The Destruction of Memory
- Description
- Reviews
- Citation
- Cataloging
- Transcript
The bombing of Sarajevo's National Library and the burning of its ancient books. The looting of the Iraqi National Museum and destruction of its priceless historical objects. The beheading of Kahled al-Asaad, long-time lead archaeologist for the UNESCO World Heritage Site of the city of Palmyra, Syria, for refusing to give up hidden artifacts. In the 'cradle of civilization' and beyond, the last century has seen the rise of 'cultural destruction': the intentional annihilation of irreplaceable artwork, artifacts, historical sites and their stewards in desperate attempts to erase collective history and identity.
Directed by acclaimed filmmaker Tim Slade and narrated by Tony Award-winning actress Sophie Okonedo, this powerful documentary explores the loss of invaluable artwork, objects and historical sites through war and terrorism. It uses meticulous research and compelling expert interviews to examine how and why cultural destruction has happened, and how the work to protect, salvage and rebuild can respond.
THE DESTRUCTION OF MEMORY introduces heroes who have risked their lives to protect not just other human beings, but their cultural identity, safeguarding the record of who we are.
But all is not lost: as these stories are reported, perpetrators are brought to justice and awareness grows, the film proposes hope. Increasingly, the power of modern technology is being harnessed to document, protect, and to play a role in the rebuilding process.
Distinguished international experts interviewed in THE DESTRUCTION OF MEMORY include Irina Bokova, Director-General of UNESCO; Fatou Bensouda, prosecutor for the International Criminal Court; Gunter Blobel, Nobel Laureate; Bonnie Burnham, President Emerita of the World Monuments Fund; Daniel Libeskind, architect; Dirk Moses, genocide historian; Andras Riedlmayer Corine Wegener, Cultural Heritage Preservation Officer of The Smithsonian Institution; Robert Bevan, architect and author of the book 'The Destruction of Memory: Architecture at War' upon which the film is based; and many more.
'Beautiful and important; needs to be widely seen.' - Karima Bennoune, United Nations
'Highly Recommended! Looks at cultural destruction throughout the 20th-century; beautiful and powerful.' - Laurie Frey, The Heritagist
'This film should become not just an 'eye opener' but a vehicle for change all around the world.' - Tsipi Ben-Haim, CityArts NYC
'A poignant film; necessary viewing.' - Jan-Carlos Kucharek, RIBA Journal
'A measured indictment of the failure of international bodies to [offer] legal protection to important buildings in war zones .' - Gillian Darley, The London Review of Books
Citation
Main credits
Slade, Tim (screenwriter)
Slade, Tim (film director)
Slade, Tim (film producer)
Okonedo, Sophie (narrator)
Other credits
Director of photography, Derek Wiesehahn; editor, Lindi Harrison, ASE; music, Ezio Bosso.
Distributor subjects
Africa; Archaeology; Architecture; Criminal Justice; Culture; Historiography; History; Law; Middle East; Political Science; SociologyKeywords
WEBVTT
00:00:04.583 --> 00:00:07.041
One of my colleagues,
Patrick Vilaire,
00:00:07.041 --> 00:00:08.333
was quoted in
the New York Times,
00:00:08.333 --> 00:00:10.750
he said, \"The dead are dead,
we know that, but without
00:00:10.750 --> 00:00:13.250
our culture, the rest
of us can\'\'t go on living.\"
00:00:13.250 --> 00:00:16.291
It\'\'s not just about bricks
and stones, it\'\'s really
00:00:16.291 --> 00:00:18.458
about some important message,
it\'\'s the way
00:00:18.458 --> 00:00:22.417
we see human civilization
evolving and developing.
00:00:22.417 --> 00:00:25.166
Let\'\'s not forget again
this is a weapon of war,
00:00:25.166 --> 00:00:27.291
it\'\'s killing
the identity of others.
00:00:27.291 --> 00:00:30.667
How could this happen
to these monuments
00:00:30.667 --> 00:00:31.875
that have survived
00:00:31.875 --> 00:00:36.083
the ravages of the environment,
natural disasters,
00:00:36.083 --> 00:00:40.542
and in this 21st century,
we are seeing
00:00:40.542 --> 00:00:45.125
a willful destruction
of these things.
00:00:45.125 --> 00:00:53.291
♪
00:01:06.709 --> 00:01:14.291
♪
00:01:14.291 --> 00:01:16.542
(explosion)
00:01:16.542 --> 00:01:31.208
♪
00:01:29.208 --> 00:01:32.875
Part of war and conflict
has always been
00:01:32.875 --> 00:01:34.750
the collateral damage.
00:01:34.750 --> 00:01:39.417
Buildings have fallen in
the path of military objectives.
00:01:39.792 --> 00:01:44.291
But there has always been
another war going on.
00:01:44.667 --> 00:01:48.000
One of the ways to get rid
of history is to remove
00:01:48.000 --> 00:01:50.041
all physical traces
of that history.
00:01:50.041 --> 00:01:51.750
Make believe
nothing ever happened,
00:01:51.750 --> 00:01:52.625
nothing was ever there.
00:01:52.625 --> 00:01:55.667
You can\'t find any artifacts,
you can\'t find anything
00:01:55.667 --> 00:01:57.267
because everything has been,
has vanished.
00:01:57.291 --> 00:02:00.250
In this war,
buildings aren\'t destroyed
00:02:00.250 --> 00:02:02.750
because they\'re
in the way of a target,
00:02:02.750 --> 00:02:04.917
the buildings are the target.
00:02:04.917 --> 00:02:07.083
People are people
within the place.
00:02:07.083 --> 00:02:12.125
Their history, their identity,
how they draw meaning
00:02:12.125 --> 00:02:15.834
about who they are,
happens in a place.
00:02:15.834 --> 00:02:18.750
And what happens
to that place matters.
00:02:18.750 --> 00:02:22.875
Those buildings are part
of who they are.
00:02:22.875 --> 00:02:25.458
♪
00:02:25.458 --> 00:02:26.625
(explosion)
00:02:26.625 --> 00:02:32.041
A century of wave after
thunderous wave of destruction.
00:02:32.250 --> 00:02:35.291
This war against culture
is not over,
00:02:35.291 --> 00:02:38.583
it\'\'s been steadily increasing.
00:02:39.083 --> 00:02:43.125
How can we stem its path,
and save the story
00:02:43.125 --> 00:02:44.875
of who we are?
00:02:44.875 --> 00:02:46.792
To understand how we got here,
00:02:46.792 --> 00:02:49.333
to find a way forward,
we must first look back.
00:02:51.041 --> 00:02:54.417
On the eve of the 20th century,
the tools of warfare
00:02:54.417 --> 00:02:58.500
and their destructive power
began to accelerate.
00:02:58.500 --> 00:03:00.834
The ability to destroy
a monument,
00:03:00.834 --> 00:03:04.166
a building, a city,
became easier.
00:03:04.166 --> 00:03:05.542
War began to industrialize.
00:03:05.542 --> 00:03:09.709
After a period where there
were set piece battles
00:03:09.709 --> 00:03:11.834
away from centers
of population,
00:03:11.834 --> 00:03:15.709
you were starting
to see total war.
00:03:15.709 --> 00:03:17.500
♪
00:03:17.500 --> 00:03:21.083
At peace conferences, clauses
to protect cultural property
00:03:21.083 --> 00:03:25.667
in times of war were included
in two Hague Conventions.
00:03:25.667 --> 00:03:30.583
It is forbidden, \"To destroy
or seize the enemy\'\'s property,
00:03:30.583 --> 00:03:32.709
unless such destruction
or seizure
00:03:32.709 --> 00:03:35.792
be imperatively demanded
by the necessities of war.\"
00:03:35.792 --> 00:03:37.583
At the end of
the First World War,
00:03:37.583 --> 00:03:39.667
the victorious Allies,
victorious over
00:03:39.667 --> 00:03:42.125
the German Empire
and Ottoman Empire,
00:03:42.125 --> 00:03:43.917
create a Commission
of Responsibility
00:03:43.917 --> 00:03:46.792
for the authors of war,
which investigates
00:03:46.792 --> 00:03:49.583
the allegations
of criminality against
00:03:49.583 --> 00:03:51.709
the leaders of these two
defeated empires,
00:03:51.709 --> 00:03:56.959
and they come up with a list
of 32 individual criminal acts.
00:03:56.959 --> 00:04:00.375
You know, shooting hostages,
sinking of civilian ships.
00:04:00.375 --> 00:04:02.625
One of them is
the wanton destruction
00:04:02.625 --> 00:04:04.542
of cultural property.
00:04:04.959 --> 00:04:08.750
Now in the end, the leaders
of the Axis Powers
00:04:08.750 --> 00:04:11.291
are not prosecuted
for various reasons,
00:04:11.291 --> 00:04:12.875
especially the Ottoman Empire.
00:04:12.875 --> 00:04:16.709
The perpetrators \"getting away\"
without proper retribution
00:04:16.709 --> 00:04:20.875
was not lost on a young
Polish lawyer, Raphael Lemkin.
00:04:20.875 --> 00:04:24.625
Lemkin was born in 1900
in the Russian Empire,
00:04:24.625 --> 00:04:26.834
but he identified
as a Polish Jew.
00:04:26.834 --> 00:04:30.083
He believed in cultural
particularity each nation has
00:04:30.083 --> 00:04:34.917
a particular, specific character
and should be allowed to develop
00:04:34.917 --> 00:04:36.709
that character in its own way,
00:04:36.709 --> 00:04:39.208
without being
forcibly assimilated,
00:04:39.208 --> 00:04:40.959
or absorbed, occupied,
you know,
00:04:40.959 --> 00:04:43.333
which would distort its mission.
00:04:43.333 --> 00:04:45.458
During the 1920s
when he was student
00:04:45.458 --> 00:04:49.667
and then a lawyer in Warsaw,
he became aware of the failure
00:04:49.667 --> 00:04:53.709
to prosecute the perpetrators
of the Armenian genocide,
00:04:53.709 --> 00:04:55.333
which outraged him.
00:04:55.333 --> 00:04:57.875
♪
00:04:57.875 --> 00:05:00.208
For thousands of years,
Armenians have been marking
00:05:00.208 --> 00:05:02.834
their territories
with sacred sites.
00:05:02.834 --> 00:05:08.750
A lot of those are churches,
but also memorials,
00:05:08.750 --> 00:05:10.709
monuments like khatchkars.
00:05:10.709 --> 00:05:13.041
By targeting the monuments
you are oppressing the people
00:05:13.041 --> 00:05:15.875
and making it easier
to get rid of them,
00:05:15.875 --> 00:05:19.083
not just to wipe out
the physical record
00:05:19.083 --> 00:05:22.417
and make it impossible
for them to return,
00:05:22.417 --> 00:05:24.875
but also using it as a weapon.
00:05:25.458 --> 00:05:30.417
Hitler was supposed
to have said very clearly,
00:05:30.417 --> 00:05:31.834
\"Who remembers the Armenians?\"
00:05:31.834 --> 00:05:35.875
He was talking less than
a couple of decades
00:05:35.875 --> 00:05:38.417
after the Armenian genocide,
00:05:38.417 --> 00:05:41.083
and very few people
did remember.
00:05:41.083 --> 00:05:45.417
The Turks had done
a systematic job
00:05:45.417 --> 00:05:48.709
of repressing any memory
of that genocide
00:05:48.709 --> 00:05:52.667
and that included removing
the physical evidence
00:05:52.667 --> 00:05:56.250
of the Armenian people
within Turkish territory,
00:05:56.250 --> 00:06:00.250
systematically dynamiting
buildings, and clearing sites
00:06:00.542 --> 00:06:01.208
and graveyards.
00:06:01.208 --> 00:06:05.417
This didn\'\'t happen by accident,
it was very purposeful,
00:06:05.417 --> 00:06:08.333
it was kicking over the traces.
00:06:08.333 --> 00:06:10.125
♪
00:06:10.125 --> 00:06:13.250
After the assassination
of who was characterized
00:06:13.250 --> 00:06:15.834
as the \"Turkish Hitler,\"
Talaat Pasha,
00:06:15.834 --> 00:06:18.792
he was assassinated by
a young Armenian survivor,
00:06:18.792 --> 00:06:22.417
Lemkin was not happy
that a survivor
00:06:22.417 --> 00:06:26.208
had to bring accountability
to this man
00:06:26.208 --> 00:06:27.792
who had committed
such atrocities,
00:06:27.792 --> 00:06:30.166
and he wanted there to be
an international system,
00:06:30.166 --> 00:06:34.208
he said it\'s not the job
of the survivors to bring
00:06:34.208 --> 00:06:36.792
the perpetrators to justice.
00:06:36.792 --> 00:06:39.709
So, in 1933 as a 33-year-old,
00:06:39.709 --> 00:06:43.875
he proposes at a League
of Nations legal conference,
00:06:43.875 --> 00:06:47.417
to prosecute two new
international crimes.
00:06:47.417 --> 00:06:50.709
One is vandalism,
and the other is barbarism.
00:06:50.709 --> 00:06:53.667
Barbarism is what
we would now call genocide,
00:06:53.667 --> 00:06:56.709
it\'\'s attacks on peoples,
physical attacks.
00:06:56.709 --> 00:07:00.000
Vandalism was attack
on cultural property.
00:07:00.000 --> 00:07:02.959
States in the League of Nations
declined to criminalize
00:07:02.959 --> 00:07:04.166
these kind of acts.
00:07:04.166 --> 00:07:08.583
So, as Lemkin puts it,
these states,
00:07:08.583 --> 00:07:09.875
above all the Nazi state,
00:07:09.875 --> 00:07:14.542
were free to murder
their own civilians.
00:07:14.542 --> 00:07:17.625
♪
00:07:54.959 --> 00:07:57.000
\"Physical
and biological genocide
00:07:57.000 --> 00:08:00.417
are always preceded
by cultural genocide
00:08:00.417 --> 00:08:04.125
or by an attack
on the symbols of the group.\"
00:08:04.125 --> 00:08:05.625
Raphael Lemkin.
00:08:05.625 --> 00:08:07.166
It starts with a smashed window,
00:08:07.166 --> 00:08:09.959
or burnt rags
through a letterbox,
00:08:09.959 --> 00:08:14.333
and becomes the demolition
of a building.
00:08:14.333 --> 00:08:16.333
(explosions)
00:08:16.333 --> 00:08:20.208
Later it can combine, such as
the burning of congregations
00:08:20.208 --> 00:08:23.041
within synagogues
on the Eastern Front
00:08:23.041 --> 00:08:25.125
in the Second World War.
00:08:27.083 --> 00:08:28.500
I grew up in post-war Poland.
00:08:28.500 --> 00:08:31.208
My parents were survivors
of the Holocaust.
00:08:31.208 --> 00:08:34.625
I grew up with no other family
than my immediate family.
00:08:34.625 --> 00:08:37.166
All, you know,
eighty, ninety members
00:08:37.166 --> 00:08:38.291
of my family were murdered.
00:08:38.291 --> 00:08:41.291
And I grew up in a city
that was also devastated.
00:08:41.291 --> 00:08:44.583
We felt the full impact
of the turmoil
00:08:44.583 --> 00:08:46.208
and destruction of culture.
00:08:46.208 --> 00:08:49.500
Not just Jewish culture,
but Polish culture.
00:08:49.792 --> 00:08:52.959
Living in post-war Poland,
you felt you were living
00:08:52.959 --> 00:08:53.667
in the rubble.
00:08:53.667 --> 00:08:56.125
Also cultural rubble,
because the people,
00:08:56.125 --> 00:08:58.709
the carriers
of culture, were gone.
