate of how much money is involved in this trafficking?
A: By definition, it is difficult to quantify the amount of trafficking which is illicit. UNESCO’s policy is also not to divulge this type of information, because such publicity can even encourage the trafficking itself. We have to be extremely careful and not trust the numbers circulating in this respect, which are sometimes a bit fanciful. The most important thing is to understand that, worldwide, these are amounts which reach the billions and are similar to the figures for arms or drug trafficking.
Q: What measures is UNESCO implementing to avoid the sale of antiques from Iraq and Syria?
A: I have to say that the fight against illicit trafficking of cultural goods has been a matter of concern to UNESCO for decades. In fact, since 1970 the international community has had an International Convention coordinated by UNESCO that deals precisely with the ways to fight such trafficking. Spain ratified the Convention in 1986. In the specific case of the current crisis in Iraq, the deterioration of the humanitarian and security-related situation put us on alert many months ago now. In July 2014, UNESCO developed an action plan to provide an urgent response to safeguard Iraq’s cultural heritage. We called a meeting attended by both Iraqi and international experts, and we mobilized all of the relevant role-players in this field: Interpol, the World Customs Organization, police forces and border authorities, auction houses. Several countries, in particular Norway and Japan, provided us with financial support to implement specific measures to avoid destruction, but the facts are showing we must increase our efforts even more.
Q: How can control over the origin of antiques be improved?
In order to be able to prove a cultural object’s origin, it is crucial for the item to be registered in an inventory, if possible one adapted to international standards. We recommend to public institutions and private collectors that they register their collections, making use of this type of tools. UNESCO promotes the use of what is known as “Object ID,” an international standard for describing cultural objects (it includes a photograph and a detailed description). In the event of theft, such a description can help the authorities find the item in question and get the item included in INTERPOL’s database of stolen art works. One single system of inventories applied universally would help governments track stolen objects and, as a result, would improve international cooperation in this arena.
At the same time, UNESCO encourages both public institutions and collectors to make sure all of the cultural objects which they acquire come with an export certificate from the country of origin. There is also an international standard called the “Cultural Goods Export Certificate” produced jointly by UNESCO and the World Customs Organization. Both organizations recommend to their respective Member States that they use this certificate for objects of this type. In addition to the provisions of the 1970 Convention and the UNIDROIT Convention of 1995, Directive 2014/60/EU of the European Parliament and Council regarding the return of cultural goods which have illegally exited the territory of a Member State stipulates that the possessor of an object must demonstrate that due diligence was performed in this sense at the time of acquiring the item in question.
Q: Does UNESCO work with other international bodies on these topics? Or with governments?
A: Yes, we are working in several directions. The goal is prevention before conflicts take place, with partners like INTERPOL’s Art Works Unit, national police bodies like the Central Office for the Fight Against Cultural Goods Trafficking of the French Police, Spain’s Guardia Civil and Italy’s Carabinieri. UNESCO, with the cooperation of entities like the OMD, UNODC, UNIDROIT and INTERPOL, trains customs agents, specialized police and specialists in the field of protecting heritage on topics related with controlling the origin of cultural objects.
Q: Is the Islamic State using the income it obtains from the illegal sale of art works to finance itself?
This is a fact which has also been recognized by the United Nations Security Council, in its Resolution 2199 of February 12. That resolution condemns the destruction of cultural heritage in Iraq and Syria, whether accidental or deliberate, and it points out that Daesh (acronym of the Islamic State in Arabic) obtains revenue by directly or indirectly participating in the pillaging and smuggling of cultural heritage items from archeological sites, museums, libraries, archives and other sites in Iraq and Syria. The resolution also states that this revenue is being used to support its recruitment activities and to strengthen its operational ability to organize and perpetrate terrorist acts. Therefore, it causes more than just the deliberate destruction of cultural heritage, which is a war crime in and of itself. It is also a problem of human security of great concern to us.
Q: Is there any possibility of holding an international conference on this topic?
A: UNESCO has already organized several meetings at all levels as of the beginning of the conflict, with specialists and political leaders, to alert them as to the situation and mobilize them: in July of 2014, in September, last December 3... and we are going to continue doing so. In fact, in early April I called a meeting at UNESCO with the objective of starting up a coalition of partners to implement Resolution 2199 of the United Nations Security Council.
