UNESCO urges to safeguard Syria’s cultural heritage

 (Writing by Sham Mohamed; Translation by Yusra Ahmed)

UNESCO held a meeting titled “Rallying the International Community to Safeguard Syria’s Cultural Heritage”, in the organization headquarter in Paris between 26-28 May, 2014.

However, the surprise for the Syrians was that invitation for the meeting included only the regime and its representatives from the Association for Protection of Syrian Archaeology, Heritage saving Association and Aleppo’s Archaeology branch, as second category “to attend meetings and contribute in discussion only” and that invitation came because of the pressure the regime put on the meeting coordinators.

Local societies and Associations supported by Syrian opposition protested against that action and refused to participate in the meeting. Those associations’ officials declared that the international organization was biased toward the regime because they did not allow experts from liberated areas in Syria to make any presentation or directing the meetings, to explain the situation, while representatives from the Ministry of Culture and Directory of Archaeology and Museums in Damascus would present their lectures and direct discussion all around the conference, which will result in bias toward the regime.

Representatives of the opposition associations said in their initial protesting statement against UNESCO decision: “it is well known that Syria’s Archaeology has been severely damaged in most cities in Syria, in North and South Areas in particular, which are under the opposition’s control”

The representatives reprobated that no one from the Associations in those areas was invited and said: “it looked like UNESCO did not care about Archaeology in those areas, otherwise they would have acted in different way, because it is well known that those associations are the connecting channels between the International Organizations and people on ground who can help in protecting the heritage”.

Association cooperated with each other and boycotted the meeting under “protecting the Syria Heritage” caption, and they wanted to deliver a message to the international organisation as they felt choosing participants was unfair, and felt it was directed by the pressure from Damascus.

UNESCO decided in the meeting to establish an observatory in Beirut (Lebanon) to monitor and assess the state of Syria’s cultural heritage. The Observatory will monitor the state of buildings, artifacts and intangible cultural heritage to combat illicit trafficking and collect information to restore heritage once the fighting is over.