00:08:58.709 --> 00:09:01.500
So it was kind of
a ghost-like existence.
00:09:01.500 --> 00:09:04.667
And the city had resonance
it was destroyed,
00:09:04.667 --> 00:09:08.792
it was an image
of something tragic.
00:09:09.125 --> 00:09:11.333
Going to Warsaw
when I was a child,
00:09:11.333 --> 00:09:13.834
you know,
Warsaw was completely leveled,
00:09:13.834 --> 00:09:15.834
there was nothing really left.
00:09:15.834 --> 00:09:18.250
When you\'re exposed
to this condition,
00:09:18.250 --> 00:09:19.250
as a young person,
00:09:19.250 --> 00:09:22.917
it\'\'s not just one more image
in your mind.
00:09:22.917 --> 00:09:26.542
There was
an ideological component,
00:09:26.542 --> 00:09:28.000
to remove any evidence
00:09:28.000 --> 00:09:31.709
of Slavic cultural genius,
to remove any evidence
00:09:31.709 --> 00:09:36.166
of them as an educated people,
with a history.
00:09:36.750 --> 00:09:39.417
(air raid sirens)
00:09:39.417 --> 00:09:42.667
♪
00:09:42.667 --> 00:09:45.166
When the storm bursts
over Germany,
00:09:45.166 --> 00:09:47.625
they will look back
to the days of Lubeck,
00:09:47.625 --> 00:09:51.417
and Rostock, and Cologne,
as a man caught in
00:09:51.417 --> 00:09:54.917
the blasts of a hurricane
will look back
00:09:54.917 --> 00:09:58.083
to the gentle zephyrs
of last summer.
00:09:58.083 --> 00:10:02.166
The controversial
Allied carpet bombing
00:10:02.166 --> 00:10:04.458
of Germany in
the Second World War
00:10:04.458 --> 00:10:07.333
touches on a lot
of issues, whether it was
00:10:07.333 --> 00:10:11.250
a legitimate tactic
or a successful tactic,
00:10:11.250 --> 00:10:15.625
I don\'t think it was either,
but it was clearly a tactic
00:10:15.625 --> 00:10:17.458
to attack historic cities.
00:10:17.458 --> 00:10:21.166
Not for their cultural content
necessarily, per se,
00:10:21.166 --> 00:10:26.041
but certainly to demoralize
and to de-house people,
00:10:26.041 --> 00:10:27.083
but right from the beginning
00:10:27.083 --> 00:10:31.166
we saw the port of Lubeck
targeted, partly because
00:10:31.166 --> 00:10:36.000
it had a dense historic core
that would burn.
00:10:36.375 --> 00:10:41.417
That was a clear disregard
for the law and customs of war,
00:10:41.417 --> 00:10:43.959
to target centers of population
00:10:43.959 --> 00:10:47.041
and centers of culture
and monuments in that way,
00:10:47.041 --> 00:10:48.500
and there\'s no denying that.
00:10:49.083 --> 00:10:51.750
Feeble industrial targets
were given
00:10:51.750 --> 00:10:53.917
as the official reason
for the German raids
00:10:53.917 --> 00:10:57.709
on Britain, but Goebbels,
in his diaries,
00:10:57.709 --> 00:10:58.792
gave away the truth.
00:10:58.792 --> 00:11:02.583
\"Like the English, we must
attack centers of culture.
00:11:02.583 --> 00:11:06.375
Such centers should be attacked
two or three times in succession
00:11:06.375 --> 00:11:09.625
and leveled to the ground;
then the English probably
00:11:09.625 --> 00:11:13.542
will no longer find pleasure
in trying to frighten us
00:11:13.542 --> 00:11:15.834
by their terror attacks.\"
00:11:15.834 --> 00:11:18.000
♪
00:11:18.000 --> 00:11:21.375
I was eight years old
when we had to flee,
00:11:21.375 --> 00:11:23.792
we were eight kids,
and we drove from
00:11:23.792 --> 00:11:26.625
the East of Germany
via Dresden
00:11:26.625 --> 00:11:31.041
to the middle of Germany
in the hope we would escape
00:11:31.041 --> 00:11:33.792
the last acts of the war.
00:11:33.792 --> 00:11:35.625
I had never seen a large city,
00:11:35.625 --> 00:11:38.000
and Dresden
was particularly appealing
00:11:38.000 --> 00:11:40.709
to a child because it had
a lot of statues.
00:11:40.709 --> 00:11:44.500
I remember the Frauenkirche
from the outside, I remember
00:11:44.500 --> 00:11:49.083
the whole silhouette of the city
with all of these towers,
00:11:49.083 --> 00:11:50.709
it was extraordinary.
00:11:50.709 --> 00:11:52.917
(air raid sirens)
00:13:00.417 --> 00:13:06.083
♪
00:13:19.417 --> 00:13:21.375
The Allies knew
they were, of course,
00:13:21.375 --> 00:13:25.333
bombing civilian targets,
by saying that the destruction
00:13:25.333 --> 00:13:28.750
of German morale
was a military objective
00:13:28.750 --> 00:13:33.125
and therefore justified
by military necessity.
00:13:33.125 --> 00:13:36.458
Debates then about whether
the Germans were victims
00:13:36.458 --> 00:13:39.166
or perpetrators
become somewhat polarized,
00:13:39.166 --> 00:13:41.542
when in fact the two
don\'\'t necessarily
00:13:41.542 --> 00:13:42.417
need to be separated.
00:13:42.417 --> 00:13:46.208
Civilian Germans were clearly
victims of mass bombings,
00:13:46.208 --> 00:13:50.333
terroristic bombings,
by...by the Allies.
00:13:50.333 --> 00:13:59.834
♪
00:13:59.834 --> 00:14:01.375
One of the few buildings
that survived
00:14:01.375 --> 00:14:05.333
was a military barracks
one of the only valid targets,
00:14:05.333 --> 00:14:08.792
which sits on a hill,
looking at the city.
00:14:08.792 --> 00:14:12.250
Nazi leaders were not prosecuted
for aerial warfare
00:14:12.250 --> 00:14:15.959
at the Nuremberg Trials
they did bomb Rotterdam,
00:14:15.959 --> 00:14:18.041
Coventry, London,
but these didn\'t come up
00:14:18.041 --> 00:14:20.709
in the Nuremberg Trials,
all because Allied leaders
00:14:20.709 --> 00:14:23.667
ordered bombing
of German civilians.
00:14:23.667 --> 00:14:24.875
♪
00:14:24.875 --> 00:14:30.542
There were very clear orders
to protect the treasures
00:14:30.542 --> 00:14:35.083
of Italy as far as possible
from destruction.
00:14:35.083 --> 00:14:38.667
Generally, there was an attitude
that this is the cradle
00:14:38.667 --> 00:14:41.750
of our collective civilization
00:14:41.750 --> 00:14:46.917
and we all own this
and we need to care for it,
00:14:46.917 --> 00:14:49.375
even within
the middle of battle.
00:14:49.375 --> 00:14:51.375
It could be argued that Dresden
should have been seen
00:14:51.375 --> 00:14:54.417
the same way,
but its universal appeal
00:14:54.417 --> 00:14:57.000
was not the same,
and even within Germany
00:14:57.000 --> 00:14:59.875
it could be argued
that cities like Dresden,
00:14:59.875 --> 00:15:01.834
the architectural form
of those cities,
00:15:01.834 --> 00:15:03.667
weren\'t valued
by the Nazi regime.
00:15:03.667 --> 00:15:07.333
They didn\'t mind very much
that one city after the other
00:15:07.333 --> 00:15:08.834
was destroyed
because they wanted
00:15:08.834 --> 00:15:11.208
to rebuild them anyway,
get rid of this old stuff
00:15:11.208 --> 00:15:13.333
and build something modern
on it.
00:15:13.333 --> 00:15:16.709
A lot of people died,
but that was an economic
00:15:16.709 --> 00:15:20.208
and a...personal loss.
00:15:20.208 --> 00:15:22.917
♪
00:15:22.917 --> 00:15:24.959
People who destroy
cultural property
00:15:24.959 --> 00:15:28.542
during armed conflict
have also done many other
00:15:28.542 --> 00:15:32.709
bad things which are
more intuitively obvious
00:15:32.709 --> 00:15:35.291
to be war crimes
and things for which
00:15:35.291 --> 00:15:39.583
they should be punished,
and generally what we see
00:15:39.583 --> 00:15:42.083
is that destruction
of cultural property is,
00:15:42.083 --> 00:15:44.125
in a sense,
a second class citizen
00:15:44.125 --> 00:15:48.250
to other types of violations
of international law
00:15:48.250 --> 00:15:51.291
and war crimes
that are committed.
00:16:15.291 --> 00:16:18.750
The devastation of the Holocaust
showed the urgent need
00:16:18.750 --> 00:16:20.959
for Lemkin\'s ideas
to be adopted.
00:16:20.959 --> 00:16:26.083
He used the word \"genocide\"
for the first time in 1944
00:16:26.083 --> 00:16:29.250
a single word for what
he\'d earlier called
00:16:29.250 --> 00:16:31.333
barbarism and vandalism.
00:16:31.333 --> 00:16:35.166
In 1946, the United Nations
General Assembly
00:16:35.166 --> 00:16:39.250
ordered a committee to devise
the Genocide Convention.
00:16:39.250 --> 00:16:42.542
In early drafts, genocide
can be one of three acts -
00:16:42.542 --> 00:16:45.792
physical genocide,
biological genocide,
00:16:46.792 --> 00:16:48.333
or cultural genocide.
00:16:49.333 --> 00:16:51.500
There were vehement objections
to the notion
00:16:51.500 --> 00:16:55.166
that cultural genocide could
be placed at an equal level
00:16:55.166 --> 00:16:56.792
with physical
or biological genocide.
00:16:56.792 --> 00:17:02.333
Russia was arguing heavily for
the inclusion of vandalism,
00:17:02.333 --> 00:17:03.500
it had had millions of buildings
00:17:03.500 --> 00:17:07.000
destroyed by the Nazis
after Operation Barbarossa.
00:17:07.000 --> 00:17:11.125
But the United States, Canada,
Australia, and New Zealand,
00:17:11.125 --> 00:17:13.208
worried about the fallout
from their treatment
00:17:13.208 --> 00:17:15.542
of indigenous peoples
and their cultures,
00:17:15.542 --> 00:17:17.959
actively campaigned to have
the cultural elements removed.
00:17:17.959 --> 00:17:20.333
And it was eventually excluded
in 1948,
00:17:20.333 --> 00:17:22.417
and what we\'re left with
is essentially
00:17:23.417 --> 00:17:25.750
what Lemkin proposed
as barbarism in 1933,
00:17:25.750 --> 00:17:27.750
so the entire
cultural dimension,
00:17:27.750 --> 00:17:29.917
which, for him,
was so elemental, was omitted.
00:17:29.917 --> 00:17:33.291
\"Many delegations fell silent
when I endeavored
00:17:33.291 --> 00:17:36.625
to explain the importance
of this matter.
00:17:36.625 --> 00:17:39.291
After having overcome
so many hurdles
00:17:39.291 --> 00:17:42.375
and with the end
of the Assembly in sight,
00:17:42.375 --> 00:17:44.667
I questioned the wisdom
of engaging
00:17:44.667 --> 00:17:46.542
in still another battle.
00:17:46.542 --> 00:17:51.542
So with a heavy heart,
I decided not to press for it.\"
00:17:51.792 --> 00:17:54.500
Although the cultural elements
had been argued out,
00:17:54.500 --> 00:17:57.750
the extent of the war\'s damage
couldn\'\'t be ignored.
00:17:57.750 --> 00:18:00.667
After World War Two,
the international community
00:18:00.667 --> 00:18:04.208
created a large number
of international conventions,
00:18:04.208 --> 00:18:05.750
particularly conventions
00:18:05.750 --> 00:18:08.291
on the humanitarian
international law,
00:18:08.291 --> 00:18:10.125
such as the Geneva Conventions.
00:18:10.125 --> 00:18:12.041
At the same time,
UNESCO was created,
00:18:12.041 --> 00:18:16.333
also by the United Nations,
as a separate body.
00:18:16.333 --> 00:18:17.750
♪
00:18:17.750 --> 00:18:20.625
The 1954 Hague Convention
on the Protection
00:18:20.625 --> 00:18:23.667
of Cultural Property
in the event of Armed Conflict
00:18:23.667 --> 00:18:25.667
is the first time
that cultural property
00:18:25.667 --> 00:18:29.333
was singled out for its own set
of international law.
00:18:29.959 --> 00:18:32.250
However, it is not considered
to be a part
00:18:32.250 --> 00:18:34.000
of international
humanitarian law;
00:18:34.000 --> 00:18:37.250
rather, it is part
of the law of armed conflict,
00:18:37.250 --> 00:18:40.875
and I believe that while
that raised the profile
00:18:40.875 --> 00:18:43.417
of cultural property,
by separating it
00:18:43.417 --> 00:18:45.875
from the humanitarian law,
it made it
00:18:45.875 --> 00:18:48.875
much more susceptible
to armed conflict itself,
00:18:48.875 --> 00:18:50.166
because in
the Hague Convention
00:18:50.166 --> 00:18:52.959
was added what\'s called
the military necessity waiver,
00:18:52.959 --> 00:18:55.917
and there\'s no definition
of what that means.
00:18:55.917 --> 00:19:01.125
It could excuse a lot of attacks
on cultural property.
00:19:01.125 --> 00:19:04.333
49 countries immediately signed
the convention,
00:19:04.333 --> 00:19:07.458
but the tensions of the Cold War
convinced key states
00:19:07.458 --> 00:19:11.959
like the UK and the US
to put ratification aside.
00:19:11.959 --> 00:19:15.083
♪
00:19:15.083 --> 00:19:17.792
The world was
in a state of flux.
00:19:17.792 --> 00:19:21.458
Refugees moved back
and forth across it.
00:19:21.458 --> 00:19:22.375
♪
00:19:22.375 --> 00:19:25.000
It was my ninth birthday,
I still remember,
00:19:25.000 --> 00:19:28.208
we went to say goodbye
to my grandparents,
00:19:28.208 --> 00:19:31.333
and that\'s the last time
I saw my grandfather.
00:19:31.333 --> 00:19:33.834
He died before we could go back.
00:19:33.834 --> 00:19:35.125
There were, at that point,
00:19:35.125 --> 00:19:37.500
still bodies lying
in the street.
00:19:37.500 --> 00:19:41.959
We crossed the border
at night and were shot at.
00:19:41.959 --> 00:19:46.667
I remember refugee camps,
I knew what it was like
00:19:46.667 --> 00:19:49.000
to find yourself
in a different country
00:19:49.000 --> 00:19:51.000
where nobody speaks
your language...
00:19:51.166 --> 00:19:53.750
and where nobody
has your memories.
00:19:53.750 --> 00:19:58.625
I knew at that age
what it was to be homesick.
00:19:58.625 --> 00:20:01.166
The uneasy détente
of the Cold War
00:20:01.166 --> 00:20:04.166
led to some limitation
on cultural destruction,
00:20:04.166 --> 00:20:09.166
but when the Iron Curtain fell,
all hell would break loose.
00:20:09.166 --> 00:20:15.333
♪
00:20:15.333 --> 00:20:19.834
It was hard for people
to comprehend that such things
00:20:19.834 --> 00:20:24.375
could be happening in Europe
at the end of the 20th century.
