Unesco: Putin’s war threatens cultural heritage worldwide

by time news

Es is a cultural-political bang. The Russian Unesco ambassador resigns from the presidency of the World Heritage Committee. Observers see this as confirmation that the pressure exerted by UNESCO members on Russia to resign the presidency in view of the war of aggression against Ukraine and the bombing of Ukrainian cultural sites had become too great. This was preceded by a staunch refusal by Western democracies to continue attending meetings of the World Heritage Commission chaired by Russia after Russia invaded Ukraine.

So far, Russian propaganda has managed to spread the impression via social media, radio and television stations that Ukrainian cultural sites are protected from rocket and artillery fire on the instructions of the Russian army command. As of November 21, this claim is no longer tenable. According to a Unesco “verified list” dated this date, no fewer than 95 religious sites, 17 museums, 78 buildings of historical and/or artistic importance, 18 monuments and 10 libraries have been destroyed in the Ukraine since the February 24 invasion Ukraine damaged or destroyed. Since the list cannot claim to be complete and new destruction is added every day, these numbers must be appended with the suffix “at least”. Unesco World Heritage sites themselves do not appear to have been damaged so far.

also read

According to UNESCO, the list of monuments in Ukraine includes well over 3,000 monuments. Cultural sites were hit hardest in the Donetsk region (63), followed by the Kharkiv (53), Kyiv (32), Luhansk (26) and Chernihiv (15) regions. In total, Unesco recorded damage at 218 locations. According to Unesco, the published data is regularly updated and “checked against several credible sources”, not least through satellite image analysis. The survey is carried out in accordance with the provisions of the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, “regardless of its origin, ownership or status of registration in the national inventory and the establishments and monuments dedicated to culture, including memorial sites. “

“Irreparable Losses”

Fears that Ukraine’s national cultural heritage could be targeted for destruction had already arisen after the first waves of attacks in March. When a museum in Ivankiv, around 80 kilometers north-west of Kyiv, was destroyed under Russian fire, artists such as the conductor Oksana Lyniv and the director of the Vyshhorod cultural reserve, Vlada Litovchenko, spoke of “immeasurable” and “irreparable losses” that affected “everyone Unesco principles”. At that time, the suspicion was voiced for the first time that the Russian attack was aimed not just at crushing and colonizing Ukraine, but at destroying its identity.

Many observers are convinced that Putin achieved the opposite with his attack on the “brother state”. The Russian warfare’s ruthless handling of the Ukrainian cultural heritage only strengthened the Ukrainians’ willingness to assert themselves and their self-esteem. The more this heritage is threatened and destroyed, the more Ukrainians seem to identify with their country and this heritage. The defiantly affirmed commitment to rebuild everything that was destroyed shows a firm commitment to a separate Ukrainian identity.

also read

Back then, in peacetime: Ukrainian soldiers on February 13

For UNESCO, which has been paralyzed by the Ukraine war, the resignation of the Russian Commission President is a historic date. Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine and Russia’s presidency of the UNESCO World Heritage Commission are irreconcilable. The idea of ​​World Heritage is stronger than war.

On November 16, 1972, the Unesco General Assembly in Paris adopted the “Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage”. And almost 50 years to the day later, the representative of the country that holds the presidency of the World Heritage Commission but is at war at the same time resigns.

Ten years ago, the German Unesco representative Birgitta Ringbeck said of the (then) 936 World Heritage sites in 153 countries: “They are sites of such extraordinary universal importance that they are considered the heritage of all mankind. Protecting them is not just the responsibility of a single state, but is the task of the international community.” Russia is no longer able to do justice to the task of presiding over the international community in carrying out this task.

From the outset, the international organization World Heritage Watch (WHW) was one of the fiercest critics of the Russian presidency. She had certified that the Russians were not only razing cultural sites in Ukraine to the ground, but also indirectly responsible for the fact that world heritage sites could no longer be adequately protected worldwide. Because Western democracies have refused to meet under a president whose country is waging a bomb and missile war, the World Heritage Committee was not able to meet once in 2022 – which in turn helped some states to seize the “opportunity of the hour”. would have to advance large-scale projects that endanger world heritage sites.

The collateral damage

As examples of such “collateral damage” by the Russian chairmanship of the World Heritage Committee, far beyond the destruction of Ukrainian cultural sites, the organization cited the construction of the highway through the famous necropolises of Cairo and hotel projects in Indonesia’s Komodo National Park, on the Galapagos Islands and at the Victoria Falls in Zambia and called Zimbabwe. Other developments of long-standing concern to UNESCO continued unabated, including the highway tunnel under the Stonehenge megalithic circle and the concrete covering of Athens’ Acropolis. The organization also highlighted the impending displacement of up to 70,000 Maasai from the Ngorongoro Conservation Area in Tanzania as “particularly tragic”.

also read

erb0

World Heritage Watch Chairman Stephan Dömpke sees the resignation of Russia’s Unesco ambassador from the presidency of the World Heritage Committee as proof that Russia is increasingly isolated in the international community. But his departure from the presidency must also have consequences for UNESCO. Dömpke: “A state that is deliberately destroying hundreds of cultural monuments in its neighboring country and looting its museums in order to destroy its national identity must not be tolerated in a UNESCO committee.”

World Heritage Watch is therefore now calling for “decisive steps towards a comprehensive reform of the World Heritage Convention”. Civil society must also be involved in this. The Rules of Procedure must be changed so that “belligerent states can be stripped of the presidency”. In addition, the “inflation of the world heritage list” must be stopped so that UNESCO can “concentrate on the preservation of the sites already registered and also provide the necessary funds for this” in the future.

Dömpke apparently already has more concrete ideas for the new appointment to the presidency. It must be addressed quickly. Above all, states from the democratic camp on the World Heritage Committee, such as Italy and Japan, are called upon to apply for the next World Heritage Committee meeting. “If you keep leaving this to the authoritarian states, you shouldn’t be surprised if world heritage becomes a political pawn and Unesco loses its credibility.”

You may also like

Leave a Comment