00:20:24.375 --> 00:20:27.500
We thought we had left
all that behind us,
00:20:27.500 --> 00:20:30.166
and the world was just
in the process of breathing
00:20:30.166 --> 00:20:33.417
a great sigh of relief
that the Cold War was over,
00:20:33.417 --> 00:20:34.959
and that
the nuclear annihilation
00:20:34.959 --> 00:20:38.333
that everyone had feared
for nearly half a century
00:20:38.333 --> 00:20:39.208
was receding.
00:20:39.208 --> 00:20:43.583
And then suddenly
you have this massive upheaval.
00:20:43.583 --> 00:20:45.208
What would happen
to cultural heritage
00:20:45.208 --> 00:20:48.667
during the Balkan Wars
would dramatically change
00:20:48.667 --> 00:20:50.083
our understanding of the issue.
00:20:50.083 --> 00:20:54.250
The severity of destruction
would trigger the beginnings
00:20:54.250 --> 00:20:56.166
of change.
00:20:57.875 --> 00:21:01.291
I grew up in a family of four.
00:21:01.291 --> 00:21:05.166
My father was a lawyer,
my mom worked for a bank.
00:21:05.166 --> 00:21:08.667
My sister and I
were three years apart.
00:21:08.667 --> 00:21:11.667
Aida was a bookworm.
00:21:11.667 --> 00:21:13.250
I remember fights at home when
00:21:13.250 --> 00:21:14.625
we didn\'t have
a very big apartment
00:21:14.625 --> 00:21:19.166
so she and I shared a room,
so she would keep her lights on
00:21:19.166 --> 00:21:20.583
and read until 3:00
in the morning,
00:21:20.583 --> 00:21:23.333
4:00 in the morning,
whereas my lights were off.
00:21:23.333 --> 00:21:26.750
We were just a happy family,
a very happy family,
00:21:26.750 --> 00:21:29.834
and we had lots
of immediate friends
00:21:29.834 --> 00:21:31.792
and then family across Bosnia.
00:21:31.792 --> 00:21:36.208
We travelled a lot, we spent
our summers on the coast,
00:21:36.208 --> 00:21:38.500
we spent our winters
on the mountain,
00:21:38.500 --> 00:21:41.458
we really had
a very privileged childhood.
00:21:41.458 --> 00:21:43.750
After Tito died,
things started to change.
00:21:43.750 --> 00:21:46.917
They did not--I did not really
feel the change so much at
00:21:46.917 --> 00:21:48.917
the political level,
but more so
00:21:48.917 --> 00:21:51.667
at the economic level;
suddenly we had shortages,
00:21:51.667 --> 00:21:58.417
we had issues around goods,
and the idea of debt,
00:21:58.417 --> 00:22:01.542
there was the national debt
that was for the first time
00:22:01.542 --> 00:22:04.250
being talked about
so publicly,
00:22:04.250 --> 00:22:05.959
so things were changing.
00:22:05.959 --> 00:22:11.125
If, in your country,
the Ku Klux Klan
00:22:11.125 --> 00:22:15.041
had full control of all
the national television networks
00:22:15.041 --> 00:22:18.959
and even the local newspapers,
if, for ten years,
00:22:18.959 --> 00:22:24.375
you had nothing but
the message of David Duke,
00:22:24.375 --> 00:22:27.125
then you too would have war.
00:22:27.125 --> 00:22:34.625
♪
00:22:34.625 --> 00:22:38.625
Within a month,
the shelling started hitting,
00:22:38.625 --> 00:22:42.875
in fact, singling out
cultural landmarks.
00:22:42.875 --> 00:22:44.500
(explosion)
00:22:44.500 --> 00:22:47.375
It was really in May of 1992,
00:22:47.375 --> 00:22:50.500
when the Oriental
Institute Library was burnt,
00:22:50.500 --> 00:22:53.000
that I felt these people
mean business.
00:22:53.000 --> 00:22:54.333
Before that,
people had already died,
00:22:54.333 --> 00:22:56.458
there were grenades,
there were killings,
00:22:56.458 --> 00:22:58.750
there were explosions
everywhere,
00:22:58.750 --> 00:23:01.375
but I just reacted
most profoundly
00:23:01.375 --> 00:23:03.709
when I heard
about the Oriental Institute.
00:23:03.709 --> 00:23:06.000
Somehow, I just put two
and two together,
00:23:06.000 --> 00:23:07.959
I think, for the first time,
when I thought,
00:23:07.959 --> 00:23:10.375
\"This is not just about
somebody expressing
00:23:10.375 --> 00:23:12.709
their momentary anger
and killing other people,
00:23:12.709 --> 00:23:18.250
this is somebody who knows
what is held in that library,
00:23:18.250 --> 00:23:19.291
they know what they are doing,
00:23:19.291 --> 00:23:21.959
and they are doing it
for a particular purpose.
00:23:21.959 --> 00:23:24.125
This is not going to go away.
00:23:24.125 --> 00:23:27.583
They are rewriting history
at this very moment.
00:23:28.291 --> 00:23:31.083
That really scared me so much.
00:23:31.083 --> 00:23:33.417
I just remember feeling
apocalyptic moment,
00:23:33.417 --> 00:23:37.041
which you just see
into this, look at this void,
00:23:37.041 --> 00:23:39.333
and think nothing exists
after this.
00:23:39.333 --> 00:23:40.333
♪
00:23:40.333 --> 00:23:42.959
The revelations
of the summer of \'92,
00:23:42.959 --> 00:23:46.917
of concentration camps,
of mass killings,
00:23:46.917 --> 00:23:50.375
and hundreds of thousands
of people on the move,
00:23:50.375 --> 00:23:55.125
in the background
of all that was the destruction
00:23:55.125 --> 00:23:56.125
of culture as well.
00:23:56.125 --> 00:24:01.166
These people were being targeted
not for being armed opponents,
00:24:01.166 --> 00:24:05.792
but for belonging to
the wrong cultural category.
00:24:05.792 --> 00:24:09.959
That\'s when it became very clear
that this wasn\'t
00:24:09.959 --> 00:24:13.166
just destruction
incidental to war,
00:24:13.166 --> 00:24:17.250
but the destruction
was the whole point.
00:24:32.166 --> 00:24:37.500
All kind of religions
lived together,
00:24:37.500 --> 00:24:40.417
not side by side, but together.
00:24:40.417 --> 00:24:42.500
I don\'t like to remember
00:24:42.500 --> 00:24:48.375
that particular 25,
26th August, 1992.
00:24:48.375 --> 00:24:54.000
I hate to go back in my mind.
00:24:54.000 --> 00:24:56.208
This was close
to two million books
00:24:56.208 --> 00:24:59.041
destroyed in a single night
of shelling.
00:24:59.041 --> 00:25:02.333
There were dramatic pictures
of the burning library
00:25:02.333 --> 00:25:04.375
on the wire services.
00:25:04.375 --> 00:25:08.542
In all of North America,
only one newspaper picked it up,
00:25:08.542 --> 00:25:12.250
and it was run without a story,
just with a short caption.
00:25:12.250 --> 00:25:14.583
She started to work
at the National Library.
00:25:14.583 --> 00:25:17.625
I visited her in her office
a couple of times when I was
00:25:17.625 --> 00:25:23.542
in Sarajevo and she just...
she really thrived there.
00:25:23.542 --> 00:25:25.166
She had plans,
other plans of course,
00:25:25.166 --> 00:25:28.166
but there was something about it
that was grounding her
00:25:28.166 --> 00:25:32.000
in a way that these other jobs
did not,
00:25:32.000 --> 00:25:36.208
and it was really her love
for books, I think,
00:25:36.208 --> 00:25:39.667
that weighed in
very visibly there,
00:25:39.667 --> 00:25:42.709
and that she became so attached
to that place
00:25:42.709 --> 00:25:44.625
and to the people
who worked there.
00:25:44.625 --> 00:25:48.333
We were good friends,
we worked together
00:25:48.333 --> 00:25:51.583
for a few years.
00:25:51.583 --> 00:25:54.125
She was...she was...
00:25:54.125 --> 00:25:54.583
♪
00:25:54.583 --> 00:25:57.125
That last conversation
that I had with my father
00:25:57.125 --> 00:25:59.959
and with her, she,
like my dad was saying,
00:25:59.959 --> 00:26:03.709
\"Oh, don\'t worry,
nothing is going to happen...\"
00:26:03.917 --> 00:26:07.834
and she quickly changed
the subject to tell me about
00:26:07.834 --> 00:26:11.750
some new hair color that
she found that she was asking
00:26:11.750 --> 00:26:13.333
my opinion about,
it ended up being
00:26:13.333 --> 00:26:16.500
a very lighthearted
conversation.
00:26:16.500 --> 00:26:19.834
All the while the planes
were going back and forth.
00:26:19.834 --> 00:26:24.250
And I felt that she was,
in a way, both soothing me,
00:26:24.250 --> 00:26:26.166
as well as herself.
00:26:26.166 --> 00:26:32.208
There was quite a bit
of resistance in her case
00:26:32.208 --> 00:26:37.375
to accept that reality
of the war,
00:26:37.375 --> 00:26:40.959
the demand to be enclosed,
00:26:40.959 --> 00:26:44.375
the demand to be in
your running shoes always,
00:26:44.375 --> 00:26:47.291
running away from snipers
and, from what I understand,
00:26:47.291 --> 00:26:50.750
she kept on putting
beautiful clothes
00:26:50.750 --> 00:26:51.750
and making up every morning,
00:26:51.750 --> 00:26:55.250
and going to work
as if nothing was happening,
00:26:55.250 --> 00:26:58.875
just defying
that kind of assault
00:26:58.875 --> 00:27:00.625
by being what she was.
00:27:00.625 --> 00:27:02.875
The afternoon of August 25th,
00:27:02.875 --> 00:27:05.083
the shelling
had gotten very severe,
00:27:05.083 --> 00:27:08.250
the staff decided
it was no longer safe
00:27:08.250 --> 00:27:11.542
to stay in the building,
they started heading home.
00:27:11.542 --> 00:27:14.458
One of the staffers,
Aida Buturovic,
00:27:14.458 --> 00:27:20.291
a young woman who worked in
the Library\'s exchanges section,
00:27:20.291 --> 00:27:22.542
on her way home, was killed.
00:27:22.542 --> 00:27:27.083
Her family didn\'t find out
about it until the next day
00:27:27.083 --> 00:27:29.542
when they found her body
in the morgue.
00:27:29.542 --> 00:27:32.000
This is during a siege
of the city
00:27:32.000 --> 00:27:35.750
when the library
was not open for business,
00:27:35.750 --> 00:27:37.792
people came out of
a sense of duty,
00:27:37.792 --> 00:27:38.875
they weren\'t collecting pay,
00:27:38.875 --> 00:27:42.375
they were working in offices
that no longer had windows,
00:27:42.375 --> 00:27:45.250
and, nevertheless,
they continued to come
00:27:45.250 --> 00:27:48.125
because they had
to save the books.
00:27:48.792 --> 00:27:53.375
I knew I was risking my life,
00:27:53.375 --> 00:27:57.250
but it was my way to fight
00:27:57.250 --> 00:28:00.250
for this country,
for this city,
00:28:00.250 --> 00:28:06.625
for what I thought
is important and is right.
00:28:06.625 --> 00:29:00.166
♪
00:29:00.166 --> 00:29:02.792
When I remember
what is no longer there,
00:29:02.792 --> 00:29:07.750
I feel a spasm in my stomach,
a knot in my throat.
00:29:07.750 --> 00:29:11.959
I feel death lurking
in its absence.
00:29:12.417 --> 00:29:15.875
I\'\'ve heard that the people
of Mostar, even adults,
00:29:15.875 --> 00:29:18.000
cried when they saw that
the bridge had fallen.
00:29:19.000 --> 00:29:20.709
We expect people to die.
00:29:20.709 --> 00:29:23.417
We count on
our own lives to end.
00:29:23.417 --> 00:29:26.792
The destruction of a monument
to civilization
00:29:26.792 --> 00:29:28.583
is something else.
00:29:28.792 --> 00:29:32.500
The bridge, in all
its beauty and grace,
00:29:32.500 --> 00:29:34.417
was built to outlive us;
00:29:34.417 --> 00:29:37.625
it was an attempt
to grasp eternity.
00:29:37.625 --> 00:29:42.083
Because it was the product
of both individual creativity
00:29:42.083 --> 00:29:43.667
and collective experience,
00:29:43.667 --> 00:29:46.917
it transcended
our individual destiny.
00:29:47.750 --> 00:29:52.583
The bridge is all
of us, forever.
00:29:52.583 --> 00:29:56.667
♪
00:29:56.667 --> 00:29:59.834
The world\'s response
would be put to the test.
00:29:59.834 --> 00:30:03.917
The destruction could not
be passed over again.
00:30:03.917 --> 00:30:05.959
Clauses were included
in the Dayton Accords,
00:30:05.959 --> 00:30:10.417
to protect Balkan heritage
from that day forward.
00:30:10.792 --> 00:30:14.834
The UN Security Council
had set up a Criminal Tribunal
00:30:14.834 --> 00:30:17.083
during the Balkan wars,
to bring justice
00:30:17.083 --> 00:30:19.542
to the perpetrators
of atrocities.
00:30:19.542 --> 00:30:21.834
It has its own rules
and regulations,
00:30:21.834 --> 00:30:24.417
in which intentional
cultural destruction,
00:30:24.417 --> 00:30:27.291
taking its lead from
the 1954 Hague Convention,
00:30:27.291 --> 00:30:29.834
would be criminalized.
00:30:29.834 --> 00:30:33.583
In 1998, war broke out
in Kosovo.
00:30:33.583 --> 00:30:36.834
When it ended the next year,
the UN was given
00:30:36.834 --> 00:30:39.291
administrative control
of Kosovo.
00:30:39.291 --> 00:30:42.750
I called up the UNESCO
headquarters in Paris,
00:30:42.750 --> 00:30:45.750
and I asked, \"Is there
any project
00:30:45.750 --> 00:30:49.709
to do a comprehensive survey
of what happened
00:30:49.709 --> 00:30:51.667
to cultural heritage
in Kosovo?\"
00:30:51.667 --> 00:30:53.709
And I got a rather
disturbing answer,
00:30:53.709 --> 00:30:57.583
namely that, \"We only
do these kinds of missions
00:30:57.583 --> 00:30:59.917
at the initiative
of the member country,
00:30:59.917 --> 00:31:02.542
and Yugoslavia, i.e. Belgrade,
00:31:02.542 --> 00:31:04.792
has not requested
such a thing.\"
00:31:04.792 --> 00:31:05.500
I got furious.
00:31:05.500 --> 00:31:08.875
I figured that if nothing
was surveyed before
00:31:08.875 --> 00:31:12.875
the first winter,
then it would be impossible
00:31:12.875 --> 00:31:14.583
to determine what had happened.
00:31:14.583 --> 00:31:19.125
As time passed, places
would be demolished or rebuilt,
00:31:19.125 --> 00:31:22.166
or even if they weren\'t,
a burned out building
00:31:22.166 --> 00:31:26.709
in a harsh Balkan winter
will destroy itself.
00:31:26.709 --> 00:31:30.041
Andras received a small grant
and departed for Kosovo
00:31:30.041 --> 00:31:33.458
to conduct the survey himself,
with some legal pointers from
00:31:33.458 --> 00:31:37.291
the ICTY prosecutors
on what makes good evidence.
00:31:37.291 --> 00:31:39.333
It wasn\'t what
we expected at all.
00:31:39.333 --> 00:31:44.750
There had been reports during
the war that a lot of heritage
00:31:44.750 --> 00:31:46.625
had been destroyed by bombing.
00:31:46.625 --> 00:31:51.333
NATO had bombed Kosovo
for 79 days during the war,
00:31:51.333 --> 00:31:55.875
but in fact very little damage
had been done by the bombing.
00:31:55.875 --> 00:31:58.250
However, there was massive
damage that had been done
00:31:58.250 --> 00:31:59.208
from the ground up.
00:31:59.208 --> 00:32:03.500
Out of 625 mosques
in Kosovo before the war,
00:32:03.500 --> 00:32:08.458
more than 220
had been destroyed or damaged.
00:32:08.458 --> 00:32:12.333
Mosques had been burned,
destroyed by explosives
00:32:12.333 --> 00:32:14.291
or had been shelled
at close range.
00:32:14.291 --> 00:32:17.417
In many cases surrounding
buildings were undamaged,
00:32:17.417 --> 00:32:19.792
so it was evidently targeted.
00:32:19.792 --> 00:32:22.792
In October of 2000,
Milosevic got overthrown,
00:32:22.792 --> 00:32:28.709
and in June of 2001, he was
handed over to the UN Tribunal.
00:32:28.709 --> 00:32:30.917
And suddenly there was
an urgency from
00:32:30.917 --> 00:32:33.208
the Hague saying,
\"We want a report.\"
00:32:33.208 --> 00:32:37.875
The trial started in February
of 2002 and I was one
00:32:37.875 --> 00:32:41.333
of the first witnesses
for the prosecution.
00:32:41.333 --> 00:32:43.291
It was a fascinating experience.
00:32:43.291 --> 00:32:46.750
First of all, I\'d never done
anything of the sort, you know,
00:32:46.750 --> 00:32:52.458
facing a head of state
who potentially had the blood
00:32:52.458 --> 00:32:55.500
of thousands on his hands.
00:32:55.500 --> 00:32:58.291
And I was nervous.
00:32:58.291 --> 00:33:01.875
After a while, I realized
that Milosevic
00:33:01.875 --> 00:33:05.083
was merely repeating
the allegations
00:33:05.083 --> 00:33:07.709
from the \"White Book\"
that had been issued
00:33:07.709 --> 00:33:09.583
by his government
during the war,
00:33:09.583 --> 00:33:11.750
claiming there was
all this destruction
00:33:11.750 --> 00:33:15.792
by NATO and that Serb heritage
has suffered.
00:33:15.792 --> 00:33:19.000
I had seen the White Book before
I had gone to Kosovo,
00:33:19.000 --> 00:33:23.458
I\'d visited every site
and seen it with my own eyes,
00:33:23.458 --> 00:33:26.750
so I knew that no facts
in the White Book
00:33:26.750 --> 00:33:31.291
were in fact verifiable
as such on the ground.
00:33:31.291 --> 00:33:33.250
And so I became more confident.
00:33:33.250 --> 00:33:38.417
And I expected Milosevic to get
angry at being contradicted,
00:33:38.417 --> 00:33:43.291
he was acting as his own lawyer
so he was cross-examining me
00:33:43.291 --> 00:33:45.542
in court,
and I suddenly realized
00:33:45.542 --> 00:33:49.750
I knew more and cared more
about this stuff than he did,
00:33:49.750 --> 00:33:52.417
but also, whenever
he was contradicted,
00:33:52.417 --> 00:33:55.583
he looked puzzled,
a minute later he would
00:33:55.583 --> 00:33:56.917
ask the same question over again
00:33:56.917 --> 00:34:00.875
and look even more puzzled,
and then I suddenly realized
00:34:00.875 --> 00:34:04.542
that it\'s the danger
of absolute power
00:34:04.542 --> 00:34:07.417
you develop the illusion
that you can control reality
00:34:07.417 --> 00:34:10.959
by saying so, you know,
who are you going to believe,
00:34:10.959 --> 00:34:12.417
me or your lying eyes?
00:34:12.417 --> 00:34:13.917
The success
of his testimony prompted
00:34:13.917 --> 00:34:17.375
the Tribunal\'s prosecutors
to ask Andras to collect
00:34:17.375 --> 00:34:18.667
similar evidence for Bosnia.
00:34:18.667 --> 00:34:23.291
And I spent the month of July
going around Bosnia accompanied
00:34:23.291 --> 00:34:27.125
by my friend
Professor Muhamed Hamidovic.
00:35:18.500 --> 00:35:23.792
As I went around, I actually had
a map, I started drawing dots.
00:35:23.792 --> 00:35:26.542
Eventually, the dots formed
into patterns
00:35:26.542 --> 00:35:30.208
and you could see the territory
that had been overrun
00:35:30.208 --> 00:35:33.959
and ethnically cleansed,
by the dots marking
00:35:33.959 --> 00:35:37.750
the destruction
of historical landmarks.
00:35:37.750 --> 00:35:40.542
As far as I know, in all
of the Serb-controlled part
00:35:40.542 --> 00:35:44.750
of Bosnia, not a single mosque
remained undamaged,
00:35:44.750 --> 00:35:47.250
three quarters
of all Catholic churches
00:35:47.250 --> 00:35:49.125
were destroyed as well.
00:35:49.125 --> 00:35:54.041
♪
00:35:54.041 --> 00:35:57.125
Let me make clear
that there was some destruction
00:35:57.125 --> 00:36:00.959
also of Serbian Orthodox
heritage,
00:36:00.959 --> 00:36:04.959
but it was not in
the same proportion,
00:36:04.959 --> 00:36:07.333
and not in the same context.
00:36:07.333 --> 00:36:10.583
When I would talk to
cultural heritage professionals
00:36:10.583 --> 00:36:13.875
in the town, they would
kind of quietly whisper,
00:36:13.875 --> 00:36:15.625
\"Oh yes, over there,
that\'s where
00:36:15.625 --> 00:36:19.750
the 16th century mosque was
and it\'\'s now a parking lot,
00:36:19.750 --> 00:36:20.792
don\'t let them tell you
00:36:20.792 --> 00:36:24.208
that it was never there,
because it was there.\"
00:36:24.625 --> 00:36:27.417
I did come across
some heartening stories,
00:36:27.417 --> 00:36:29.875
one of which is the story
of Baljvine,
00:36:29.875 --> 00:36:34.500
a small village, about half
the population is Muslim,
00:36:34.500 --> 00:36:37.583
the other half
are Orthodox Serbs.
00:36:37.583 --> 00:36:40.709
Three times during the war,
soldiers from outside
00:36:40.709 --> 00:36:42.208
the village tried
to incite the locals
00:36:42.208 --> 00:36:45.417
to turn against each other,
and to destroy the mosque.
00:37:09.792 --> 00:37:12.792
The mosque in Baljvine
is the only one that kept
00:37:12.792 --> 00:37:16.458
its minaret out of more
than 600 mosques
00:37:16.458 --> 00:37:18.417
in that part of Bosnia.
00:37:18.417 --> 00:37:19.291
That sends a message
00:37:19.291 --> 00:37:20.959
if you\'\'re not going
to tolerate the destruction
00:37:20.959 --> 00:37:23.333
of cultural heritage,
you\'re certainly not going
00:37:23.333 --> 00:37:26.041
to tolerate the burning
of your neighbor\'s house
00:37:26.041 --> 00:37:27.959
or violence against
your neighbors.
00:37:27.959 --> 00:37:31.125
And so, I think that
that works both ways
00:37:31.125 --> 00:37:32.458
the destruction
of cultural heritage
00:37:32.458 --> 00:37:35.125
can signal that there\'s going
to be potentially violence
00:37:35.125 --> 00:37:38.333
against people,
but it can also help signal
00:37:38.333 --> 00:37:40.959
that we won\'t tolerate that.
00:37:40.959 --> 00:37:42.583
♪
00:37:42.583 --> 00:37:44.959
Mr. Riedlmayer,
that concludes your evidence,
00:37:44.959 --> 00:37:48.667
thank you for returning
to the Tribunal to give it,
00:37:48.667 --> 00:37:49.792
you are free to go.
00:37:49.792 --> 00:37:50.750
Thank you.
00:37:50.750 --> 00:37:52.375
Milosevic died in 2006,
00:37:52.375 --> 00:37:54.583
before his case
could be concluded,
00:37:54.583 --> 00:37:56.417
but the work
of Andras Riedlmayer
00:37:56.417 --> 00:37:59.041
and others like him
has had its effect.
00:37:59.041 --> 00:38:02.500
It\'s not just killing people,
it\'\'s about killing their memory,
00:38:02.500 --> 00:38:06.083
it\'\'s about killing anything
that they have done,
00:38:06.083 --> 00:38:07.875
anything that
they have hoped for,
00:38:07.875 --> 00:38:09.959
anything that they
have worked for, and Andras
00:38:09.959 --> 00:38:13.875
has brought that into
the discourse around war crimes,
00:38:13.875 --> 00:38:19.542
and has really pushed for
the recognition that that had
00:38:19.542 --> 00:38:22.792
to be accounted for
in the courtroom,
00:38:22.792 --> 00:38:27.083
that it could not just
be considered as a side effect,
00:38:27.083 --> 00:38:28.875
collateral damage,
but that rather
00:38:28.875 --> 00:38:32.083
it could actually
be used as evidence.
00:38:32.083 --> 00:38:34.041
♪
00:38:34.041 --> 00:38:36.250
In 2004, Miodrag Jokic,
00:38:36.250 --> 00:38:38.500
was sentenced
to seven years imprisonment,
00:38:38.500 --> 00:38:41.166
for the attack on
the old city of Dubrovnik.
00:38:41.166 --> 00:38:44.208
His superior was sentenced
to eight years.
00:38:44.208 --> 00:38:48.375
It was the first instance
in the history of modern warfare
00:38:48.375 --> 00:38:51.375
that the targeting
of cultural monuments
00:38:51.375 --> 00:38:52.333
was specifically charged
00:38:52.333 --> 00:38:55.000
against high levels
of responsibility.
00:38:55.000 --> 00:38:59.667
That has to give pause
to generals all over the world.
00:38:59.667 --> 00:39:02.750
These two top officials
were convicted
00:39:02.750 --> 00:39:05.375
not because it was proven
that they ordered
00:39:05.375 --> 00:39:09.792
the shelling of Dubrovnik,
but that they knew about it,
00:39:09.792 --> 00:39:13.959
did nothing to stop it,
and did not punish
00:39:13.959 --> 00:39:16.709
or prevent these attacks.
00:39:16.709 --> 00:39:17.917
♪
00:39:17.917 --> 00:39:21.166
In another case,
the trial judgment stated,
00:39:21.166 --> 00:39:23.566
\"Where there is physical
or biological destruction,
00:39:23.667 --> 00:39:26.208
there are often
simultaneous attacks
00:39:26.208 --> 00:39:28.500
on the cultural
and religious property
00:39:28.500 --> 00:39:30.667
of the targeted group as well,
00:39:30.667 --> 00:39:33.959
attacks which may be considered
as evidence of an intent
00:39:33.959 --> 00:39:37.417
to physically destroy
the group.\"
00:39:37.417 --> 00:39:40.417
The voice of Lemkin
could be heard,
00:39:40.417 --> 00:39:42.959
distantly, returning.
00:39:42.959 --> 00:39:46.542
♪
00:39:48.083 --> 00:39:51.583
You\'re dealing with voices
that have been eradicated.
00:39:51.583 --> 00:39:54.542
You\'re speaking on behalf
of millions of others
00:39:54.542 --> 00:39:57.417
who are not there,
they are not present.
00:39:57.417 --> 00:40:00.667
They are lying
somewhere underground
00:40:00.667 --> 00:40:01.500
or evaporated into air.
00:40:01.500 --> 00:40:06.250
So, the task of such a project
is to tell that story
00:40:06.250 --> 00:40:08.792
despite the odds against it.
00:40:08.792 --> 00:40:11.417
♪
00:40:11.417 --> 00:40:14.291
September 11, 2001,
the doors opened
00:40:14.291 --> 00:40:16.083
to the public
for the first time.
00:40:16.083 --> 00:40:18.041
And I remember going
to my studio in Berlin,
00:40:18.041 --> 00:40:19.917
and turning to my colleagues
and saying, you know,
00:40:19.917 --> 00:40:22.250
\"This is the first day
I don\'t have to think of history
00:40:22.250 --> 00:40:24.250
because now people
can enter the museum
00:40:24.250 --> 00:40:25.458
and they can experience
whatever it is
00:40:25.458 --> 00:40:27.542
that they will experience
I don\'t have to think
00:40:27.542 --> 00:40:29.750
about German-Jewish history
today.\"
00:40:29.750 --> 00:40:32.834
And that afternoon,
2:30 in Berlin time,
00:40:32.834 --> 00:40:34.125
we saw those images
on television
00:40:34.125 --> 00:40:36.667
of the attacks against New York,
against Washington.
00:40:36.667 --> 00:40:39.000
And I suddenly realized
that you can never really say,
00:40:39.000 --> 00:40:40.959
\"You\'\'ve finished with history,\"
00:40:40.959 --> 00:40:42.291
because the museum was closed.
00:40:42.291 --> 00:40:44.917
It opened its doors and closed,
there was such uncertainty.
00:40:44.917 --> 00:40:46.875
And I thought, you know,
there\'s a connection.
00:40:46.875 --> 00:40:49.500
Not only in the date,
but in the catastrophic,
00:40:49.500 --> 00:40:52.542
unpredictable irrationality
of history.
00:40:52.542 --> 00:40:56.208
The impact of losing it was
so decimating on every level
00:40:56.208 --> 00:40:58.875
across the whole population
of the city of New York
00:40:58.875 --> 00:40:59.709
and across America,
00:40:59.709 --> 00:41:03.583
it took on a meaning that
had more to do with culture,
00:41:03.583 --> 00:41:09.041
than it had to do
with other kinds of,
00:41:09.041 --> 00:41:11.583
another aspect of
the American identity.
00:41:11.583 --> 00:41:14.208
I think that whole
idea that it was
00:41:14.208 --> 00:41:16.709
a symbol of economic might
00:41:16.709 --> 00:41:19.500
I think is not foremost
in people\'s minds,
00:41:19.500 --> 00:41:23.041
it\'s the impact it had
on this community.
00:41:23.041 --> 00:41:24.333
♪
00:41:24.333 --> 00:41:27.083
I remember getting on
the phone to my husband
00:41:27.083 --> 00:41:29.333
and saying,
\"We\'\'re going to war.\"
00:41:29.333 --> 00:41:31.917
He was already at work,
I was watching it on TV,
00:41:31.917 --> 00:41:35.667
I knew what that meant
for us as a family.
00:41:35.667 --> 00:41:37.917
♪
00:41:37.917 --> 00:41:39.458
For the United States,
it\'s the first time
00:41:39.458 --> 00:41:42.667
that we realized that
our own soil was at risk.
00:41:42.667 --> 00:41:44.417
I braced for being deployed,
00:41:44.417 --> 00:41:46.625
but it wasn\'t
until the Iraq War
00:41:46.625 --> 00:41:49.291
that I actually
did get deployed.
00:41:49.291 --> 00:41:52.750
The Iraq Museum being looted
was a real wake-up call
00:41:52.750 --> 00:41:55.041
for I think the whole
Cultural Heritage Community,
00:41:55.041 --> 00:41:56.667
but it was especially
a wake-up call for me
00:41:56.667 --> 00:41:59.458
being an art museum curator
and an army reservist,
00:41:59.458 --> 00:42:03.542
and arriving there to
this ransacked museum
00:42:03.542 --> 00:42:05.250
and I couldn\'t help
but think about
00:42:05.250 --> 00:42:07.834
how I would have felt if
that had been my museum.
00:42:07.834 --> 00:42:09.458
The Italian Government
sent colleagues
00:42:09.458 --> 00:42:11.417
from the Italian Carabinieri,
00:42:11.417 --> 00:42:14.834
to help us with scanning
of photographs and images
00:42:14.834 --> 00:42:17.250
that we could put up
on the Internet,
00:42:17.250 --> 00:42:18.208
that Interpol could use
00:42:18.208 --> 00:42:20.291
to look for things
at Customs points.
00:42:20.291 --> 00:42:23.000
The requirement was that the
US would not itself loot it,
00:42:23.000 --> 00:42:25.792
and wouldn\'t bomb it,
but there was no requirement
00:42:25.792 --> 00:42:27.709
that it protect it proactively,
00:42:27.709 --> 00:42:31.667
nonetheless, the impact
through the press,
00:42:31.667 --> 00:42:34.542
to a large extent, really
I think changed everything.
00:42:34.542 --> 00:42:35.458
And so when I came back,
00:42:35.458 --> 00:42:39.000
we started a US Committee
of the Blue Shield,
00:42:39.000 --> 00:42:40.500
it\'\'s like the Red Cross
for culture.
00:42:40.500 --> 00:42:43.500
And so we created a committee
here in the United States
00:42:43.500 --> 00:42:45.583
that started
to lobby pretty hard
00:42:45.583 --> 00:42:48.417
to have the Senate ratify
the Hague Convention
00:42:48.417 --> 00:42:50.667
which finally
occurred in 2009.
00:42:52.083 --> 00:42:54.542
The first decade
of the 21st century
00:42:54.542 --> 00:42:59.458
was one, finally,
of rebuilding.
00:43:18.917 --> 00:43:22.667
Funds to rebuild the church
were raised internationally,
00:43:22.667 --> 00:43:25.792
including from people
who\'d seen it destroyed
00:43:25.792 --> 00:43:27.041
sixty years earlier.
00:43:27.041 --> 00:43:29.583
I didn\'\'t really expect
the Nobel Prize,
00:43:29.583 --> 00:43:31.625
and I didn\'\'t expect
all of this money.
00:43:31.625 --> 00:43:35.125
So I gave it to restore it
and to bring it back to life,
00:43:35.125 --> 00:43:40.000
creating some identity
again for a city.
00:44:24.667 --> 00:44:25.625
♪
00:44:25.625 --> 00:44:27.375
The tendency in Dresden today
00:44:27.375 --> 00:44:29.709
is to rebuild the city
exactly as it was,
00:44:29.709 --> 00:44:31.750
because it was considered
one of the most beautiful
00:44:31.750 --> 00:44:33.667
Baroque cities in Europe.
00:44:33.667 --> 00:44:34.792
When I won the competition
00:44:34.792 --> 00:44:36.458
for the Military
Museum in Dresden,
00:44:36.458 --> 00:44:38.959
which is overlooking
Dresden on a hill,
00:44:38.959 --> 00:44:42.083
I broke through that
wall with a wedge
00:44:42.083 --> 00:44:45.041
that points exactly
to the triangle
00:44:45.041 --> 00:44:47.667
from which Dresden
was bombed.
00:44:47.667 --> 00:44:48.583
Because I wanted people
00:44:48.583 --> 00:44:52.166
not just to see the military
hidden behind the walls,
00:44:52.166 --> 00:44:54.333
but to see that the
military, in democracy,
00:44:54.333 --> 00:44:58.208
is a very important aspect
to be in touch with.
00:44:58.208 --> 00:45:00.000
People can, at the
top of the building,
00:45:00.000 --> 00:45:02.417
look at Dresden as the
greatest really panorama
00:45:02.417 --> 00:45:05.750
of history of war,
and catastrophe
00:45:05.750 --> 00:45:08.792
and also a future
that is different,
00:45:08.792 --> 00:45:12.166
where the city can
really move forward.
00:45:12.166 --> 00:45:15.417
I think it\'\'s important
to awaken those feelings
00:45:15.417 --> 00:45:17.792
and those emotions.
00:45:44.000 --> 00:45:46.667
The 16th-century
Ferhadija mosque,
00:45:46.667 --> 00:45:47.834
at the centre of Banja Luka,
00:45:47.834 --> 00:45:53.333
blown up by the Bosnian
Serb Authorities in 1993,
00:45:53.333 --> 00:45:54.750
and the pieces hidden,
00:45:54.750 --> 00:45:58.333
some of them buried in
a municipal rubbish tip,
00:45:58.333 --> 00:46:00.041
others dumped into the bottom
00:46:00.041 --> 00:46:03.375
of the municipal
drinking water reservoir,
00:46:03.375 --> 00:46:07.208
nothing left except the
foundations on the ground.
00:46:07.208 --> 00:46:10.375
(speaking foreign language)
00:46:10.375 --> 00:46:13.750
The surviving Muslims
in Banja Luka said,
00:46:13.750 --> 00:46:16.834
\"Let\'\'s just rebuild it
quickly as possible,\"
00:46:16.834 --> 00:46:18.917
and then Professor
Hamidovic told them,
00:46:18.917 --> 00:46:24.000
\"Do you want to leave these
stones of the old building
00:46:24.000 --> 00:46:27.542
which for more than
400 hundred years
00:46:27.542 --> 00:46:29.250
heard the call to prayer,
00:46:29.250 --> 00:46:33.583
you want to leave these at
the bottom of rubbish tips?\"
00:46:33.583 --> 00:46:37.458
And at that point the local
community changed their minds,
00:46:37.458 --> 00:46:40.834
and said, \"No, let\'\'s
reuse the old material.\"
00:47:25.291 --> 00:47:29.625
For four centuries,
people needed that bridge.
00:47:29.625 --> 00:47:32.166
The question is not who
shelled and demolished it.
00:47:32.166 --> 00:47:34.583
The question is not
even why someone did it,
00:47:34.583 --> 00:47:37.834
destruction is part
of human nature.
00:47:37.834 --> 00:47:38.542
The question is:
00:47:38.542 --> 00:47:42.667
What kind of people do
not need that bridge?
00:47:42.667 --> 00:47:45.792
The only answer I can
come up with is this:
00:47:45.792 --> 00:47:49.250
people who do not
believe in the future,
00:47:49.250 --> 00:47:51.417
theirs or their children\'s,
00:47:51.417 --> 00:47:54.333
do not need such a bridge.
00:47:54.333 --> 00:47:55.709
♪
00:47:56.875 --> 00:47:58.750
How you rebuild,
how you commemorate,
00:47:58.750 --> 00:48:02.417
how you look forward,
how you regard the past,
00:48:02.417 --> 00:48:05.625
the Warsaw argument,
\"We will not be cowed,
00:48:05.625 --> 00:48:08.417
we\'ll just build them back
or we\'ll build them better
00:48:08.417 --> 00:48:11.792
or we\'\'ll build them bigger,\"
alongside the desire
00:48:11.792 --> 00:48:14.542
to commemorate
what had happened,
00:48:14.542 --> 00:48:16.333
to memorialize the deaths.
00:48:16.333 --> 00:48:19.834
That is part of the challenge
of rebuilding Ground Zero.
00:48:19.834 --> 00:48:23.041
Maintaining a balance
between memory
00:48:23.041 --> 00:48:24.750
and setting the
foundations for
00:48:24.750 --> 00:48:26.834
a twenty-first century
New York at the same time.
00:48:26.834 --> 00:48:30.834
I guess, this balance exists
in almost every memory.
00:48:30.834 --> 00:48:34.000
Because memory\'s always
poised on a knife edge
00:48:34.000 --> 00:48:38.417
between moving forward
and forgetting.
00:48:38.417 --> 00:48:41.000
But if you forget,
it\'\'s at a great risk
00:48:41.000 --> 00:48:43.458
to the moving forward.
00:48:43.458 --> 00:48:45.083
♪
00:48:45.083 --> 00:48:45.917
The cultural engineering
00:48:45.917 --> 00:48:47.625
that took place
after World War One
00:48:47.625 --> 00:48:50.500
has never really resolved
itself since that time,
00:48:50.500 --> 00:48:55.250
and I\'\'m afraid that it\'\'s the
US that flipped the switch
00:48:55.250 --> 00:48:58.959
by attacking and
deposing Saddam Hussein,
00:48:58.959 --> 00:49:01.750
and many political
commentators in this country
00:49:01.750 --> 00:49:03.917
were very concerned
about the domino effect
00:49:03.917 --> 00:49:07.875
that that would have, and
I think we\'re living to see
00:49:07.875 --> 00:49:10.041
that they were right.
00:49:10.041 --> 00:49:12.583
First, Ben Ali
falls in Tunisia,
00:49:12.583 --> 00:49:15.083
shortly after, it
starts up in Egypt,
00:49:15.083 --> 00:49:18.959
in a couple of weeks
Mubarak falls...
00:49:19.500 --> 00:49:21.125
...and then its Libya\'s turn,
00:49:21.125 --> 00:49:22.959
and we were all looking
at Syria and thinking,
00:49:22.959 --> 00:49:25.667
\"Is it going to start
in Syria or not?\"
00:49:25.667 --> 00:49:28.750
One week before the real
protests started up in Syria,
00:49:28.750 --> 00:49:32.208
Bashar Assad himself gave an
interview basically saying,
00:49:32.208 --> 00:49:33.917
\"It could never
happen in Syria,\"
00:49:33.917 --> 00:49:36.500
that he was fine and it
was different in Syria
00:49:36.500 --> 00:49:38.959
and his regime was not
like any of the others,
00:49:38.959 --> 00:49:41.291
and everything was okay,
and a number of experts
00:49:41.291 --> 00:49:42.917
were also writing
the same thing,
00:49:42.917 --> 00:49:45.625
and then it all went
kind of belly up.
00:49:45.625 --> 00:49:47.709
What looked like,
in the beginning,
00:49:47.709 --> 00:49:51.667
something that would lead
to a more open society
00:49:51.667 --> 00:49:53.709
has gone in the
opposite direction,
00:49:53.709 --> 00:49:58.000
and for people who had
lived in relative harmony
00:49:58.000 --> 00:49:59.667
for a long time to reconsider
00:49:59.667 --> 00:50:03.750
whether they had to put up
with each other any longer.
00:50:03.750 --> 00:50:04.709
Syria, in modern times,
00:50:04.709 --> 00:50:09.667
was created by the infamous
Sykes-Picot Agreement.
00:50:09.667 --> 00:50:12.500
People don\'t want
to actually have
00:50:12.500 --> 00:50:17.166
their identity attributed
to this division of the area
00:50:17.166 --> 00:50:19.792
after the fall of
the Ottoman Empire.
00:50:19.792 --> 00:50:21.542
The level of destruction
that would unfold
00:50:21.542 --> 00:50:25.250
in Aleppo and Homs had a
precursor with Assad\'s father.
00:50:25.250 --> 00:50:27.375
The regime operates
off a playbook.
00:50:27.375 --> 00:50:29.375
The playbook was
written by the father,
00:50:29.375 --> 00:50:32.250
and the playbook
very simply says,
00:50:32.250 --> 00:50:34.000
\"If protestors
come out on street,
00:50:34.000 --> 00:50:34.959
you suppress the protest;
00:50:34.959 --> 00:50:38.417
if the protestors don\'t
go away, you shoot at them;
00:50:38.417 --> 00:50:40.834
if the protestors
start to shoot back,
00:50:40.834 --> 00:50:44.083
you basically destroy
entire cities,\"
00:50:44.083 --> 00:50:46.792
Hama being the case in point.
00:50:46.792 --> 00:50:49.583
Nowhere in the playbook
does it say \"negotiate,\"
00:50:49.583 --> 00:50:50.792
there\'s no compromise.
00:50:50.792 --> 00:50:53.333
And so by the end of 2011,
00:50:53.333 --> 00:50:55.083
what had started out as
these peaceful protests
00:50:55.083 --> 00:51:00.583
had now begun to shift towards
an armed confrontation.
00:51:00.583 --> 00:51:01.917
Going through 2012,
00:51:01.917 --> 00:51:05.417
the regime lost control
of most of the country.
00:51:05.417 --> 00:51:10.417
By mid 2012, the ripple
effect had reached Mali.
00:51:10.417 --> 00:51:14.750
♪
00:51:14.750 --> 00:51:16.417
(shouting)
00:51:16.417 --> 00:51:19.208
The International
Criminal Court\'\'s Prosecutor
00:51:19.208 --> 00:51:22.709
immediately spoke out
when extremists destroyed
00:51:21.709 --> 00:51:23.375
important shrines
in Timbuktu.
00:51:23.375 --> 00:51:27.125
Deliberate attacks against
undefended civilian buildings
00:51:27.125 --> 00:51:31.583
which are not military
objectives is a war crime.
00:51:31.583 --> 00:51:35.500
This includes attacks
against historical monuments
00:51:35.500 --> 00:51:36.375
as well as destruction
00:51:36.375 --> 00:51:40.166
of buildings
dedicated to religion.
00:51:40.709 --> 00:51:44.250
These were particularly
very important sites,
00:51:44.250 --> 00:51:48.917
particularly, holding a
whole history of a region.
00:51:48.917 --> 00:51:52.542
Of course, the killing of
people is very, very grave,
00:51:52.542 --> 00:51:57.125
is very, very important, but
I think what complements it
00:51:57.125 --> 00:51:59.083
is where they\'re coming from,
00:51:59.083 --> 00:52:01.875
what they had, you know,
that complements it,
00:52:01.875 --> 00:52:07.500
and we should attach equal
importance to that identity.
00:52:07.500 --> 00:52:08.917
Court is now in session.
00:52:08.917 --> 00:52:12.417
(speaking foreign language)
00:52:12.417 --> 00:52:14.125
♪
00:52:14.125 --> 00:52:15.792
Please be seated.
00:52:15.792 --> 00:52:16.875
Under Article Eight,
00:52:16.875 --> 00:52:20.542
\"Intentionally directing
attacks against buildings
00:52:20.542 --> 00:52:23.166
that are dedicated
to education,
00:52:23.166 --> 00:52:24.375
religion, et cetera,\"
00:52:24.375 --> 00:52:28.792
and it can stand on its own,
you do not have to bring it
00:52:28.792 --> 00:52:31.166
in a wider context
of another crime,
00:52:31.166 --> 00:52:34.458
because it is recognised
under the Rome Statute
00:52:34.458 --> 00:52:35.875
as a very grave crime.
00:52:35.875 --> 00:52:38.208
That is what the
international community decided
00:52:38.208 --> 00:52:40.667
when we negotiated
the Rome Statute.
00:52:40.667 --> 00:52:41.834
This will be the first time
00:52:41.834 --> 00:52:47.500
that we will be looking
into crimes of this nature.
00:52:48.208 --> 00:52:51.500
The quick stabilization
that happened in Mali
00:52:51.500 --> 00:52:54.458
would not happen in Syria.
00:52:54.458 --> 00:52:57.083
The battle for Aleppo,
one of the longest
00:52:57.083 --> 00:52:59.291
continuously inhabited
cities in the world,
00:52:59.291 --> 00:53:00.959
broke out in 2012
00:53:00.959 --> 00:53:02.834
between regime
and rebel forces.
00:53:02.834 --> 00:53:06.333
It was the beginning
of civilization.
00:53:06.333 --> 00:53:08.583
And it was what made us
00:53:08.583 --> 00:53:11.083
to be able to live together,
00:53:11.083 --> 00:53:15.250
it is what made us
to become cosmopolitan.
00:53:15.250 --> 00:53:17.041
Cities were created.
00:53:17.041 --> 00:53:18.333
Beliefs were created
00:53:18.333 --> 00:53:22.375
that separated us
from animals to humans.
00:53:22.375 --> 00:53:24.500
To see a World Heritage Site
00:53:24.500 --> 00:53:27.041
being destroyed
on a daily basis,
00:53:27.041 --> 00:53:28.458
and no reaction
00:53:28.458 --> 00:53:33.500
from the international
community to act on that.
00:53:33.500 --> 00:53:34.333
It is sad.
00:53:34.333 --> 00:53:38.166
We still live on the
fringe of colonialism.
00:53:38.166 --> 00:53:39.291
Colonialism ended,
00:53:39.291 --> 00:53:42.250
but a lot of colonialist
practices are still in,
00:53:42.250 --> 00:53:44.417
so we are the
periphery in a way.
00:53:44.417 --> 00:53:47.500
Aleppo, it could be
as a heritage site
00:53:47.500 --> 00:53:49.333
a lot more
important than Paris
00:53:49.333 --> 00:53:51.667
because of the cultures
that survived,
00:53:51.667 --> 00:53:55.709
but it\'\'s not in the
center so to speak.
00:53:55.709 --> 00:53:57.125
♪
00:53:57.583 --> 00:54:01.333
In 2013, we were
looking at a civil war,
00:54:01.333 --> 00:54:06.792
and then it gradually evolved
into multiple factions
00:54:06.792 --> 00:54:07.959
fighting against
one another,
00:54:07.959 --> 00:54:10.333
looting of
archaeological sites,
00:54:10.333 --> 00:54:12.041
episodes of
intentional destruction
00:54:12.041 --> 00:54:16.000
of cultural heritage
caused by inter-ethnic
00:54:16.000 --> 00:54:19.500
and divisions
amongst those factions.
00:54:19.500 --> 00:54:21.542
I had to leave
because at the time
00:54:21.542 --> 00:54:26.750
there was all this shelling
from the Syrian army forces
00:54:26.750 --> 00:54:28.583
that you could not condemn,
00:54:28.583 --> 00:54:32.250
you could not
tell them to stop.
00:54:33.333 --> 00:54:35.875
You cannot turn
00:54:35.875 --> 00:54:38.834
your back to what\'\'s happening
00:54:38.834 --> 00:54:43.000
and you are involved anyway
because this is your life.
00:54:43.000 --> 00:54:47.417
It started from Syrian
expat archaeologists\' report
00:54:47.417 --> 00:54:51.208
on what\'s happening to
cultural heritage on Facebook,
00:54:51.208 --> 00:54:53.041
and then getting
that information
00:54:53.041 --> 00:54:54.125
from people inside Syria,
00:54:54.125 --> 00:54:55.542
either people who
worked previously
00:54:55.542 --> 00:54:57.625
for the DGAM (Syrian
Department of Antiquities),
00:54:57.625 --> 00:54:59.291
or students, or activists,
00:54:59.291 --> 00:55:03.667
especially from areas where news
agencies could not get to...
00:55:03.667 --> 00:55:06.583
so it started from
reporting what is happening
00:55:06.583 --> 00:55:09.375
to say, \"What can
we do about it?\"
00:55:09.375 --> 00:55:10.250
They are at risk.
00:55:10.250 --> 00:55:12.917
They want to feel,
despite everything,
00:55:12.917 --> 00:55:14.000
we are doing something.
00:55:14.000 --> 00:55:18.500
And it\'\'s a very important
connection with people outside
00:55:18.500 --> 00:55:21.208
because they don\'\'t feel
they are left alone.
00:55:21.208 --> 00:55:25.166
That gives them hope
there\'\'s somebody out there
00:55:25.166 --> 00:55:28.500
trying to help them.
00:55:29.500 --> 00:55:33.458
These networks across the
globe and inside Syria
00:55:33.458 --> 00:55:34.333
would become a key part
00:55:34.333 --> 00:55:36.667
of the fight back
against the destruction.
00:55:36.667 --> 00:55:40.458
When we did our workshop
for Syrian colleagues
00:55:40.458 --> 00:55:42.125
who are working
in areas of Syria
00:55:42.125 --> 00:55:45.417
that are not controlled
by the Syrian government,
00:55:45.417 --> 00:55:46.500
they did take a big risk,
00:55:46.500 --> 00:55:49.917
they crossed the border
into Southern Turkey,
00:55:49.917 --> 00:55:51.917
met up with us at a
predetermined location
00:55:52.917 --> 00:55:54.625
and we spent
three days together.
00:55:54.625 --> 00:55:57.041
That was a real revelation
to meet these people,
00:55:57.041 --> 00:55:59.917
understand the terrible
risks they take every day
00:55:59.917 --> 00:56:01.959
in trying to protect
cultural heritage
00:56:01.959 --> 00:56:03.250
in each of their areas,
00:56:03.250 --> 00:56:06.000
stabilizing walls
with sandbags,
00:56:06.000 --> 00:56:07.959
how to pack and
crate materials
00:56:07.959 --> 00:56:10.792
when you don\'t have
very much to work with.
00:56:10.792 --> 00:56:15.750
When the Ma\'arra Museum was
barrel bombed in June 2015,
00:56:15.750 --> 00:56:18.291
many of the rare
Roman mosaics were saved
00:56:18.291 --> 00:56:22.834
thanks to the protection
methods taught by the team.
00:56:24.834 --> 00:56:26.000
We have these site monitors,
00:56:26.000 --> 00:56:29.083
individuals who are trained
to gather information,
00:56:29.083 --> 00:56:33.000
and document any violations
that might endanger the sites,
00:56:33.000 --> 00:56:35.542
then we try and intervene
where possible,
00:56:35.542 --> 00:56:38.458
maybe use local networks to
try and persuade the locals
00:56:38.458 --> 00:56:39.208
not to do this.
00:56:39.208 --> 00:56:41.500
Also, we can bring into
play satellite imagery,
00:56:41.500 --> 00:56:43.750
and all this is part of
a documentary record
00:56:43.750 --> 00:56:46.625
that\'s necessary because
at the end of the day
00:56:46.625 --> 00:56:47.417
that could well be
00:56:47.417 --> 00:56:51.083
the only thing that\'s
left from these sites.
00:56:51.500 --> 00:56:54.667
Aleppo we\'\'ve been
studying very closely
00:56:54.667 --> 00:56:56.083
since the conflict began.
00:56:56.083 --> 00:56:58.083
We found that 99%
of the damage
00:56:58.083 --> 00:57:01.709
that we saw in Aleppo was in
areas that were not controlled
00:57:01.709 --> 00:57:05.875
by the Assad regime, so these
were all in opposition areas
00:57:05.875 --> 00:57:08.792
or contested zones.
00:57:08.792 --> 00:57:11.291
We feel comfortable saying
00:57:11.291 --> 00:57:13.625
certain groups
are there or not
00:57:13.625 --> 00:57:16.125
based on one side
of a conflict
00:57:16.125 --> 00:57:19.375
has a type of weaponry
or a type of vehicle
00:57:19.375 --> 00:57:20.542
that the other side doesn\'t,
00:57:20.542 --> 00:57:22.166
if we see those vehicles
there, then we can say,
00:57:22.166 --> 00:57:24.750
\"Well, it\'s that group
and not the other.\"
00:57:24.750 --> 00:57:30.041
This image is from December
of 2011 before the conflict,
00:57:30.041 --> 00:57:33.583
and this is the
location of the mosque,
00:57:33.583 --> 00:57:35.083
you can actually
see the minaret
00:57:35.083 --> 00:57:37.041
coming up from
the mosque here,
00:57:37.041 --> 00:57:39.083
then this whole area
is the Souk Al Medina,
00:57:39.083 --> 00:57:41.792
which is the large
covered market,
00:57:41.792 --> 00:57:44.250
and so we\'ll flip
over to an image
00:57:44.250 --> 00:57:47.959
that was collected
in July of 2014.
00:57:47.959 --> 00:57:50.417
The minaret was
actually destroyed,
00:57:50.417 --> 00:57:53.500
and then afterwards,
there was additional bombing,
00:57:53.500 --> 00:57:57.041
and then that\'s when we
see these large craters
00:57:57.041 --> 00:58:00.333
in the sides of
the mosque appeared.
00:58:00.333 --> 00:58:01.875
♪
00:58:01.875 --> 00:58:03.458
On June 10, 2014,
00:58:03.458 --> 00:58:07.917
ISIS took over Mosul,
Iraq\'s second largest city,
00:58:07.917 --> 00:58:09.208
and issued a list of rules
00:58:09.208 --> 00:58:12.000
that threatened people
and their culture.
00:58:12.000 --> 00:58:15.750
\"Our position on shrines
and graves is clear.
00:58:15.750 --> 00:58:19.250
Simply, all will be destroyed.\"
00:58:19.250 --> 00:58:23.834
Groups like ISIS are
essentially what we refer to
00:58:23.834 --> 00:58:25.375
as revivalist movements.
00:58:25.375 --> 00:58:29.083
Their primary goal
is to purge Islam
00:58:29.083 --> 00:58:31.959
of what they consider to
be non-Islamic practices,
00:58:31.959 --> 00:58:35.375
they then, essentially,
are able to revive Islam
00:58:35.375 --> 00:58:36.500
back to a position
00:58:36.500 --> 00:58:39.333
where it can now do
what it\'\'s supposed to do,
00:58:39.333 --> 00:58:41.250
and essentially
lead or take charge.
00:58:41.250 --> 00:58:42.792
You can think of
it as a diamond
00:58:42.792 --> 00:58:44.917
that\'s kind of
dulled over time,
00:58:44.917 --> 00:58:47.000
it\'\'s gotten dull,
dusty, grimy,
00:58:47.000 --> 00:58:50.250
and by losing its lustre
it\'\'s no longer shining out,
00:58:50.250 --> 00:58:52.500
bringing--the essence
of that diamond
00:58:52.500 --> 00:58:53.875
is no longer able
to come through,
00:58:53.875 --> 00:58:56.458
and for them, Islam has
suffered the same fate.
00:58:56.458 --> 00:59:01.083
The motivations for ISIS
would not just be doctrine...
00:59:01.917 --> 00:59:04.875
...but creating \"new
facts on the ground,\"
00:59:04.875 --> 00:59:07.458
and terrorizing
local populations.
00:59:07.458 --> 00:59:09.000
I teach professional
archaeologists
00:59:09.000 --> 00:59:13.667
who are Iraqi and Kurdish,
and we\'ve had students
00:59:13.667 --> 00:59:17.333
from all provinces
in Iraq, all religions.
00:59:17.333 --> 00:59:18.291
The course is called
00:59:18.291 --> 00:59:20.041
the Archaeological Site
Preservation Course.
00:59:20.041 --> 00:59:22.375
Our last one was in
August of this past year,
00:59:22.375 --> 00:59:23.041
so August 2014.
00:59:23.041 --> 00:59:26.625
It was the day that ISIS
was about 20 minutes away.
00:59:26.625 --> 00:59:29.166
♪
00:59:29.166 --> 00:59:32.041
I was really impressed
with the fact that
00:59:32.041 --> 00:59:32.834
that sort of community
00:59:32.834 --> 00:59:35.959
and that issue of
everyone working together
00:59:35.959 --> 00:59:39.917
to preserve multiple
heritages and not just one,
00:59:39.917 --> 00:59:42.834
was the thing
that was at risk.
00:59:42.834 --> 00:59:45.750
(indistinct chattering)
00:59:45.750 --> 00:59:46.959
♪
00:59:46.959 --> 00:59:51.625
And that\'s been really hard
to watch, from a distance,
00:59:51.625 --> 00:59:53.834
happen in Mosul,
in particular.
00:59:53.834 --> 00:59:56.417
The mass execution of men,
00:59:56.417 --> 00:59:58.750
the enslavement of
women and children,
00:59:58.750 --> 01:00:01.750
the destruction
of religious sites,
01:00:01.750 --> 01:00:04.208
is part of the ISIS effort
01:00:04.208 --> 01:00:07.041
to destroy these communities,
01:00:07.041 --> 01:00:08.959
to destroy all evidence
01:00:08.959 --> 01:00:11.709
of the pre-existence
of these communities.
01:00:11.709 --> 01:00:12.834
Like others on this panel,
01:00:12.834 --> 01:00:16.125
I was in Erbil, Iraq,
in August 2014,
01:00:16.125 --> 01:00:18.500
when ISIS advanced
towards the Erbil plain.
01:00:18.500 --> 01:00:20.083
When I saw the Mosul
Museum the first time,
01:00:20.083 --> 01:00:23.333
I was with a journalist
who was just back from
01:00:23.333 --> 01:00:26.750
the mass graves,
the Yazidi mass graves,
01:00:26.750 --> 01:00:28.625
and she and I were
sitting there and she said,
01:00:28.625 --> 01:00:31.083
\"Why is it that this is almost
more emotionally compelling?\"
01:00:31.083 --> 01:00:34.083
And I said, \"Well,
because it represents,
01:00:34.083 --> 01:00:35.875
it\'s the symbol
that represents
01:00:35.875 --> 01:00:39.375
not just one group of
people or some individuals
01:00:39.375 --> 01:00:41.917
but it\'s representing
ALL of this history
01:00:41.917 --> 01:00:47.291
and ALL the potential future
where this history could go.\"
01:00:47.542 --> 01:00:50.750
It\'s them taking
the ancient past,
01:00:50.750 --> 01:00:55.041
but also the symbol of the
Assyrian Christian community,
01:00:55.041 --> 01:00:58.250
and kidnapping it
and then beheading it.
01:00:58.250 --> 01:01:00.375
I think a lot of the
international response
01:01:00.375 --> 01:01:01.583
actually encouraged,
01:01:01.583 --> 01:01:04.333
much like we saw with
the Buddhas in Afghanistan,
01:01:04.333 --> 01:01:07.542
encouraged destruction
because there was a reaction,
01:01:07.542 --> 01:01:10.875
\"Well, everyone\'s crying
over this specific thing,
01:01:10.875 --> 01:01:12.417
this is a way we
can really get at
01:01:12.417 --> 01:01:13.959
the international
community as well.\"
01:01:13.959 --> 01:01:17.709
ISIS\' strategy would not
just be about destruction,
01:01:17.709 --> 01:01:21.375
but what would become
industrial-scale looting.
01:01:21.500 --> 01:01:24.583
ISIS has clearly used
destruction of antiquities
01:01:24.583 --> 01:01:26.625
and the looting as a
means of intimidation,
01:01:26.625 --> 01:01:29.583
it\'\'s part of their larger
battle of shock and awe,
01:01:29.583 --> 01:01:31.333
and it gets them on the
front pages of newspapers.
01:01:31.333 --> 01:01:34.458
They\'re so adept at
the use of social media,
01:01:34.458 --> 01:01:37.500
and it really is
an act of war
01:01:37.500 --> 01:01:39.250
that they should be
held accountable for,
01:01:39.250 --> 01:01:41.333
because it\'s not just
that they disagree
01:01:41.333 --> 01:01:44.709
necessarily with that view,
it\'s overall to intimidate,
01:01:44.709 --> 01:01:48.417
and it really is one of
the markers that we see
01:01:48.417 --> 01:01:51.834
that leads to genocide.
01:01:51.834 --> 01:01:53.542
In February 2015,
01:01:53.542 --> 01:01:57.750
the UN Security Council
adopted Resolution 2199
01:01:57.750 --> 01:02:00.542
which authorizes the use of
force for the implementation
01:02:00.542 --> 01:02:03.792
of a trade ban on ISIS
and the Al-Nusrah Front.
01:02:03.792 --> 01:02:07.375
Cultural heritage has been
put on a par in the resolution
01:02:07.375 --> 01:02:10.000
with all other \"peace
and security\" issues.
01:02:10.000 --> 01:02:13.792
We hope that countries will
move on an expedited basis
01:02:13.792 --> 01:02:15.458
to start to shut
down their market
01:02:15.458 --> 01:02:17.125
to Syrian
antiquities coming in.
01:02:17.125 --> 01:02:19.333
The trends are
going up significantly
01:02:19.333 --> 01:02:24.166
on the numbers of them coming
into the European Union,
01:02:24.166 --> 01:02:25.375
into the United States,
01:02:25.375 --> 01:02:27.667
and it\'s very important
we act quickly,
01:02:27.667 --> 01:02:29.417
not only to shut our market,
01:02:29.417 --> 01:02:30.875
but to help work
with other countries
01:02:30.875 --> 01:02:32.000
to make sure their
markets are shut down,
01:02:32.000 --> 01:02:33.000
but also to raise awareness
01:02:33.000 --> 01:02:36.333
so that consumers here in
the United States understand
01:02:36.333 --> 01:02:38.250
that if they are
buying antiquities
01:02:38.250 --> 01:02:39.959
from these crisis countries,
01:02:39.959 --> 01:02:42.625
that they could
potentially be funding ISIS.
01:02:42.625 --> 01:02:45.625
The Security Council
resolution, as it was adopted,
01:02:45.625 --> 01:02:47.250
deals with the
question of looting
01:02:47.250 --> 01:02:49.458
because that has been
viewed as a source of funding
01:02:49.458 --> 01:02:51.417
for terrorism and for ISIL.
01:02:51.417 --> 01:02:52.208
I agree with that,
01:02:52.208 --> 01:02:55.041
but the Security Council
has not taken a stand
01:02:55.041 --> 01:02:58.041
on the destruction
itself of cultural sites,
01:02:58.041 --> 01:03:02.667
again, by the Assad regime
or by any of the rebel groups.
01:03:02.667 --> 01:03:05.000
At the beginning of the
conflict, when we started
01:03:05.000 --> 01:03:08.583
talking about the need
to protect heritage,
01:03:08.583 --> 01:03:09.375
even we were criticized
01:03:09.375 --> 01:03:11.667
and I personally
also was criticized,
01:03:11.667 --> 01:03:13.250
saying, \"UNESCO
is out of touch,
01:03:13.250 --> 01:03:15.709
people are dying and
you are talking about
01:03:15.709 --> 01:03:16.834
some buildings
that are damaged.\"
01:03:16.834 --> 01:03:19.041
I think now with the conflict
01:03:19.041 --> 01:03:20.667
unfortunately evolving
and developing,
01:03:20.667 --> 01:03:23.083
people understood
that you don\'t choose
01:03:23.083 --> 01:03:26.583
between human lives and
protecting of heritage
01:03:26.583 --> 01:03:30.458
because it\'s
about identities.
01:03:31.041 --> 01:03:33.250
In dense battlegrounds
like Aleppo,
01:03:33.250 --> 01:03:37.333
direct intervention
is near impossible.
01:03:37.917 --> 01:03:40.208
In more exposed
sites like Palmyra,
01:03:40.208 --> 01:03:43.667
should troops be brought
in to protect sites at risk
01:03:43.667 --> 01:03:44.709
from intentional destruction?
01:03:44.709 --> 01:03:48.834
It\'\'s easy to say, drop
troops down and protect it,
01:03:48.834 --> 01:03:52.375
but practically think
it out, it doesn\'t work,
01:03:52.375 --> 01:03:53.417
unless we actually go in
01:03:53.417 --> 01:03:56.250
and hold territory
and hold ground,
01:03:56.250 --> 01:03:57.291
that\'\'s not going to help.
01:03:57.291 --> 01:03:59.500
If you\'re looking at it
from a military solution,
01:03:59.500 --> 01:04:00.583
that\'s what you have to do.
01:04:00.583 --> 01:04:02.000
You can\'t just
go in and protect
01:04:02.000 --> 01:04:04.458
an individual site
and not worry about
01:04:04.458 --> 01:04:05.417
the rest of the territory.
01:04:05.417 --> 01:04:06.667
And you have to protect
those soldiers,
01:04:06.667 --> 01:04:08.709
so you have to put
enough soldiers there
01:04:08.709 --> 01:04:10.291
so that they aren\'t overrun.
01:04:10.291 --> 01:04:13.041
I think we should
be trying to have
01:04:13.041 --> 01:04:15.125
a limited military solution,
01:04:15.125 --> 01:04:16.417
and a broader
political solution.
01:04:16.417 --> 01:04:18.959
Only a political solution
that ends the conflict
01:04:18.959 --> 01:04:21.750
is actually going to protect
the cultural heritage,
01:04:21.750 --> 01:04:23.458
and of course
would also protect
01:04:23.458 --> 01:04:27.125
the people who live there.
01:04:35.041 --> 01:04:37.041
The long-term
solutions will require
01:04:37.041 --> 01:04:39.834
all these aspects
working together:
01:04:39.834 --> 01:04:42.458
courts, governments, military,
01:04:42.458 --> 01:04:44.333
education, and awareness,
01:04:44.333 --> 01:04:47.834
but there are limitations
that stretch back a century
01:04:47.834 --> 01:04:50.709
that can\'t be ignored.
01:04:50.709 --> 01:04:52.000
Recognition of the role
01:04:52.000 --> 01:04:55.750
of cultural
destruction fluctuates.
01:04:55.750 --> 01:05:00.291
In April 2015, appeal
judges at the ICTY ruled
01:05:00.291 --> 01:05:03.417
that the trial judges had
\"committed a legal error
01:05:03.417 --> 01:05:06.667
in considering the
destruction of mosques.\"
01:05:06.667 --> 01:05:08.291
The appeal judges determined
01:05:08.291 --> 01:05:10.083
that targeted
cultural destruction
01:05:10.083 --> 01:05:13.250
cannot be considered
as evidence of genocide,
01:05:13.250 --> 01:05:17.250
nor possibly even
intent of genocide.
01:05:17.250 --> 01:05:18.792
The shelling of
the National Library
01:05:18.792 --> 01:05:21.250
was a crime Milosevic
was prosecuted for,
01:05:21.250 --> 01:05:23.667
but his death closed
the door on justice.
01:05:23.667 --> 01:05:25.542
It\'\'s been dropped
in other cases,
01:05:25.542 --> 01:05:28.041
difficult choices
need to be made
01:05:28.041 --> 01:05:29.250
when long lists of charges
01:05:29.250 --> 01:05:31.333
would result in
overly long trials.
01:05:31.333 --> 01:05:34.750
The ICTY will close without
anyone having to answer
01:05:34.750 --> 01:05:36.625
for that particular crime.
01:05:36.625 --> 01:05:40.166
The bridge in Mostar has
cautiously been recognized
01:05:40.166 --> 01:05:43.667
as a deliberate attack
in one case only.
01:05:43.667 --> 01:05:45.208
Military necessity is used
01:05:45.208 --> 01:05:48.458
time and time again
to cloud intent.
01:05:48.750 --> 01:05:50.208
The conflict in
Syria illustrates
01:05:50.208 --> 01:05:53.041
many of our problems in
applying international law.
01:05:53.041 --> 01:05:55.875
First of all, if we look at
the destruction of Aleppo,
01:05:55.875 --> 01:05:59.375
of the historic center,
and the mosque in Aleppo,
01:05:59.375 --> 01:06:02.375
or if we look at the fact
that the Assad regime bombed
01:06:02.375 --> 01:06:05.083
the medieval castle of
Crac des Chevaliers,
01:06:05.083 --> 01:06:08.500
both of which are
World Heritage Sites.
01:06:08.500 --> 01:06:12.125
Arguably, the Assad regime
could defend both of those
01:06:12.125 --> 01:06:14.417
on the grounds of
military necessity.
01:06:14.417 --> 01:06:18.041
Attempts to suppress
the culture of groups
01:06:18.041 --> 01:06:19.834
is a matter of human rights
01:06:19.834 --> 01:06:22.667
which should be dealt
with on that basis
01:06:22.667 --> 01:06:27.458
and we feel convinced that
there will be ample machinery
01:06:27.458 --> 01:06:30.667
in the Assembly
and in its committees
01:06:30.667 --> 01:06:31.458
or by other means
01:06:31.458 --> 01:06:34.834
for dealing with that
question in the future.
01:06:34.834 --> 01:06:35.959
This has never happened.
01:06:35.959 --> 01:06:39.166
What was called \"cultural
genocide\" by Lemkin and others
01:06:39.166 --> 01:06:43.417
has never been dealt with,
and it hasn\'t been recognized
01:06:43.417 --> 01:06:45.375
broadly as part
of human rights.
01:06:45.375 --> 01:06:50.417
Ultimately, the thing to do is
to go back to Raphael Lemkin,
01:06:50.417 --> 01:06:52.583
to go back to the
Genocide Convention
01:06:52.583 --> 01:06:55.458
and to insert those
vandalism clauses,
01:06:55.458 --> 01:07:00.041
so that we recognize
that what\'s going on here
01:07:00.041 --> 01:07:01.583
is part and parcel
01:07:01.583 --> 01:07:04.875
of that same attempt
to attack identity,
01:07:04.875 --> 01:07:08.542
to attack memory, to attack
people and groups of people.
01:07:08.542 --> 01:07:12.000
If there\'s a single thing
that would send the message
01:07:12.000 --> 01:07:15.458
that these attacks
are unacceptable,
01:07:15.458 --> 01:07:16.875
it would be to incorporate
01:07:16.875 --> 01:07:20.667
those provisions into
the Genocide Convention.
01:07:20.667 --> 01:07:23.542
Can the Hague Convention
be given more teeth?
01:07:23.542 --> 01:07:28.834
Number one, I think,
is ratification,
01:07:28.834 --> 01:07:30.750
and then I think
01:07:30.750 --> 01:07:33.125
you have to implement
these conventions,
01:07:33.125 --> 01:07:34.500
you have to translate them
into national law.
01:07:35.500 --> 01:07:38.375
I\'ve heard people say,
\"The 1954 Hague Convention
01:07:38.375 --> 01:07:39.917
doesn\'t work because, look,
01:07:39.917 --> 01:07:42.375
cultural heritage is
still being destroyed,\"
01:07:42.375 --> 01:07:43.625
but that\'s kind
of like saying,
01:07:43.625 --> 01:07:47.125
\"STOP signs don\'t work because
people still run STOP signs,\"
01:07:47.125 --> 01:07:50.250
well, you have to
fully implement it
01:07:50.250 --> 01:07:52.041
before you really know
if it\'s going to work.
01:07:52.041 --> 01:07:54.250
And when you have
new kinds of conflicts
01:07:54.250 --> 01:07:55.125
that we have today
01:07:55.125 --> 01:07:57.917
that are very much NOT
like World War Two,
01:07:57.917 --> 01:08:00.500
where you have these
different non-state actors,
01:08:00.500 --> 01:08:02.417
it\'\'s a lot more difficult,
but ultimately,
01:08:02.417 --> 01:08:04.125
the Hague Convention
exists to provide for
01:08:04.125 --> 01:08:07.166
a punishment mechanism for
those who violate it as well,
01:08:07.166 --> 01:08:11.917
and so that\'s why we want
to make everybody aware of
01:08:11.917 --> 01:08:13.166
and be able to document
01:08:13.166 --> 01:08:15.542
the destruction that\'s
going on right now
01:08:15.542 --> 01:08:18.000
so we can take a strong
look at this later on.
01:08:18.000 --> 01:08:21.542
The Hague Convention can
be made more effective,
01:08:21.542 --> 01:08:23.417
but it can only go so far.
01:08:23.417 --> 01:08:26.500
Cultural heritage
needs to be protected
01:08:26.500 --> 01:08:27.583
by more than a document
01:08:27.583 --> 01:08:29.750
that\'s bound by
the rules of war.
01:08:29.750 --> 01:08:33.000
The presence of the
military necessity waiver,
01:08:33.000 --> 01:08:35.375
the fact that protection
of cultural property
01:08:35.375 --> 01:08:39.458
is only considered part of
how you conduct warfare,
01:08:39.458 --> 01:08:41.250
not an actual
limitation on warfare,
01:08:41.250 --> 01:08:43.250
it means that these
will always be considered
01:08:43.250 --> 01:08:47.709
separate concerns and arguably
not as serious concerns.
01:08:47.709 --> 01:08:48.834
We can consider the question
01:08:48.834 --> 01:08:51.417
of whether in fact
the international law
01:08:51.417 --> 01:08:53.291
should be rejoined,
01:08:53.291 --> 01:08:55.583
so that destruction of
cultural property becomes
01:08:55.583 --> 01:08:58.875
embedded more in
international humanitarian law.
01:08:58.875 --> 01:09:03.000
In 2015,
Justice Trindade appealed,
01:09:03.000 --> 01:09:04.792
in a passionate
dissenting judgment,
01:09:04.792 --> 01:09:09.333
for a return to Lemkin\'s ideas
about cultural genocide.
01:09:09.333 --> 01:09:13.041
We see the statements
of Justice Trindade,
01:09:13.041 --> 01:09:15.291
from the International
Court of Justice.
01:09:15.291 --> 01:09:19.458
We see elements in the UN
Security Council Resolutions,
01:09:19.458 --> 01:09:21.458
not only dealing
with Iraq and Syria,
01:09:21.458 --> 01:09:24.917
but also with Mali where
this is clearly expanding
01:09:24.917 --> 01:09:28.333
to the sense that these war
crimes have been committed.
01:09:28.333 --> 01:09:31.250
These elements already exist,
and what needs to happen is
01:09:31.250 --> 01:09:34.375
for them to be knitted
together into a single.
01:09:34.375 --> 01:09:36.667
The idea that heritage
destruction could become
01:09:36.667 --> 01:09:40.500
a crime against humanity,
that\'\'s a very important idea
01:09:40.500 --> 01:09:43.375
and part of an extremely
important construct.
01:09:43.375 --> 01:09:45.500
I don\'t know that
it would provide
01:09:45.500 --> 01:09:48.250
a kind of Teflon shield
for our monuments,
01:09:48.250 --> 01:09:51.667
but it might mean that
there\'s more vigorous action
01:09:51.667 --> 01:09:52.667
on the part of governments
01:09:52.667 --> 01:09:55.417
that are embroiled
in these areas.
01:09:55.417 --> 01:09:58.291
(indistinct chattering)
01:09:58.291 --> 01:10:03.208
♪
01:10:03.208 --> 01:10:06.667
I think it\'s the first time
in a peacekeeping operation,
01:10:06.667 --> 01:10:08.208
so since 1948,
01:10:08.208 --> 01:10:10.208
that protection of
cultural heritage
01:10:10.208 --> 01:10:11.750
is actually part
of the mandate.
01:10:11.750 --> 01:10:14.583
So the mandate of MINUSMA,
of our peacekeeping operation
01:10:14.583 --> 01:10:17.500
to assist in the preservation
of this cultural heritage,
01:10:17.500 --> 01:10:18.959
and that takes
different forms,
01:10:18.959 --> 01:10:20.083
from very simple ones
01:10:20.083 --> 01:10:23.333
as making sure that the
mausoleums, the mosques,
01:10:23.333 --> 01:10:27.333
the buildings are regularly
visited, protected.
01:10:27.333 --> 01:10:31.667
Our troops know the GPS of
each individual building.
01:10:31.667 --> 01:10:34.208
We train also the Malian
armed forces and the police
01:10:34.208 --> 01:10:37.792
so that they don\'t have to
realize that it\'s important,
01:10:37.792 --> 01:10:38.917
but to make sure
what happens,
01:10:38.917 --> 01:10:40.500
the physical
protection of things.
01:10:40.500 --> 01:10:43.542
When I visited Mali
with the French President,
01:10:43.542 --> 01:10:45.458
it was just some ten days
01:10:45.458 --> 01:10:49.500
after the extremists
were pushed off Timbuktu.
01:10:49.500 --> 01:10:51.625
The local people who
came to talk to us,
01:10:51.625 --> 01:10:53.208
who were asking, even
the Imam was saying,
01:10:53.208 --> 01:10:55.583
\"What are you going to do
with these mausoleums?\"
01:10:55.583 --> 01:10:58.125
And we said, \"We have
to reconstruct them,
01:10:58.125 --> 01:11:00.834
the way we reconstructed
the bridge of Mostar.\"
01:11:00.834 --> 01:11:05.375
And that is why two of these
mausoleums are reconstructed
01:11:05.375 --> 01:11:06.500
and we will continue.
01:11:06.500 --> 01:11:07.750
It matters for the people.
01:11:07.750 --> 01:11:09.583
It matters for their identity,
01:11:09.583 --> 01:11:10.667
for their self-respect,
I would say,
01:11:10.667 --> 01:11:12.792
and also for their future.
01:11:12.792 --> 01:11:15.959
(indistinct chattering)
01:11:15.959 --> 01:11:17.709
Yes, we need
those conventions,
01:11:17.709 --> 01:11:20.333
yes, we need to
make a politics
01:11:20.333 --> 01:11:22.417
which can count with
military protection,
01:11:22.417 --> 01:11:25.458
with the ICC (International
Criminal Court), with others,
01:11:25.458 --> 01:11:26.959
but in the end
it\'s prevention.
01:11:26.959 --> 01:11:28.500
It\'s a change of mindset.
01:11:28.500 --> 01:11:30.875
It\'s the fight against
01:11:30.875 --> 01:11:33.667
this bad way of doing
your identity politics.
01:11:33.667 --> 01:11:35.709
That\'s, in the end,
what counts.
01:11:36.709 --> 01:11:37.959
♪
01:11:37.959 --> 01:11:39.875
There are other
glimmers of hope.
01:11:39.875 --> 01:11:43.667
People are working to harness
the power of technology,
01:11:43.667 --> 01:11:46.250
just as it\'s been
used to destroy,
01:11:46.250 --> 01:11:49.792
it can be used not only
to monitor destruction,
01:11:49.792 --> 01:11:52.834
but to rebuild.
01:11:53.375 --> 01:11:54.166
I saw that video,
01:11:54.166 --> 01:11:57.792
and I remember reading
about all of this
01:11:57.792 --> 01:11:58.667
when I was growing up,
01:11:58.667 --> 01:12:01.000
this is a shared history
that Iran and Iraq,
01:12:01.000 --> 01:12:03.417
and many, many places that
are now separate countries
01:12:03.417 --> 01:12:07.917
that were all part a bigger
either empire or territory.
01:12:07.917 --> 01:12:09.291
I don\'t think there\'s any way
01:12:09.291 --> 01:12:11.041
that you can really
replace these artefacts,
01:12:11.041 --> 01:12:13.542
whether your 3D scan
the original one
01:12:13.542 --> 01:12:14.709
or 3D print them.
01:12:14.709 --> 01:12:16.291
I\'\'m only creating an artifact
01:12:16.291 --> 01:12:21.000
that can become a reference
for now and in the future,
01:12:21.000 --> 01:12:23.333
for people to go back
to and at least know
01:12:23.333 --> 01:12:26.500
that this is what
King Uthul looked like.
01:12:27.250 --> 01:12:29.625
I decided to think
about the artifacts
01:12:29.625 --> 01:12:34.542
as also time capsules,
so I included memory cards
01:12:34.542 --> 01:12:36.625
and flash memories
inside the artefacts.
01:12:36.625 --> 01:12:39.875
It\'s sealed, so you don\'t
have to destroy the artefact,
01:12:39.875 --> 01:12:41.291
it\'s kind of
like a plug inside
01:12:41.291 --> 01:12:43.583
that you can pull out
and have access.
01:12:43.583 --> 01:12:47.083
That was another
layer to the project.
01:12:47.083 --> 01:12:50.250
We were started in response
to the 2001 destruction
01:12:50.250 --> 01:12:51.500
of the Bamiyan Buddhas,
01:12:51.500 --> 01:12:52.458
the Buddhas were destroyed
01:12:52.458 --> 01:12:55.041
and there was really
no record of them.
01:12:55.041 --> 01:12:56.000
By recording these sites,
01:12:56.000 --> 01:12:57.834
especially the ones
that are at risk,
01:12:56.834 --> 01:12:58.792
it gives us a new opportunity
01:12:58.792 --> 01:13:00.417
to tell the story
of those places,
01:13:00.417 --> 01:13:02.709
and to tell the
story of the places
01:13:02.709 --> 01:13:05.291
even when faced
with the uncertainty
01:13:05.291 --> 01:13:07.667
or the potential loss
of the physical site.
01:13:07.667 --> 01:13:11.500
We still have the data
and the information behind it
01:13:11.500 --> 01:13:15.291
so that future generations
can understand the site,
01:13:15.291 --> 01:13:18.875
its importance and its
role within our history.
01:13:18.875 --> 01:13:23.500
We\'re not only dealing with
things like climate change
01:13:23.500 --> 01:13:26.500
or natural disasters
01:13:26.500 --> 01:13:28.166
that greatly
impact these sites,
01:13:28.166 --> 01:13:29.917
but the human-caused
destruction
01:13:29.917 --> 01:13:34.000
is something that we\'ve seen
a huge acceleration in.
01:13:34.000 --> 01:13:34.834
So in response to that,
01:13:34.834 --> 01:13:39.041
we launched in 2013
our CyArk 500 challenge,
01:13:39.041 --> 01:13:43.667
which is to digitally preserve
500 sites over 5 years.
01:13:43.667 --> 01:13:46.542
The focus there is
really around sites
01:13:46.542 --> 01:13:48.750
that are at a very high risk.
01:13:48.750 --> 01:13:50.959
A new program, Project Anqa,
01:13:50.959 --> 01:13:52.834
provides emergency
documentation of sites
01:13:51.834 --> 01:13:54.333
at imminent threat
of destruction.
01:13:54.333 --> 01:13:56.500
We got this data
at about 3:00 a.m.,
01:13:56.500 --> 01:13:58.709
it\'\'s the Ziggurat of Ur,
in Iraq,
01:13:58.709 --> 01:14:02.542
and we\'re putting it together
so we can send out a data file
01:14:02.542 --> 01:14:04.333
to our guys in the field
so they know what areas
01:14:04.333 --> 01:14:08.083
to go back in and fill in
to recapture the scanned data.
01:14:08.083 --> 01:14:10.542
That way we can build out
a full, complete model of it,
01:14:10.542 --> 01:14:12.959
and that gives us the full
3D data that we can then
01:14:12.959 --> 01:14:16.250
do conservation work with,
say for posterity,
01:14:16.250 --> 01:14:18.000
in case things do
happen to the site,
01:14:18.000 --> 01:14:19.917
it is a volatile
part of the world,
01:14:19.917 --> 01:14:22.250
and then generally
educate the public
01:14:22.250 --> 01:14:24.583
about the site itself.
01:14:24.583 --> 01:14:27.625
Usually, we\'ll have
a direct connection
01:14:27.625 --> 01:14:30.709
in the middle of Iraq,
it\'s never very good,
01:14:30.709 --> 01:14:32.792
but we\'ll have
the team go out,
01:14:32.792 --> 01:14:33.792
do the terrestrial scanning
01:14:33.792 --> 01:14:36.250
so they\'\'ll take points at
locations around the site,
01:14:35.250 --> 01:14:37.667
send the data back to us,
we\'\'ll process it,
01:14:37.667 --> 01:14:38.709
see what they\'re missing,
01:14:38.709 --> 01:14:41.125
and then send that
back out to them.
01:14:41.125 --> 01:14:43.291
They had a lot of
issues with heat,
01:14:43.291 --> 01:14:45.083
because it is 60
degrees centigrade,
01:14:45.083 --> 01:14:46.792
so about 140
degrees Fahrenheit,
01:14:46.792 --> 01:14:51.041
the scanner can\'t really
regulate in those temperatures,
01:14:51.041 --> 01:14:52.875
so getting it all
the way to the top
01:14:52.875 --> 01:14:54.542
and scanning became an issue.
01:14:54.542 --> 01:14:56.333
But hopefully they\'\'ll
be able to fill that in
01:14:56.333 --> 01:14:59.625
when we get them
the data back over.
01:14:59.625 --> 01:15:01.125
The amount of time
they can spend out there
01:15:01.125 --> 01:15:02.583
is very limited,
so we\'re trying
01:15:02.583 --> 01:15:04.083
to streamline our process,
01:15:04.083 --> 01:15:06.250
to really give them
the opportunity
01:15:06.250 --> 01:15:08.250
to get out and work
with the data,
01:15:08.250 --> 01:15:11.291
but at the same time
not endanger them.
01:15:11.291 --> 01:15:16.625
The Tomb of Jonah was a sacred
place in Mosul for Jews,
01:15:16.625 --> 01:15:19.291
Christians, and Muslims,
01:15:19.291 --> 01:15:23.709
it was a symbol of tolerance
and a powerful reminder
01:15:23.709 --> 01:15:26.166
of the traditions
that we all share.
01:15:26.166 --> 01:15:30.083
The looting of Apamea
and Dura Europa,
01:15:30.083 --> 01:15:32.000
the devastation
caused by fighting
01:15:32.000 --> 01:15:34.458
in the ancient UNESCO
Heritage city of Aleppo,
01:15:33.458 --> 01:15:35.291
the destruction of
the Tomb of Jonah.
01:15:35.291 --> 01:15:39.625
These appalling acts
aren\'t just a tragedy
01:15:39.625 --> 01:15:42.917
for the Syrian
and the Iraqi people,
01:15:42.917 --> 01:15:44.542
these acts of vandalism
01:15:44.542 --> 01:15:48.208
are a tragedy for
all civilized people,
01:15:48.208 --> 01:15:52.500
and the civilized world
must take a stand.
01:15:52.500 --> 01:15:56.041
Heritage workers continue
to lose their lives
01:15:56.041 --> 01:15:58.417
defending our culture.
01:15:58.875 --> 01:16:02.750
In August 2015,
Khaled Al-Asaad,
01:16:02.750 --> 01:16:05.250
long-time custodian of Palmyra,
01:16:05.250 --> 01:16:06.959
was tortured and
beheaded by ISIS
01:16:06.959 --> 01:16:10.875
for refusing to give up the
location of hidden antiquities
01:16:10.875 --> 01:16:14.083
that he\'d cared for
his whole life.
01:16:14.083 --> 01:16:16.041
Eventually this conflict
is going to end,
01:16:16.041 --> 01:16:16.917
and when it does end,
01:16:16.917 --> 01:16:20.709
Syrians are going to need
to find some way of helping
01:16:20.709 --> 01:16:23.000
put their country
back together again,
01:16:23.000 --> 01:16:24.083
and it\'\'s going to come from
01:16:24.083 --> 01:16:25.917
this sense of
shared common history,
01:16:24.917 --> 01:16:27.166
this sense of a shared past.
01:16:27.166 --> 01:16:29.083
By saving Syria\'s past,
01:16:29.083 --> 01:16:32.792
you\'re essentially
saving Syria\'s future.
01:16:32.792 --> 01:16:34.417
♪
01:16:34.417 --> 01:16:37.875
In the worst refugee crisis
since World War Two,
01:16:37.875 --> 01:16:41.375
millions of Syrians
have fled their homeland,
01:16:41.375 --> 01:16:42.875
just as one hundred years ago,
01:16:42.875 --> 01:16:47.083
Armenian refugees fled
to Syria, to Aleppo,
01:16:47.083 --> 01:16:51.000
including Simon
Maghakyan\'s ancestors.
01:16:51.000 --> 01:16:52.959
♪
01:16:52.959 --> 01:16:54.792
The worst feeling
is powerlessness.
01:16:54.792 --> 01:16:58.417
When I look at what\'s
happening in Syria,
01:16:58.417 --> 01:17:02.875
including in Aleppo, all
I keep telling myself is,
01:17:02.875 --> 01:17:05.625
\"I wish I\'d seen it before.\"
01:17:05.625 --> 01:17:09.166
I don\'t know if I\'ll ever
be able to see it again,
01:17:09.166 --> 01:17:11.834
at least in the way
that it used to be,
01:17:11.834 --> 01:17:14.875
so there is a sense of loss.
01:17:14.875 --> 01:17:28.208
♪
01:17:28.208 --> 01:17:30.542
We saw this in 1990s
in the Balkans,
01:17:30.542 --> 01:17:33.291
here we are 20 years
later, we see it again,
01:17:33.291 --> 01:17:36.333
if anything worse than
what we saw in the Balkans.
01:17:36.333 --> 01:17:39.250
I don\'\'t want to be sitting
here in another 20 years,
01:17:39.250 --> 01:17:41.417
or my successor,
saying the same thing,
01:17:41.417 --> 01:17:44.250
\"Here we are, there\'s not
a lot we can do right now
01:17:44.250 --> 01:17:46.750
on the ground, we have
this great abstract law,
01:17:46.750 --> 01:17:48.750
but it doesn\'t seem
to be effective,
01:17:48.875 --> 01:17:51.417
or as effective a deterrent
as we would like.\"
01:17:52.417 --> 01:17:54.458
Only by taking
those steps now,
01:17:54.458 --> 01:17:56.542
to reintegrate these
parts of the law,
01:17:56.542 --> 01:17:59.125
make it part of the
broader mission and goal,
01:17:59.125 --> 01:18:01.166
that\'\'s the only way
that I think we can
01:18:01.166 --> 01:18:04.083
actually change and
ensure that protection
01:18:04.083 --> 01:18:07.709
of cultural heritage
for future generations.
01:18:07.709 --> 01:18:08.959
♪
01:18:08.959 --> 01:18:12.917
The surrender by Niger
authorities of the suspect,
01:18:12.917 --> 01:18:15.250
Ahmad Al Faqi Al Mahdi,
01:18:15.250 --> 01:18:16.750
and his transfer
earlier today
01:18:16.750 --> 01:18:20.250
to the custody of the
International Criminal Court
01:18:20.250 --> 01:18:22.125
is a welcome development.
01:18:22.125 --> 01:18:27.375
Ahmad Al Faqi Al Mahdi,
also known as Abu Tourab,
01:18:27.375 --> 01:18:28.667
is charged with the war crime
01:18:28.667 --> 01:18:33.125
of intentionally directing
attack against ten buildings
01:18:33.125 --> 01:18:35.417
dedicated to religion
and historic monuments
01:18:35.417 --> 01:18:38.291
in the ancient
city of Timbuktu.
01:18:38.291 --> 01:18:40.208
♪
01:18:40.208 --> 01:18:41.583
(shouting)
01:18:40.583 --> 01:18:43.417
No longer should such
reprehensible conduct
01:18:44.417 --> 01:18:45.959
go unpunished.
01:18:45.959 --> 01:18:49.625
It is rightly said
that cultural heritage
01:18:49.625 --> 01:18:52.667
is the mirror of humanity.
01:18:52.667 --> 01:19:17.500
♪
01:19:29.166 --> 01:21:45.417
♪